Girls and languages: a question of social prestige?

Abstract

This research work is interested in the study of the relationship between language practices and speakers' gender. Which brings it closer to the vast field of variationist sociolinguistics, whose work was mainly inaugurated by Wiliam Labov. This field, whose studies are particularly based on field surveys, defines variation "as the foundation for community practice of a language" (Boyer, 2001, p. 24). Since language is not a homogeneous and monolithic whole, several bases can be at the origin of linguistic variation; the five main factors recognized are geographical origin, socio-cultural origin, age, communication context and gender. It is therefore to this last factor that we are interested as a determinant of a certain linguistic choice but also in the linguistic imagination and its involvement in the regulation of language practices.