Dr. Marie-Eve Bouchard, Assistant Professor of French, provides an introduction to the FHIS Sociolinguistics Lab.
The FHIS Sociolinguistics Lab was created for students who are interested in language use in its social context. The members of the Lab are current or former students from UBC’s Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies (FHIS) who have taken linguistics courses, or UBC students who speak French and are interested in sociolinguistics.
The lab has three main goals: 1) to apply skills learned in linguistics courses, 2) to support research projects related to French, and 3) to create a feeling of belonging among students interested in linguistics.
Students are currently working as research assistants on three SSHRC-funded projects:
- one project that examines the variety of French spoken by youth in Vancouver (SSHRC Insight Development Grant);
- one project on fostering linguistic security among young French speakers in British Columbia, in collaboration with the Conseil jeunesse francophone de la Colombie-Britannique (SSHRC Partner Engage Grant);
- and one project on language attitudes (SSHRC Connection). Some of the lab members will be doing ethnographic fieldwork and collecting data at a French-speaking high school in Vancouver.
