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Language and
Dialect Death
Theorising Sound Change
in Obsolescent Gascon
Damien Mooney
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Language and Dialect Death
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Damien Mooney
Language
and Dialect Death
Theorising Sound Change
in Obsolescent Gascon
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James Harrington
1986–2019
Patrick J. Merrigan
1963–2019
To my best friend, James, and my loving father, Pat.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha dílse.
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Contents
1
Introduction
1.1 Research Questions
1.2 Structure of the Book
References
1
6
7
10
2 Theorising Language and Dialect Death
2.1 Internal Factors
2.2 External Factors
2.2.1 Language Contact
2.2.2 Dialect Contact
2.3 Extralinguistic Factors
2.4 Language Death
2.5 Dialect Death
2.6 New Speakers
References
13
13
15
15
19
23
28
32
35
41
3
47
48
53
Research Context: Southern Gallo-Romance
3.1 The Dialectalisation of Southern Gallo-Romance
3.2 Language Contact with French in Béarn
ix
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x
4
5
Contents
3.3 The Gascon Speech Community in Béarn
3.4 The Standardisation of Occitan
3.5 Militant Language Politics in Béarn
3.6 Occitan Revitalisation in the Educational Context
References
58
60
63
65
68
Phonetic and Phonological Systems
4.1 Linguistic Background
4.1.1 Northern Occitan
4.1.2 Southern Occitan
4.1.3 Gascon
4.1.4 Occitano-Romance Supra-Dialects
4.2 Modern Phonological Inventories
4.2.1 Consonants
4.2.1.1 Syllable- and Word-Final
Consonants
4.2.2 Vowels
4.2.2.1 Stressed Oral Vowels
4.2.2.2 Vowel Length
4.2.2.3 Unstressed Oral Vowels
4.2.2.4 Vowel Nasalisation
4.2.3 Glides and Diphthongs
References
71
72
73
75
76
77
78
79
Methodological Considerations
5.1 Sampling Method
5.1.1 Fieldwork Sites
5.1.2 Informant Recruitment
5.2 Linguistic Variables
5.3 Corpus Construction
5.4 Data Analysis
5.4.1 Acoustic Analysis
5.4.2 Auditory Analysis
5.5 Data Processing
5.5.1 Normalisation
101
102
102
102
105
108
111
111
115
115
115
87
88
90
92
93
95
96
99
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Contents
xi
5.5.2 Data Coding
5.5.3 Statistical Analysis
References
118
118
121
6
Language Death: Gascon and French
6.1 The Oral Vowel System
6.1.1 Stressed Oral Vowels
6.1.2 Unstressed Oral Vowels
6.2 Transfer from French
6.2.1 Rhotics
6.2.2 Palatal Lateral
6.2.3 Voiced Plosives
6.2.4 Gender Marking
6.3 Dialect Levelling/Mixing
6.3.1 Unstressed Oral Vowels
6.3.2 Voiceless Affricate
6.3.3 Voiced Affricate
6.3.4 Voiced Apical Plosive /d/
6.3.5 Voiced Postalveolar Fricative /ʒ/
6.3.5.1 Voiceless Apical Fricative /-s/
6.4 Interim Summary and Discussion
References
123
124
124
129
133
134
136
138
142
143
143
144
145
147
148
149
150
153
7
Dialect Death: Gascon and Occitan
7.1 The Oral Vowel System
7.1.1 Stressed Oral Vowels
7.1.2 Unstressed Oral Vowels
7.2 Transfer from French
7.2.1 Rhotics
7.2.2 Palatal Lateral
7.2.3 Voiced Plosives
7.2.4 Gender Marking
7.3 Dialect Levelling
7.3.1 Unstressed Oral Vowels
7.3.2 Voiceless Affricate
7.3.3 Voiced Affricate
7.3.4 Voiced Apical Plosive /d/
155
156
156
158
161
161
164
165
167
167
168
168
169
170
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xii
Contents
7.3.5 Voiced Postalveolar Fricative /ʒ/
7.3.6 Voiceless Apical Fricative /-s/
7.4 Interim Summary and Discussion
References
171
171
172
177
8 Towards a New Theory of Language Death
8.1 Theorising Sound Change During Obsolescence
8.2 Principles of Linguistic Change During Language
Obsolescence
8.3 Principles of Linguistic Change During Language
Revitalisation
8.4 Internal, External, and Extralinguistic Factors
References
179
180
9
197
202
Conclusions
References
182
186
191
195
Appendix 1: Wordlist translation task
203
Appendix 2: Language Death Study—Supplementary Data
209
Index
219
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List of Figures
Fig. 3.1
Fig. 3.2
Fig. 5.1
Fig. 6.1
Fig. 6.2
Fig. 6.3
Fig. 7.1
Fig. 7.2
Fig. A2.1
Fig. A2.2
Fig. A2.3
The Gallo-Romance languages
The Gallo-Romance dialect areas
Sub-dialect fieldwork sites in the language death study
Stressed oral vowel system for (male and female)
Laruns speakers, normalised data
Unstressed oral vowels for (male and female) Laruns
speakers, normalised data
Unstressed oral vowels for (male and female) Arzacq
speakers, normalised data
Stressed oral vowel system for (male and female) new
speakers, normalised data
Unstressed oral vowels for (male and female) new
speakers, normalised data
Stressed oral vowel system for (male and female)
Arzacq speakers, normalised data
Stressed oral vowel system for (male and female)
Lembeye speakers, normalised data
Stressed oral vowel system for (male and female) Nay
speakers, normalised data
49
50
103
127
130
132
157
159
210
210
211
xiii
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xiv
Fig. A2.4
Fig. A2.5
Fig. A2.6
Fig. A2.7
List of Figures
Stressed oral vowel system for (male and female) Ouest
speakers, normalised data
Unstressed oral vowels for (male and female) Lembeye
speakers, normalised data
Unstressed oral vowels for (male and female) Nay
speakers, normalised data
Unstressed oral vowels for (male and female) Ouest
speakers, normalised data
211
212
212
213
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List of Tables
Table 4.1
Table 4.2
Table 5.1
Table 5.2
Table 5.3
Table 5.4
Table 6.1
Table 6.2
Table 6.3
Table 6.4
The consonantal phonemes of Occitan
Stressed oral vowels in Occitan
Native speaker participants in the language death
study
New-speaker participants in the dialect death study
Wordlist token counts by syllabic context
Variants used in auditory analysis of categorical
variables
All native speakers (normalised data): regression
analysis of F2 values for /a/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
All native speakers (normalised data): regression
analysis of F3 values for /e/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Laruns speakers (normalised data): regression
analysis of F1 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Laruns speakers (normalised data): regression
analysis of F3 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
79
89
104
105
110
116
125
125
127
128
xv
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xvi
List of Tables
Table 6.5
Table 6.6
Table 6.7
Table 6.8
Table 6.9
Table 6.10
Table 6.11
Table 6.12
Table 6.13
Table 6.14
Table 6.15
Table 6.16
Table 6.17
Table 6.18
Table 6.19
Table 6.20
Significant formant frequency differences for front
mid-vowels by place of origin
Laruns speakers (normalised data): regression
analysis of F1 values for /-e/ and /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Laruns speakers (normalised data): regression
analysis of F2 values for /-e/ and /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Significant formant frequency differences
for post-tonic vowels by place of origin
All native speakers: frequency distribution of rhotic
variable
All native speakers: regression analysis of rhotic
variable, with variants [apical] and [uvular]; ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
All native speakers: regression analysis of apical
rhotics, with variants [ɾ] and [r]; ‘speaker’ and ‘word’
as random effects
All native speakers: frequency distribution of palatal
lateral variable
All native speakers: regression analysis of palatal
lateral variable, with variants [ʎ] and [j]; ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
All native speakers: frequency distribution of voiced
bilabial plosive variable
All native speakers: regression analysis of voiced
bilabial plosive variable, with variants [plosive]
and [lenited]; ‘speaker’ and ‘word’ as random effects
All native speakers: frequency distribution of voiced
apical plosive variable
All native speakers: frequency distribution of voiced
velar plosive variable
All native speakers: regression analysis of voiced velar
plosive variable, with variants [plosive] and [lenited];
‘speaker’ and ‘word’ as random effects
All native speakers: frequency distribution of gender
marking variable
All native speakers: frequency distribution
of voiceless affricate variable
129
131
131
133
135
135
136
138
139
139
140
141
141
142
143
144
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List of Tables
Table 6.21
Table 6.22
Table 6.23
Table 6.24
Table 6.25
Table 6.26
Table 7.1
Table 7.2
Table 7.3
Table 7.4
Table 7.5
Table 7.6
Table 7.7
All native speakers: regression analysis of voiceless
affricate variable, with variants [plosive]
and [affricate]; ‘speaker’ and ‘word’ as random effects
All native speakers: frequency distribution of voiced
affricate variable
All native speakers: regression analysis of voiced
affricate variable, with variants [palatal]
and [postalveolar]; ‘speaker’ and ‘word’ as random
effects
All native speakers: regression analysis of voiced
apical plosive variable, with variants [apical]
and [palatalised]; ‘speaker’ and ‘word’ as random
effects
All native speakers: frequency distribution of voiced
postalveolar fricative variable
All native speakers: frequency distribution
of voiceless apical fricative variable
New speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F1 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
All (native and new) speakers (normalised
data): Regression analysis of F1 values for /a/,
with ‘speaker’ and ‘word’ as random effects
New speakers (normalised data): Regression analysis
of F1 values for /-e/ and /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
New speakers (normalised data): Regression analysis
of F2 values for /-e/ and /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
New speakers (normalised data): Regression analysis
of F1 values for /-O/, with ‘speaker’ and ‘word’
as random effects
New speakers: Regression analysis of rhotic variable,
with variants [apical] and [uvular]; ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
New speakers: Regression analysis of apical rhotics,
with variants [ɾ] and [r]; ‘speaker’ and ‘word’
as random effects
xvii
145
146
146
148
149
150
157
158
160
160
161
162
163
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xviii
List of Tables
Table 7.8
Table A2.1
Table A2.2
Table A2.3
Table A2.4
Table A2.5
Table A2.6
Table A2.7
Table A2.8
Table A2.9
Table A2.10
Table A2.11
Table A2.12
New speakers: Regression analysis of palatal
lateral variable, with variants [ʎ] and [j]; ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Arzacq speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F1 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Arzacq speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F2 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Arzacq speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F3 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Lembeye speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F1 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Lembeye speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F2 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Lembeye speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F3 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Nay speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F1 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Ouest speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F1 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Ouest speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F3 values for /e/ and /E/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Lembeye speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F2 values for /-e/ and /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Nay speakers (normalised data): Regression analysis
of F1 values for /-e/ and /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
Nay speakers (normalised data): Regression analysis
of F2 values for /-e/ and /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
164
213
213
214
214
214
215
215
215
216
216
216
217
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List of Tables
Table A2.13
Table A2.14
Table A2.15
Ouest speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F2 values for /-e/ and /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
All native speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F2 values for /-e/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
All native speakers (normalised data): Regression
analysis of F2 values for /-O/, with ‘speaker’
and ‘word’ as random effects
xix
217
217
218
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1
Introduction
The analysis of language obsolescence and death was formalised as an
independent line of enquiry within the discipline of sociolinguistics with
the publication of Dorian’s (1981) Language Death. Dorian’s examination of East Sutherland Gaelic (ESG) provided the first comprehensive
and extended theoretical account of language contraction and death by
advancing not only a means of classifying the sociolinguistic profiles of
the speakers of obsolescent languages, but by also advancing data-driven
principles that provided a theoretical reference point against which to
examine the nature of linguistic changes occurring in dying languages
during language shift. Taking inspiration from the theoretical framework
established by Dorian and the work of other scholars in the field (e.g.,
Schmidt 1985; Dressler 1982; Campbell and Muntzell 1989), Jones
(1998) examined linguistic change in two sociolinguistically contrasting
Welsh communities, allowing her not only to test and confirm many
of Dorian’s predictions about that nature of linguistic change during
obsolescence, but also to establish new theoretical constructs that firmly
situated the study of language death within discipline of sociolinguistics. Both studies prioritised data-driven theorisation of the linguistic
1
D. Mooney, Language and Dialect Death,
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D. Mooney
and social processes of language obsolescence rather than simply documenting the language varieties in question. Taking inspiration from both
of these seminal studies, this monograph seeks to advance the study of
language obsolescence and death by integrating firmly into the analysis
theories and methods from variationist sociolinguistics, often referred to
as language variation and change (LVC) sociolinguistics. This approach
aims to explore the interface between the linguistic processes and mechanisms active during language death by setting quantitative findings
within the context of well-established variationist theories of language
contact and language change.
This study will make a formal distinction, at least initially, between
the processes of linguistic change, and the mechanisms which comprise
those processes that may potentially occur during, on the one hand,
language death, and, on the other, dialect death (see Chapter 2). The case
study will focus on Gascon, the indigenous southern Gallo-Romance
variety historically spoken in southwestern France, and more specifically on the variety of Gascon spoken in the region of Béarn. Under
pressure from French, Gascon has been largely ousted from its territory
via the socio-political process of language shift, whereby members of a
speech community cease to speak their indigenous language in favour of
an incoming dominant language, a progressive process which eventually
leads to language death, where the obsolescent language is eliminated
completely. Gascon is at an advanced stage of this process, making its
remaining speakers excellent candidates for the study of language obsolescence. During the process of language death, Gascon is undergoing
two different types of linguistic change: externally motivated changes
occurring in all sub-dialects as a result of contact with French and
changes hypothesised to be due to dialect mixing or levelling between
sub-dialects of the language (see Chapter 6). Additionally, the variety of
Gascon spoken in Béarn lends itself to the study of dialect death in that
it is a specific localised dialect of Gascon and, in turn, a dialect of the
larger langue d’oc continuum which covers the southern third of France.
Since the 1960s, Gascon has also been under threat at a subordinate level
from the standardised langue d’oc variety ‘Occitan’, which has succeeded
in securing a monopoly on the (limited) institutional and educational
space available to regional languages in the south of France. Since the
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1 Introduction
3
1980s, private Calandretas, or Occitan immersion education schools,
have offered bilingual education in Occitan at primary school level.
Together with the increasing availability of adult education in Occitan,
the revitalisation movement has led to a perceived cleavage in Gascony
between the speech of older Gascon speakers and the Occitan-educated,
‘néo-locuteurs’ (literally, ‘new speakers’). These linguistic differences are a
result of the process of dialect obsolescence, whereby a specific localised
variety is replaced by a non-local variety of the same language, which
leads to dialect death. The presence of Occitan in the region therefore
constitutes a complicating factor in this study of obsolescence, in that
the dying language, Gascon, is itself subject to potential encroachment
from the artificial standard.
While comprehensive sociolinguistic studies of language and dialect
death exist for Celtic languages in the United Kingdom (Dorian 1981;
Jones 1998), quantitative research on obsolescent languages in the Francophone context is much more limited. France’s regional and minority
languages (RMLs), the so-called langues de France (literally, ‘languages
of France’), are relatively well documented and have been examined
from a sociolinguistic perspective but the focus of these studies if often
on describing the contexts in which the languages are used (e.g., Jones
1995 on Breton) or on abstract theorising about issues of authenticity,
ideology, and speaker motivation (e.g., Costa and Gasquet-Cyrus 2013
on Provençal; Pivot and Bert 2017 on Francoprovençal). Relatively
recent efforts on the part of predominantly English-speaking scholars
have aimed to address the lack of quantitative variationist research on
the langues de France. In particular, Jones has produced a wealth of
quantitative literature on the varieties of Norman spoken in France and
on the Channel Islands (e.g., Jones 2001, 2008, 2015), Pooley (1996)
and Hornsby (2006a) have published quantitative data on Picard, and
a Special Issue of the Journal of French Language Studies (Hall et al.
2019) entitled ‘Langues régionales: models and methods’ included articles
on sentential negation in Gallo (Burnett 2019), interrogatives in Picard
(Auger and Villeneuve 2019), morphosyntactic and morphophonological variation in Breton (Kennard 2019), metathesis of aspiration in
Basque (Egurtzegi 2019), and palatal laterals in Occitan and Catalan
(Mooney and Hawkey 2019). While these scholars, who have also
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4
D. Mooney
published elsewhere on France’s RMLs, have gone some way towards
filling a much needed gap, all of these studies suffer from at least one
of two limitations: either they lack the methodological rigour, in the
form of instrumental analysis and statistical modelling, that is required
in modern variationist sociolinguistics, or they lack the space, depth of
study, and scope to address complex theoretical issues relating to the
interface between language contact and dialect contact in these dying
languages. The case study of Gascon presented in this monograph will
employ quantitative instrumental and statistical analysis to investigate
these key theoretical issues in the study of obsolescence.
France’s regional languages offer an excellent opportunity to study the
theoretical processes of language and dialect death, and the relationship
between them, particularly in southern regions where localised varieties
are both dying out as a result of contact with French and being revitalised in the form of Occitan. In Gascony, and elsewhere in the south
of France, the language varieties in contact (French, standard Occitan,
local langue d’oc dialects and sub-dialects) are also more typologically
similar than, for example, English and Welsh, and, since typological similarity is often considered to permit higher levels of linguistic transfer,
this context will provide a fresh theoretical perspective on the mechanisms involved in linguistic change during obsolescence as a result of
different types of contact. Formal analyses of the variety of Gascon
spoken in Beárn are rare, the most recent of which can be found in two
studies (Marchal and Moreux 1989; Kristol and Wüest 1986), which are
descriptive rather than explanatory and provide no theoretical discussion of the processes of obsolescence active in the variety. There is thus
a need to further document inter-dialectal and macro-level variation and
change in Gascon while it still exists and to establish the factors conditioning these linguistic developments, with the aim of investigating the
relationship between the processes of language and dialect death and of
examining the implications of this relationship for variationist theories
of language and dialect contact.
Language obsolescence is often assumed to proceed along a defined
structural path that is that certain linguistic levels are affected by
processes of linguistic change in a defined order. The factors influencing
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1 Introduction
5
these changes are often seen to be external or contact-induced but attrition at particular linguistic levels may also mirror the acquisition of those
features during childhood. The hypothesis that language loss follows a
defined structural path has been formalised in what is commonly referred
to as the ‘structured obsolescence hypothesis’, which, in its strictest form,
predicts that the lexicon is affected first, followed by phonology, syntax,
and finally morphology (Dauzat 1927: 49–57). Dauzat (1927) referred
to morphology as the citadelle de la langue (‘bastion of the language’),
stating that this level is least affected by the processes of language obsolescence; this hypothesis has indeed been confirmed by later sociolinguistic
studies such as Dorian (1978: 608) who argued that, at least with respect
to some linguistic features, Gaelic in East Sutherland was dying ‘with its
morphological boots on’. On the contrary, Hornsby (2006b) examined
evidence for the structured obsolescence hypothesis by investigating the
retention and loss of Picard linguistic transfer in the regional French of
Avion, concluding that the hypothesis was a ‘myth’ because he found
‘no relationship between phonological and morphological change which
would be consistent with the level-by-level obsolescence predicated by
the model’ (2006b: 134). In an effort to examine in more depth the
extent to which morphology is subject to contact-induced change, Jones
(2018) applied Myers-Scotton’s Abstract Level and 4-M models (MyersScotton 2002; Myers-Scotton and Jake 2017) to Norman data from
Jersey (Jèrriais) in order to investigate, among other things, ‘whether
different morpheme types of Jèrriais are related to the production process
in different ways and are, accordingly, more or less susceptible to change
during the process of language obsolescence’ (2018: 399). This approach
had the added advantage of setting the study of language obsolescence
firmly within a theoretical framework that was developed outside of the
discipline of language death, in this case code-switching in bilingual
speech. Jones’ (2018) analysis of Jèrriais has shown that, even within
the morphological level, contact-induced transfer from English affects
different morpheme types in a relatively well-defined order, thus lending
support, in even more depth, to the structured obsolescence hypothesis.
This monograph will provide a detailed comparative quantitative analysis of phonetic and phonological changes in Gascon that are motivated
by the processes of both language and dialect death. This approach will
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6
D. Mooney
have the advantage of exploring in much more depth the effect of obsolescence at the level of phonology, while at the same time investigating
the linguistic phenomenon that has since its inception been the focus
of variationist sociolinguistic theory: sound change. Previous European
dialectological studies have been criticised, by Labov (2007: 348), for
their tendency to analyse the transfer of ‘well-known’ features from one
language to another in an ‘X is replaced by Y’ fashion, rather than investigating evidence for new phonetic and phonological changes in progress.
The Gascon study will, of course, examine contact-induced transfer from
French but, at the same time, the phonetic and phonological analysis
provided will seek to identify changes occurring independently within
the language, either due to contact with other dialects of the langue d’oc
or due to internally motivated sound change, integrating the study of
obsolescence firmly within a variationist theoretical framework.
1.1
Research Questions
Traditional sociolinguistic studies of language obsolescence and death
have not fully exploited the variationist sociolinguistic toolkit in their
analysis and, at least to some extent, have focused on developing a
theory of language death that is independent of well-established theories
of language contact and, to a greater extent, of a wealth of variationist theorisation on the processes and mechanisms of language change
more generally. Theorisation within the discipline of language death
has focused, among other things, on impressionistic comparisons with
‘healthy’ languages, compression of the time scale for change, speaker
profiles, and the effects of obsolescence on different linguistic levels.
With the exception perhaps of Jones (1998), the interface between
language death and dialect death and their relationship to wider processes
of language and dialect contact and change warrants further exploration, particularly in the Francophone context. Adopting a variationist
approach, and focusing on the theorisation of linguistic change processes
that are due to different types of contact (as well as the interface between
these processes), this monograph will seek to answer the following
research questions:
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1 Introduction
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1. What phonetic and phonological changes are occurring in obsolescent
Gascon as a result of contact with French?
2. To what extent is phonetic and phonological change in Gascon the
result of levelling between its localised sub-dialects?
3. What effect has revitalisation in the form of Occitan had on the
phonological structure and phonetic realisation of Gascon?
These research questions will be addressed in two sub-studies. Firstly,
the language death study (Chapter 6), which will address questions 1
and 2, will examine vocalic and consonantal variation and change in
the speech of older native Gascon speakers from five fieldwork sites
in the region of Béarn. Secondly, the dialect death study (Chapter 7)
will examine the speech of L2 Occitan speakers, or néo-locuteurs, from
Béarn, again examining research questions 1 and 2, but also providing
a detailed phonological and phonetic comparison with the results of the
older native speakers in the language death study, in order to respond
to research question 3. Together, these two sub-studies will furnish a
detailed comprehensive analysis of the processes and mechanisms of
linguistic change active in Gascon as a result of contact with French,
contact between sub-dialects of Gascon, and contact with standardised
Occitan. The results of these studies will not only, in Chapter 8, permit
an exploration of the interface between language and dialect death but
will, crucially, form the basis of the first theoretical analysis of obsolescence in southern Gallo-Romance by setting these findings within the
context of well-established variationist theories of language and dialect
contact and change.
1.2
Structure of the Book
Through an examination of the processes and mechanisms of linguistic
change active in Gascon during both language and dialect obsolescence,
this book offers a unique comparison of the differential outcomes of
each contact situation for phonological variation and sound change in
Gascon, with two sub-studies addressing L1 Gascon and L2 Occitan
speakers respectively.
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8
D. Mooney
Chapter 2 provides a detailed account of the various factors (internal,
external, extralinguistic) that condition language variation and change,
focusing on the issue of causation. This discussion draws on wider variationist theories of language contact, dialect contact, and linguistic change
before outlining the potential implications of these theories for studying
the structural linguistic consequences of language and dialect death. This
chapter also explores the extent to which the processes of language and
dialect obsolescence (and language and dialect contact) can be considered independently in situations where a minority language is at once
undergoing contraction at the hands of a dominant national language
and revitalisation in the form of a standard variety, focusing on the role
of new speakers.
Chapter 3 comprises an external history of the dialectalisation of
Gallo-Romance, focusing on Gascon and, in particular, on the Béarnais sub-dialect of Gascon, which attests the highest number of native
speakers. The sociolinguistic profile of the extant Béarnais speech
community is discussed in detail before turning the Occitan revitalisation movement and, in particular, the implications of this movement
for the Béarnais speech community. This discussion examines the Calandreta immersion education schools and adult education initiatives that
have, since the 1980s, produced new speakers of Gascon (in the form
of Occitan) in Béarn. This chapter will thus provide a comprehensive
overview of the internal, external, and extralinguistic factors that have
influenced and may influence language change in Béarnais.
Chapter 4 provides a detailed historical and synchronic account of the
vocalic and consonantal inventories of standard Occitan, making detailed
reference to the phonetic realisation of these phonological structures in
non-standardised Gascon and providing detailed comparisons between
Gascon and the other principal dialects of southern Gallo-Romance. This
chapter also provides a comprehensive overview of sub-dialectal variation within the region of Gascony and, more specifically, within the
region of Béarn, where high levels of sub-dialectal variation are attested.
This chapter furnishes a solid comparative baseline against which to
assess current trajectories of linguistic change identified in the studies
of Gascon presented in the language and dialect death sub-studies.
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1 Introduction
9
Chapter 5 focuses on methodology, presenting two studies which
explicitly address the research questions discussed above, and outlines
the methodology employed in the empirical analysis of variation and
change in Gascon. The chapter outlines the phonological and phonetic
variables that will constitute the focus of the analyses, as well as information pertaining to data collection (fieldwork site selection, informant
sampling, corpus construction) and data analysis (acoustic phonetic techniques, auditory coding, statistical analysis). The language and dialect
death studies are both sociophonetic in nature, involving primarily an
acoustic phonetic analysis with rigorous adherence both to analytic
best practices and to a Labovian variationist sociolinguistic research
methodology.
Chapter 6 presents the results of the language death study, which
investigates two different types of linguistic change occurring in Gascon:
those changes occurring in all sub-dialects suspected to be due to influence from French and changes hypothesised to be due to dialect mixing
or levelling between sub-dialects in Béarn. Using wordlist translation
data collected from 30 older native Gascon speakers, the investigation
of the first type of change focuses on the points at which it diverges
structurally from French; secondly, the analysis of variables whose realisation traditionally differs according to geographical location in Béarn
will examine levelling and dialect mixing, as forms from the central area
of the region may be adopted to replace peripheral forms. This chapter
also examines the applicability of current models of language obsolescence, language contact, and language change (outlined in Chapter 2) to
the linguistic transfer and dialect mixing observed.
Chapter 7 examines the processes of linguistic change active in Gascon
as it is subjected to varying levels of standardisation as part of the Occitan
revitalisation movement, investigating, in detail, phonetic and phonological variation and change in the speech of ten ‘new speakers’ who
have acquired Gascon in the Occitan-dominated educational context.
The analysis begins by comparing variation and change in the speech
of the new speakers with the speech of the older native speakers examined in Chapter 6, examining evidence for contact-induced transfer from
French, for the retention of traditionally localised phonological features
and for the acquisition of linguistic features that have survived the dialect
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10
D. Mooney
levelling process. The acoustic phonetic findings are interpreted with
reference both to theories of dialect contact, such as supralocalisation,
and to the recent theorisation of the role of the néo-locuteur or ‘new
speaker’ in minority language situations.
Chapter 8 assesses the implications of the empirical findings of the
language and dialect death studies for current theories of language and
dialect contact and change, before outlining the basis for a new theory
of language death. The theoretical discussion addresses the differential outcomes of externally motivated linguistic changes arising from a
variety of contact situations to which the dying language is exposed.
This chapter attempts to formalise the differences between language and
dialect obsolescence, insofar as such as distinction can be made, both in
terms of the linguistic mechanisms active in each context and the sociopolitical circumstances that give rise to their existence. Crucially, this
chapter examines the commonalities between language and dialect obsolescence, and the interface between them, focusing on situations in which
the dominant language (French) and the standard language (Occitan)
may act in tandem as external motivators of linguistic change.
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