16.1941, Review: Socioling/Historical Ling: Ayres-Bennett (2004)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1941. Thu Jun 23 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1941, Review: Socioling/Historical Ling: Ayres-Bennett (2004)

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1)
Date: 23-Jun-2005
From: Wendy Anderson < W.Anderson at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk >
Subject: Sociolinguistic Variation in Seventeenth-Century France 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:51:50
From: Wendy Anderson < W.Anderson at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk >
Subject: Sociolinguistic Variation in Seventeenth-Century France 
 

AUTHOR: Ayres-Bennett, Wendy  
TITLE: Sociolinguistic Variation in Seventeenth-Century France
SUBTITLE: Methodology and Case Studies  
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press  
YEAR: 2004  
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1341.html


Wendy J. Anderson, SCOTS Project, Department of English Language, 
University of Glasgow, Scotland

SUMMARY

Ayres-Bennett's volume approaches historical sociolinguistic variation 
through a set of case-studies of seventeenth-century French. While 
the picture of variation which is built up can only be partial, this 
approach enables the reader to grasp the importance of different 
parameters of variation in a global sense, and also to see their effects 
on a micro-level. The case-studies cover topics from a range of 
linguistic levels -- lexical, phonological, syntactic -- so an 
understanding of their respective importance may be reached. 

Chapter 1 tackles a number of methodological issues surrounding 
socio-historical linguistic accounts. Quantitative and qualitative 
methods are discussed, as is the ever-present problem of separating 
out the different influences involved, and the danger of applying 
modern-day judgements to seventeenth-century data. Perhaps even 
more crucial is the question of sources, and this is considered at 
length here, as a representative corpus is not possible for socio-
historical linguistic accounts. The sources drawn on in the study are 
many and varied, and each type of source is evaluated in its proper 
context for a faithful interpretation. These are principally metalinguistic 
texts (including volumes of observations and 'remarques' on 
language; monolingual dictionaries; formal grammars; linguistic 
commentaries on grammatical texts); literary texts, in particular from 
the FRANTEXT electronic archive; and non-literary texts such as 
journals and informal correspondence. 

A further issue is that of linguistic variables. Ayres-Bennett's aim is not 
to attempt a reconstruction of seventeenth-century French in its 
entirety, which would be impossible, but to characterise its varieties: 
for this reason the choice of variables is crucial. While it impossible to 
say whether the range of variables chosen for the case-studies in 
each chapter does indeed provide a faithful glimpse of the variety in 
question, every effort has been made to make this likely. Variables are 
taken from a wide range of linguistic levels (phonology, morphology, 
syntax), and the metalinguistic texts themselves have been exploited 
for the variables, in order to avoid imposing twentieth or twenty-first 
century expectations on the data. 

Each of the four subsequent chapters considers one major parameter 
of variation: mode (spoken or written); social and stylistic variation; 
gender; and age. This latter is tied in with a discussion of the 
relationship between variation and change. 

Chapter 2 investigates variation resulting from the choice of spoken or 
written mode. Spoken language is of course difficult to analyse for 
past states of a language, as generally only indirect evidence is 
available (see also Lodge 2004), and even this indirect evidence may 
not be easy to track down in the 'remarques'. Further evidence may 
be found in such genres as informal letters which have a potentially 
close but ultimately unclear relationship with spoken language, but 
these must also be interpreted with care. A further problem, that of 
separating systematic sociolinguistic variation from idiolect, relates to 
the interpretation of isolated documents such as Héroard's journal 
recording the childhood speech of the future Louis XIII. The features 
which Ayres-Bennett chooses to focus on in the discussion of this 
parameter include: the conjugation of passé simple forms; the use 
of 'on' in place of 'nous'; non-inversion in interrogatives; and 
characteristics of creoles which may suggest a common history in 
seventeenth-century French. 

Chapter 3 groups together evidence for types of both user- and use-
related variation, in considering social class or status as well as 
register, 'niveau de langue', style and genre. While this seems very 
wide, it is important to bear in mind that the same feature may well be 
indicative of more than one factor of variation: certain types of user 
will tend to use certain styles and avoid others. Ayres-Bennett begins 
by investigating style labels in seventeenth-century dictionaries, 
especially Richelet, Furetière and the Academy dictionaries, and 
moves on to consider the same in the work of the 'remarqueurs' (e.g. 
Vaugelas, Ménage, Bouhours and de Boisregard). A large part of this 
chapter investigates variation at the lexical level, comparing the 
evidence of the metalinguistic texts and FRANTEXT, and analysing 
lexical features in a corpus of Mazarinades. Pronunciation and syntax 
receive attention too, with studies of the pronunciation of 'oi', 
discussed in a large number of metalinguistic texts of the time, and 
brief mention of the few syntactic constructions which are highlighted 
as indicating social status. 

Chapter 4 is a very enlightening, self-standing study of the language 
of women in the seventeenth century. This is a fascinating study of 
this parameter of variation in a period characterised, sometimes 
paradoxically, by both negative and positive views of women's 
language, and where the Préciosité movement and salon culture 
enabled women to build social networks through linguistic 
differentiation. Particularly important to the evidence are the writings 
of the two 'women grammarians' of the period: Marie Le Jars de 
Gournay and Marguerite Buffet. Their comments are compared with 
the actual usage found in texts by women of the period in FRANTEXT 
(a subcorpus of 11 texts). Ayres-Bennett concludes that features of 
lexis and pronunciation appear to characterise women's language 
more than other features such as syntax: or at least, they are more 
salient and are commented on more frequently. 

The parameter of age variation is the focus of Chapter 5, and this 
extends quite naturally to the nature of the relationship between 
variation and change in language as Ayres-Bennett questions whether 
variation between the generations does indeed necessarily lead to 
change over time. As a case study in pronunciation, she considers the 
choice of [o] or [u] in tonic or pre-tonic position (e.g. 'chose' -
 'chouse'). Secondly, she carries out a series of studies of individual 
verb morphologies, comparing the comments of the remarqueurs with 
usage in dictionaries, translations and the FRANTEXT corpus. 
Significantly, Ayres-Bennett concludes that the analysis carried out in 
this chapter does not support the concept of 'chronolecte' (see Caron 
2002) which suggests that change happens in periods of about thirty 
years (a generation), and that changes therefore cluster around 
certain dates. Rather change is ongoing and gradual over the century. 
In any case it is difficult to pinpoint where variation becomes change, 
as even where one variable becomes the more frequent, alternatives 
may remain in regular use for many decades. 

Chapter 6 forms a Conclusion. Instead of seeking to bring the content 
of all of the chapters together at this point, Ayres-Bennett chooses to 
use the conclusion to reconsider methodological issues surrounding 
the investigation of past variation, in light of the analyses carried out. 
Particularly important in this study was the triangulation of evidence: 
firmer statements may be made where different types of source 
pointed towards a similar conclusion. The strong possibility of gaps in 
the evidence, however, makes definitive conclusions, and certainly 
quantitative analysis, nearly impossible. 

EVALUATION

The seventeenth century in France was of course characterised by 
movements towards standardisation, and a study of variation in this 
period is therefore especially fascinating, partly because it 
demonstrates the hardiness and ubiquity of variation, and also 
because, as Ayres-Bennett notes, the period is a rich source of such 
information; prescriptivists after all tend to preserve for posterity the 
features of language which they react against. Anything approaching 
a complete picture of linguistic variation in a historical period is 
practically impossible, and even a sketch of such variation is an 
ambitious undertaking. This volume, however, achieves that superbly 
well. The result is highly readable, with insights for readers with 
interests spanning the period, the linguistic levels and the parameters 
of variation. A conclusion, or final chapter, which attempted to bring 
together the different parameters of variation and relate these to the 
social structures of seventeenth-century France would have been a 
useful addition. The book contains, however, a very clear appendix 
listing the items making up the author's corpus of metalinguistic texts --
 a valuable resource in itself. Separate, comprehensive, indexes of 
concepts and names are also helpful, whatever the reader's focus of 
interest.

The book also provides excellent discussion of methodological issues, 
which frames the case-studies, and reminds the reader throughout 
that questions of approach should always be at the forefront of one's 
mind, both as a researcher in historical sociolinguistics, and indeed as 
a reader of such work. While findings can rarely if ever be definitive, 
there is a lot of pleasure to be gained from a partial picture whose 
gaps and uncertainties can be gradually filled in.

REFERENCES

Caron, P. (2002) Vers la notion de chronolecte? Quelques jalons à 
propos du français préclassique, in Sampson and Ayres-Bennett 
(eds.) (2002) Interpreting the History of French: A Festschrift for Peter 
Rickard on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, Amsterdam and 
New York: Rodopi, pp. 329-52.

FRANTEXT --   http://www.frantext.fr/

Lodge, R. A. (2004) A Sociolinguistic History of Parisian French, 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Wendy Anderson is Research Assistant on the Scottish Corpus of 
Texts and Speech (SCOTS) project at the University of Glasgow. Her 
PhD (St Andrews University, 2003) was a corpus study of phraseology 
and collocation in European Union administrative French. She is also 
interested in French-English translation, and the languages of 
Scotland.





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