A socio-phonetic study of a Quebec French community: Trois-Rivieres

This study of urban dialectology consists of an invest.igation of some aspects of the French phonological system in the city of Trois-Rivieres, Province of Quebec. The corpus of data includes a series of sixty recorded interviews which provides conparable speech samples from a significant cross-section of Trifluvians, who are stratified according to age, sex, occupation and education. The data obtained from these interviews represent the sociolinguistic variation existing in Trois-Rivieres and the inter-individual diversity within this speech community. Descriptions on the methods of sampling, collection of data, the quantitative analysis of phonological variables, and interview construction eliciting different speech styles are made in chapter 1, together with a general description of the situation of the French language in Quebec and Canada. To study the variation existing in the Trifluvian speech community, seven phonological variables are subjected\ud to special examination. These.consist of four vocalic variables, i.e. (a),(e),(eu),(o), and three consonantal variables, namely (g), (ch), (r). The analysis of the co-variation of these phonological variables and sociological and stylistic factors is made throughout chapter 2. In this latter chapter, questions concerning the extent of the linguistic variation present, the causes of linguistic diversity and the process of linguistic change are also treated. Chapter 3 is devoted to the examination of general attitudes of speakers towards language and to the correlation of their subjective attitudes with their objective linguistic behaviour observed in chapter 2. The final chapter, or the synthesis, studies the processes in which the variables are involved end their consequences for the evolution of the Trifluvian sociolinguistic system