Abstract

AbstractAlthough the received wisdom is that English in Quebec, as a minority language, has undergone contact-induced language change, little scientific evidence has been brought to bear on this claim. We describe a project designed to assess the impact of a majority language on the structure of the minority language in a situation of long-term contact. The existence and directionality of change is assessed by comparing the behaviour of linguistic phenomena (1) over (apparent) time, (2) according to intensity of contact, and (3) against French as a non-contact benchmark and putative source. We detail the methods employed in selecting a sample and constituting a corpus, and characterize the speakers and aspects of their speech. Finally, we present an analysis of the sociolinguistic situation of the Quebec anglophone community, and offer an empirical measure of the impact of the French lexicon on Quebec English.

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