Étude De La Variation Sociolinguistique Dans L’emploi De ‘On’ Et L’omission Du ‘Ne’ Dans Le Parler Des Apprenants De Licence Au Département De Français De L’université De Cape Coast

Abstract

This study examines the effect of linguistic and extralinguistic factorson the variable deletion of the French pre-verbal particle ‘ne’ and the variable use of ‘on’ as a first person plural pronoun in the oral discourse offinal year students of French. The instruments for data collection used were questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaires were used to collect demographic information about the respondents while the interviews, which bothered on daily issues, were designed to elicit the use of the variables under study. Thirty final year students of the Department of French, comprising immersion students and students who were not part of the immersion programme were interviewed and recorded and the transcribed data was analysed using the variationist probabilistic approach. The analysis revealed that while the type of grammatical subject and the syntactic structure of the verb following the pre-verbal particle ‘ne’ have strong influences on the omission of ‘ne’ for the two groups of students, the phonological segment of the verb has a marginal influence on the deletion of the particle. With respect to the variable use of the pronoun ‘on’, the analysis showed that an unspecific and unrestricted group of referents favoured the use of the pronoun among the French Immersion students. Sex and age of the students, as extralinguistic variables, were found to be major determinants of variant choice. Also, the first language of the student had a significant influence on their use of the variants under study. It was recommended, among other things, that apart from promoting immersion programmes, the teaching of the French language should adopt an explicit approach on linguistic variation.