Title: Corpus approaches to sociolinguistic variation and semantic change: parce que bon'''because well
1Corpus approaches to sociolinguistic variation
and semantic change parce que bon...(because
well)
- Kate Beeching, Reader, Linguistics and French
- Head, International Corpus Linguistics Research
Unit (ICLRU) - University of the West of England, Bristol
2 Bon, quand même, quoi ! Yeah but
all the same, like
- A sociolinguistic survey of semantic change.
- An investigation of the impact of daily
interactional activity on the meanings of words
and how sociolinguistic factors affect the way in
which new meanings are propagated. - .the real entities of language are utterances
and speakers grammars. Language change occurs
via replication of these entities not through
inherent change of an abstract system Croft,
20004
3Overview of the talk 1
- What do sociolinguists study?
- The relationship between diastratic, diaphasic
and diachronic variation - What are discourse/pragmatic markers?
- Are they a suitable case for (sociolinguistic)
treatment? - PISC - politeness induced semantic change
4Overview of the talk 2
- Case-studies
- quand même 1500-2000
- bon
- quoi
5What is sociolinguistics?
- The relationship between language and society
- Variationism traditionally phonological
- a linguistic variable such as /t/ may have two
variants /t/ and glottal stop butter
distributional frequencies vary across
populations (and indeed individuals)
6Variation The four dias
- Diatopic variation
- Diastratic variation (age, sex, social class)
- Diaphasic variation
- Diachronic variation
7Studies in real time and apparent time
- Studies in real time investigate differences
observed in the speech of comparable groups of
speakers separated by a significant period of
time - Studies in apparent time investigate
differences observed in the speech of different
generations existing at the same time
8Synchronic and diachronic variation
- For a while, the start and end-point of the
change co-exist in the form of two different
stylistic layers.... A change is, therefore, in
the beginning, a synchronic phenomenon. - Jakobson, 1952/196337 (KB translation).
- There are no pure varieties of contemporary
French, merely quantitative differences in the
distribution of key language variables. Lodge,
1993 232. - Grammaticalization has to be conceived of as a
panchronic process that presents both a
diachronic perspective, since it involves change,
and a synchronic perspective, since it implies
variation that can be described as a system
without reference to time. Heine, Claudi
Hünnemeyer, 1991261
9What are pragmatic particles?
- Like, sort of, kind of, well, yknow, I mean,
anyway, eh? Glasgow but - aber, ja, doch, eigentlich, eben, einmal, schon,
mal - bon, enfin, hein, quand même, quoi
- very frequent but tend not to appear in
dictionaries and grammars
10Defining pragmatic particles
- Brinton (1996 33-35) highlights the following
characteristics of pragmatic markers - marginal forms, difficult to place in a word
class - little or no propositional meaning
- multifunctional, operating on several linguistic
levels - feature of oral, rather than written discourse,
- associated with informality, often
stigmatised - appear with high frequency
- gender-specific? More typical of womens speech?
11Variationism and the use of particles
- Variationism is traditionally focused on
phonology - Recent studies (e.g. Fleischmann Yaguello,
2004) suggest that certain DMs can be identity
markers, and can function like phonological
features
12To sum up
- Distributional frequencies of a small sub-set of
frequently occurring DMs in French - Investigating their correlation with demographic
factors such as the age, sex, educational
background and date of birth - Investigating their etymology and the extent to
which the hypothesis of PISC can be sustained.
13Corpus Data
- FRANTEXT literary corpus contains 210 million
words in 3,737 texts from the 16th. to the 20th.
century - Orléans (ESLO) Corpus (1966-1970)
http//bacharts.kuleuven.ac.be/elicop . 109 hours
of spoken French (902,755 words transcribed) - Beeching Corpus (1988-1990) http//www.uwe.ac.uk
//hlss/llas/iclru/corpus.pdf. 17.5 hours of
spoken French, (155,000 words transcribed), 95
speakers. - Corpus de Référence du Français Parlé "CRFP"
(2002)http//www.up.univ-mrs.fr/delic/crfp/ 40
towns in France, 400,000 words. See Véronis
(2005).
14Quand même 1500-2000
- The coalesced form quand même appears to have
started life as a strengthened form of quand -
at the very moment when - The conjunction acquired a concessive force (cf.
while) from at least 1500 - In the 19th. Century, it appears as an adverb -
and begins to lose its strong adversative or
concessive sense - In 20th./21st. Century spoken French, it is
exclusively adverbial and may be either
adversative or expressive (hedging/boosting)
15From concessive conjunctiongtadverb
- Je prépare un discours qui la pourroit toucher
- Quand mesme au lieu dun coeur elle auroit un
rocher. - (Du Ryer, Pierre, Les vendanges de Suresne, 1636,
page 62, Acte 1, scène iv (vi)) - Im preparing a speech which should tear her
apart - Even though shed a stone where she should have a
heart.
16Conjunction to adverb
- Et quand même nous ne réussirions pas, nos
petites-filles réussiront. (Marivaux, La Colonie,
1750, page 1851/Scène première). - And even though we might not succeed, our
grand-daughters will. - Si je meurs, ce sera en tadorant quand même,
ainsi que jai vécu! (STENDHAL La Chartreuse de
Parme, II, XXIII). - If I die, Ill go on loving you all the same,
just as I did when I was alive.
17Grammatical and semantic change
- Period CONJUNCTIONS ADVERBS
- Concessive Temporal
- or contrastive Adversative Relational
- N N N N
- 1500-1599 4 100 - - - - - -
- 1600-1699 47 92 1 2 - - - -
- 1700-1799 19 95 1 5 - - - -
- 1800-1899 14 54 - - 11 42 - -
- 1900-1949 9 8 - - 61 55 36 32
- 1950-2000 8 0.5 - - 64 44 72 50
- Table 1 Number and relative percentage rates of
occurrence of Quand mesme/quand même in
theatrical - works in FRANTEXT, used as conjunctions with a
concessive vs. temporal function or adverbs with
an - adversative vs. relational function, from
1500-2000
18Spoken data adverbgtparticle
- ce nest pas une ville qui bouge cest une ville
qui a quand même un cinéma la saison estivale
pendant la saison estivale et deux boîtes de nuit
deux discothèques - (Beeching Corpus, 4, 35-36)
- its not exactly leaping, as towns go, but it
does have a cinema in the summer season during
the summer season and two night clubs, two
discotheques - ça a lair dêtre une famille quand même assez
riche - (Beeching Corpus, 1, 647)
- It seems to be quite a rich family really.
19An excuse or apology
- This mode has a familiar tone, more spoken than
the first. Roberts definition is Il faut avouer,
à vrai dire, on en conviendra. To that list, one
should probably add je ne devrais pas le dire
mais... In speech it is a tactical gambit which,
by sketching an apparent attenuation of what
might be sensed as the impropriety of an
affirmation, can enable the reinforcement of the
latter. ..it offers a justification for the
statement it accompanies, even a sort of excuse
or apology for it. But thereby it too has an
adversative quality, faint and implicit, in that
it hints at contradicting an assumed objection.
(Grieve, 1996 417, my emphasis).
20Semantic bleaching/pragmatic enrichment
- Continuum M1 gt M1/M2 gt M2
- Propositional(concession)?explicit adversative
?implicit adversative ?Hedging/Boosting
Expression - Conjunction ? Adverb ?Particle
21BonHansen (1998) Acceptance
- Hansen (1998 253) claims that the discourse
marker bon is, of course, derived from the
corresponding adjective she adds that it is
clear that the adjective and the DM are
different the DM is invariable (uninflected) and
behaves like an adverb. - Hansen suggests that adjectival bon indicates a
positive evaluation of something and that the DM
also marks acceptance in a rather wide sense of
the word. She gives examples (1998 253-254) of
interjective and turn-initial uses which can be
interpreted in this way.
22Jayez (2004) mot de la fin
- The utterance of bon by an agent a mediates the
following conventional implicature a believes
or desires that a process in train is or should
be ended. - (Jayez, 2004 4 KB translates).
23Bon
- Marks the stages in a narrative
- j'avais perdu mon père à douze ans et je ne
connaissais pas tellement la fabrication ma
mère a fait tout ce qu'elle a pu mais eh eh
elle était pas du métier bon alors /j'ai
cherché, je cherchais/ à ayant deux frè- deux
frères et une soeur à leur laisser la place
pour t- avoir une profession CRFP PRI-AMI-3 - Marks a reformulation
- frère aîné qui avait quatre ans de plus que moi
était très gâté parce qu'il passait de de fille
en fille vous comprenez tandis que moi j'ai été
élevé de bon il a servi de brouillon pour moi or
j'étais apparemment mieux réussi que que
24Bon - restriction/concession and hedge
- Marks a restriction or concession (bon.mais)
- prend ses fleurs en Hollande mais nous c'est que
des fleurs de France on (n') en prend pas en
Hollande bon il y en a qui viennent de Hollande
mais c'est un fournisseur en particulier qui
fait des cultivations euh en France (CRFP,
PRI-BES-2) - Hesitatory or hedging
- Oui alors bon oui je bon ma fille a bon elle a
pas poursuivi ses études pour la bonne raison
cest quon la foutue dehors à lâge de seize
ans(from Jayez, 2004)
25Brémond (2004)
- With respect to dialogic situations, Brémond
(20047) notes that (KB translates) - The (very frequent) use of the little mark bon
in spoken exchanges rarely indicates agreement,
or, at least, it never indicates agreement
without indicating at the same time traces of
disagreement the use of this mark seems rather,
perhaps by giving the surface appearance of
agreement, to indicate the management of
intersubjective heterogeneity the use of the
little mark seems to indicate an ongoing
negotiation . bon might be seen as playing a
role in the cooperative management of the
exchange.
26Bon a (surface) agreement marker masking what
is actually a disagreement
- Ca ya des haricots verts dans votre plat ?
- E oui
- Ca bon
- Mar ben cest-à-dire que si on met pas les
haricots verts on peut mettre de la laitue - E ten veux pas dharicots verts ?
- Ca Non ? j(e ) veux pas dharicots verts ?
27Bon a (surface) agreement marker masking what
is actually a disagreement
- Ca are there green beans in your dish?
- E yes
- Ca bon (OK)
- Mar well thats to say that if you dont have
green beans you can have lettuce - E you dont want green beans ?
- Ca No ? I dont want green beans?
28Linguistic change in progress
- Hypothesis
- In spontaneous spoken contexts, the acceptance
and mot de la fin usages are gradually being
superseded by a new sense which includes
concession or what Brémond 2004 calls traces de
désaccord /négociation - Would support Traugott s (1982) thesis that
semantic change follows a unidirectional path - Propositional gtTextualgtExpressive
(Intersubjective)
29Generalization
- As it becomes semantically bleached, it can be
used in more contexts and can thus increase in
frequency. - As Haspelmath (1999 1062) remarks
- Semantic generalization or bleaching is usually
a prerequisite for use in a basic discourse
function, that is, for the increase in frequency
that triggers the other changes.
30Quantitative survey - real time
31Quantitative survey - apparent time
32Example 1 a 92 year-oldwoman
- L1 en contact avec euh l'Ecole normale alors
tant sur le plan de l'art tout seul que sur le
plan du langage - L2 hum hum
- L1 bon et je me suis toujours attachée à ce que
les enfants parlent bien juste construisent
une phrase et réfléchissent réfléchissent bon
vous voyez la formation de l'esprit à l'école
maternelle c'est important il y a la la
formation du langage il y a la lecture c'est
évident bon il y a un minimum de calcul c'est
bien évident mais l'art euh fait à mon avis
beaucoup l'art et la musique hein la peinture et
la musique cest ça - CRFP PRI-BEL-2
33Example 2 a 20 year-old woman
- je suis rentrée dans cette entreprise pour un
mois /donc, bon/ c'était court mais bon euh
ça m'a permis de voir un peu ce que c'était et
euh donc j'ai travaillé en collaboration avec le
D.R.H. et ça ça m'a plu on a on a fait un tas
de trucs et euh j'ai je me suis occupée de
formation informatique pour euh les salariés je
me suis occupée des des détachés qui étaient à
l'étranger euh avec les missions les ordres de
euh des exportés etc. donc euh donc ça ça m'a
permis et puis bon j'étais euh j'étais assez
autonome dans le sens où il y avait personne à
côté de moi pour me dire tu fais ci tu fais ça
j'avais ça à faire je le savais et il fallait que
je me débrouille mais bon euh sa- sachant
toujours que si j'avais un problème euh il y
avait quelqu'un tu peux m'aider euh oui donc ça
posait pas ça posait pas de problème puis il y
a eu une bonne ambiance bon c'était dur
forcément c'était la première fois que je
travaillais donc euh mais bon ça ça m'a
vachement plu et euh et voilà .. - CRFP PRI-PNE-1
34Compound Forms
- Rate of occurrence of bon ben, mais bon and
parce que bon in the ESLO Corpus (1968), the
Beeching Corpus (1988) and the CRFP (2002)
35Bon ben, mais bon, parce que bon
36Educational background
37Change in the sense of bon
- Most occurrences of bon can be classified as
mots de la fin as textual, structuring usages - Textual bon is often associated metonymically
with contexts to do with restriction or as a
hesitation marker - The acceptance sense gt acceptance up to a
point, demurral - Far from being a mot de la fin , bon opens the
door to co-construction of meaning and
negotiation.
38Cest superbe quoi!
- Examples from spoken corpora
- je suis de nationalité française mais je suis
très contente dêtre bretonne je suis fière
dêtre bretonne quand même quoi (Beeching Corpus,
77, 211-12). - Im of French nationality but I am very happy to
be Breton I am really kind of proud to be Breton - ah oui moi je, j'ai un travail qui me plaît
beaucoup quoi.(Beeching Corpus, 16, 312) - Ah yes I I have a job which I kind of love.
- cest superbe quoi! (Beeching Corpus, 5, 126-128)
- Its kind of fantastic!
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40Politeness markers
- bon, quand même and quoi, in their different
syntactic positions, work together to oil the
wheels of social interaction - These usages are associated with spoken, informal
contexts quoi, in particular, is highly demotic
(stigmatised) - Wheeler (1994) suggests that speakers adopt a
casual style in order to implement Positive
Politeness - Social payoff in being informal gt Positive
feedback loop
41Apparent time data intergenerational usage in
the CRFP
42Language and identity
- Linguistic identity appears to conform more to
generational norms than to class or sex - Older speakers tend to make a restrained use of
particles and adopt a formal mode of speech - All speakers use deferent markers, this is a
default position and is stable across time - Younger speakers tend to use camaraderie
markers such as quoi, enfin and bon
43Diaphasic and Diachronic Variation
- Through strategic use or non-use of particular
particles, speakers can adapt to circumstance,
and their role in the conversation, appearing
more formal (expert), young/old, deferent or
friendly - Younger people appear to be moving towards a less
formal mode of politeness - a type of
democratisation their speech is solidary yet
deferent, warm yet hedged, characterised in
particular by a plethora of PPs
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45The question remains...
- To what can we attribute the increased
distributional frequency of bon and quoi? - Metonymic concomitance?
- Semantic bleaching?
- A change in society?
- Wheelers positive feedback loop? (Yesterdays
informal is todays formal.) - Face redress is a powerful functional pressure
on any linguistic system. B L 1987 255.
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