The Oxford Handbook of the French Language

Wendy Ayres-Bennett is Emerita Professor of French Philology and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. She has published widely on the history of French, sociohistorical linguistics, and the history of linguistic thought, and, more recently, on language standardization and language policy and planning. She was Principal Investigator (2016-2021) on the AHRC-funded multi-disciplinary research project, Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies, which promoted the value of languages for key issues of our time and explored the benefits of language learning for individuals and societies. An AHRC-funded follow-on project Promoting Language Policy provided research-based evidence for moving languages higher up the political agenda.Mairi McLaughlin is Professor in the Department of French and an Affiliated Member of the Departments of Linguistics and Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in French/Romance Linguistics and in Translation Studies. She has published extensively on language contact in French and Romance, on the language of the media, and on journalistic and literary translation. She has held visiting positions at Balliol College, Oxford and at Paris VIII. Her research has been funded by the UC Humanities Research Institute, the France Berkeley Fund, the Hellman Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation.

True to its title, this volume represents an ambitious undertaking whose chapters encompass a wide range of topics related to the linguistic analysis of French varieties. Although no single work can offer an exhaustive view of an entire field (plus subfields) of inquiry, the contents of this volume—wider in scope and less narrowly defined than a number of recent handbooks dedicated to French-admirably survey much of the French linguistics terrain [...] highlights include the treatment of French as a collection of varieties rather than a monolithic standard, the frequent emphasis on multilingualism and language contact, discussions of recent and ongoing linguistic innovations (e.g., inclusive language, newly created prepositions), and the inclusion of emerging or relatively recent areas of inquiry (e.g., digital discourse) alongside classic topics.

• Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Mairi McLaughlin: French and its varieties: Disciplinary perspectives and new horizons Part I. Structures of French 1: Elisabeth Delais-Roussarie: Phonetics, phonology, and orthography 2: Mairi McLaughlin: Morphology and syntax 3: Richard Huyghe and Dominique Legallois: Semantics and pragmatics Part II. History of French 4: Philippe Caron: External history of French 5: Wendy Ayres-Bennett: Language policy and planning 6: Olivia Walsh and Douglas Kibbee: Metalinguistic texts 7: Thomas Rainsford: Historical phonetics, phonology, and orthography 8: Sophie Prévost: Historical morphology and syntax 9: Sabine Lehmann: Historical semantics and pragmatics Part III. Axes of variation 10: Nigel Armstrong: Age, gender, and social class 11: Jenelle Thomas: Register, genre, text type 12: Janice Carruthers: Spoken French 13: Rachel Panckhurst, Louise-Amélie Cougnon, and Cédrick Fairon: French digital discourse Part IV. French around the world 14: Mathieu Avanzi: Regional variation in the French of France 15: André Thibault: Francophonie 16: Isabelle Racine: French in Europe 17: Barbara E. Bullock and Randall Gess: French in North America 18: Béatrice Akissi Boutin and Augustin Emmanuel Ebongue: French in Africa Part V. French in contact with other languages 19: Maya Angela Eipe Smith: Multilingualism 20: Georg Kremnitz and Fañch Broudic: French and the languages of France 21: Nicolas Froeliger and Rudy Loock: Translation and interpreting 22: Thomas A. Klingler: Creoles Part VI. Second language acquisition 23: Richard Kern: Where, when, and how French is learned 24: Sylvain Detey: Acquiring phonetics and phonology 25: Dalila Ayoun: Acquiring morphology and syntax 26: Henry Tyne and Martin Howard: Acquiring lexical, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic competence Part VII. French in literature, culture, arts, and the media 27: Sophie Marnette: French language and literature in the Middle Ages 28: Gilles Siouffi: Early Modern French language and literature 29: Laurence Rosier: Contemporary French language and literature 30: Michaël Abecassis: French language and cinema 31: Claire Lesacher: French language and vocal music 32: Marcel Burger: French and the media