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The expression of evidentiality in French-English bilingual discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 1999

RUTH KING  and
TERRY NADASDI
RUTH KING
Affiliation:
Dept. of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics, York University, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada, rking@yorku.ca
TERRY NADASDI
Affiliation:
Dept. of Modern Languages & Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E1, Canada, terry.nadasdi@ualberta.ca
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Abstract

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This study, drawing on data from a large sociolinguistic interview corpus for three Acadian communities of Atlantic Canada, concerns codeswitches involving verbs of opinion or belief (e.g. guess, think, imagine, believe) in French-English bilingual discourse. The codeswitch itself serves to underscore the speaker's stance as to the truth of the proposition – and, in some cases, to indicate a degree of uncertainty not nuanced by corresponding French language forms. Variation in usage is related to intensity of language contact at the levels of the community and of the individual.

Keywords

code-switchingdiscourse analysisevidentialityquantitative sociolinguisticsCanadaAcadianFrench
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 1999 , pp. 355 - 365
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press