2025/01/01 by Jamie Root, Alisha Reaves · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · doi:10.7202/1124694ar
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/05/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Prior research on discourse marker use in Louisiana French suggests that discourse markers borrowed from English generally predominate in Francophone Louisiana. However, regional variation has largely been ignored. An analysis of interviews with 16 native speakers of Louisiana French in two regions of Louisiana found a statistically significant regional effect on the distribution of the discourse markers so and ça fait . These results demonstrate not only that the influence of English on the Louisiana French discourse marker system has been overstated, but also that treating French in Louisiana as a homogeneous variety can lead to misleading conclusions.