Rhythm Types and the Speech of Working-Class Youth in a Banlieue of Paris 121
have affected high and non-high vowels in a variety of prosodic positions.
These ¿ ndings, however, remain indicative.
In certain circumstances, that are likely to be the exception rather than
the rule, to reiterate Sankoff’s (2004) conclusion, these features could spread
“as the combined results of numerous individual acts of ‘misapprehended pro-
nunciation’ by listeners” (Ohala 1989: 177–178). Folk linguistic reports (see
Introduction) already provide useful indications that devoicing, the acoustic
aspects of syncopation, is recognized as a marker of heritage speakers in the
community, but also as an index of the neighborhood itself. Thus, Chamber’s
(2003) scenario of “inverse assimilation” seems to apply: certain linguistic
features “in the native speech of (otherwise) assimilated second-generation
speakers, in later generations, leads to the establishment of these features as
markers of region (community) rather than ethnicity.” Do these features char-
acterize only the speech of non-heritage speakers of Arabic or they appear as
aerial features because of the numerical dominance of North Africans and
their descendents in the community? This question remains to be investi-
gated. If the ¿ rst scenario is true, then the next question to ask would be: who
holds the key to the spreading of such potential innovations?
In this study, Karl deserves particular attention, as he is the only EF
speaker whose reading shows several instances of glottal onsets. He, on the
other hand, shows no traces of devoicing in closed syllables in unaccented
accentual phrase-medial position. The fast-speaking Yasin, on the other hand,
does combine several novel accent features. Ethnographic evidence estab-
lished independently from this investigation shows that motor skills such as
faster ar ticulator y rate is a highly pr ized verbal sk ill i n adolescent peer-g roups
in this community. Lepoutre (1997: 132), in his extensive ethnography of pre-
adolescents in La Courneuve, notes the following:
To make oneself be heard in the peer group, one must not only speak loud
but also speak fast. The speaking rate of certain adolescents in this respect is
quite astonishing. This fast pace is apparent not only in articulation, but also
the linking of words, phrases, and even turn taking [... ]. On the other hand,
a speaker who is much too slow and lets his syllables drag out too long [... ]
exposes himself to systematic sarcasm and laugher....^40Interestingly, or perhaps quite predictably, leaders tend to belong to the ¿ rst,
while the followers in the second category. In Yasin’s case, there is all the
more reason to retain articulatory rate as a meaningful sociophonetic vari-
able, as this AF speaker was one of the uncontested leaders recorded during
¿ eldwork. A third grader (last grade in middle school), whose strong and
tall body and low voice already showed signs of full maturity, was also one