Language Shift in Southern New England

This book investigates morphosyntactic variation during a unique case of language shift in two of New England's oldest and most well-known Franco-American communities.

This book investigates morphosyntactic variationduringa unique case oflanguage shift in two of New England's oldest and most well-known Franco-American communities: Southbridge, MA and Woonsocket, RI. The shift from French to English is rapidly nearing completion in Southbridge, where French is quickly fading to become a memory.

AuthorLouis Stellingexplores morphosyntactic variation and the advance of language shift usinghistorical documentation, U.S. census figures and interviews conducted with sixty-nine informants. By comparing the state ofFranco-Americanto the other major varieties ofNorth AmericanFrench, this book completes the portrait of French on the continent.The distinction made between qualitative and quantitativevariationwillalso beuseful forthoseinvestigatingother cases of language contact and shift.

Autorentext

Louis Edward Stelling holds a Ph.D. in French studies from the University at Albany, State University of New York. Since 2002, Stelling has been one of a handful of scholars investigating sociolinguistic aspects of Franco-American French. He is Lecturer in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University at Albany, and Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Modern Languages, and Interdisciplinary Studies at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

Klappentext

This book investigates morphosyntactic variation during a unique case of language shift in two of New England's oldest and most well-known Franco-American communities: Southbridge, MA and Woonsocket, RI. The shift from French to English is rapidly nearing completion in Southbridge, where French is quickly fading to become a memory. Author Louis Stelling explores morphosyntactic variation and the advance of language shift using historical documentation, U.S. census figures and interviews conducted with sixty-nine informants. By comparing the state of Franco-American to the other major varieties of North American French, this book completes the portrait of French on the continent. The distinction made between qualitative and quantitative variation will also be useful for those investigating other cases of language contact and shift.

Inhalt

List of Tables- Acknowledgments - Introduction - 1. Language shift - 2. Southbridge, Woonsocket, and la Franco-Américanie - 3. The sociolinguistics of language use in Southbridge and Woonsocket - 4. Qualitative variation: Auxiliaries in the Passé Composé - 5. Quantitative variation: Synthesis and analysis in the future - Conclusion - Appendix A: Questionnaire - Appendix B: Translation task - Appendix C: Characteristics of the informants - Works Cited - Other Works Consulted - Index