In this chapter, we study the variable use of phrase-final intonation contours
in French by male adolescents recorded in guided interviews in a multi-ethnic
working-class suburb of Paris. We show that speakers use pragmatically neutral rising or
falling intonation when listing target words depicted on images shown by a fieldworker,
but resort to a characteristic rising-falling intonation attributed to a working-class
youth vernacular in contact with immigrant languages when negotiating the interpretation
of pictures or competing for the floor with their friends listening to the interview.
These instances of intra-speaker prosodic variation are analyzed as style-shifting
(Bell 1984, 2001) where speakers draw on different prosodic resources to signal change
in footing, i.e. their orientation to their own and others’ role in the interaction
(Goffman 1981) or the propositional content of utterances put forward by other participants in the conversational exchange. It is argued that phrase-final rising-falling intonation, typical in certain types of imperative in French, has a much broader pragmatic meaning in working-class youth vernacular where it seems to function as a micro-level style feature indexing common ground and in-group affiliation with members of the adolescent peer group.
Hinskens, Frans, Roeland van Hout, Pieter Muysken & Ariën van Wijngaarden
2021. Variation and change in grammatical gender marking: the case of Dutch ethnolects. Linguistics 59:1 ► pp. 75 ff.
Morand, Marie-Anne , Sandra Schwab & Stephan Schmid
2020. The perception of multiethnolectal Zurich German: A continuum rather than clear-cut categories. Loquens 7:2 ► pp. e072 ff.
O'Shannessy, Carmel & Lucinda Davidson
2020. Language Contact and Change through Child First Language Acquisition. In The Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 67 ff.
Erik R. Thomas
2019. Mexican American English,
FAGYAL, ZSUZSANNA & EIVIND TORGERSEN
2018. Prosodic rhythm, cultural background, and interaction in adolescent urban vernaculars in Paris: case studies and comparisons. Journal of French Language Studies 28:2 ► pp. 165 ff.
Boula de Mareüil, Philippe, Albert Rilliard, Iryna Lehka-Lemarchand, Paolo Mairano & Jean-Pierre Lai
2015. Falling Yes/No Questions in Corsican French and Corsican: Evidence for a Prosodic Transfer. In Prosody and Language in Contact [Prosody, Phonology and Phonetics, ], ► pp. 101 ff.
Lehka-Lemarchand, Iryna
2012. Chapitre 11 : Accent des jeunes des cités (im)populaires en France : quels indices prosodiques ?. In La variation prosodique régionale en français [Champs linguistiques, ], ► pp. 213 ff.
Lehka-Lemarchand, Iryna
2015. Questionner la signification sociale d'un indice prosodique de l'accent dit de banlieue en France. Langage et société n° 151:1 ► pp. 67 ff.
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