ABSTRACT
This chapter describes very rapidly at some of the ways in which the French language varies. It discusses structure of basic distinction: between inter-speaker variation and intra-speaker variation. Inter-speaker variation looks at different varieties of French which can be correlated with such factors as geography, social class and ethnicity. Intra-speaker variation offers a very general overview of the way French varies not according to the social characteristics of its different users, but according to the different uses to which one and the same speaker may wish to put it. The chapter argues how the French language, as it is used by its 70 million European speakers, is far from being a simple, homogeneous entity, but is instead an accumulation of many forms varying according to the diverse social characteristics of its speakers and according to the infinite array of different situations in which they need to use it.
