View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository Language attitudes of Québécois students towards le français québécois standard and le franco-québécois Amie Kraus A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Linguistics. Chapel Hill 2006 Approved by Advisor: Dr. David Mora-Marín Reader: Dr. Laura Janda Reader: Dr. Paul Roberge ABSTRACT Amie Kraus: Language attitudes of Québécois students towards le français québécois standard and le franco-québécois (Under the direction of Dr. David Mora-Marín) The many language attitude studies which have been conducted in the province of Québec over the past fifty years have revealed that the linguistic attitudes and beliefs of the Québécois towards both English and specific varieties of French have changed considerably. The purpose of the present study was to determine the current language attitudes of Québécois students towards standard Québec French and towards a colloquial variety of Québec French, le franco-québécois. In spite of the significant shift in language attitudes in Québec’s recent history, the results of this study were comparable to those of a similar study conducted three decades ago by Méar-Crine and Leclerc. In both studies, the majority of Québécois participants indicated a preference for the standard variety of Québec French. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are several people whom I wish to thank who have greatly contributed to this study in a variety of ways. From the linguistics department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. David Mora-Marín, for his many helpful suggestions regarding the survey and the write-up. I also want to thank Dr. Paul Roberge and Dr. Laura Janda for reviewing this thesis and for their constructive comments. Many thanks go to Vincent Lagace for graciously offering his time to look over the survey, for giving his opinions as a native Québécois regarding the wording of survey questions and their multiple choice answers, and for helping to find sound clips which could be used in section 3 of the survey. I am also very grateful to Franck Dalmas from the French Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for spending time proofreading and correcting the French version of the survey and consent form before they were posted online. Professor Karim Larose from the Université de Montréal was very helpful in providing information regarding the terms used by linguists to refer to the two varieties of Québec French pertinent to this study; and I wish to thank Rosette d’Aragon for her contacting professors in Québec on my behalf and for her willingness to help. Special thanks go to Dr. Lawrence Rosenfeld and the others at the Behavioral Institutional Review Board at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for reviewing and approving this study (IRB study #06-0093) as well as all of its modifications. I would also like to thank Teresa Edwards of the Odum Institute for providing valuable suggestions on the set-up of the survey as well as helping to set up the sound files online. Another thank you iii goes to Michelle Temple, also from the Odum Institute, for taking the time to teach me how to use the ZPro program; and Dr. Catherine Zimmer, also from the Odum Institute, provided direction with the analysis of the data and was available to answer my questions. I would also like to thank Odum statistics lab attendants Ryan Bakker and Heather Krull for help with the analysis and Scott Hajek from the psychology department for meeting to discuss computer survey programs. I gratefully acknowledge the 126 students who voluntarily participated in the study: this study wouldn’t have been possible without them; and special thanks go to those students who also offered their feedback afterwards. A thank you goes to the departments of several Québécois universities who forwarded the recruitment message to these students as well. I am also indebted to Professor Natalia Dankova of l’Université du Québec en Outaouais for her supplying background information to keep in mind when reading and analyzing participants’ responses. I also thank Danielle Thibault and Radio Canada for permission to use an excerpt from C’est bien meilleur le matin as well as Patrice Demers of GeneX communications for permission to use an excerpt from one of ChoiFM’s broadcasts. Last but certainly not least, I would also like to thank my family for their prayers and support, and I am grateful to my friends who also kept this project on their prayer list. The most thanks goes to the One Who gives strength and ability to accomplish all things. (Note: The author claims full responsibility for any inaccuracies which might be present in this work.) iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES..................................................................................... .vii INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. ....1 CHAPTER 1 Sociolinguistics and Language Attitude Studies............................................ ....3 1.1 Introduction............................................................................ ....3 1.2 The role of language attitude studies in sociolinguistics ..........4 1.3 Origins of language attitude studies....................................... ..10 1.4 Methods available for language attitude studies.................... ..13 1.5 Summary................................................................................ ..18 2 History, Language, and Language Attitudes in Québec................................ ..20 2.1 Introduction............................................................................ ..20 2.2 History......................................................................................20 2.3 Linguistic insecurity and the emergence of a standard Québec French.................................................................................... ..28 2.4 Summary................................................................................ ..30 3 Previous Language Attitude Studies in Québec............................................. ..32 3.1 Introduction............................................................................ ..32 3.2 Studies of Québécois language attitudes towards English and French.................................................................................... ..32 v 3.3 Studies comparing attitudes towards varieties of French...... ..38 3.4 Summary................................................................................ ..48 4 The Current Study: Methods and Results...................................................... ..50 4.1 Introduction............................................................................ ..50 4.2 The current study................................................................... ..50 4.3 General results....................................................................... ..54 4.4 Results according to groups................................................... ..87 4.5 Summary................................................................................ ..95 CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................... ..96 APPENDIX A........................................................................................................................ ..98 APPENDIX B........................................................................................................................ 114 APPENDIX C........................................................................................................................ 129 APPENDIX D........................................................................................................................ 131 REFERENCES...................................................................................................................... 132 vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table Page 1. Language patterns in Bourhis and Genesee’s scenarios………………………………... ..36 2. Speaker rating means………………………………………………………………….... ..73 3. Results for agree-disagree statements…………………………………………….…….. ..82 4. Anglicism responses according to SES group………………………………………….. ..92 5. Perdu(e) and écarté(e) scenario (least formal) responses according to SES group……. ..92 Figure 1. Former Provinces of France……………………………………………………….…..... ..21 2. Quality of Québécois music……………………………………………………….……. ..55 3. Quality of Québécois film………………………………………………………………. ..55 4. Neighborhood French ratings…………………………………………………………... ..60 5. Anglicism usage……………………………………………………………………….... ..61 6. Responses for self-reported language use, group 1………………………………………….........65 7. Responses for self-reported language use, group 2…………………………………….. ..66 8. Responses for self-reported language use, group 3…………………………………….. ..67 9. Responses for self-reported language use, group 4…………………………………….. ..68 10. Map of Québec…………………………………………….…………………………... ..69 11. Speaker ratings for self-assuredness…………………………………………………... ..73 12. Speaker ratings for firmness…………………………………………………………... ..74 13. Positive rating percentage for speaker ratings………………………………………… ..76 14. Speaker occupation ratings………………………………………………………….… ..77 vii 15. Language use and occupations………………………………………………………… ..81 16. Franco-québécois