Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Methodological issues
- 2 Spoken and written French
- 3 Social and stylistic variation
- 4 Women's language
- 5 Age, variation and change
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Corpora of metalinguistic texts
- References
- Index of concepts
- Index of names
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Methodological issues
- 2 Spoken and written French
- 3 Social and stylistic variation
- 4 Women's language
- 5 Age, variation and change
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Corpora of metalinguistic texts
- References
- Index of concepts
- Index of names
Summary
This study is the first systematic examination of sociolinguistic variation in seventeenth-century France. A primary aim is to enrich our knowledge of the wealth and variety of usages of seventeenth-century French by making available new data about linguistic variation in a period usually considered the most ‘standardizing’ and ‘purist’ of all periods in the history of French. It will be argued that a distorted image of seventeenth-century French emerges if only certain types of literary texts are consulted in conjunction with the work of grammarians and lexicographers. According to this rather narrow approach, our period witnessed the radical marginalization and elimination of variation and the standardization of French; this is symbolized above all in the foundation of the French Academy and the reign of good usage. It is, however, clearly fallacious to assume homogeneity of usage, whatever the nature of the speaker, register, location or context, for any period in the history of French. It is hoped that the study of non-standard usages in the seventeenth century will in turn have repercussions for the appreciation of literary texts, both in highlighting their specificity and in helping to sharpen notions of different genres. Through an understanding of the linguistic status of the variants selected by authors we may better understand the effects they are trying to achieve.
A second main aim of this study is to consider fundamental methodological issues which are central to all socio-historical linguistic accounts.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sociolinguistic Variation in Seventeenth-Century FranceMethodology and Case Studies, pp. ix - xPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004