I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies at UBC. I hold a PhD degree in linguistics from New York University, where I specialized in both sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology.

I am an anthropologically oriented sociolinguist, and I tend to enjoy the blurred space between these two fields. In the past few years, my main research project investigated the emerging variety of Portuguese spoken in São Tomé and Príncipe. My new research projects focus on different varieties of Canadian French.

If you are Canadian and a native speaker of French, visit this webpage to participate to the Speaking Atlas of French varieties in Canada: https://frenchdrawl.linguistics.ubc.ca/welcome/fr

If you want to know more about French in BC, visit this webpage: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/fiches/4823/francophonie-minoritaire-jeune-securite-linguistique-cb

If you are interested in the development of linguistic security, you can use this educational guide: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EMtswtDHH6C9WFUIBRU0bM032w9eY3S3/view

For more information, you can visit my blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/mebouchard/

Interests

• Language attitudes and ideologies
• Language contact
• Language variation and change
• Language and identity
• Migration and diaspora
• Language, race and ethnicity
• French, Portuguese, Creole languages

Current Research Projects

The use of English-origin verbs in Quebec French. (SSHRC-IDG, 2025-2027)

Selected Publications

2025. “You Speak Well for an Anglophone”: Resisting the Processes of Delegitimation and Developing Linguistic Security. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 29(3), 157-167. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12704

2025. Discourses of language endangerment and maintenance among young bi/plurilingual speakers of a Francophone minority school in Vancouver. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2025.2469086

2025. Investigating attitudes towards a changing use of anglicisms in Quebec French. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue Canadienne de linguistique, 69(4), 412-437. https://doi.org/10.1017/cnj.2024.32

2024. Language ideologies and the use of French in an English-dominant context of Canada: New insights into linguistic security. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 43(3), 427-453. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2023-0109

2024. A youth perspective on the challenges related to fostering linguistic security in the classroom: New insights from the English-dominant context of British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics. Advanced Online Publication.

2023. Examining language and racial attitudes in an L2 French learning context. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2023.2298690

2023. J’va share mon étude sur les anglicismes avec vous autres! A sociolinguistic approach to the use of morphologically unintegrated English-origin verbs in Quebec French. Journal of French Languages Studies, 33(2), 168-196. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269523000054

2023. Scaling proximity to Whiteness: Racial boundary-making on São Tomé Island. Ethnography, 24(2), 197-216. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138120967373

2023. The hierarchization of French varieties in an English-dominant context of Canada. Canadian Modern Language Review, 79(4), 322-351. https://utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cmlr-2022-0062

2023. Language and racial attitudes toward French varieties in a second-language context. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 79(1), 16-37. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr-2021-0078

2022. ‘We have that strong-R, you know’: The enregisterment of a distinctive use of rhotics in Santomean Portuguese. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2023(279), 233-257. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2021-0099

2022. The use and vitality of Angolar: A study of attitudes on São Tomé Island. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 37(1), 160-188. https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.00089.bou

2022. Redefining Forro as a marker of identity: Language contact as a driving force for language maintenance among Santomeans in Portugal. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 41(1), 85-104. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0082

2021. Navigating potential conflicting identities: Identification processes among minority youths in Portugal. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 22(5), 399-414. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1878359

2021. Popular Brazilian Portuguese through capoeira: From local to global. Etnográfica, 25(1), 95-116. https://journals.openedition.org/etnografica/8751

2019. Language shift from Forro to Portuguese: Language ideologies and the symbolic power of Portuguese on São Tomé Island. Lingua, 228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2019.06.013

2019. Ongoing change in post-independence São Tomé: The use of rhotics as a marker of national identity among young speakers of Santomean Portuguese. Language Variation and Change, 31(1), 21-42.

2019. Becoming monolingual: The impact of language ideologies on the loss of multilingualism on São Tomé Island. Languages, 4(3), 50. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages4030050

2018. Subject pronoun expression in Santomean Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics, 17(1), 5. http://doi.org/10.5334/jpl.191

2024. Anthony Lodge Journal of French Language Studies Research Award. This award is attributed to the best research paper published in the Journal of French Language Studies in the previous year (2023). To read this paper: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269523000054

Currently accepting graduate students for supervision.