Cover not available

In:Pragmatics of Accents
Edited by Gaëlle Planchenault and Livia Poljak
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 327] 2021
► pp. 41–62

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Urban youth accents in France

Can a slight palatalization of /t/ and /d/ challenge French sociophonetics?

 | Université Grenoble Alpes, France
 | Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3, France
Published online: 11 October 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.327.02tri
Abstract
Following previous studies on the production and perception of a type of accent commonly known in France as “accent de banlieue” (Vernet and Trimaille 2007; Devilla and Trimaille 2010; Trimaille, Candea and Lehka-Lemarchand 2012), we suggest that the emblematic palatalization of /t/ and /d/ is not specific to young urban people. We also examine how stereotypical uses in the media display this feature and contribute to its iconization (Irvine and Gal 2000). The complex dynamics of a potential phonetic change requires a mixed-method methodology, which provides partially contradictory results, and addresses complex methodological issues in the field of sociophonetics. We, therefore, develop a pragmatic and critical perspective about indexical relations that link social and linguistic categories, and in so doing, we highlight that such an unstable linguistic category can only provide an illusion of stability, mainly because it relies on stable social categorizations.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.“Banlieue” and “jeune de banlieue”: Controversial categories despite their increased recognition
  • 3.Features perceived/described as constitutive of the pronunciation style of young urban speakers in metropolitan France
  • 4.A pronunciation variant described in research as emblematic of the French “suburban youth accent”: The palatalization of /t/ and /d/ before /i/ and /y/
    • Two competing hypotheses
    • Production
    • Perception
  • 5.Final discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
References
Armstrong, Nigel and Tim Pooley. 2010. Social and Linguistic Change in European French. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Attal, Yvan. 2017. Le brio. Chapter 2; Moonshaker; Pathé Production; France 2 Cinéma; CN6 Productions.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Auzanneau, Michelle. 2009. “‘La langue des cités’? Contribution pour la libération d’un mythe.” Adolescence, t. 27 4(4): 873–885. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Auzanneau Michelle and Caroline Juillard. 2012. “Aperçu théorique et méthodologique sur la variation langagière de jeunes en banlieue parisienne”. In Langages de jeunes, plurilinguisme et urbanisation, ed. by Rada Tirvassen, 27-41. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benyamina, Houda. 2016. Divines. Easy Tiger.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berthaut, Jérôme. 2013. La banlieue du « 20 heures». Ethnographie d’un lieu commun journalistique. Marseille: Éd. Agone, coll. L’Ordre des choses. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bezborodko, Lucile. 2020. La perception des consonnes palatalisées/affriquées en français de France. Mémoire de Master 1 Linguistique, Université Genoble-Alpes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Billiez, Jacqueline. 1992. “Le ‘parler véhiculaire interethnique’ de groupes d’adolescents en milieu urbain.” In Des langues et des villes, ed. by Elhousseine Gouani and Ndiassé Thiam, 117–126. Paris: Didier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Billiez, Jacqueline, Karin Krief, Patricia Lambert, Antonio Romano and Cyril Trimaille. 2003. Pratiques et représentations langagières de groupes de pairs en milieu urbain (Rapport à la Délégation Générale à la Langue Française). Grenoble: Université Stendhal-Grenoble III.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Billiez Jacqueline and Lambert Patricia. 2008. “Dans les coulisses de la (socio)linguistique urbaine française : le silence criant des filles.” In Les boites noires de Louis-Jean Calvet, ed. by Auguste Moussirou-Mouyama, 364–370. Paris: Éditions Écriture.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bishop, Hywel, Nikolas Coupland and Peter Garrett. 2005. “Conceptual Accent Evaluation: Thirty Years of Accent Prejudice in the UK.” Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 37(1): 131–154, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boula de Mareuil, Philippe and Iryna Lehka-Lemarchand. 2011. “Can a Prosodic Pattern Induce/Reduce the Perception of a Lower-Class Suburban Accent in French?”, Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 2011, 348–351.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1982. Ce que parler veut dire: L’économie des échanges linguistiques. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Calvet, Louis-Jean. Les voix de la ville. Introduction à la sociolinguistique urbaine. Paris: Payot.
Campbell-Kibler, Kathryn. 2009. “The Nature of Sociolinguistic Perception.” Language Variation and Change 21 (1): 135–56. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Candea, Maria. 2017. “La notion d’‘accent de banlieue’ à l’épreuve du terrain.” Glottopol 29: 13–26.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Se construire comme candidat à une grande école quand on vit en banlieue populaire Parisienne.” In Les Métropoles francophones européennes en temps de globalization, ed. by Françoise Gadet, 75–91. Paris: Classiques Garnier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Candea, Maria, Martine Adda-Decker and Lori Lamel. 2013. “Recent Evolution of Non Standard Consonantal Variants in French Broadcast News.” Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, International Speech Communication Association, F. Bimbot, C. Cerisara, C. Fougeron, G. Gravier, L. Lamel, F. Pellegrino, P. Perrier, Jan 2013, Lyon, FranceGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chevrot Jean-Pierre, Annie Germanou, Nassira Merabti and Olga Pillakouri. 1983. Les parlers des adolescents, dossier manuscrit, UV de sociolinguistique, Université Grenoble IIIGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conein, Bernard and Françoise Gadet. 1998. “Le français populaire des jeunes de la banlieue parisienne, entre permanence et innovation.” In Actes du Colloque de Heidelberg, Jugend-sprache, Frankfurt, ed by. J. Androutsopoulos et A. Scholz. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 2007. Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Derville, Grégory. 1997. “La stigmatisation des ‘jeunes de banlieue’.” Communication et langages 113 (1): 104–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Devilla, Lorenzo and Cyril Trimaille. 2010. “Variantes palatalisées/affriquées en français hexagonal: quel(s) statut(s) sociolinguistique(s) pour quel destin?” In Actes du XXVe Congrès International de Linguistique et de Philologie Romanes (Innsbruck, September 2007) (4), ed. by Maria Iliescu, Heidi Siller-Runggaldier and Paul Danler, 99–108. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Durand Jacques, Bernard Laks and Chantal Lyche (eds). 2009. Phonologie, variation et accents du français. Paris: Hermès.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evers, Cécile. 2020. Parler « payot » vs « castellanois ». Pratiques vernaculaires, insultes de genre et contrôle social entre jeunes des quartiers Nord de Marseille In Sociolinguistique des pratiques langagières de jeunes. Faire genre, faire style, faire groupe autour de la Méditerranée, ed. by Cyril Trimaille, Christophe Pereira, Karima Ziamari and Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus. 117-158. Grenoble: UGA Éditions. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope and John R. Rickford. 2001. “Introduction.” In Style and sociolinguistic variation, 1–20. Cambridge, UK; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fagyal, Zsuzsanna. 2003. “La prosodie du français populaire des jeunes à Paris: traits héréditaires et novateurs.” Le Français aujourd’hui 143: 47–55.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Accents de banlieue. Aspects prosodiques du français populaire en contact avec les langues de l’immigration. Paris: L’Harmattan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fatchima a des choses à vous djire (2011), performance by Souad Belhaddad. Directed by Hala Ghosn, Confluences theatre, Paris. February 18 2011.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Faucon, Philippe. 2015. Fatima. Possibles Média.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fónagy, Ivan. 1989. Le français change de visage. Revue Romane 24(2): 225–254.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fries, Susan and Christine Deprez. 2003. “L’accent étranger: identification et traitement social en France et aux Etats-Unis”. Cahiers du français contemporain 8: 89–105Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gadet, Françoise and Philippe Hambye. 2014 “Contact and Ethnicity in ‘Youth Language’ Description: in Search of Specificity.” In Questioning Language Contact. Limits of Contact, Contact at its Limits, ed. by Robert Nicolai. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gadet Françoise and Roberto Paternostro. 2013. “Un accent multiculturel en région parisienne?”. Repères-Dorif: Autour du français: langues, cultures et plurilinguisme, Do.Ri.F Università– Roma, 2013, online: [URL].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gadet, Françoise. 2003. “‘Français populaire’ : un classificateur déclassant?” Marges linguistiques 6: 103–115.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hambye, Philippe. 2008. “‘Des banlieues au ghetto’. La métaphore territoriale comme principe de division du monde social.” Cahiers de sociolinguistique. 2008(1) n°13: 31–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith T. and Susan Gal 2000. “Language ideology and linguistic differentiation.” In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities and Identities, ed. by Paul V. Kroskrity: 35–84. Santa Fe and Oxford: School of American Research Press & James Currey.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jamin, Mikaël. 2005. Sociolinguistic Variation in the Paris Suburbs. PhD disseration, Canterbury: University of Kent at Canterbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009. “‘Langue des banlieues’, ‘langue populaire’ ou langue de l’Autre?” In La langue de l’Autre. Actes du premier colloque “Europe”, ed. by Sébastien Bonnemason-Richard, Nadine Laporte, N. et Jean-Xavier Ridon, 91–106. Pau: Presses Universitaires de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jamin, Mikaël and Cyril Trimaille. 2008. “Quartiers pluriethniques et plurilingues en France: berceaux de formes supra-locales (péri-) urbaines ?” In Le français parlé au XXIème siècle, (Vol. I: Normes et variations géographiques et sociales), ed. by Michael Abecassis, Laure Ayosso and Elodie Vialleton. 225–246. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jamin, Mikaël, Cyril Trimaille and Médéric Gasquet-Cyrus. 2006. “De la convergence dans la divergence: le cas des quartiers pluri-ethniques en France.” Journal of French Language Studies 16(03): 335–356. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul and Ann Williams. 2002. “‘Salience’ as an Explanatory Factor in Language Change: Evidence from Dialect Levelling in Urban England.” In Language Change: the Interplay of Internal, External and Extra-Linguistic Factors, ed. by Mari C. Jones and Edith Esch, 81–110. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1966. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehka-Lemarchand, Iryna. 2007. Accent de banlieue. Approche phonétique et sociolinguistique de la prosodie des jeunes d’une banlieue rouennaise, PhD dissertation, Université de Rouen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “La stratification stylistique d’un indice prosodique de l’accent dit ‘de banlieue’ – Enquête auprès de jeunes Rouennais.” Lidil 44. [URL]; Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Léon, Pierre. 1993. Précis de phonostylistique : parole et expressivité. Paris: Nathan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lepoutre, David. 1997. Cœur de banlieue. Codes, rites et langages. Paris: Éditions Odile Jacob.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lodge, R. Antony. 2004. A Sociolinguistic History of Parisian French. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Méla, Vivienne. 1997. “Verlan 2000.” Langue française 114: 16–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milano, Hélène. 2012. Les roses noires. Comic Strip Productions ; Art Cinéfeel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moïse, Claudine. 2002. “Pratiques langagières des banlieues : où sont les femmes ?” VEI Enjeux, « Rapports de sexe, rapports de genre. Entre domination et émancipation », 128: 46–60. Centre national de documentation pédagogique.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nisbett, Richard E. and Timothy D. Wilson (1977). “The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 35 (4): 250–256. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paternostro, Roberto. 2016. Diversité des accents et enseignement du français – Les parlers jeunes en région parisienne. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosset, Théodore. 1911. Les Origines de la prononciation moderne, étudiées au XVIIe siècle d’après les remarques des grammairiens et les textes en patois de la banlieue parisienne. PhD, Paris: A. Colin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sattouf, Riad. 2007. La vie secrète des jeunes. Paris: L'Association.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sciamma, Céline. 2014. Bandes de filles. Hold-up Films; Lilies Films; Arte France Cinéma.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Straka, Georges. 1952. “La prononciation parisienne : ses divers aspects.” Bulletin de la Faculté des Lettres de Strasbourg, vol. 10(5), 212–25.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trimaille, Cyril. 2008. “Who’s not Palatalising? Trying to Understand the Status of Palatalised Variants in French”, paper presented at the 8th Conference of the High Desert Linguistics Society, Language, Discourse, Cognition, Culture, 6–8 November 2008, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Consonnes dentales palatalisées/affriquées en français contemporain : indicateurs, marqueurs et/ou variantes en développement?” In Les voix des Français: usages et représentations, ed. by Michael. Abecassis and Gundrun Ledegen, 89–100. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trimaille, Cyril and Jacqueline Billiez. 2007. “Pratiques langagières de jeunes urbains: peut-on parler de “parler?”” In Les français en émergence, ed. by Enrica Galazzi and Chiara Molinari, 95–109. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trimaille Cyril, Maria Candea and Iryna Lehka-Lemarchand. 2012. “Existe-t-il une signification sociale stable et univoque de la palatalisation/affrication en français? Étude sur la perception de variantes non standard.” In Actes du 3è Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française ed. by Franck Neveu, Valelia Muni Toke, Peter Blumenthal, et al.. (July 2012, Lyon): 2249–2262. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vernet Marie and Cyril Trimaille. 2007. “Contribution à l’analyse de la palatalisation en français parlé contemporain.” Nottingham French Studies 46: 82–99. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Warette, Eloïse. 2020. Étude du changement phonétique en temps apparent : exemple de la palatalisation/affrication en français. Mémoire de Master 1 Linguistique, Université Genoble-Alpes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue