L’espace linguistique en voie de (dé)multiplication

Constituting a technical rearrangement of a valued linguistic space, the codifi­cation of one of the linguistic possibilities offered is the corollary of the extension of the public space beyond the immediate sphere of the actors. The spatial spheres in which the actors move about in their daily lives differ from each other and con­sequently influence their appropriation of space. A person’s relationship to the world is conditioned historically and socially. Using French dialectology as basis, this article aims to study the manner in which space conveys the linguistic values in the changing society at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Consideration of the extralinguistic factors – ethnographic, geo­graphic, and historical – allows us to compre­hend the topographical distribution of linguistic facts and to study the dis­appearance of a linguistic space of an agrarian and settled world due to the homogenizing pressure exerted by the standard lan­guage. The increasing verticalization of community struc­tures has an impact on the re­duction of linguistic spaces. The reconfiguration of the linguistic space influ­ences the perception of the language by the actors.