Social Factors: Bringing Together Class, Gender, Migration, Ideology and Language

Abstract

We attempt to draw together here the threads of earlier chapters in the light of our depiction of the linguistic situation in the territories under scrutiny, beginning with three of the main aspects of social levelling described in Chapter 3: social class, gender and migration. We evaluate their sociolinguistic effects before moving on to issues of ideology and cultural hegemony. We aim to summarise, firstly what can be argued from documented evidence of vernacular French forms, and secondly cases where social and ideological changes have favoured the maintenance and/or valorisation of a traditional ancestral variety. We begin with social class.