Language and Social Structure in Urban France

这一项目源于语言学家和社会科学家的不满，自20世纪70年代以来，随着对语言与社会关系的兴趣的增长，他们各自的学科已经疏远，相互伤害。一位社会语言学家甚至警告说，“社会语言学家的一代在社会学上是无辜和无知的”。现在大约有30%的英国研究都关注社会语言学，这种无知对法语语言学的影响令人担忧。首先，试图研究语言与社会因素（例如年龄、社会阶级）之间相互作用的社会语言学家往往受到过时方法论的束缚，这些方法论太少考虑社会学、人类学和地理学方面最近的方法论发展，因此缺乏可靠的必要的复杂性社会维度的结果。其次，社会语言学家可能会被指责未能理解自所谓的“辉煌时代”（1945- 1975）以来法国社会的变化，这是一个前所未有的经济增长时代，得到了大量公共部门投资的支持。在此期间，城市化翻了一番，不同种族的移民大量增加，性别平等开始受到重视，许多人的真实的向上流动成为可能。其后果的不利经济条件，以及新兴的后工业社会和随之而来的社会阶级的“中间化”导致了语言的变化，这可能被描述为“水平化”。但正如Hornsby（2006）所指出的，人们普遍认为，水平化意味着不可避免的同质化，这意味着法国新兴城市中心的新变化形式在很大程度上被忽视了，正如社会语言学家所探索的那样，（如在Phonologie du français contemporain（“当代法国音韵学”）项目中：PFC）偏远，语言分歧的网站（如Guézennec 2003）或主要城市郊区的贫困多民族郊区（如Jamin 2005）。许多其他的工作都集中在感知上，而不是行为上（例如Bulot 2008），或者现在重新评价的区域语言。虽然PFC项目等提供了有用的语言数据，但社会语言学方法的应用有限，对社会学背景的考虑更是有限。拟议的研究网络力求纠正这种不健康的分工，将社会语言学家、社会学家、社会人类学家和地理学家聚集在一起，讨论可能的方法接口。期望的研究成果是双重的。首先，通过研究在法国和盎格鲁-撒克逊世界中用于社会语言学和社会学研究的不同分析模型，可以更好地理解快速变化的法国社会景观。对社会语言学家来说，这将意味着发展模式，这些模式最终将得到当代社会学的适当通知，并适用于法语（而不是北美或英语）社会的具体情况。与此同时，该网络将促进使用为语言研究开发的研究结果和模型，以挑战和完善现有的社会学实践。这些将包括身份的语言和非语言概念之间的关系，语言作为阶级的“客观”和“主观”维度，以及城市网络的特点，所有这些都将为当代法国的社会科学家提供新的见解和视角，以告知他们自己的研究议程。为了提供一个准确的焦点，本次辩论，两个为期一天的研讨会和一个跨学科的会议将探讨在法国的背景下接口的社会语言学和社会学问题的问题：i）类，ii）城市化和社会结构和iii）自我和“其他”在一个全球化的社区。

This project is borne of a dissatisfaction among linguists and social scientists with the way in which, as interest in the relationship between language and society has grown since the 1970's, their respective disciplines have drifted apart to their mutual detriment. One sociolinguist has even warned of a 'sociologically innocent and ignorant generation of sociolinguists'. With around 30% of UK research now having a sociolinguistic focus, the consequences of this ignorance for French linguistics are alarming. Firstly, sociolinguists who attempt to study the interaction between language and societal factors (e.g. age, social class) are often hamstrung by outdated methodology which takes too little account of recent methodological developments in sociology, anthropology, and geography and consequently lacks the sophistication necessary for reliable results on the social dimension. Secondly, sociolinguists can be accused of failing to understand changes in French society since the so-called 'Trente Glorieuses' (1945-75), an era of unprecedented economic growth buttressed by heavy public-sector investment. During this period urbanisation doubled, the presence of racially diverse migrants increased considerably, gender parity began to be taken seriously and real upward mobility for many became possible. The less favourable economic conditions of its aftermath, and the emergent post-industrial society and concomitant 'medianisation' of social classes resulted in linguistic changes which might be described as 'levelling'. But as Hornsby (2006) has argued, the received view that levelling implies inevitable homogenization has meant that new forms of variation in France's burgeoning urban centres have been largely ignored, as sociolinguists have explored either (as in the case of the Phonologie du français contemporain ('Contemporary French Phonology') project: PFC) remote, linguistically divergent sites (e.g. Guézennec 2003) or deprived multi-ethnic banlieues on the outskirts of major cities (e.g. Jamin 2005). Much other work has focused on perceptions rather than behaviour (e.g. Bulot 2008) or on the now revalorised regional languages. While the PFC project among others has provided useful linguistic data, there has been limited application of sociolinguistic methodologies and even more limited consideration of sociological background. The proposed research network seeks to remedy this unhealthy division of labour by bringing together sociolinguists, sociologists, social anthropologists and geographers to debate possible methodological interfaces. The desired research outcomes are twofold. First, by examining the different models of analysis used for sociolinguistic and sociological research both in France and in the Anglo-Saxon world, a better understanding of the rapidly transforming French social landscape can be achieved. For sociolinguists, this will mean the development of models which are, at last, properly informed by contemporary sociology and applied to the specific conditions of francophone (rather than north American or anglophone) society. At the same time, this network will facilitate the use of findings and models developed for the study of language to challenge and refine existing sociological practice. These would include the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic conceptions of identity, language as an 'objective' and 'subjective' dimension of class, and the characteristics of urban networks, all of which will provide social scientists working on contemporary France with new insights and perspectives to inform their own research agendas. In order to provide a precise focus for this debate, two one-day workshops and an interdisciplinary conference will explore questions which interface sociolinguistic and sociological issues in the French context: i) class, ii) urbanization and social structure ana iii) the self and 'other' within a globalizing community.