The Links Between Social and Linguistic Change

Abstract

The principal research theme examined in this book is variation, and to some extent change, in the pronunciation of contemporary European French, considered from the viewpoint of how language change has reflected and continues to reflect social changes in the principal French-speaking countries of Europe. It is of course axiomatic that variation can indicate change, and the study of language variation and change implies consideration of accounts of past linguistic behaviour and the sociolinguistic functions that speakers exercise in their present variable pronunciation. This further connected theme has therefore to do with differences between the processes of social change that have occurred in these countries. We leave detailed consideration of this issue until Chapter 3, but briefly, this latter purpose focusses on whether we can legitimately talk of an ‘exception culturelle’ that sets the francophone countries apart in their linguistic behaviour from the rather notable increase of informality observable in most Western liberal countries, manifested in what is sometimes referred to as social levelling.