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

Lexicology: Geographical variation

Geographical Variation: 

• International varieties of French are defined by their vocabularies
• Varieties - Belgian, Swiss, Quebecois, Algerian etc

Belgicismes: 

• kokoteur = colocateur
• aubette = arrêt de bus
• bourgmestre = maire
• Also use prepositions differently
• e.g. derrière le coin vs au coin 
• Michel Francard - le projet Valibel to record Belgicismes

Québécismes:

• à tantôt = à toute à l'heure
• le souper = le dîner
• un breuvage = un boisson
• Many of these words exist in metropolitan French but they're not as common
• Quebecois French is much more advanced in the feminisation of professions - e.g. une femme-ingénieur
• The language has a heavy English influence 
• e.g. nouns - un shop, un record, verbs - checker, afforder, kicker
• loan translations - melon d'eau

Socio-geographical context: 

• Regional varieties of French of have unique words which reflect phenomena specific to that region
• e.g. motoneige (snowmobile), souffleuse (snow blower) érablière (shop for maple syrup) 

 Metropolitan French: 

• Diversity also exists within Metropolitan French
• variation from region to region
• Haute-Marne (NE France) 
• la verne - NW wind
• les chevris - april showers
• West France
• la borderaie - small farm
• Toulouse 
• le Franchiman - Northerner
• le cacarot - immigrant labourer
• la pipine - open air theatre

Semantic differences:

• The meaning of some words differs in some regions from standard French
• West
• Affligé - afflicted (standard)/sick (West)
• S'écarter - distance o.s. (standard)/get lost (West)
• Lyon
• Allée - alley (standard)/footpath (Lyon)
• Tantôt - soon (standard)/afternoon (Lyon)
• Haute-Marne
• Différent - different (standard)/unpleasant (HM)
• Épier - look out (standard)/hesitate (HM)
• St. Etienne
• Peinable vs pénible
• Amiteux vs affecteux
• Regretteux vs difficile

Regionalisms:

• words that have filtered into standard French from regional varieties through language contact
• West
• le chai - liquor store (relates to local produce)
• Provence
• la bouillabaisse
• La pétangue
• Picardie (coal mining region)
• la houille - coal 
• Normandie
• Le homand, la crevette - types of fish 

Standard Lexicalised Norms:

• There is an established 'standard vocabulary' in French, but what linguistic norm is it based on?
• Why is metropolitan French more standard than the regional varieties?

Attitudinal Issues in Identifying Local Standard Norms:

• A negative attitude exists regarding certain language varieties
• e.g. Standard Quebecois French is pejoratively nicknamed 'joual' after their pronunciation of 'cheval'
• Pierre Trudeau (former Prime Minister of Canada) referred to Quebecois French as 'lousy French'

Origins of Quebecois French: 

• French emigrants came to Canada from western ports e.g. Nantes
• 'New France' was annexed by Britain 
• this lead to a very strong English influence and the speakers were increasingly separated from France

Linguistic Prescriptivism:

• Quebecois French is not the standard variety of French for governing bodies in Quebec
• e.g. Radio Canada offered linguistic training to help people comply with the required standard metropolitan French
• The Office de la langue française positively enhanced attitudes regarding Quebecois French by creating a dictionary of Quebecois words and the corresponding words in standard French
• supporting the idea of Quebecois norms 
• Positions regarding language norms: 
• Aménagiste position - accepting for different norms in different places
• Conservative position - only metropolitan French is the standard
• Many dictionary projects in Quebec attempt to define what is and isn't standard - like Francus Project

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