Vera Regan

This volume explores the relationship between 'study abroad' and the acquisition of 'sociolinguistic competence' - the ability to communicate in socially appropriate ways. The volume looks at language development and use during study abroad in France by examining patterns of variation in the speech of advanced L2 speakers. Within a variationist paradigm, fine-grained empirical analyses of speech illuminate choices the L2 speaker makes in relation to their new identity, gender patterns, closeness or distance maintained in the social context in which they find themselves. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, four variable features of contemporary spoken French are analysed in a large population of advanced Irish-English speakers of French. This close-up picture provides empirical evidence by which to evaluate the wide-spread assumption that Study Abroad is highly beneficial for second language learning.

This book analyses comprehensively the complex linguistic situation in Canada focusing particularly on the position of the French language at both national and provincial levels. Language issues in Canada are of great interest to linguists and sociolinguists for many reasons, not least because of Canada's policy of official bilingualism (Official Languages Act, 1969). The authors address a wide range of topics of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of French and Linguistics as well as readers with a specialist interest in Canadian or Quebec Studies. Individual chapters discuss the historical background to the presence of French in Canada, language policy and planning at federal and provincial levels, the changing linguistic landscape of Canada in the twenty-first century, the multilingual community, language contact, code-switching, immersion education and the language of the L2 speaker, the dynamics of French in Canada, language variation and change. The status of French in Canada is of relevance to all researchers with an interest in multilingualism, a crucial issue in this era of globalisation. The authors bring their expertise as linguists to bear on a subject which is of considerable importance internationally as well as within Canada.