Liaison as a Sandhi Phenomenon

Liaison - phenomenon of pronunciation, not written
Sandhi phenomenon - change in quality of the sound of a word

Obligatory vs Variable Liaison:

• Les livres vs les‿hommes - follows the French pattern of consonant/vowel/consonant 
• The liaison prevents a double vowel pattern in a sentence
• Liaison not realised before aspirated 'h's eg les halls les haricots, héroes
• Sometimes there's a choice - "c'est‿un village" vs "c'est un village"
• Prescriptive rules - invariable: 
• noun phrase - determiner + noun/pronoun/adj (eg vos‿enfants)
• verb group - pronoun + verb (eg ils‿ont compris), verb+pronoun (eg, allons‿y)
• set phrases - comment‿allez vous, les‿États-Unis etc
• Prescriptive rules - variable: 
•  noun phrase - plural noun + adj/verb (eg des soldats‿anglais, ses plans‿ont réussi)
• verb group - verb + complement (eg, je vais‿essayer, il commencait‿à lire, on est‿obligé etc)
• uninflected words - invariable mono/polysyllabic words (eg, en‿une journée, très‿interessant/pendant‿un jour, toujours‿utile)
• Prescriptive rules - hypercorrect (ie liaison prohibited):
• noun phrase - singular noun + adj/verb (eg, un soldat‿anglais, son plan‿a réussi)
• uninflected words - et + whatever follows (eg et‿on l'a fait)
• special cases - aspirated 'h' (eg des‿héroes), article etc + relevant numerals (eg, cent‿huitième, en‿onze jours, le‿un)
• French speakers have an innate knowledge of when to use the liaison

Segmentation/Processing:

• 'un air' and 'un nerf' are identical sounds (homophones) but native speakers do have ways of distinguishing them 
• 'un nerf' - has a longer consonant to indicate the difference when spoken aloud 
• Children learning French will often attempt to write the liaison - 'un nair' instead of 'un air' 

 Morpho-syntactic link:

•  Question: is liaison use based on morpho-syntactical or lexical rules?
• Seeing as native speakers have innate knowledge of when to use the liaison with any word that falls under the category of liaison possibility, their use of the liaison is an act of generation 
• This suggests that the liaison is based on morpho-syntactical rules

 Types of liaison phonemes: 

•  Phoneme - smallest sound unit to carry meaning
• Most common liaison phonemes:
• nous‿avons /z/
• le grand‿écran /t/
• on‿est /n/
• Rare liaison phonemes: 
• j'ai beaucoup‿aimé /p/
• aller‿en France /r/ (v. rare!)
• du sang‿impur /k/

Enchaînement: 

• Liaison with enchaînement - no hesitation between liaison and following word - i.e. the liaison is 'hooked' directly onto next word e.g. 'tro pambitieux'
• Liaison without enchaînement - hesitation after liaison, e.g. 'trop. ambitieux'

Variation Studies: 

• Average rate of usage - means out of every 100 opportunities to use the liaison, how many of them were realised (NOT what percentage of people used the liaison)
• Ashby - Tours 
• 1981 - average rate of liaison usage - 34%
• 2008 -  average rate of liaison usage - 28% 
• The liaison is evidencing language change, but it is not disappearing - the process of linguistic change is in progress and the end is unclear

Social factors in variation of liaison use: 

• Age - older speakers used the liaison much more frequently than younger speakers 
• Younger speakers only used the liaison at a rate of 11%
• This supports the theory that this feature is changing because younger speakers tend to be quicker to adopt language change, while older speakers are more conservative
• Social Class - middle class speakers used the liaison more frequently than lower class speakers
• classified by occupation into middle and lower class
• Social background conditions us to use liaison in a certain way
• Gender - 1st study - males used liaison more than females
• Unusual because women are generally use prestige forms more often than men 
•  2nd study - pattern reversed - females used it more than males 

 Further comments on Ashby's study: 

• Infrequent liaison use with:
• Forms of avoir,  >0% (e.g. ils avaient. Exception 'ont‿eu')
• Noun + adj, 0% (e.g. 'personnes importantes')
• Verb + complement, rare use (e.g. il regardait un film)
• Pas, 0% (e.g. pas évident)
• Frequent use with:
• Quand - /t/
• Est - /t/
• Negatives - jamais, plus, rien - but not pas 

Prescriptive norms:

• The prescriptive rules for liaison use don't seem to be applied in actual practice
• The study shows that the liaison is used in a very narrow range of morpho-syntactic contexts compared to the full range in which it is possible
• Variation is also sometimes found in contexts considered obligatory by the prescriptive rules
• Failure of prescriptivism

Projet PFC:

• Phonologie due français contemporain - study by Durand and Lyche
• According to their findings, liaison use is frequent in the following contexts:
• Adj + N, e.g. petit avantage
• Adv + Adj, e.g. trop ennuyeux
• Plural N + Adj, e.g. personnes importantes (contrary to Ashby's findings)
• V + Complement, e.g. c'est important

FR4207 Production of Sound

 Articulatory Phonetics:

• Use of speech organs to create sound:
• Air passes over the vocal chords which creates vibration 
• The vibration is shaped by the tongue coming into to contact with the teeth and/or the roof of the mouth in different ways 
• And by the shape of our lips as the vibration leaves the mouth
• If the vibration is directed up into the nasal cavity, a nasal sound is produced

Place of articulation: 

• The places in the mouth where the sounds are produced:
  • Bilabial - use of both lips - egs - p, b, m, ɥ   
  • Labio-dental - lower lip, upper teeth - egs f, v
  • Interdental - tongue between upper and lower teeth 
  • Dental - tongue contact with back of upper teeth - egs t, d, s, z, l, n 
  • Alveolar - tongue contact with gum ridge behind upper teeth 
  • Palatal - middle of tongue against palate
  • Palato-alveolar - front of tongue against hard palate - egs ʃ, ʒ
  • Velar - back of tongue against soft palate (velum) - egs k, g, w
  • Uvular - back of tongue near or against uvula - egs, r
  • Glottal - vocal chords come together to form friction
   

Mode of articulation: 

• The way the air is released:
• Stop/Plosive - air flow is blocked, then suddenly released to produce sound - eg p, b, t, d, k, g
• Fricative - audible friction created by forcing air through a constricted/partially obstructed passage in the vocal tract - eg f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, r
• Affricate - a stop or plosive sound, followed by a fricative eg tʃ, dʒ (Eng only) 
• Lateral - tongue tip lifted to roof of mouth so that air flows around either side of it, eg l
• Nasal - airflow directed through nose rather than mouth, eg m, n, ɲ, ŋ
• Glide - semivowels, vowel sounds that function as syllable boundaries rather than nuclei, eg, j, w, ɥ

Voice:

• Voiceless - no vibration of the vocal chords - eg p, t, k, f, s, ʃ, ʒ  
• Voiced - vibration of the vocal chords - eg b, d, g, v, z, r, l, m, n, j, w, ɲ, ŋ, ɥ

French/English Articulation Comparison - Consonants

Possible exam qs:
Describe the consonants of French
Compare the sounds (vowels/consonants) of French

Place/Mode		Plosive		Fricative		Affricate		Lateral	Nasal	Glide
		Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiceless	Voiced	Voiced	Voiced	Voiced
Bilabial	Fr	p (pont)	b (bon)						m (mon)	ɥ (lui)
	Eng	p	b						m
Labio-dental	Fr			f (fou)	v (vous)
	Eng			f	v
Inter-dental	Fr - NOTE: no Fr inter-dental sounds
	Eng			θ (thin)	ð (then)
Dental	Fr	t	d	s	z			l	n
	Eng - NOTE: no Eng dental sounds
Alveolar	Fr - NOTE: Fr dental sounds = Eng alveolar sounds
	Eng	t	d	s	z			l	n
Palato-alveolar	Fr			ʃ (chat)	ʒ (jaune)
	Eng			ʃ (ship)	ʒ (vision)	tʃ (church)	dʒ (June)			r
NOTES: Affricate sounds exist in Eng but not in Fr Eng /r/ is Palato-alveolar but Fr /r/ is Uvular Only 2 palato-alveolar sounds in French vs 4 in English
Palatal	Fr								ɲ (ligne)	j (hier)
	Eng									j (yes)
Velar	Fr	k	g						ŋ (dancing)	w (oiseau)
	Eng	k	g						ŋ (sing)	w
Uvular	Fr			ɹ	ʀ
	Eng NOTE - no Eng uvular sounds
Glottal	Fr NOTE - no Fr glottal sounds
	En			h

French Vowel Sounds


  The French Vocal Quadrilateral:

Hear the sounds here.

English Vowel Sounds 

Description:

• ei (make) - tongue moving back and up, mouth slightly more closed
• iə (here) - begins high and ends more central, mouth opens a little
• əu (no) - begins central, then moving back and up, mouth closing
• uə (poor) - begins high and to the back, moves down and to the middle, mouth opening
• au (now) - begins tongue low and to the front, finishes high and at back, mouth from open to closed
• ɔi (boy) - begins low and to the back, ends mid height and to the front, mouth from open to half closed
• ai (write) remains frontal, goes higher, mouth closing
• ɛə  - tongues moves from front to centre, mouth not significantly changed

Vowel comparison

•  French vowel sounds are on the outside of the quadrilateral, unlike English
• French vowels are more extreme sounds - the mouth must move more 
• English vowels include many diphthongs - sounds whereby the tongue starts in one position and ends in another
• Most French sounds are monophthongs - the tongue stays in one position
• English sounds last longer - they're said to 'glide' 

FR4207 - Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics (sounds) & Phonology (comparing sound systems in relation to each other)

• some words sound the same, but have different spellings i.e. certain sounds are identical but are represented by different orthographic expressions (e.g. 'faim' and 'vin' rhyme, even though they are spelled very differently)
• one letter expresses multiple sounds - the IPA (international phonetic alphabet) avoids these ambiguities

Phonetic symbols 

French vowel sounds

[ə] - le

[a] - plat

[ɑ] - pâte

[ɑ̃] - vent

[e] - né

[ɛ] - lait

[ɛ̃] - vin

[i] - lit

[ɔ] - mort

[o] - beau

[ɔ̃] - bon

[ø] - peu

[œ] - peur

[œ̃] - brun

[u] - cou

[y] - vu

French semi vowel sounds

[j] - hier 

[w] - oui

[ɥ] - lui

French consonant sounds
[p] - pont
[t] - ton
[k] - cou
[b] - bon
[d] - don
[g] - goût
[f] - fou
[s] - sous
[ʃ] - chou
[v] - vous
[z] - zéro
[ʒ] - je
[l] - lent
[ʀ] - raie
[m] - mon 
[n] - non
[ɲ] - vigne
[ŋ] - dancing

English vowel sounds

[ə] - ago 
[æ] - hat
[ɑ:] - arm
[e] - ten
[ɜ] - fur
[ɪ] - sit
[i:] - see
[ɔ:] - saw
[ɒ] - got
[ʊ] - put 
[u:] - too
[ʌ] - cup 

English diphthongs 

[əʊ] - home 
[aɪ] - five
[aʊ] - now
[eə] - hair 
[ȩɪ] - page
[ɪə] - near 
[ɔɪ] - join
[ʊə] - pure 

English consonants

[p] - pen
[t] - tea 
[k] - cat 
[b] - bad 
[d] - did
[g] - got
[f] - fall 
[s] - so 
[ʃ] - she 
[v] - voice
[z] - zoo
[ʒ] - vision
[l] - lane
[r] - red 
[m] - man 
[n] - no 
[ŋ] - sing 
[w] - wet
[tʃ] - chin
[j] - yes
[dʒ] - June
[θ] - thin
[ð] - then
[h] - how 


Notes 

[ə] - most common sound across all languages called a schwa 

FR4207 - Language and Society

Types of Variation:

• Interspeaker - difference between individuals
• Intraspeaker - 'within' individuals - language allows us to sound different from moment to moment.

Interspeaker: 

• Geographical factors in variation
• More than one 'français' - standard, normalisé French exists alongside numerous 'français régionaux'
• Regional French 
• Regional French does not refer to separate languages, eg Breton.
• Certain regional varieties are better perceived than others, eg Parisien is very well viewed
• There is much more contact between languages these days (modern media), which may cause dialect leveling - when the characteristics of regional French disappear (Armstrong)
• nivellement linguistique
• Social factors in variation (sociobiographical) – Age
• Generational differences - the young assume innovative characteristics that set them apart from their elders T
• La langue des jeunes - use of language to express youthful identity
• This leads to language change - there is an inflow of non prestige forms until the prestige forms die out - young people institute language change
• Gender and variation  
• Gender vs sex - biological differences, eg voice differences = sex
• Socially conditioned differences = gender 
• Social Class
• Hard to define - based on concepts social mobility, education, residence, social network 
• no longer defined just by what job you have, people no longer occupy just one job for life
• no longer defined just by area - people move around much more as well
• no longer defined just by social network - these days we have a much broader social network 
• Indexing - based on various factors - people placed within middle or lower class based on their score on the index 

Intraspeaker:

•  Stylistic factors - no speaker is 'mono-stylistic' - uses one style all the time
• Their style varies depending on
•  interlocutor (audience/speaking partner), topic and place 
• mode - written vs spoken/media/type of discourse (conversation, interview, lecture)
• Standard French - so many existing varieties, what is standard?
• can the standard be based on geography? Eg Parisien French is more standard than southern French?
• can the standard be based on age? Why is youth language 'less prestigious'?
• Language register 
• français cultivé/soutenu (formal, hyper correct French) 
• français courant/commun (less standard but not incorrect, features ne deletion, l deletion)
• français familier (contains incorrect French)
• français vulgaire (sometimes offensive) 
• It would be hard to decide a universal norm because there is no reason to give greater value to one variety of French over another 
• eg metropolitan French vs Belgian or Quebecois French
• Plurilinguistic approach - different French speaking societies can have different standards 
• If the varieties of French are not recognised as standard then the 'français régionaux' are assigned a negative quality

Language Attitudes: Variation vs Standardisation

•  There are various bodies devoted to the 'identification du bon usage' of French 
• Academie Française (metropolitan) 
• L'office de la langue française (Quebec)
• There are also various laws intended to regulate the use of French
• Loi Toubon '93 -  French must be used in all official public/government and commercial documents/contexts (advertising, interviews)
• Loi Bas-Lauriol '71 - targeting anglicisms - banning foreign terms or expressions in public documents

Prescription vs Description 

• Linguists attempt to describe linguistic norms of usage rather than prescribing (dictate) them
• They do not attempt to suppress language variation - variation is natural and normal for a language 

FR4207 - Key Concepts - Homogeneity vs Variation

The French language:

• Some linguists claim it is varied - there are differences within the language in how it's used
• Others describe it as singular or uniform, i.e. there is only one French language, which exists as a homogeneous entity. French doesn't differ that much within the French speaking world
• Homogeneity = a characteristic of language. Examples of homogeneity:
• "Je suis en train de lire le roman." - every French speaker would recognise this and understand it as correct
• "Lire suis je en train de roman le" - no French speaker would produce this
• There are totally incorrect things (wrong gender or number for article, or wrong verb ending for a pronoun) which no French speaker in any part of the world would ever say and this gives French its homogeneity 
• Therefore it's clear that homogeneity is structural (to do with grammar). We must ask ourselves what is the same about all French speakers?
• they have the same internal representation/underlying linguistic system of rules/ linguistic competence (universal grammar) which stable/unchanging/fixed/rigid
• competence is the internal representation of the language and it is unvaried over time once learned 
• The Noam Chomsky school of thought (generative linguistics) is based around the idea of knowledge in our heads which allows us to generate correct utterances and has no interest in linguistic performance

Linguistic Variation: 

• Heterogeneity in language = the opposite of homogeneity
• Variationist linguists view language as highly creative, with a lot of linguistic choice
•  Linguistic Performance is the counterpart of competence - how we use language (what we say vs what we know) 
• Labov = a pioneer of the variationist approach (the opposite of generativist 
• Examples of lexical variation 
• voiture vs bagnole (register)
• bourgestre vs maire (Belgium vs metropole)
• le souper vs le dîner (Quebec vs metropole)
• Examples of phonetic variation
• les gens(.) arrivent vs les gens_arrivent (the choice of making the liaison or not)
•  il y a vs y a (/l/ deletion)
•  Examples of morphological variation
• ne deletion - je comprends pas vs je ne comprend pas
• future - je vais sortir vs je sors demain vs je sortirai
• Language choice goes together with language change
• Examples of syntactic change 
• questions - avez-vous fini? vs vous avez fini?
• passive vs active voice
• Examples of Discursive/pragmatic variation
• donc vs par conséquent - filler words
• register
• Variation and Homogeneity coexist in language - how can linguistics reconcile this
• search for systematicity - a system within language
• investigate language change - how the system changes 
• search for a linguistic norm, if that exists - is there a standard, correct way of speaking French?
• description vs prescription - linguists don't prescribe the correct way of using a language, they just describe the norms and standards

Intercultural Learning - Criticial Incidents, Culture Standards & Assimilator

Critical Incidents:- “der entscheidende Anstoß für das Entstehen eines Lernprozeßes hin zur interkulturellen Kompetenz geht aus von Erfahrungen in als kritisch erlebten interkulturellen Interaktions- (Begegnungs) Situationen und den darauf folgenden Reaktionen“
                    (Thomas, 2003: 146)
(Translation) The decisive trigger for the beginning of a learning process to intercultural competence comes from experiences in critically experienced intercultural interactions, situations and the subsequent reactions.

Critical Incident technique:
- a set of procedures for collecting direct observations of human behavior in such a way as to facilitate their potential usefulness in solving practical problems and developing broad pyschological principles.
- incident - any observable human activity that is sufficiently complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions to be made about the person performing the act
- critical - incident which occurs in a situation where the purpose or intent of the act seems fairly clear to the observer and where its consequences are sufficiently definite to leave little doubt concerning its effects
- originally used in maths and science, then psychology, then cultural psychology
- first to use it in cultural perspectives - Alexander Thomas

Culture Standards:
- orientation on what behaviours to expect in a foreign culture
- distinguish what behaviours are considered normal, typical and acceptable within members of a certain group
- work like implicit theories and are internalised by socialisation (Thomas, 1990)

Definition:
- types of perception, thinking, values, actions found to be normal & acceptable by majority of particular culture
- behaviour of self and others judged and regulated by these standards
- have a regulation function
- the way individuals & groups interpret CS behavioural rules varies within a certain area of tolerance
- modes of behaviour that move outside the borders will opposed & sanctioned by society

Generating culture standards: 
- critical incidents used to generate CS
- CIT Interviews are used: Question: Typical incidents are related that reveal a sense of strangeness, bewilderment and perhaps causing irritation in communication
- incidents are gathered + transcribed
- Analysed for running themes + grouped into categories
- given to experts from that culture for analysis
- Reasons and explanations provided by experts w/insights from the literary, cultural, political, religious history of the area in question
- CS generated

Limitations of Cultural Standards:
- Never describe a culture entirely
- Always seen through eyes of one particular group - relative to eye of beholder
- not static but changing (cultures change, => standards change)
- a help towards cultural orientation & basis for learning more about a culture (not definitive guide to every part of a culture)

Culture Assimilator:
- outward expression of cultural standards
- describes a CI + gives several possible explanations
- learner picks most likely explanation + is given feedback on appropriateness of answer
- description of the central CS in this case
- anchoring the CS in the culture's history

Intercultural Learning - Stereotypes & Perceptions of others

Selbstbild - self-perception - generally positive
Fremdbild - perception of others - less sophisticated

Stereotype:
- coined Lippmann (1922) - a picture in our heads
- we first make up our minds before we get the facts, while the ideal would be to gather and analyse the facts before reaching conclusions.
- we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture because the attempt to see all things freshly and in detail, rather than as types and generalities, is exhausting and among busy affairs practically out of the question
- Linguistic definition: Ein Stereotyp ist der verbale Ausdruck einer auf soziale Gruppen oder einzelne Personen als deren Mitglieder gerichten Überzeugung. Es hat die logische Form eines Urteils, das in ungerechtfertigt vereinfachender und generalisierender Weise, mit emotionalwertender Tendenz, einer Klasse von Personen bestimmte Eigenschaften oder Verhaltensweisen zu- oder abspricht (Uta Quasthoff, 1973: 28)
(translation) A stereotype is the verbal expression of a conviction based on social groups or individual people as members of such groups. It has the logical form of a judgement, that, in an unjustifiably simplified and generalised way, with emotionally judgmental tendencies, assigns or denies particular characteristics or modes of behaviour to a class of person.