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Second-person pronoun use in French language discussion fora

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2009

LAWRENCE WILLIAMS  and
RÉMI A. VAN COMPERNOLLE
LAWRENCE WILLIAMS
Affiliation:
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of North Texas, PO Box 311127, Denton, TX 76203-1127, USA E-mail: lawrence.williams@unt.edu
RÉMI A. VAN COMPERNOLLE
Affiliation:
Department of French and Francophone Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, 211 Burrowes Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA E-mail: compernolle@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article examines the use of second-person pronouns in on-line French language discussion fora, with specific focus on Doctissimo and Meilleur du chef, two fora from which approximately 400,000 words were collected for this corpus. Two hundred discussion threads (i.e., series of linked postings), with a minimum of fifteen postings (i.e., messages) and a maximum of twenty per thread, were analysed in three different ways in order to determine whether tu, vous-singular, or neither could be considered the default address pronoun. The results of the analysis suggest that while tu is clearly preferred in many cases, its use has not become systematic.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , November 2009 , pp. 363 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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