Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T09:29:53.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dialect Topography of Québec City English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

J.K. Chambers  and
Troy Heisler
J.K. Chambers
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Troy Heisler
Affiliation:
Université Laval
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Québec City has had an anglophone community for 250 years. A representative sample of this community was surveyed using the methods known as Dialect Topography. The analysis establishes the distinctiveness of Québec City English but at the same time shows that it is firmly planted in the Canadian English speech community. It is shown that there are significant correlations with three social factors: (1) Language Use Index, which allows a calculation of the extent of each respondent’s use of English in the francophone setting; (2) age, the principal correlate of changes in progress; and (3) Regionality Index, which separates indigènes, the natives of the region, from interlopers, recent arrivals. Although the results show that the distinctiveness may be threatened by the persistence of interloper variants, in most respects Québec City English favours the same variants as the rest of Canada, albeit with different frequencies and often with a unique historical development.

Résumé

Résumé

Un sondage a été effectué auprès d’un échantillon représentatif de la communauté anglophone de la ville de Québec en utilisant la méthodologie de la Topographie de dialecte. L’analyse des résulats établit le caractère distinct de l’anglais parlé à Québec mais fait également ressortir son appartenance à la communauté linguistique canadienne-anglaise. L’accent est mis sur des corrélations significatives avec trois facteurs sociaux: (1) l’Index d’utilisation de la langue, qui permet un calcul de l’emploi de l’anglais pour chaque répondant; (2) l’âge, le corrélat principal des changements en cours; et (3) l’Index de régionalité, qui sépare les locuteurs nés dans la région des nouveaux arrivants. Quoique les résultats montrent que le caractère distinct de l’anglais de la ville de Québec peut être menacé par la persistance des variantes dues aux nouveaux arrivants, dans la plupart des cas les mêmes variantes que celles du reste du Canada sont favorisées, mais avec des fréquences différentes et souvent avec un développement historique distinct.

Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 23 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chambers, J.K. 1994. An introduction to dialect topography. English World-Wide 15:35–53.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1995. The Canada-U.S. border as a vanishing isogloss: The case of chesterfield . Journal of English Linguistics 23:155–166.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1998a. Social embedding of changes in progress. Journal of English Linguistics 26:5–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1998b. Inferring dialect from a postal questionnaire. Journal of English Linguistics 26:222–246.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K., and Heisler, Troy. 1998. Social factors in Québec City English. Papers in Sociolinguistics; NWAVE-26 à l’Université Laval, ed. Paradis, Claude, Vincent, Diane, Deshaies, Denise, and Laforest, Marty, 19–29. Québec: Éditions Nota bene.Google Scholar
Creswell, Thomas J. 1994. Dictionary recognition of developing forms: The case of snuck . In Centennial Usage Studies, PADS 78, ed. Little, Greta D. and Montgomery, Michael, 144–154. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Ellen. 1996. Lexical change and variation in the Southeastern United States 1930-1990. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Joy, Richard J. 1972. Languages in conflict: The Canadian experience. Carleton Library No. 61. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Lachapelle, Réjean, and Henripin, Jacques. 1982. The demolinguistic situation in Canada: Past trends and future prospects. Montréal: Institute for Research on Public Policy.Google Scholar
Labov, William 1994. Principles of linguistic change: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mougeon, Raymond, Brent-Palmer, Cora, Bélanger, Monique, and Cichocki, Wladyslaw. 1980. Le français parlé en situation minoritaire, Vol. 1. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education.Google Scholar
Rand, David, and Sankoff, David. 1990. GoldVarb version 2: A variable rule application for Macintosh. Centre de recherches mathématiques, Université de Montréal.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David. 1988. Variable rules. In Sociolinguistics: An international handbook of the science of language and society, Vol. 2, ed. Ammon, Ulrich, Dittmar, Norbert, and Mattheier, Klaus J., 984–997. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Statistics Canada. 1996. Census nation tables: Population by mother tongue: Québec City metropolitan area. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada. [http://www.statcan.ca]Google Scholar
Young, Richard, and Bayley, Robert. 1996. VARBRUL analysis for second language acquisition research. In Second language acquisition and linguistic variation, ed. Bayley, Robert and Preston, Dennis R., 253–306. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeller, Christine. 1990. Dialect variants from Toronto to Milwaukee. M.A. thesis, University of Toronto.Google Scholar