Changements urbains et conflits sociolinguistiques : l'impact de la gentrification sur le français de Marseille

Résumé En

Combining urban sociolinguistics (Calvet, 1994; Gasquet-Cyrus, 2002), critical sociolinguistics (Blommaert, 2005; 2010; Boutet & Heller, 2007) and ethnographic approaches, this text focuses on how the social and urban changes occurring in Marseille since the beginning of the 21st century are shaping both an ongoing linguistic change and latent or manifest urban conflicts, where the issues of language are above all issues of identity and power. As France's second largest town and the European Capital of Culture in 2013, Marseille is well-known for what is considered the most famous accent in the country, the so-called 'Marseille (working-class) accent', prototype of the 'Southern' or 'Provençal' accent and often opposed to a more affected or stiff 'Parisian' accent (Kuiper, 2005). But beyond the traditional centre-periphery rivalry, internal conflicts in Marseille are revealing of more complex sociolinguistic issues. Previous studies have outlined the existence of at least three “accents” associated with specific areas of the town (Binisti & Gasquet-Cyrus, 2003) and with different symbolic values already into conflict (Gasquet-Cyrus, 2009). But very recently, urban policies aiming at the regeneration of the inner-city have attracted new inhabitants, whose socio-cultural and socio-economic profiles unbalance the traditional sociolinguistic patterns. The emergence of a new category of city-dwellers, the 'neo-Marseillais', associated with a “new way” of speaking challenging local customs, has shed light on new processes of perception, linguistic change and urban conflict. These different urban language conflicts will be reviewed, and particular attention will be paid to the process of gentrification of space and its linguistic correlates, i.e. “gentrification of speech” (Trimaille & Gasquet-Cyrus, in press), and to the agonistic dimension of these contacts. Finally, the paper will argue for a theoretical framework combining urban sociolinguistics and critical sociolinguistics in order to raise —through the study of linguistic change and conflicts in urban setting— issues of identity and power.