Book chapter
OA Policy
English

Negotiating language resources in border areas : production and discourse of cross-border workers in Greater Geneva

Published inBürki, Y. & Nalleli García Agüero, A. (Ed.), Language, borders and bordering practices = Lenguaje, fronteras y practices de fronterización, p. 69-98
PublisherBerlin : De Gruyter
Publication date2025-03-15
First online date2025-03-15
Abstract

This chapter presents a study carried out in the conurbation of Greater Geneva, which aimed to examine how French language resources are used to ne-gotiate the national border between French-speaking Switzerland and France. Four groups of speakers around Geneva were recorded, following the PFC proto-col (Durand et al., 2002): two with non-mobile speakers (12 in Switzerland, 13 in France) and two with mobile speakers (9 Swiss, 12 French), who live in neighbour-ing France but work or study in Geneva. Guided interviews were conducted, tar-geting the participants’ mobility experiences and linguistic representations in the context of the Swiss-French border. Production data were examined, focusing on one pronunciation variable, word-final /e/, produced with lengthening and possi-bly diphthongisation in Switzerland. Perceptual and acoustic data were obtained, which confirmed that lengthening and diphthongisation are used exclusively by the Swiss participants, without noticeable effects of mobility, but with significant individual differences. Three different profiles for the Swiss mobile speakers emerged from a comparison of production and discourse, which differ on the rep-resentations of the border in terms of its absence/presence and how participants identify with respect to it. These results highlight the need to combine production data and representations in the study of language dynamics

Keywords
  • (Swiss) French
  • Geneva
  • Cross-border workers
  • Vowel realisation
  • Language representations
Citation (ISO format)
COTE, Marie-Hélène, PRIKHODKINE, Alexei, RACINE, Isabelle. Negotiating language resources in border areas : production and discourse of cross-border workers in Greater Geneva. In: Language, borders and bordering practices = Lenguaje, fronteras y practices de fronterización. Bürki, Y. & Nalleli García Agüero, A. (Ed.). Berlin : De Gruyter, 2025. p. 69–98. doi: 10.1515/9783111034225-003
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ISBN9783111034034
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