Abstract EN:

This research work in sociophonology was intended not only to give a synchronistic description of a Poitou patois - limited to its oral expression - but also to show its diversity. As many as seventy-five native speakers helped us to collect the necessary information. We have also tried to understand and explain the observed linguistic dynamic by showing the influence of such internal and external evaluative factors as the age, the sex or the place of residence of each speaker. Moreover, the permanent contact between the French language and the patois has been taken into account (interferences, borrowed terms) as well as the relationship between the speaker and the local speech (linguistic imaginary representation). The results: a large diversity has been noticed, whether at a collective level (usage) or an individual level (idiolects). Among the external variables which have been kept, the age of the speakers is one of the most pertinent : the people over fifty years of age are more conservative, whereas the speakers born after world war ii, in most cases French native speakers, often borrow from the French. As for the geographical factor, their native village is the basic reference for the speakers belonging to the older age-group. The women have some effect upon the present dynamic: speaking patois was long debasing for them in the past, but nowadays the youngest female speakers tend to learn it again - in an attempt to recover a part of their cultural identity - and to act for its survival.