Dr Zoe Boughton

I am a sociolinguist working primarily on phonological variation and change in the French of France. My research interests and publications cover topics including regional and social varieties of spoken French and the interaction between these dimensions; the attrition of distinctive regional accent features owing to processes of levelling and standardisation; and perceptual and attitudinal approaches to the study of dialect differences.

My teaching interests draw on this work. I offer an undergraduate pathway of modules in French linguistics covering articulatory phonetics, the external history of the language, aspects of the internal history including historical phonology and etymology, and French dialectology, both geographical and social. In addition, I have taught practical French language classes at all levels, and currently contribute to our final-year core module by teaching Translation both from and into French.

Biography:

I completed my BA Hons in French (First Class), MA Linguistics and PhD in French at Newcastle University. My doctoral research focused on sociolinguistic variation in the phonology of metropolitan French.

During my PhD, I taught classes in French Language and Linguistics at Newcastle, and delivered evening classes for advanced adult learners at Northumbria University on behalf of the Institute of Linguists.

I was appointed Lecturer in French at Exeter in 2001, and Senior Lecturer in 2006.

I have served in a variety of administrative and leadership roles over the years, including Programme Director in French, Deputy Director of Education in Modern Languages, and Chair of the Ethics Committee in the erstwhile College of Humanities. From 2020 to 2023, I was Assessment Officer for Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies, incorporating Art History & Visual Culture and the Language Centre. From August 2024, I am the Department's Senior Tutor.

Research supervision:

• MRes on ‘"Levelling" in Metropolitan French: The Role of the Younger Middle-Class Female', Sophie Nicholson, 2006-07.
• Three MA dissertations.
• MRes on 'Guernsey Norman French', Helen Simmonds, 2007-8, funded by the AHRC.
• PhD on 'Channelling Change: Evolution in Guernsey Norman French Phonology', Helen Simmonds, 2008-11, funded by a University of Exeter Department of Modern Languages Graduate Teaching Assistantship.
• MRes on 'Français populaire', Charlotte Fry, 2008-9.
• (Second Supervisor) PhD on 'Variation syntaxique dans le francais multiculturel du cinema de banlieue', Laurie Dekhissi.
• (Second Supervisor) PhD on 'The Agreement of the Past Participle in Spoken French as a Sociolinguistic Variable: Production and Perception', Damien Gaucher.
• (Second Supervisor) PhD on 'Le desaccord et la critique entre amis: strategies d'adoucissement dans le discours pre-conflictuel', Lucie Riou.
• MRes on 'Phonological Variation and Change in Alsatian French', Katharine Pipe, 2009-10, part-funded by a University Merit Scholarship.
• PhD on 'Accent Levelling in the Regional French of Alsace', Katharine Pipe, 2010-13, funded by the AHRC.
• PhD on 'The Pragmatic Particles ENFIN and ECOUTE in French Film and TV Dialogue', Marianne Connors, 2012-15, funded by the AHRC.
• (Second Supervisor) PhD on 'A Sociolinguistic Profile of Gallo in Eastern Brittany', Adrian Chrimes, 2012-15, funded by the AHRC.
• (Second Supervisor) PhD on 'Variation in the Use of Prepositions in Quebec French', Elizabeth Latimer, AHRC-funded.
• PhD on 'Phonological variation, perception and language attitudes in the (Franco-)Belgian borderland', Sarah Foxen, 2013-17, funded by the AHRC.

Other:

International Conference Papers (since 2001)

• ‘Investigating purism in France: Folk perceptions of variation in standard French'
  April 2003 at the University of Bristol, Linguistic Purism in the Germanic Languages
• ‘Social-regional variation in metropolitan French: Perceptions and behaviour'
  September 2003 at the University of Sheffield, UK Language Variation and Change 4
• ‘Accent variation in France: Perceptions, attitudes, behaviour and the ideology of the standard'
  October 2004 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (travel funded by British Academy), New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 33
• ‘La géographie d'abord? Phonological variation in contemporary French'
  June 2005 at the University of Oxford, Le français parlé au XXI^e siècle: Normes et variations
• ‘The interaction between regional, social and stylistic variation: The case of French'
  September 2005 at the University of Aberdeen, UK Language Variation and Change 5
• ‘Is perception reality? Perceptual dialectology, accent identification and variation in French'
  January 2006 at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, Romance Linguistics Seminar XXXIV
• ‘Sociophonetic variation in "levelled" metropolitan French: Perception, reality and linguistic change'
  July 2006 at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (travel funded by British Academy), Colloque international pfc2006 (Approches phonologiques et prosodiques de la variation sociolinguistique: le cas du français)
• ‘Mind the gap: When perception isn't reality'
  September 2006 at UWE, Bristol, AFLS Conference: Variations, variétés
• ‘The perception of variation in French: Sex, class and stereotypes'
  September 2007 at the University of Lancaster, UK Language Variation and Change 6
• ‘La perception et l'évaluation de la variation dans le français parlé'
  September 2007 at the University of Vienna (invited paper, travel funded by British Academy, other expenses paid by the conference organisers), XXX. Romanistentag (Sektion 21: Perzeptive Varietätenlinguistik)
• ‘Variation et constitution de la norme en français parlé: le rôle de la perception'
  November/December 2007 at the University of Innsbruck (invited paper; expenses paid by the conference organisers), Faut-il réécrire l'histoire du français? Les variations diachroniques et synchroniques du français
• ‘Variable deletion of /l/ and /R/ in word-final clusters: the interplay of social and linguistic factors'
  September 2008 at the University of Oxford, Congrès AFLS «Les voix du français: usages et représentations»
• 'La standardisation continue de la langue française: perception et production', December 2009 at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest (invited paper; expenses paid), Séminaire de la Bretagne Linguistique du Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (CRBC)
• 'Chercher la diatopie: is social variation in French regionally localised?', September 2010 at the University of Cambridge, Congrès AFLS «Le français: langue une, langue plurielle»
• 'Space and standardised French: the final frontier?', January 2011 at Peterhouse, Cambridge (invited paper; expenses paid), The Linguistic Correlates of Space, second workshop of the AHRC research network Language and Social Structure in Urban France
• 'Locating Variation in French', September 2011 at Peterhouse, Cambridge (invited paper; expenses paid), AHRC network conference Language and Social Structure in Urban France

In addition, four invited papers at research seminars outside Exeter (Bristol, York, Oxford, Cambridge) and four in Exeter.