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

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 anglicisms in Quebec French. [SSHRC Explore grant (2022), UBC Arts Undergraduate Research Award (2022), UBC Language Sciences Institute (2023-2024)]

Investigating French in Vancouver. (SSHRC-IDG. 2021-2024.)

Fostering linguistic security among young French speakers in British Columbia. (SSHRC Partner Engage Grant, 2022-2024)

Language Attitudes and their Social Consequences in Diverse Contexts. With Amanda Cardoso, Molly Babel and Erez Levon. (SSHRC Connection Grant, 2022-2023)

Speaking Atlas of French varieties in Canada. Atlas sonore des variétés de français au Canada. (UBC Language Science Institute, UBC Open Educational Fund. 2021-2023.)

A preliminary examination of language attitudes among learners of French in higher education: Toward greater awareness and appreciation of diversity. (Hampton Grant, UBC. 2020-2022.)

Selected Publications

2024. Language ideologies and the use of French in an English-dominant context of Canada: New insights into linguistic security. Multilingua. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2023-0109

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

2023. The hierarchization of French varieties in an English-dominant context of Canada. Canadian Modern Language Review. https://doi.org/doi:10.3138/cmlr-2022-0062

2023. J’va share mon étude sur les anglicismes avec vous autres! A sociolinguistic approach to an innovation use of anglicisms in Quebec French. Journal of French Languages Studies, 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269523000054

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

2023. Scaling proximity to Whiteness: Racial boundary-making on São Tomé Island. Ethnography, 24(2), 197-226. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138120967373

2023. The role of music in the (re)valorization of Forro. In Joseph Farquharson, Andrea Hollington, and Byron Jones (eds.), Creole Languages and Music, 64-88. Kingston, Jamaica: The University of West Indies Press.

2022. Gente de cidade, gente de roça: A diferenciação de dois status sociais e variedades linguísticas da ilha de São Tomé. In Carlos Figueiredo, Rita Gonçalves, Tjerk Hagemeijer, and Marcia Oliveira (eds.), Novas dinâmicas do português: a África atlântica e o Brasil, 249-276. São Paulo: Editora Humanitas.

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

2022. Nonconvergence toward the standard: The maintenance of a distinctive use of rhotics among the Santomean diaspora in Portugal. Folia Linguistica. (With Félix Desmeules-Trudel.) https://doi.org/10.1515/flin-2022-2031

2022. Language ideologies and second language acquisition: The case of French long-term residents in Sweden. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. (Fanny Forsberg Lundell, Klara Arvidsson, Marie-Eve Bouchard). https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2099408

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

2022. Postcolonial sociolinguistics: Investigating attitudes, ideologies and power in language contact settings. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 6, https://iacpl.net/jopol/issues/jopol6/postocolonial-sociolinguistics/

2021. Navigating potential conflicting identities: Identification processes among minority youths in Portugal. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1878359

2021. Popular Brazilian Portuguese through capoeira: From local to global. Etnográfica, 25(1), 95-116. [online], 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: 21-42.

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

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

2018. A distinctive use of R as a marker of Santomean identity. Journal of Belonging, Identity, Language and Diversity, 2(1). http://bild-lida.ca/journal/volume_2_1_2018/bouchard/

Currently accepting graduate students for supervision.