La variation lexicale, ou comment nommer la nouvelle réalité

ARTICLE P AR U D ANS LA LINGUISTIQUE , VOL . 35, FASC .2, 1999 : 113-126VARIATION LEXICALE ET RECONSTRUCTION SÉMANTIQUE EN MIGRATION :1LE CAS DE FRANÇAIS EXPATRIÉS EN MILIEU ANGLO- CANADIENpar Gilles F ORLOTUPRESA CNRS 6065 - Universi té de ROUENCen tre de rech erches en édu cation franco- ontarienne (OISE/Univ ersité de TO RONTO)This article deals with bilingual competence in a situation of migration. The target population is French immigrants in Toronto, Ca nada’s largest English- speaking city. The author shows how a migrant may reconstruct the semantic composition of lexical items, particularly with words which are almost analogous in French and English. Some lexemes are either used according to the French norm (standard usage) or are included into French with the semantic features of their English counterparts (bor rowed usage). Another possibility lies in a mechanism of semic mixture, whereby the speaker uses a word which has the semantic composition of both languages, which results in the extension of its uses. All in all, these language practices, and bilingual speech as a whole, are but a reflection of the migrants’ dual cultural and linguistic identities, and of the ongoing semantic reconstruction of their linguistic competence. L A POP ULATIO N CON CERN ÉEL a recherche française s’int éresse de plus en plus aux populations immigrées de l’h exagone. L a démographie, la sociologie, l’e thnologie et la sociolinguistique (entr e autres) y ...