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Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 29, Nijmegen
Edited by Janine Berns, Haike Jacobs and Dominique Nouveau
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13] 2018
► pp. 159–176

Exploring sociolinguistic discontinuity in a minority variety of French

| University of Waterloo, Canada

In a language spoken in a minority setting, sociolinguistic variation is often reduced. This paper examines rhythm in Ontario French and explores the presence and extent of such variation. Text readings and spontaneous samples from men and women of two age groups are compared, and the following rhythmic aspects are examined: articulation rate, syllabic structure and typology, length of a stress group, syllable and vowel duration ratios within a stress group, and phonetic rhythm (using nPVI-V, VarcoV, and %V metrics). The results suggest that style and social factors affect rate and rhythmicity but do not interact: all participants articulated more slowly when reading; also, women and older participants demonstrated a more French-like rhythm, while younger participants appeared converging to English.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.French language in Ontario
  • 3.Studies of rhythmic variation
  • 4.Data and methods
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Rate and prosodic rhythm
    • 5.2Syllable structure and typology
    • 5.3Stress group length and duration, duration ratios
    • 5.4Durational patterns within a stress group
  • 6.Conclusions and discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.13.11kam
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