L'évolution du marqueur discursif like en anglais québécois

The author analyses the use of the word “like” in English in Quebec. She considers not only the frequency of use, but also the position of “like” in the syntactic structure. The author points out that although there are many studies that focus on the discourse and pragmatic functions and sociolinguistic distribution of “like”, most of them have not examined its position in the syntactic structure. Furthermore, these studies examine the use of “like” across communities in which English is the majority language. Indeed, one study showed that in Toronto, “like” use develops across the syntactic structure in a systematic way. In her study, the author set out to determine whether “like” develops in the same way in English in Quebec, where English is a minority language. She analysed the use of “like” by 39 English speakers in Quebec. She considered not only the frequency of use in each context the word was used, but also some internal factors. The inclusion of participants from Quebec City and Montreal allowed the author to demonstrate the effects of isolation on language by comparing the results of Quebec City Anglophones with those of Montreal Anglophones, the former being more likely to be isolated from everyday English than Montrealers. The results show that “like” is used less frequently in Quebec than in Toronto. Montrealers fall between Torontonians and Quebec City speakers, but their usage rate is more similar to Quebec City residents than to Torontonians. The author found that Quebec Anglophones follow the same trajectory of “like” development in the syntactic structure, but at a slower pace. Moreover, they obey the same internal constraints. The author found that sociolinguistic analysis of the data revealed some interesting effects: ethnicity, social class and age all play a role in the use of “like” among Quebec Anglophones. She concludes that isolation from mainstream English plays an important role in the use of “like” in Quebec English, not only in terms of frequency of use, but also in terms of the structural contexts in which it is used. The author concludes that the results of her study contribute not only to the general description of “like” and discourse markers in general, but also to a deeper understanding of the effects of isolation on the adoption of ongoing language change.

Master's Thesis

Université du Québec à Montréal

Montréal

2010

x-102p.

fr