Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French

Book excerpt: This study aims to investigate politeness in women s and men s speech, with a particular focus on the use of "c est-a-dire, enfin, hein "and "quoi "in contemporary spoken French." "Politeness is defined as going beyond the notion of the face-threatening act, englobing both everyday ideas of politeness and the creation of sociability in face-to-face interaction.The pragmatic particles studied are demonstrated to serve both psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic purposes: they lubricate reformulation and contribute to both sociability and social indexation.The study, which combines qualitative and quantitative analysis, is based on a corpus of spontaneous spoken French, comprising 155,000 words, 95 interviews and subjects ranging in age from 7 to 88 years. The sample contains speakers from a broader range of educational backgrounds than is often the case: a butcher, a video-salesman and a "toiletteur canin" rub shoulders with counter assistants, teachers and doctors.