Les normes sociolinguistiques et leur changement: La légitimation en cours du français québécois dans la littérature gallicane

Different disciplinary fields in the humanities have started to formulate the question of the representations by one community of the linguistic practices of some other communities with which a common language is nonetheless shared. This question is considered through the way in which Quebec French is represented in two recent detective novels from France French authors. Two rhetorical strategies are evidenced. A realist strategy presents Quebec French as a differential practice and cannot escape reasserting the symbolic asymmetry between a so-called peripheral variety and the central variety from which the author is writing. A moderation strategy brings together practices from different groups without identifying them as such. The study further allows us to document the apparent reduction in the linguistic insecurity of the Quebec French community, through the reception of the first strategy in particular.