This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this recordThis article examines patterns of variation and change in the phonology of the
regional French of Alsace, within an overarching framework of regional dialect
levelling (Kerswill, 2003) in the French of France. Data are drawn from an original
corpus gathered in Strasbourg and a small village in a rural area of the Bas-Rhin.
We analyse two well-known regional features in spontaneous speech: (h), the
variable realisation of initial [h], and (ʒ), the non-assimilatory devoicing of /ʒ/. We
focus on the effect on the variation observed of the major extra-linguistic variables
of age, gender and social class as well as urban or rural community. While the
results for class and location follow expected patterns, whereby working-class and
rural speakers show higher rates of traditional non-standard variants, the principal
observation is the decline and, in the case of (ʒ), apparent loss of such features. We
thus provide new evidence in support of supralocalisation, not only in the urban
context but also in the rural location. The results for gender are however less clearcut: there is an interaction with age, class and location, and disruption of the usual
pattern of female-led adoption of supralocal norms.Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC