ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the interest and discovery power of intertwining methodological, descriptive and theoretical reflections in sociolinguistic approaches to nonstandard data, and particularly to an object called, rather unsatisfactorily, 'youth language' or 'youth styles'. It considers how French corpora in general deal with non-standard data and urban youth language. The chapter shows how the handling of non-standard data has important implications for the link between methodology and theory in sociolinguistics. The unpredictability of phenomena is among the reasons for choosing to examine the corpus through a type of text-mining procedure based on close listening/ reading of corpora. On the syntactico-discursive level, Parisian youth language retains several structural features of what has long been identified as francais populaire. Dense and multiplex ties in peer groups within strongly localized close-knit networks in suburban areas imply high levels of contact, with sociolinguistic effects on the maintenance of vernacular norms and value systems.