Regan (1995, 1996) studied anglophone learners of French in
France. The variable chosen was the deletion of “ne” in the expression of
negation. “Ne” deletion appears to be a highly sensitive sociolinguistic
variable and a powerful indicator of formality, issues of power and solidarity,
style and register. It was therefore felt to be an appropriate variable
for the exploration of the acquisition of sociolinguistic norms in French as
a second language. The question was how usage of this variable is affected
by their stay abroad. The data for the study consists of controlled sociolinguistic
interviews of between 45 minutes and an hour, on average. The
first interviews were carried out just before the students left for France and
the second set took place just after they returned. These interviews were
based on modules developed by Labov and cover topics thought to elicit
spontaneous speech. They were adapted to the lives and situations of the
speakers who spent a year abroad. They covered areas such as relations
between anglophone and francophone speakers, life in the cité universitaire
(the university “dorms”), crime in the streets in France, comparative
French and Irish male-female relations and the classic Labov “danger of
death” module. The interviews were then transcribed in full and each
token of “ne” was coded.