Varieties of Spoken French

Abstract This book examines the variation found in modern spoken French, based on the research programme ‘Phonology of Contemporary French’ (Phonologie du Français Contemporain, PFC). Extensive data are drawn from around the French-speaking world, including Algeria, Canada, Louisiana, Mauritius, and Switzerland. Although the principal focus is on differences in pronunciation, the authors also analyse the spoken language at all levels from sound to meaning. The book is accompanied by a website hosting audio-visual material for teaching purposes, data, and a variety of tools for working with corpora. The first part of the book outlines some key concepts and approaches to the description of spoken French. Part II is devoted to the study of individual samples of spoken French from around the world, covering phonological and grammatical features as well as lexical and cultural aspects. The companion website provides a classroom-friendly ready-to-use multimedia version of the 17 chapters in this part, as well as a full transcription of each extract and the sound files. Part III looks at inter- and intra-speaker variation: the opening chapters provide a methodological background to the study of phonological variation using databases, while in the second section, authors present case studies of a number of PFC survey points, including Paris, the Central African Republic, and Québec. Varieties of Spoken French will be an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, and students of all aspects of French language and linguistics.