This text is part of the special Acfas Congress notebook
It is an understatement to say that French speakers everywhere have “ideas” about the language which are often in contradiction with their own uses. This is what emerges from the conference program French spoken in the media, which will be presented on May 13 and 14 at the Acfas congress in Ottawa.
“This is the 6e edition of a series of conferences initiated for the first time in 2005 by the Department of French, Italian and Classical Languages of the University of Stockholm, and then resumed in Quebec, Lausanne, Montpellier and Birmingham”, explains Kristin Reinke, professor of linguistics at Laval University and co-leader of the organizing committee.
This conference will bring together researchers from Quebec, Alberta, Reunion, Cameroon, Niger, France, the United States and Germany who will examine the way in which non-standardized practices are judged in French. Less than half of the presentations concern Quebec or Canadian uses — for example, movement of the norm in Canadian radio television interviews; interrogative sentences in the Quebec detective series Lies ; diphthongization in televised Quebec French.
But the organizers did not want to practice interlocutorship, says Kristin Reinke. It will also be about Nouchi from Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroonian multilingualism, Reunion Creole, French oral practices – and, more broadly, new spontaneous uses emerging from cyberspace. “This type of conference allows us to compare our results with the perspective of researchers from other regions and other disciplines. I hope to be surprised. »
Double standard on dubbing
Kristin Reinke will certainly surprise some with her study on attitudes towards dubbing. Two years ago, she presented the results of a first research project which showed that the Quebec variant was not only almost absent, but that the systematic use of international French in Quebec dubbing adapted very little to the context. “This is a big difference with French practice in terms of dubbing, where speech varies depending on the activity: we will not speak in the same way while having a beer or pleading in court. However, Quebec dubbing does not do that. »
This time, she will communicate the results of her second project which examines public expectations and attitudes towards dubbing language. It is based on 12 extracts from 11 films recorded in three versions – so-called neutral international French, standard Quebec French and colloquial French – by the same actors, in the same studio, with the same technical team.
It appears that respondents prefer so-called neutral international French for suspense films, but for comedy, standard Quebec French goes as well as international French. On the other hand, colloquial Quebec French is completely rejected.
“Which is curious, because in Quebec films, colloquial French doesn’t shock anyone,” she says. But it’s as if we don’t accept the idea that this French applies to foreign contexts, which are the zone of dubbing. »
A memoir on Double Occupation
According to Kristin Reinke, one of the objectives of the conference is to encourage the next generation of researchers. A good half of the presentations will come from graduate students and young professors at the beginning of their careers. This is the case of Ann-Frédérick Blais, who will present her master’s thesis on linguistic attitudes around the fall 2020 season ofDouble occupation.
“I wanted to examine what people thought about spontaneous speech rather than scripted speech. Double occupation is a cultural phenomenon that generates a lot of conversations on all subjects, including language. » The young researcher therefore collected the content of talk shows and journalistic articles, but also 20,000 comments on Facebook and as many on X (formerly Twitter).
Several findings emerge. First, what is widely criticized (anglicisms, conjugation errors, youth slang) is largely common. The other observation, more disturbing, concerns the identity of the scapegoat sacrificed at the altar of the “norm”: “the most mistreated participants are those who have an immigrant background, as much in the show itself than on social networks. »
Ann-Frédérick Blais’ approach notably allows her to circumvent the “observer paradox”, a universal problem in linguistics supposed to observe natural language – which is never natural when the speaker knows he is being observed, out of concern to look good. “The comments collected are natural. Among other things, this allows us to observe comments of a discriminatory nature associated with language that people would not allow if I were there. »
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