GE3904 - Der Vorleser

Introduction:

First published twenty years ago, Der Vorleser is remarkable not for its literary quality, but it is still one of the most successful German post-war books. The author departed from the traditions of holocaust literature in writing from the perspective of a perpetrator rather than the victims, something which had previously been a taboo. The book focuses on the question of guilt on multiple levels, e.g. legal, human and ethical, developing a perspective which forces us to deal with that question without giving an absolute answer. The question of guilt is thus relativised.

Author:

The author is Bernhard Schlink, a German law professor and judge at a constitutional court in one of Germany's federal states (each state has its own constitution and as such, its own constitutional court). Der Vorleser is based on some of Schlink's biographical details.

 The Setting: 

•  The book is set in roughly in the 60s - the trial takes place in the late 60s when the question of guilt in Germany finally begins to arise post war
• In the 50s and early 60s, there was a public silence on the subject of the holocaust 
• After the war, the Allies investigated ~2.5 million suspected Nazis, classing them as follows
• Hauptschuldige (major offenders; war criminals) and Belastete (offenders; activists, militarists, profiteers) = 1.5%
• Minderbelastete (lesser offenders)
• Mitläufer (opportunist followers) = 54%
• Unbelastete (exonerated) und anerkannte NS-Gegner (resistance = 0.6%).
• Outcome: 5025 convictions, of which 806 death sentences. 34.6% of proceedings were quashed.
• Many criminals fell through the cracks and the Nazi ideology lingered on in Germany through the people who were not prosecuted
• A great number of former high ranking Nazi functionaries and SS-officers escaped prosecution and succeeded in re-building their careers as civil servants, judges, university professors, police and Bundeswehr officers, even as politicians.
• In the late 60s, the dissatisfaction of younger generations with their elders boiled over in the form of student rebellion
• general political awakening across society 
• Beginning of an uncompromised critical analysis of Germany’s National-Socialist past. The Holocaust becomes a thematic focus in public and academic discussions, also in school curricula
• Generational conflict: radical rift between the generations is opening up; a culture of unmitigated protest defines the younger generation in their moral rebellion against the generation of their parents, accusing them of having born the evils of fascism in the past, and still bearing fascistic and authoritarian structures in the present society.

Legal Response to the Holocaust:

•  Guilt can be moral or legal
• the law is theoretically based on moral principles  
• Prosecuting war criminals was a legal problem because the crimes they committed weren't against the law at the time 
• retroactive jurisdiction - when a law is created in order to prosecute a crime which was not illegal when it was committed
•  The Frankfurter Auschwitzprozesse (1963-68) were the first attempt by Federal Germany to deal with legal guilt for the holocaust
• A Jewish judge from Hessen, Fritz Bauer (an exile during the war) was given jurisdiction for Auschwitz and made the trials happen despite facing much resistance

The Story:

• Told in three parts
•  I - the love story between the narrator, Michael, then 15 and Hanna, then in her 30s
• this relationship is morally questionable because of the age difference
• it represents an abuse of power, because her advanced age gives her a psychological advantage but there is a mutual dependency
• a crime is committed so the question of legal and moral guilt is raised from the beginning
• II - the trial of Hanna, who stands accused of the murder of several hundred Jewish women for her part as a prison guard in Auschwitz
• this raises the question of guilt within the holocaust
•  Michael's perspective (as a law student taking part in a an academic project to do with the trials) the defines the experience of the reader
• III - supplement to the plot of the first two parts 
• Hanna is imprisoned and their relationship continues in the form of the tapes in which he reads to her
• Hanna is ultimately released but commits suicide without leaving prison
• the effect which their relationship had on the rest of his life becomes evident

Characters: 

•  Michael - the narrator 
• two different perspectives from him - the child and the adult narrator
• a degree of difference exists between them, but the narrator is clearly influenced by his experiences as a child
• e.g. he can never quite shake his feelings for Hanna
• Hanna - the perpetrator and in some ways, the protagonist
• a prison guard at Auschwitz, later Michael's lover 
• conceals her illiteracy
• does she accept the harsh sentence handed down to her because she's ashamed of her illiteracy or because she's aware of her own guilt and feels she deserves it?
• does her illiteracy relativise her guilt? 
• is she guilty of abusing Michael as a boy?
• With their age difference, they represent the two sides of the generational conflict - the 68ers vs the war generation  
• Michael's perception of the guilt question is affected by his relationship with Hanna

Key Moments: 

•  p.15/16 - Michael's first glimpse of Hanna and his sexual awakening - did she leave the door open on purpose so that he would see her undressing?
• he blushes when she sees him - shame 
• "Ich wurde rot. Einen kurzen Augenblick stand ich mit brennendem Gesicht. Dann hielt ich es nicht mehr aus"
• she does seem conscious of the dynamic between them 
• her in power, him fascinated by her
• Michael becomes aware of sexuality and its interplay with power and is initially overwhelmed
• If Hanna is aware of this power dynamic then this relationship is abusive
• the look she gives him - he doesn't know whether it's "wissend" or "verwundert" 
• too ambiguous to be sure 
• however the narrator never fully passes judgement, even though he does have issues with creating lasting relationships once he discovers she was a war criminal 
• p.20-22 - the first moral reflections of the teenage Michael  
• he feels guilty about his sexual fantasies because he knows the moral figures in his life (parents, older sister, priest), whom he has always trusted, would disapprove
• "Ich wachte jeden Morgen mit schlechtem Gewissen auf"
• he makes moral arguments as to why he should go to see Hanna again 
• if he's damned anyway for having sinful thoughts, he might as well do the sinful deed as well  
• he rationalises that if he went to Hanna, nothing would actually happen, which would banish the sinful thoughts
• the adult narrator here discusses a pattern of behaviour which he has noticed in himself 
• that his conscious reasoning seems to have no decision making power and it is always this mysterious 'es' which drives him to act
• this relates to the Freudian model of the human psyche - id (es), ego (ich), superego (überich)
• the es, not the ich, is the agent
• the ego must achieve balance between the demands of the id (libido powered) and the superego (the authorities of social life, e.g. religion, parents etc) 
• the id is raw energy, which can be creative or destructive 
• it must be transformed with the help of the superego into some socially acceptable impulse 
• this is known as sublimation 
• the actions of the young boy can be explained by this Freudian analysis - the superego cannot overwhelm the force of the id 
• therefore in 15 year old Michael's case, there is no question of guilt for his relationship with Hanna
• p.26 - He undresses to have a bath at Hanna's and turns to find her looking at him 
• his reaction: "Ich wurde rot" - their relationship from the beginning is founded on guilt and shame
•  p27 - when she propositions him, he is not able to give proper consent
• Ich wußte nicht, was ich sagen sollte. Nicht ja, aber auch nicht nein"
•  p28 - the narrator hints that his experience with Hanna affected him permanently 
• Bis heute stellt sich nach einer Nacht mit einer Frau das Gefühl ein, ich sei verwöhnt worden
• p.38 - the adult Michael is sad when he reflects on his time with Hanna, even though he was very happy at the time
• however at that point, he could not see the negative effect that his relationship with Hanna would have on the rest of his life
• the sadness comes from her betrayal - she was not who he thought she was 
• he is troubled by her guilt - he was not aware of it when he fell in love with her, however he continues to have feelings for her after he discovered it 
• this leads to shame
• p.40 - the account of Hanna's past is instantly suspicious because women did not become soldiers
• she was a German speaker from Romania, i.e. ethnically German but not from Germany
• it's clear she has something to hide from this passage 
• "es war, als krame sie, was sie mir antwortete, aus einer verstaubten Truhe hervor"  
• Hanna has tried to forget about the past
• p.42-44 - Michael's happiness in their relationship is acknowledged by the narrator
• the act of reading strengthens their relationship and shifts the balance of power
• he becomes the dominant one because he can offer something she can't
• however he is unaware of this, so the imbalance remains
• p.48 - their first fight, when Michael goes to see her on the tram
• "Hatte sie vielleicht recht, nicht objektiv, aber subjektiv" 
• raises the notion of relativised guilt, the possibility that right and wrong aren't black and white
•  Michael takes the blame even though he doesn't understand why which becomes a trend
• "Wenn sie drohte, habe ich sofort bedingungslos kapituliert. Ich habe alles auf mich genommen."  
• a clear power imbalance, and perhaps explains his later shame - if he was already used to taking the blame for her, it makes sense that he would continue to do so
• p.54 - Hanna's reaction to Michael going out and leaving a note shows her insecurity
• the fact that she strikes him shows the flaws in their relationship
• p.57 - the poem Michael writes - a description of how they merge when they make love 
• wenn wir vergehen du mir in und dir in ich 
• a description of the dissolution of subjectivity via intimacy
• p.72 - Michael feels that he has betrayed Hanna by being unable to integrate her into his life 
• he is in fact not guilty - the relationship is inappropriate and he shouldn't have to feel that way however he feels it anyway 
• "Dann habe ich begonnen, sie zu verraten"
• p.87-88
• the students accuse their parents' generation of having tolerated perpetrators in their society since the war
• they sentence the previous generations to shame 
• Wir alle verurteiltenunsere Eltern zu Scham, und wenn wir sie nur anklagen konnten, die Täter nach 1945 bei sich, unter sich geduldet zu haben
• the students are ready to begin the 'Aufarbeitung' process - coming to terms with the past 
• they feel an ethical imperative to determine the guilt of those gone before and they are proud of this 
•  p. 96 - Michael begins to experience a numbness which continues for some time 
• an inability to confront his feelings 
• "war mein Gefühl wie betäubt."
• this numbness spreads to every other area of his life
•  the numbness is also experienced by the other people involved in the proceedings - the horror gradually wears them down and becomes part of the routine
• the narrator compares the experience to being in a death camp, having gotten used to the routine
• "wie der KZ-Häftling, der Monat um Monat überlebt und sich gewöhnt hat"
•  the trauma symptoms exhibited by survivors taken on by others in the court as they become witnesses to this trauma
• the perpetrators also experienced this numbness and seemed to still be affected by it
• p.99 - a reflection on how the 2nd generation after the war should deal with it
• Michael's enthusiasm at the beginning of the seminar dampened, as he realised the guilt would be attributed to some few and their generation would ultimately end up living in silence caused by revulsion, shame and guilt
• p.105 - Hanna wants justice in the courtroom 
• ironic, given her participation in previous injustices
• p112 - the story about Hanna having favourites who used to read to her 
• alarmingly reminiscent about her behaviour with Michael
• was she just repeating old patterns in their relationship? Finding someone weaker than her, a relationship where she was in power so that she could be read to without having her weakness questioned?
• p112 - in the courtroom, Hanna looks directly into Michael's eyes, in a moment very similar to the early scene where he saw her undressing
• just as she did then, she knew he'd been watching all along
• this time, a very different kind of nakedness is revealed
• Michael has seen her in her moral vulnerability 
• when she sees him, he blushes - a reaction related to shame 
• "als ich unter ihrem Blick rot wurde"
  
• he  feels ashamed on her behalf because he's a war criminal and he loved her - therefore her shame is his shame
• p.113 - Michael attempting to relativise her guilt 
• comes up with a reason for her picking favourites which paints her in a favourable light
• is this the truth or is it just what he wants to believe?
• p.123 - Hanna explains why they didn't open the church
• relativism - presents an almost sympathetic POV of the perpetrators - they were in a difficult situation and no one knew what to do 
• "So konnte man, aber man wollte sich nicht vorstellen, was Hanna beschrieb."
•  not willing to see things from Hanna's POV because there's something basic missing - the shame, the guilt - the compassion for others
• p124 - Hanna incriminates herself to avoid revealing her illiteracy
• p127 - Michael's epiphany - Hanna was motivated by shame 
• the shame lead to the action which lead to the guilt
• p.129 - Michael's feeling of guilt about their relationship goes from
• p151 - Michael can't understand Hanna while condemning her crime and vice versa 
• 2 impossible urges which he can't integrate 
• p154 - Michael speaks to the judge - tells himself he wants to prevent miscarriage of justice but he actually enables it
• p160 - the numbness Michael is experiencing becomes a physical sensation - he actually becomes sick because of it - trauma symptom
• p161 - shame over the Nazi past and its lingering presence in German society 
• "Kollektivschuld – für meine Studentengeneration war sie eine erlebte Realität"
• assigning blame alleviated some of the suffering caused by shame 
• p.162 - Michael can't point a finger at anyone else because he shares the shame of the war generation because he loved Hanna 
• he loved someone from that generation which is different from the parent-child relationship because you can't choose your parents
• he has a unique perspective, somewhere between both generations
• p.169 - Hanna's lingering influence on all his subsequent relationships
• p172 - Michael takes refuge in legal history research 
• where he is not obliged to sit in judgement of or to advocate for or prosecute any living person
• p182 -  Michael doesn't want Hanna in his life 
• he denies the responsibility for her born of shame
• p187 - Michael meets Hanna in prison
• Hanna's idea of justice - only the dead can hold her to account
• the power balance has shifted in their relationship 
• he has all the control now
• "Ich hatte Hanna eine kleine Nische zugebilligt, durchaus eine Nische, die mir wichtig war, die mir etwas gab und für die ich etwas tat, aber keinen Platz in meinem Leben."
• he decides how much of himself to give to her now 
• unlike the past when she made that decision and he desperately threw all of himself at her
• p196 - Hanna in prison
• she lived out the sentence like a penance
• when she got too comfortable she punished herself, gave up on self care so as to lose the respect of others 
• sought out literature on the holocaust and read it, informed herself
• p201 - Hanna wanted to give her time in prison meaning 
• but seeking meaning in the holocaust experience is supposed to be impossible
• is her gesture of atonement meaningless?
• p205 - Michael haunted by the same questions of guilt and responsibility for years after
• did he betray Hanna?
• was he guilty for having loved her?
• was he responsible for her death? 
• however these eventually fade and he becomes accepting of the path his life took
• p.206 - Michael displays trauma symptoms - he is neither able to remember Hanna nor forget her 
• he shares the trauma through the intimacy and shame which he shares with a witness (and perpetrator) of the holocaust
• however unlike the victims, he is able to overcome this trauma to reflect on the experience and write about it

 Schuld vs Scham: 

• Schuld is legal and moral - it applies to individuals and must be clearly defined - objectifiable
• therefore collective guilt is very hard to apply - it tars the innocent with a guilt they do not deserve and allows the guilty to share their burden
• collective guilt does not serve justice - it is not democratically ethical
• guilt must assigned to an individual agent
• Scham is purely ethical and intersubjective (i.e. shared by more than one conscious mind)
• goes beyond legal process and individual agency
• a subjective feeling
• there is no objective reason for feeling shame - it connects people as subjects without an objective link 
• we can feel ashamed of/for someone else, even if we do not share their guilt 
• shame has a moral quality because it has the power to connect people - to make us feel responsible for actions of others
• blushing is a symptom of shame, hence Michael's reaction to being seen by Hanna
• shame occurs when intimacy transcends subjectivity
• Subjectivity: 
• Something being a subject, narrowly meaning an individual who possesses conscious experiences, such as perspectives, feelings, beliefs, and desires.^[1]
• Something being a subject, broadly meaning an entity that has agency, meaning that it acts upon or wields power over some other entity (an object).
• In the early years, the war generation, when asked by their children, what have you been, what have you done, as children often ask, Hanna's generation did not respond with shame or guilt but rather secrecy
• Michael's sense of responsibility for Hanna stems from shame - he loves her, they have been intimate
• Aufarbeitung and Aufklärung - the processes by which the past of Germany is explored and guilt and shame are determined

Interpretation: 

• Hanna's guilt
• Her relationship with Michael - an abusive power structure 
• Her actions during the war and part in the holocaust - allowed the deaths of 100s of people - no matter what the excuse, that's unacceptable
• Interfered with the carriage of justice in the trial by not being fully honest
• Hanna's shame 
• her illiteracy - actually causes all her guilt 
•  ultimately overcomes the source of the shame but by then it is too late 
• Does she feel shame for her actions? Her behaviour in the prison suggests yes
• Michael's guilt 
• often feels guilty (e.g. for sexual fantasies, for 'betraying' Hanna) but actually responsible for very little
• is responsible for the miscarriage of justice in Hanna's trial by virtue of not speaking up
• is he guilty for not condemning her?
• central question of the novel 
• I would argue not - he feels shame for her which is far more nuanced
• if no objective reaction is possible to the holocaust than a subjective reaction is the only morally acceptable response
• Michael's shame
• for voyeurism - sexual in her flat as she undresses and moral in the court case 
• both moments where subjectivity is being transcended 
• in the first case Hanna's nudity and the sexual promise, in the second, Hanna's vulnerability as all her secrets are laid bare

Criticism:

• Is it morally wrong to try and get the audience to sympathise with Hanna, a perpetrator?
• Does the book downplay the culpability of the intellectual class in the holocaust?
• Does the book attribute all Hanna's guilt to her illiteracy rather than holding her accountable herself 
• Michael eventually comes to term with the events and is able to relativise and reflect on them. He is able to overcome the trauma, in some ways. Is this really a realistic representation of the holocaust? Is this denying the presence?

Pragmatics: Tu vs Vous

Historical use of 'tu' and 'vous':

• The original T/V distinction was a reflection of power
• When used non-reciprocally, the person with power used 'tu' and the person without it used 'vous'
• Non reciprocal use 
• e.g. Older -> younger = tu
• e.g. Younger -> older = vous
• e.g. Noble -> Peasant = tu
• e.g. Peasant -> Noble = vous 
• Reciprocal use was for equals in power
• Noble classes used vous for each other
• Common people used tu 
• The choice of pronoun can indicate solidarity, degrees of closeness and intimacy
• These days a reciprocal relationship is reflected in reciprocal pronoun use
• Powerful people with no shared common ground will use 'vous', but with common ground they will use 'tu'

Conflict in choice:

• Sometimes there is a conflict between people's level of solidarity and the power dynamics of their relationship
• e.g. in a parent/child relationship
• this is a solidarity relationship but it is also power bound 
• in the past, they would have had a non reciprocal relationship
• these days solidarity is more important than power displays
• the more powerful individual decides on the use of tu or vous

 Social factors:

•  Politically radical individuals are more likely to use the tu form 
• rural children are more likely to use a non reciprocal vous form with adults
• Urban children are more likely to use a reciprocal tu form with adults
• Gender - familiar male adults will use reciprocal vous with teenage girls, non reciprocal tu with younger girls and non reciprocal tu with boys of all ages

Discourse: Pragmalinguistics

Pragmalinguistics:

• The link between form and function
• form - the linguistic elements/structures used to complete a speech act
• e.g. the imperative is used for command, a negated modal is used for requests

Sociopragmatics: 

•  Mapping form and function of linguistic elements to the appropriate social context
• e.g. donne moi vs donnez moi
• the choice is based on the question of politeness, formality, prestige, age, situation and the number of people

Politeness Theory and Face:

• 'Face' is the positive social value a person effectively claims
• i.e. how you present yourself and how you are perceived 
• Positive Face serves the purposes of:
• Enhancement of positive self image
• Preserving one's own face
• Intimate behaviour - showing social closeness
• Negative Face serves the purpose of: 
• Non imposition on the hearer
• Preserves the hearer's face 
• Achieving distance, in order to demonstrate respect

Face Threatening Act:

•  An act which endangers either one's own image or somebody else's
• e.g. requests - can be viewed as showing weakness, opening oneself up to rejection (Positive Face) or imposing on the hearer (negative Face)
• French and English have similar language use for requests - designed to reduce the threat to face
• the presumption of rejection so as not lose face in the event 
• FTAs are communicative acts that do not respect either the hearer's need for space (negative face) or the speaker's desire to uphold their own self image (Positive face) or both 

Choices in FTA Performance:

• Every time we are confronted with an FTA we face a choice whether or not to perform it

Discourse: Pragmatics

Pragmatics:

• The analysis of the unsaid
• Examining the deeper meaning of language 
• e.g. nous sommes Paris vs Je suis Charlie 
• The change in deitic reference (nous vs je) leads to an entirely different meaning
• from the personal to the universal
• Deitic references are often used in contrast with each other 
• The unsaid - the je/nous are excluding the tu/vous

What is the study of Pragmatics? 

• The study of the relationship between what is said and what is actually meant
• It focuses on the functions of language
• e.g. "you wouldn't pass the salt"
• literal meaning - an accusation - in the past, I asked you to pass the salt and you refused
• however because of our social experience, we know that what is actually meant is a request to pass the salt 

Studies on Pragmatics:

• Morris, 1938, coined the term pragmatics and defined it as the study of the relationship of signs to the user (speaker) and the interpreter (hearer)
• Katz, 1977, described pragmatic phenomena as those in which knowledge of setting and context of an utterance plays a role in its understanding
• Fesold, 1991, described pragmatics as the use of context to make inferences about meaning
• Bach, 2004, defined it as the theory of language use

A Working Definition of Pragmatics: 

A set of internalised rules which tell us how to use language in socio-culturally  appropriate ways, taking into account the participants in a communicative interaction and the features of the context within which the interaction takes place.

Speech Act Theory: 

• Austin and Serl
• Divides language into functions
• e.g. requests, apologies, compliments, advice, complaints, suggestions, insults, etc
• The study of utterances as functions
• They created two categories of language 
• Performatives - whereby saying and doing are conflated to perform an action 
• e.g. "I now pronounce you man and wife" 
• the words make the action happen 
• when the act of speaking changes a situation or physical circumstance
• Characterised by the first person pronoun and a valid speaker, hearer and context
• Constatives - whereby the utterance can be said to be true
• focused on truth values 
• e.g. "The cat is in the house" 

Focus of Pragmatics: 

• What's done with language and how it's accomplished
• The three major concerns of pragmatics
• the difference between literal and intended meaning
• directness vs indirectness
• conventional vs non conventional

Literal vs Intended Meaning:

•  Locutionary Act - the actual utterance
• the physical act of constructing utterance and meaning is determined by the rules of language
• Illocutionary Act - the intended meaning
• e.g. "It's really hot in here" could mean "Please open the window"
• Perlocutionary Act - the effect of the locutionary act and the illocutionary act
• e.g. Locution: "Vous ne pouvez pas m'aider."
• the literal meaning is "You can't help me" as in "you don't have the ability or the possibility of helping me"
• Illocution: a request for help 
• Perlocution: the person will help or refuse
• Therefore it is the illocutionary act which is the key to the success or failure of an exchange
• if the hearer understands the speaker's intention as voiced through the illocution, then it is a successful exchange 
• If the hearer's understanding differs from the speaker's intention then there is a mismatch between locution and illocution

Indirectness vs Directness:

•  With a Direct Act, there is no possibility of a mismatch
• With an Indirect Act, the possibility of a mismatch exists

Conventionalised vs Non-Conventionalised:

• Conventionalised - the normal, universal way of saying something
• e.g. "Vous ne pouvez pas m'aider" is universally recognised as a request for help
• no room for ambiguity
• Non-conventionalised - a personal way of expressing something, which is not universally recognised as having that meaning
• e.g. "T'as pas faim?" could mean "I am hungry and would like to eat."
• personal - depends on context for understanding
• the hearer will need to disambiguate the meaning

 The interpretation of speech acts is highly subjective and depends a lot on context.

Discourse: Text Cohesion and Coherence

Devices of discourse:

• Deixis - shows the way speakers and writers orientate themselves and others in discourse 
• through the use of deitic expressions
• What:
• Demonstratives - ce/cette, ces ... là, celui-là
• Possessives - sa, son, ses etc
• Who:
• Verbs in 1st/2nd/3rd person
• Pronouns - je, tu, il etc
• When: 
• Time adverbs - maintenant, autrefois etc
• Tense of verbs - j'ai donné, je donnerai, etc
• Where:
• Spatial adverbs - ice, là, là-bas
• Deitic expressions are used to point out or indicate something to the speaker or listener

Coherence and Cohesion:

• Coherence - in order to be considered discourse, a text must be coherent
• i.e. it can't be a random sequence of sentences 
• it must tell its audience what is going on 
• Cohesion - how sentences are linked together  
• A text can be cohesive without being coherent  
• i.e. it can be linked together by a topic without having any logical structure
• In order to create coherence, we used subordinating and coordinating clauses
• Coordinating conjunctions - mais, et, ou, ou bien
• Subordinating conjunctions - parce que, si, tandis que, dont, lequel, où, que, qui
• Coordinating clauses can exist independently, are equally important as each other in a sentence
• Subordinating clauses are dependent on the main clause to make sense and cannot exist independently 

Cohesive Ties: 

• Hold discourse together
• e.g. d'abord, ensuite, en plus, enfin, cependant, au contraire d'autre part 
• give the text a logical structure

Endophora:

• An expression which is used to refer to something which has been or which will be said or written in a text
• it can refer to something mentioned earlier or something that will mentioned later 
• e.g. demonstrative pronouns are often used to avoid noun repetition and ambiguity
• Two types of endophora - anaphora and cataphora
• Anaphora - use of pronoun or demonstrative to refer back to something previous mentioned 
• Cataphora - use of pronoun or demonstrative to refer forward in text to something which will be mentioned

Examples:

Je ne vous présente pas un programme, au sens habituel du mot. Je l'ai fait en 1981 alors que j'étais à la tête du Parti socialiste.

Analysis: 

• Deitic expressions in bold, anaphora underlined, cataphora overlined
• je ne vous présente
• je & vous = demonstratives, verb ending = time indication
• je l'ai fait en 1981
• je = demonstrative, fait, en 1981 = time indication, l' = anaphoric reference

Introduction to Discourse

Studying Discourse:

• Discourse is any body of text, written or spoken, which is longer than a sentence
• The study of discourse takes the organisation of texts as a whole into account 
• Taking a broader view of how the composite elements of language work together as a whole, successfully or not
• The study of discourse focuses on language as a social, cultural context
• Texts and discourse:
• compositions of phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax and lexicology 
• created by identifiable participants
• bearing in mind sociocultural and historic constraints such as time/place/content

Speaking - Dell Hymes: 

• Hymes' model to assist the identification and labeling of components of linguistic interaction
• S - setting (when and where is the interaction taking place)
• P - participants (who's taking part? Speaker? Audience?)
• E - end (what are the goals and outcomes of the interaction)
• A - act sequence (what is the form and order of the message?)
• K - key (what is the tone/manner/spirit of the interaction? Is it serious/humorous/etc?)
• I - instrumentality (forms and styles of the interaction)
• N - norms of interaction in a particular culture (social rules governing the interaction)
• G - genre (what kind of speech act is it? A story? A lecture?)
• A change in any one of these factors would mean a change in discourse 
• This was one of the first attempts made at socially situating language
• Before this, people had always been more interested in discussing the structure of language as an abstract concept
• However language can't survive if not socially situated 

Co-operative Principles - Grice:

• According to Grice, in order for discourse to be successful, the four maxims of the co-operative principle must be followed:
• Quantity - say no more and no less than is necessary
• Quality - be truthful
• Don't say anything you know to be untrue or can't provide adequate evidence of 
• Relation - be relevant to what has been said before
• Manner - be lucid 
• speak in a clear and orderly fashion to avoid ambiguity 
• These maxims are relevant to an idealised interaction
• The correct use of the maxims is entirely context dependent

Lexicology: Linguistic Prescriptivism

History:

• Beginning in 15th century when Louis XII was advised by his counsellor Claude de Seyssel to attempt to unify the various different forms of 'patois'
• so much linguistic disunity could have a potentially destabilising effect
• Until 1490, there was no standard vernacular - the only standard was Latin
• 1539 - Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts - declared all laws should be in French from then on 
• post 1789 - French was established as the language as France and it was used for all dealings

Linguistic Centralisation:

•  France has 200+ language bodies
• The problem with centralisation is that it involves people in one area trying to define French for everybody in a wider area
• 1958 - the Défense de la langue française was set up - indicative of French mentality that their language is under threat
• 1966 - Haute comité pour la défense et l'expansion de la langue française was set up 
• the committee has gone through multiple evolutions since then but still remains in some form

Future of the French Language: 

• Many language bodies continue to be set up and attempt to govern the language 
• e.g. Haute Conseil de la Francophonie, Organisation Internationale de la francophonie
• Various terminology commissions exist
• e.g. la commission générale de terminologie et de néologie - 1996
• concerned with feminisation of professional titles etc  
• Several laws have been passed in an attempt to regulate the use of French
• Loi Bas Lauriol - 1975
• Made the use of French obligatory in all public bill posting and advertising, banned all use of foreign terms or expressions
• Loi Toubon - 1994
• mandating the use of the French language in official government publications, in all advertisements, in all workplaces, in commercial contracts, in some other commercial communication contexts, in all government-financed schools
• these laws were made in effort to control the impact of English on the French language however they have not been particularly successful
• some fines have been imposed, but the insistence on the complete use of French can be off putting for multi national companies looking to settle in France
• e.g. of failure - English is still largely the language of the scientific world - it is the most commonly used language at scientific conferences and scientific seminars and the governing bodies have concluded that full implementation would not only be too difficult to regulate but also be too damaging for France's reputation in the scientific community

Lexicology: Slang and Youth Language

Language Change:

• vocabulary is an area of language where change is especially rife
• young people are usually the ones who change a language rather than the old

Concept of 'Argot':

• Slang - a specific type of vocabulary used by a social or professional group to express an identity of some sort
• Slang is a reflection of societal and conceptual developments 
• specialised vocabulary is not necessarily informal
• Historical connotations - it originally referred to secret means of communicating in the criminal underworld
• It is now a method of making those who can share in the communication feel included while excluding those who can't 
• creates a sense of identity for a specific group 

Youth Language: 

• Young people play an important role in lexical change, often creating new words
• This is a means of expressing identity/solidarity and excluding undesirables (often adults)
• This also creates a sense of rebellion 
• Creativity is especially high in certain lexical domains - a reflection of the source of the creativity
• e.g. source languages (often those spoken by immigrants) and social milieus (certain areas with a high concentration of youth/immigrants)
• The rapid spread of words through modern media contributes to lexical change

Structural characteristics of youth language: 

•  Foreign/Dialectical borrowing - youth language often uses elements from foreign languages and dialects of French
• e.g. bagnole is from Northern French and la taule (prison) and le frangin (younger brother) are from Lyon 
• A lot of examples from foreign languages - truc (Spanish),schlof (drunk - German), toubib (doctor - Arabic), shooter, sniffer, dope (English)

Semantic Change:

• Pre-existing words can assume informal, slang values
• Certain lexical fields contribute slang more than others 
• e.g. animal vocabulary - les flics, les poulets, les perdreaux, les condors - words for police based on animal imagery
• also shows speakers attitude towards police
• Humour is often used in slang 
• e.g. 'écraser le champignon' (to drive fast, step on it) 
• Food imagery in slang 
• e.g. boîte à ragoût - jam packed, une viande froid (dead person) 
• Slang often offers a wide variety of choice for expressing one common concept
• e.g. fauché, à sec, dans la panade etc = broke
• Slang frequently makes use of pronouns which don't actually refer to anything 
• e.g. J'en ai marre, j'en ras-le-bol
• this meaningless pronoun is referred to as a lexical chunk or lexicalised units 
• could refer to some older lost part of the phrase - e.g. "tu me casses les pieds" becomes "tu me les casses"
• In slang, words sometime assume the opposite of their original meaning 
• e.g. "faire un malheur" can mean something is great

Word Formation:

• Slang consists not just of different use of existing vocabulary but also the formation of new words 
• Often from a change of word category
• e.g. Flingue (gun) derived from 'flinguer' (to shoot)
• e.g. être classe, être galère - nouns used as adjectives

Inflectional Suffixes:

• Certain suffixes are very productive in slang 
• e.g. aille, asse, ard
• soiffard (heavy drinker), la flicaille (cops), vignasse (cheap wine)

Abbreviations:

• Often involve breaking up the word in some way
• e.g. shortening - ciné, apparte, métro
• Or shortening and then adding another ending (iche, oche)
• e.g. fastiche - easy (facile - fac + iche), cinoche - cinema
• Repeating the first syllable is also a possibility 
• e.g. jojo = joli, mimi = mignon, dodo = dormier

Word Games: 

• New words are created by rearranging elements of old words 
• e.g. 'largonji' from 'jargon' - argon + j
• lofoque - louf - fou
• lerche - cher
• Insertion of letters into the middle of words also occurs 
• e.g. gosse + av = gavosse 
• Verlan(isation) - word reversal, a kind of backwards slang
• e.g. chicha = haschich, rebier = bière, féca = café
• this rearrangement of letters and sounds is very Arabic in origin, which reflects the strong Arabic influence in contemporary French society
• Short words are sometimes repeated 
• e.g. foufou = fou

Lexical Borrowing

Introduction:

• Languages borrow words from the 'open' lexical classes - nouns, verbs and adjectives of other languages
• Word to word translations (calques) borrow the meaning rather than the form (lemma)
• Lexeme - a set of forms that all have the same meaning
• Lemma - particular form chosen by convention to represent that meaning
• Lexical borrowing from English, German and Italian is particular common in French

Reasons for Borrowing:

•  In the case of a new discovery, the word is often taken from language in which the idea originated
• e.g. 'café' from Arabic
• Linguistic contact 
• borrowing between neighbouring countries frequently occurs
• borrowing from the culturally, economically and politically dominant language for that region is also common 
• e.g. English words for technology (bit) and marketing
• Anglicisms often end up being 'in competition' with other French words for some concepts
• e.g. "poster" vs "affiche" or "paneau", "on/off" vs "marche/arrête"
• Fashion - words are often borrowed from whatever language is fashionable at this point in time 

Older Entries:

• Very ancient 'emprunts' (loan words) came from Latin or Greek 
• e.g. 'academie' or 'soldat' 
• More recent examples, e.g. 'baby-boomer'/'body-building' have a Gallic pronunciation but the spelling remains anglicised
• The degree of 'gallicisation' is often dependent on how often the word is used 
• Code switching is not the same as lexical borrowing - this is a phenomenon evidenced by bilingual people who switch from one language to another
• An emprunt on the other hand has passed from one language to another and doesn't indicate that the speaker is fluent in both languages

Typology of emprunts:

• Direct - i.e. unchanged, e.g. body-building
• False etymology - sometimes the meaning of the emprunt in the new language doesn't match its meaning in the original language
• e.g. 'le lifting' means 'face lift'
• Grammatical adaption - how the emprunt should fit in with the French grammatical system
• e.g. pluralisation - for 'rugbyman' follows French rules and not English - 'les rugbymans'
• Phonological and graphical adaption - how the pronunciation changes, how the spelling changes to fit French system 
• e.g. 'faisabilité'

Examples:

•  Direct - 'walkman' (French alternative - balladeur)
• Adaption - 'conteneur' 
• French pronunciation reflected in the spelling - 'e' replaces 'ai' and 'eur' replaces 'er'
• False etymology - 'bronzing' (tanning)
• this word doesn't exist in English but it is based on it
• Semantic 'calques' (loan translations) - réaliser 
• changed from its original French meaning (to achieve or make sth happen) to English (sudden understanding)
• Borrowing of scholarly terminology - e.g. 'uni-dimensionnel'

Translations:

• Direct translations from English
• liberté de la presse, science-fiction, liste noire
• Compound words
• e.g. top-modèle (graphically modified)
• Abbreviations 
• Pull (un pullover), self (self-service, i.e. cafeteria)

Integration Problems

• Phonological problem - these phonemes don't exist in the French phonological system, therefore they are simply pronounced with a French accent
• e.g. show business, weekend, camping, gang
• Grammatical problem 
•  Gender - no easy rule 
• Some English musical terms are feminine e.g. la popmusic, la trash
• Other musical terms are masculine, le folk, le jazz 
• Other confusing issues - English words with different genders from the original French word 
• e.g. le gag vs la blague
• Plural 
• Question of whether to follow the English or French rule - e.g. les rugbymans
• English adjectives don't take the accord e.g. snob/cool
• Semantic
• The meaning of some French words changed by English influence 
• e.g. réaliser, terrible

Impact of the Emprunt:

• The loan word is a product of external processes but once it enters the French language, it undergoes internal processes
• e.g. film - filmer - filmage - filmothèque 
• Experiences suffixation e.g. sponsoriser, squattage 
• Or prefixation e.g. surbooking
• Abbreviation e.g. le trench (coat), le basket (basketball)

Prescriptive reactions: 

• There are many language regulation bodies in France which exist to control, among other things, the entry of new words 
• e.g. l'académie française
• Ministerial commissions of terminology - gather alternatives for technical terms
• Official journal of neologisms
• Prescriptive language laws, e.g. Bas-Lauriol (1975) and Toubon (1994)
• Their aim - to conserve the French linguistic heritage 

Lexicology: Principles of Word Formation

Neologisms:

• Objective neologisms - correspond to new objects entering reality 
• Objects which previously didn't exist - e.g. le portable, la stylistique (design)
• Fashion in neologisms - words fall in and out of fashion 
• e.g. where 'chouette' and 'génial' used to be used, now 'super' or 'boum' are used
• Stylistic (subjective) neologisms - created by authors for style and sometimes enter the vocabulary of French 

Structural characteristics of lexical change: 

•  Internal process - whereby the language changes internally 
• This involves neologisms of form - where the form of a word is modified to create a new word 
• And neologisms of meaning - where the meaning is changed
• External process - lexical borrowing

Social characteristics of linguistic change:

• Neologisms have 'creators' and 'deciders' 
• People who invent words and people who decide whether or not they should be accepted into French vocabulary 
• e.g. people who write dictionaries, the Académie Française etc
• There is also the problem of how to integrate neologisms into the normalised system of the French language
• i.e. how they'll function grammatically etc
• Hence the desire to find French alternatives to external neologisms in order to preserve linguistic purity 

Derivation: 

• The process of creating a new word by adding an affix (a prefix or suffix)
• e.g. porter -> portable (suffix) monter -> remonter (prefix)
• Dérivé (derivative) - created through addition of bound morphemes 
• different morphemes can have different meanings 
• e.g. pleuvoir -> pleuvoter (diminutive - mizzle) -> pleuvasser (pejorative - drizzle) -> pleuviner (diminutive - drizzle)
• Dependent or independent morphemes can be added
• Parasynthesis - simultaneously adding a prefix and a suffix to a word
• e.g. anti-américanisme
• Composé (compound) - opposite of dérivé - formed of words which are both independent

Suffixation - Semantic Aspect:

• ant; oeur; ateur (indicate the actor)
• e.g. imprimeur, créateur
• oir; erie (indicate the locality)
• e.g. abattoir, gendarmerie
• ité; ace; isme; tude; esse (indicates a concept)
• e.g. gentillesse, inquiétude
• et(te); in(e); ot(te); eul(le) (indicates a masculine or feminine diminutive or pejorative)
• e.g. maisonette, vieillot (old fashioned), tablette
• oyer (weak quality) 
• e.g. rougeoyer (glow - weak red)
• ir (becoming - indicates process)
• e.g. blanchir, durcir
• Knowledge of the semantic aspect allows for a more nuanced understanding of the language

Prefixation - Semantic Aspect: 

• a- (sans, negation) e.g. amoral
• pré (before) e.g. pré-cuit
• dé (negation) e.g. démonter
• re (again) e.g. refaire, rappeler
• mal (bad) e.g. malbouffe (junk food)

Frequence and Productivity - Suffixes: 

• which suffixes are most frequently used in neologisms? 
• ation; isme; iste; itude
• isme - very frequent e.g. bilingualisme
• itude - very frequent e.g. bogossitude (fam. handsomeness)
• ation - very frequent - e.g. conscientisation (fact of being in public awareness)
• The French speaking population and media often create words which will never be accepted by the language authorities

Frequence and Productivity - Prefixes: 

• re e.g. reintegrer
• mé e.g. méprise
• co (together) e.g. covoiturage (car pooling)
• in (negation) invapotable
• Derivation allows for a lot of linguistic creativity

Phonetic and Semantic Constraints: 

• Adjectives ending in 'al' take 'ité' to make a noun e.g. socialité
• Adjectives ending in 'ard' and 'and' take 'ise' to make a noun e.g branchouillardise (hipterism)
• Adjectives ending in 'e' take 'sse' to make a noun e.g. noblesse
• Adjectives ending in 'ot' take 'erie' to make a noun e.g. bigoterie

Lexical Conversion - Improper Derivation: 

•  This involves the creation of new words without any affixation 
• the word is just moved to a different word category without any morphological change
• Adverbalisation (adjective to adverb) e.g. fort - un homme fort vs chanter fort
• Nominalisation (adjective to noun) e.g. un homme marginal vs un marginal
• Nominalisation (verb to noun) e.g. savoir vs le savoir

Composition:

• Creation of compound nouns
• Words of the same or of different syntactic categories are put together to form one word
• e.g. porte-monnaie  (V+N), sans-travail (Prep+N), pause-café (N+N) 
• Mots valises - whereby the end of the first word and the start of the second word are 'cut off' to create word play 
• e.g. 'adulte' + 'adolescent' = 'adulescent', i.e. an immature adult

Recomposition:

• Deliberate creation of compound nouns, usually by expert in some field 
• e.g. philogie, génocide
• Used with prefixes of which the meaning is properly known
• e.g. ultra, super, néo, trans, éco
• Usually with a Latin or Greek base
• e.g. néo-nomadisme, éco-terrorisme
• The semantic meaning is more clear here than with other affixes
• However the prefixes are not true independent morphemes

Syntagmation/Composition:

• Creating 'words' out of a combination of separate words which represent a different concept together
• e.g. le développement durable 

Abbreviations:

• Acronyms:
• Lexicalised acronyms - acronyms which are pronounced like words e.g. SMIC
• Non lexicalised acronyms - acronyms in which one just says the letters e.g. SDF, SNCF
• Derivations of acronyms can also create new words, e.g. le smicard - a person who receives the minimum wage
• Apocope - shortening of words
• e.g. prof, impec(cable), appart(ement)
• Often happens with place names - e.g. Boul'Saint-Mich = Boulevard Saint-Michel
• Often also includes adding an 'o' to the end, e.g. resto, hebdo etc
• Very 'familier' register

Integration Problems: 

• How to grammatically integrate acronyms into French language structure?
• There are various rules for pluralisation
• If a noun is formed of an adverb and a noun, only the noun is pluralised 
• e.g. les après-midis
• For an adjective and a noun, both are pluralised
• e.g. les francs-maçons (free mason) 
• Exception: les grand-mères BUT les grands-pères
• For recomposed words, the 'prefixe savant' is invariable
• e.g. les auto-écoles
• For nouns including a preposition, only the first noun is pluralised 
• e.g. 'des arcs-en-ciel'
• For a verb and a noun, the verb is invariabe 
• e.g. les porte-monnaies
• For an unhyphenated compound noun, pluralisation follows normal rules
• e.g. les portemanteaux

Semantic Change:

• Sometimes takes place through metaphor
• e.g. 'banque du sang' 
• Often for a new concept, e.g bretelle d'autoroute (lit. motorway 'strap', meaning 'slip road')
• Or through metonymy
• e.g. chaussure de tennis -> tennis (shoe)
• These are all internal processes 

Morpho-syntactic Change: 'On' vs 'Nous'

'On' vs 'Vous': 

• 'on' seems to dominate over 'nous'
• Syntactic because 'on' and 'nous' express a grammatical function
• Morphological because they can't exist independently of a sentence
• According to prescriptive norms, nous is the prestige form
• 'On' is less formal (when used to replace nous) 

History: 

• In Old French, 'nous' was the predominant form
• Since then, 'on' has emerged in modern French
• The morpheme has been undergoing change for some time 

Sociolinguistic Perspectives: 

• Söll 1969 - in a study that contrasted the variation of 'on' and 'nous' among children and police, children used 'on' categorically, while police officers tended towards 'nous'
• When language is used for professional purposes, prestige forms are used 
• Boutet 1994 - in a study on factory workers, discovered they favoured 'on' over 'nous' by and large
• Thomas 1971 - as a prescriptive grammarian, he emphasised the 'nous' form as correct
• Coveney 2000s - in a study in Picardie, the rate of use for 'nous' was 4.4%
• Meaning the 'nous' form hasn't vanished completely but it isn't common
• Laberge - in a study in Montreal, the rate of use for 'nous' was 1.6%
• Deshaies- in a study in Quebec City the rate of use for 'nous' was 0.5%
• Largely, the nous form is vanishing

Remaining uses:

• Uses which are unlikely to die out 
• Emphasis - e.g. 'c'est nous qui avons fait le travail'
• Imperative - e.g. 'sortons'

Reasons for change: 

• Simplification - with the 'on' form, there is no need to add the longer 'ons' morpheme to the verb
• Dialect contact - early in the 20th century, many different types of French existed, however increasing modernisation has lead to increased contact between dialects
• Redundancy - The 'ons' morpheme means the same thing as 'nous', so with the correct form, no extra meaning is added
• Cacophony - avoids ugly repetition with reflexive verbs, e.g. 'nous nous donnons' vs 'on se donne' 
• To the French ear, the 'nous nous' repetition sounds childish

Morphosyntactic change: Ne deletion

Ne deletion - Variable marking of negation: 

• An example of grammatical change 
• e.g. 'on (ne) vous connaît pas" 
• double negation is unusual cross linguistically 
• communicative redundancy
• l'effacement du 'ne' (ne deletion) has become an option i.e. that simply saying 'pas' is enough to signify negation
• a choice exists, which means change could take place 
• morpho-syntactic change 
• ne = bound morpheme
• negation = grammatical, therefore syntactic 

History:

• The 'ne' is close to Latin, where the negative morpheme 'non' comes before the verb
• In Old/Middle French, the formula 'ne verb (pas)' was common - 'pas' was a choice
• In classical French, 'ne verb pas' became standard
• In modern French, the form has changed to '(ne) verb pas' where the 'ne' is not categorical
• This suggests that in the future the 'ne' could disappear entirely

Descriptive investigations:  

Study	Place	Date	% Use
Ashby	Tours	1976	37
Ashby	Tours	1995	16
Sankoff & Vincent	Montreal	1977	1
Armstrong (adolescents)	Lorraine	1990	2

Observations:

• Data collected on Quebecois French and adolescent Metropolitan French indicates almost categorical ne deletion
• as these are the groups which are generally the most advanced in terms of language change, this indicates that a change is underway
• Ashby's two studies in Tours, 20 years apart also show a significant increase in ne deletion 

Social and Stylistic Constraints: 

• Age 
• Montreal - no great variation exists
• Tours - higher rate of deletion among younger age groups
• Gender
• Montreal - no great variation exists
• Tours - higher rate of deletion among males
• Lorraine - minimal difference
• gender difference found in older speakers has disappeared among adolescents
• Class  
• Montreal - no great variation exists
• Tours - higher rate of deletion among lower classes 

Hyperformal Marker: 

• Current status of 'ne' - use sounds overly formal
• Weak to non-existent ties with social variables 
• Similar to 'nous' 
• nous vs on variation

Lexical vs Grammatical Morphology

The meaning behind our use of morphology

Types of morphology:

• Lexical
• Derivational - changes word class (creates new words)
• e.g. nouvelle -> renouveller (adj -> verb)
• Grammatical 
• Inflectional - does not change word class 
• e.g. nouvelle -> nouvelles, fermer -> fermerai 
• word form changed but no new word created

Types of Morphemes:

•  Bound - can't exist independently
• e.g. donn-ais - 'ais' can't exist independently
• has to be bound to make sense
• Free - can make sense independently
• e.g. - "les sans travail"

Morphological Meaning:

• The underlying meanings of morphology are very universal - e.g. the idea that certain morphemes indicate certain times exists across many languages

Tense - morphemes which indicate tense anchor events in time

• e.g. je donne vs j'ai donné vs je donnerai
• -e = present morpheme, -é= past morpheme, -erai = future morpheme

Aspect - the different ways of presenting an event within one time frame

• e.g. two verbs can be in the past tense, yet present the event in different ways 
• French - passé composé vs imparfait - aka the perfective and imperfective 
• Perfective - implies action completed, once
• Imperfective - implies a habitual, incomplete action
• English examples of aspect - progressive vs non-progressive
• I am speaking English vs I speak English
• Doesn't exist in French
• languages differ in how they mark aspect

Aspectual values:

• Perfective
• Perfect value e.g. j'ai déjà vu le film
• relating to present 
• Aorist e.g. je suis sorti à cinq heures
• completed, not related to the present
• Imperfective 
• Characterising/Continuous 
• e.g. j'habitais dans un appartement quand j'étais à Paris
• characterises the continuous whole of the time in Paris
• Habitual 
• e.g. "je sortais de temps en temps quand j'étais ..."
• refers to several incidents, habits during this time
• Progressive 
• e.g. il quittait quand je suis arrivé"
• expresses a sense of 'was doing', of being in progress during one particular moment

 Modality:

•  expresses possibility or doubt concerning an event 
• e.g. "il est possible qu'il soit en retard"
• soit = may, might

The concepts of Tense, Aspect, Modality are so universal that they are known as TAM

Number and Person:

• Verbs:
• Morphemes can indicate plurality e.g. 'e' vs 'ent'
• And which person the verb is referring to (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
• Nouns 
• Morphemes can indicate plurality of a noun
• e.g. livre-s interessant-s - plural markers on nouns and adjectives
• also on past participles - e.g. les livres que j'ai achetés
• English has less markers of plurality than French
• less differentiation for verb endings
• no adjective endings

Gender:

• Often expressed morphologically, moreso in French than in English
• e.g. le livre vs la langue
• French articles express gender, English articles do not
• e.g. elle est sortie 
• French past participles (verbs) express gender, English do not

Pronominal Reference: 

• Pronouns are used to avoid repeating nouns
• e.g. J'ai vu le film. Il était très intéressant.  
• French and English pronoun use differs, especially under word order
• Can refer to a noun or people 
• e.g. mes amis m'ont accompagné
• Pronouns don't exist independently of sentences, i.e. they're morphemes 

 Conclusions: 

• Are grammatical morphemes a communicative luxury in language?
• it is possible to be comprehensible without morphology 
• however without morphemes, many subtleties of language would be lost
• e.g. Moi hier aller cinéma vs Je suis allé au cinéma hier
• Morphology allows communicative efficiency
• Cross linguistic differences (i.e. between languages) exist
• Is it possible for variation to exist within the grammar of a language when grammatical rules for morphology invariably apply 
• Does morphological homogeneity exist across time/people/space (geographical variation)
• see 'futurity' and 'on' vs 'nous' variation

Syntax & Morphology

Syntax:

• The study of word order patterns 
• Language functions based on systematic patterns 
• French word order generally follows the Subject/Verb/Object pattern
• This is known as its canonical word order, the order which underlies every language and is known by all speakers of a language
• Question forms reverse the canonical pattern, i.e. VSO instead of SVO
• 'Sentences' are used to describe written language, while spoken language has 'utterances' 

Phrase level: 

• Beyond the SVO, sentence level there exists an order within phrases as well
• e.g. Adjective after noun - 'un livre intéressant,' or adverb before adjective - 'peu évident'
• Surface structure, the numerous patterns we can pick out by examining sentences, makes language seem incredibly complex
• However these are determined by rules, known as deep structure - the rule that governs the pattern

4 Phrase Types:

• NP - noun phrase - where the noun is the 'head' (defining linguistic element) of the phrase
•  e.g. 'les enfants' - made up of a specifier (les) and a noun (enfants)

• Specifier to the left of the head is a rule which applies to all phrase types
• VP - Verb phrase - where the verb is the 'head' of the phrase
• E.g. 'Michel lisait'
• Michel is the specifier, and lisait is the head, ergo the rule has been followed 
• AP - Adjectival phrases - where the adjective is the 'head' of the phrase
• e.g. 'très intéressant' 
• très = specifier, intéressant = head, therefore the rule has been followed
• PP - Prepositional Phrase - where the preposition is the 'head' of the phrase
• e.g. presque dans
• presque = specifier, dans = head, therefore the rule has been followed
• The same basic rule is at work for all the examples - therefore the deep structure pattern is the same for all phrase types

 More complex phrases: 

• NP - Mes amis en France 
• The complement adds supplementary information to the NP 
• Specifier = mes, head = amis, en France = complement
• The full rule = specifier to the left of the head, complement to the right
• The same pattern can be observed in other phrase types
• VP - Je parle à mes amis 
• Je = specifier, parle = head, à mes amis = complement
• AP - sûr de la décision
• sûr = head, de la décison = complement
• PP - vers la fenêtre 
• vers = head, la fenêtre = complement

Sentence level: 

• Sentences can contain multiple types of phrases and can be broken down into 'syntactic trees' 
• e.g. "Mes amis à l'étranger sont partis en vacances" 

 Noam Chomsky:

• According to Chomskian theory - native speakers have the innate ability to generate words in the proper speech pattern
• This is known as the generative paradigm - which means that we can generate a limitless number of correct sentences
• X rule - the X bar rule 
• the idea that we have basic syntactic rules that we follow all the time 
• according to this theory language is not as creative as we might think and does not allow for much variation - in the sense that all speakers have the same basic rule in their heads 

Morphology: 

• the study of the shape of a word
• the unit of morphology is the morpheme - the smallest unit of language that a word can be broken down into and still make sense 
• morphology is a grammatical entity  
• Verb morphology e.g. the verb donner
• donn-e/donn-ais/donn-é/donn-erai
• donn has meaning and the endings have meaning, however neither can exist by themselves 
• Nominal morphology 
• much more limited choice of morphemes
• e.g. livre-s, porte-s
• Adjectival morphology 
• e.g. ancien-s, vert-e
• Articles are morphemes
• the don't exist independently as they must go before a noun
• In English, we have no adjectival morphology or different articles and the imperfect tense doesn't have morphological changes the way French does (i.e. we use the same endings in the present and the perfect unlike French)
• Some languages have no morphology at all 

Uses of morphology:

• Grammatical morphology - allows for greater clarity/specificity
• Lexical morphology - creation of words 
• Prefixes, e.g. re + faire = refaire & suffixes e.g. gouverner + ment = gouvernement, can be used to create new words aka neologisms
• Infixes - the insertion of a morpheme into the middle of a word - also exist but not in French or English 

'L' Deletion

Example of linguistic variation:

•  In spoken French, some speakers 'delete' or leave out 'l' sounds in certain places
• e.g. "Il y a" vs "y a" (often in the case of an impersonal 'il')
• e.g. il va [iva]/ils vont [ivɔ̃]/elle voit [evwɔ]/elles regardent [erəgard]
• /l/ in subject pronouns and in 'word final' positions often deleted
• Content words:
• Possible, Exemple (word final)
• Escalier, Millieu (word median)
• La/Le/Les - word initial position - very unusual for the /l/ deletion to occur here but it does occasionally 
• Lui (e.g. 'je lui parle' [ʒi]0

Historical examples of /l/ deletion:

•  Alterum (Latin) - autre
• Altum - haut
• Alba - aube 
• Bellus - beau (exception - belle)
• Falsus - faux

Grammaticalisation: 

• à + le = au (Old French 'als')
• de + les = des (Old French 'dels')
• jes/quis (Old French) - je les/qui les (Modern French)

Synchronic Perspectives:  

• Ashby - 1988 - Tours
• Armstrong - 1994 - Lorraine Dieuze (metropolitan France study)
• Sankoff & Cedergren - 1976 - Montreal 
• Poplak & Walker - 1986 - Ottawa Hull
• Note: Canadian studies older, Metropole studies more recent
• Studies based on real speech recordings 

Study Results:

•  Geographic:
• /l/ deletion is more advanced in Canada than in Metropolitan France 
• The Metropole is lagging behind in terms of language change
• Metropolitan studies are more recent than the Canadian studies, emphasising the lag
• While the difference is not particularly significant in the extremely frequent contexts (eg il) the gulf becomes greater across the infrequent contexts
• e.g. object /l/ deletion is relatively common in Canada but very uncommon in Metropolitan France 
• Definite article /l/ deletion occurs infrequently in Canada but it has not yet spread to the Metropole
• Linguistic:
•  Lexification of 'il' - the rate of deletion 'il' (personal and impersonal) is reaching 100% (in Canada)  
• therefore a new word has been formed ergo linguistic change has occurred
• The effect which word type has on the frequency of /l/ deletion 
• Pronouns evidence /l/ deletion more commonly than articles
• Within the pronoun category, subjects (il/s, elle/s) demonstrate a greater frequency of /l/ deletion than objects (lui, les, la, le, leur, l')
• Phonological context - deletion was affected by the vowel/consonant pattern
•  e.g. 'il voit' vs 'il entre' - speakers will attempt to preserve the CVCV pattern
• i.e. [ivwɔ] vs [ilɛ̃tr]
• Stylistic - deletion = non prestige 
•  Social Factors (not applicable in Canada - /l/ deletion is universal there irrespective of social factors - another sign of their more advanced stage of language change)
•  Age - always important marker of language change 
• Very high rate of deletion in younger age group, lower rate in older group 
• Armstrong's study of French teenagers showed that the deletion rate was at 100% in certain cases 
• Gender 
• Females delete less frequently than males  
• Males tend to lead the process of language change while women lag behind
• Class
• lower class delete more often than higher class

Conclusion:
Linguistic change is in process.