Archives par mot-clé : Mirror language

Jean-Pierre Goudailler : contemporary urban french : mirror language, language of refusal

In français contemporain des cités (FCC) – the contemporary French of urban low income housing projects, otherwise known as “ youth language ”, or “ project language ”, several types of linguistic formation tend to show that language varieties detected in French urban housing projects have a “ mirroring ” function in relation to what is generally observed in the French language : among other things, there are many words in verlan (backwards language) and there is apheresis at the expense of apocope. Such language behaviors are manifestations of the way the young – and the not so young – from the projects and the working class neighborhoods of France are rejecting the language legitimized by school and by French society. It is one of their ways of reacting to the social violence being carried out against them.