BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Phonological Variation\, Perceptual Salience and Identity: The Reg
 ional French of Béarn - Damien Mooney (Oxford)
DTSTART:20110302T180000Z
DTEND:20110302T191500Z
UID:TALK29114@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Professor Mari Jones
DESCRIPTION:This research considers the interface of ‘perceptual salienc
 e’ frameworks and phonological variation in the Regional French of Béar
 n\, focusing primarily on the application of Kerswill and Williams’(2002
 ) model of long-­‐term dialect leveling and Hollmann and Siewierska’s
  (2006) model of the distributional shifting of salient phonological varia
 tion between speech styles of varying formality. These Anglo-­‐Saxon mo
 dels define broadly ‘perceptual salience’ as a characteristic of a giv
 en linguistic feature that makes it in some way cognitively and perceptual
 ly prominent to the speaker (Kerswill and Williams\, 2002: 81). The centra
 l research question is whether perceptual salience can be a good predictor
  of the loss or retention of phonological variants in Regional French by\n
 speakers of a structurally related substrate dialect\, Béarnais. Views ar
 e divided regarding the extent to which salience is conditioned by languag
 e internal (structural-­‐phonological) or extra-­‐linguistic (sociol
 inguistic\, socio-­‐demographic and social psychological) factors. In c
 omparing these standpoints\, there follows a critique of the ‘past’ mo
 dels of salience. The testable criteria provided are applied to\ndata from
  a study of short-­‐term language change in the\nRegional French of Bé
 arn\, south-­‐western France. The\ndata from this study show that the d
 istributional shifting of regional phonological variation towards the\nsta
 ndard variety behaves very differently in France. Not\nonly do structural-
 ­‐phonological factors seem to play a\nrole in the patterning of variat
 ion but the complex linguistic and sociolinguistic situation in Béarn hig
 hlights the need for the integration of social psychological in-­‐group
 /out-­‐group theories. Firstly\, it\nis suggested that there are social
  psychological correlations between the identityof the bilingual Français
 -­‐Béarnais speakers and the variety of Regional\nFrench that they are
  speaking. The idea of Regional French phonology being indexical of the re
 gional heritage language\, Béarnais\, is introduced\, illustrating\nthe c
 ognitive reality of phonological variation. Secondly\, it is hypothesised 
 that the directionality of\nthe perceptual salience model is linear (in co
 ntrast to\nKerswill and Williams’ bi-­‐ directionality proposition)\n
 and that there is no regressive causation\nbetween extra-­‐linguistic a
 nd structural phonological\nfactors. Finally\, an adapted uni-­‐directi
 onal\nthree-­‐component model of perceptual salience is\nproposed for R
 egional French which aims to avoid\ncircularity criticism by positing the 
 existence of two\nseparate types of salience. Future research\, problemati
 c\nquestions and possible methodologies\, such as the integration of acous
 tic phonetics\, will also be discussed.
LOCATION:Friends of Peterhouse Seminar Room\, Peterhouse
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR