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Variation in Second and Heritage Languages: Crosslinguistic perspectives
Edited by Robert Bayley, Dennis R. Preston and Xiaoshi Li
[Studies in Language Variation 28] 2022
► pp. 253–278

Chapter 10
Variation, identity and language attitudes

Polish migrants in France

ORCID logo | University College Dublin

This chapter examines migrants’ use of French L2, analysing the speech of ten L1 Polish speakers, thirty to sixty years, in a naturalistic setting. Using informal conversations, this study focuses on L1 variation patterns; specifically ne deletion, a sensitive and powerful indicator of social issues, using Rbrul. The data permit comparison of use of the same sociolinguistic variable by L2 speakers from two different L1 typological groups: Polish and English. The analysis showed the migrants broadly adopt L1 speech patterns, constraint ordering, and frequently even rates (as had the more formal L1 English learners) with universalistic implications for sociolinguistic variation acquisition. However, two couples are ‘outliers.’ Qualitative analysis indicates that differences in the speech of these two couples relate to language attitudes and ideology and suggests language ideology plays an important role in L2 acquisition and use. Complementary quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal aspects of L2 acquisition, which, separately, might not have been captured.

Keywords: French, language attitudes, language ideology, identity, migration, ‘ne’ deletion Polish migrants
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Language variation, migration and superdiversity
    • Migration and identity construction
    • Variation in L2 speech and individual variation
  • The study: Poles in France
  • Methodology
    • The Variable: ne deletion
  • Results
  • A tale of two couples
    • The first Polish couple
    • The second couple
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 July 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.28.10reg
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