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Sociolinguistic Discontinuity in Minority Language Communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Raymond Mougeon and
Terry Nadasdi
Raymond Mougeon*
Affiliation:
York University
Terry Nadasdi*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
*
Raymond Mougeon, Département d’études françaises, York University, Ross Building, 4700 Keele, Toronto, Ont., Canada M3J 1P3 [rmougeon@yorku.ca]
Terry Nadasdi, Modern Languages & Cultural Studies University of Alberta Edmonton, Alb., Canada T6G 2E1 [terry.nadasdi@ualberta.ca]
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Abstract

We discuss the Labovian view of the speech community against the backdrop of data from research on variation in minority languages. While members of the same speech community normally share a set of norms for social and stylistic constraints on variation and normally share a common grammar, a number of researchers have noted that some speech communities include subgroups of speakers that are unlike the rest of the community in that they observe different rules or constraints on variable usage. We provide an overview of the main types of discontinuities in variable usage which have been attested both in majority and minority languages and discuss twelve cases of discontinuity which have been documented in the speech of Franco-Ontarian adolescents residing in minority Francophone communities. We also attempt to account for the existence of these discontinuities and consider their implications for the concept of the speech community.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 74 , Issue 1 , March 1998, pp. 40 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by Linguistic Society of America

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