A preliminary study of prosodic patterns in two varieties of suburban youth speech in France (original) (raw)

Can a prosodic pattern induce-reduce the perception of a lower-class suburban accent in French? ICPhS

Previous sociophonetic work suggested that an atypical prosodic pattern, namely a word-final sharp pitch fall, could characterise the French vernacular of youth living in working-class suburbs (the so-called "suburban accent"). A question we investigate in this study is whether the presence/absence of these prosodic patterns increases/decreases the perception of the suburban accent. Using prosody modification and re-synthesis, perceptual experiments were conducted. Results involving listeners from two French regions are rather robust. They show that utterances with (respectively without) high-low pitch falls are perceived as presenting a higher (resp. lower) degree of accentedness.

Modeling of a rise-fall intonation pattern in the language of young Paris Speakers

Intonation seems to be one of the major cues for identifying youth language in the Paris region. As part of a large-scale corpus-based analysis, this paper attempts to model a rise-fall final prosodic pattern, considered to be representative of a Paris working-class suburbs accent. Comparison with the emphatic rise-fall p r o s o d i c p a t t e r n , well-known i n g e n e r a l French, will provide the opportunity for sociolinguistic insights. The ethnic hypothesis is dismissed in favor of a context-bound and interaction-sensitive interpretation.

The matter with the penultimate: Prosodic change in the vernacular of lower-class immigrant youth in Paris

2003

This study investigates a prosodic pattern in the vernacular of the working-class Parisian French youth known as 'lengthening of the penultimate syllable'. Eighty-five middle-school students from a predominantly immigrant suburb near Paris were recorded in a picture-naming task during breaks and after school. Results for five words uttered by twelve boys of North-African, and of white Caucasian, origins show greater than average durations in most words, but significant difference between the two groups was only observed in one word. A high tonal target appears on IP-penultimate syllables perceived as unusually long. This pattern is atypical in non-emphatic uses of Parisian French, but its presence in both ethnic groups' speech points to its possible vernacular status in workingclass adolescent male peer groups.

Sociolinguistic variation in the Paris suburbs

2021

This thesis investigates linguistic variation, diffusion and change in two suburban towns of Paris (La Courneuve and Fontenay-sous-Bois), using quantitative methods to analyse innovative accent forms presently developing. After an introductory chapter which sets out the origins and objectives of the study, Chapter 2 gives the background to the Paris banlieues as well as a description of the research sites. Banlieues are ideal places of investigation for the linguist interested in sociolectal variation in that they accommodate a population which is relatively isolated from the linguistic norm of the dominant society. As a result of this isolation, a recognisable localised vernacular has emerged. This is in itself unsurprising, as similar phenomena have been observed elsewhere in low-contact contexts. What is particularly interesting here is that this vernacular has emerged in an urban context, generally characteristised by a relatively high degree of sociolectal contact, especially w...

Mathieu Avanzi Speech Prosody of French Regional Varieties

2016

This paper compares the prosody of 6 varieties of French spoken in three different areas: France (Paris and Lyon), Belgium (Tournai and Liège), and Switzerland (Geneva and Neuchâtel). The objective is to adress whether some regional varieties, namely those of Geneva and Tournai, are closer to standard French (i.e. the varieties spoken in France, represented here by Paris and Lyon) than others (Neuchâtel and Liège). The recordings of the same text read by 4 speakers representing each variety were semi-automatically processed in order to study accentuation, speech rate and rhythm, and 8 prosodic measures that can possibly discriminate the 6 varieties were compared. A top-down clustering supported evidence for the expected classification with regard to the “standard ” varieties, while a bottom-up clustering pointed out a more contrasted configuration. Index Terms: Prosody, regional French, standard French, Accentual Phrase, articulation rate, speech rate.

Sociophonetics of the Le Havre accent

2019

We report on a pilot analysis of two speakers—M, 33, and F, 24, both middle-class—from Le Havre, France, part of the larger Towards A New Linguistic Atlas of France project. The aim is to isolate features to investigate in greater detail in the full analysis. Two vowel changes are analysed: the merger or separation of /a/ (as in patte /pat/ ‘paw’) and /ɑ/ (pâtes /pɑt/ ‘pasta’), and the fronting of /ɔ/. Most areas of France merge /a/ and /ɑ/ to /a/ [18, 24, 46], but some Normandy speakers separate them [21], as does the regional language Norman, the oral vowel system of which is very close to that of its sister language French [30]. Both speakers analysed here have significant word-list differences between /a/ and /ɑ/. The female speaker also has fronted /ɔ/, a well-known feature of modern informal French [3], but one which has not been found for Norman. The emerging picture is of an urban accent which combines regional features and more widespread urban ones, even among middle-class...