Catherine Léger

Catherine Léger
Position
Associate Professor
French and Francophone Studies
Contact
Office: CLE C250
250-721-7369
Credentials

PhD (UQAM)

Area of expertise

Syntax, semantics, contact linguistics, French in North America.

Catherine Léger joined the Department of French at the University of Victoria in 2010, where she teaches French language and linguistics courses. Her research focuses mainly in two areas: the pragmatic/syntax/semantic interface and different aspects of Acadian French, especially Chiac a long-stigmatized variety of Acadian French spoken in southeastern New Brunswick that emerged from intense contact with English. She has worked on clausal complementation in French (including on issues related to factive complements and aspectual verbs) and discursive markers and borrowings from English in Acadian French.

Catherine Léger is dedicated to mentoring students from all walks of life, especially first-generation students (those who are the first in their family to attend university) and students from impoverished backgrounds. Catherine Léger, with two other colleagues from the University of Victoria — Colette Smart (from the Department of Psychology) and Suzanne Urbanczyk (from the Department of Linguistics) — are leading a project to establish a mentorship program for first-generation students and students from poverty, which is funded through the President’s Office.

Find out more about Catherine Léger's research in her expertise profile and Faces of UVic Research Video

ORCID : https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2039-1208

Specializations

  • French varieties in North America, in particular Acadian French
  • Contact linguistics
  • Pragmatics, syntax and semantics
  • French complementation and syntactic/semantic properties of complements

 

Research projects

My main current research project concerns the distribution, functions, and meaning conveyed by Acadian French discursive markers (voir, en seulement, tu, etc.), words that serve a cohesion function in conversations (well and whatever are a few examples in English). In the past decades, there have been numerous studies on discursive markers borrowed from English in this dialect. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to discursive markers of French origin in Acadian French, despite the fact that these lexical items may be on the verge of disappearing.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Insight Development Grant, 2022–2024

‘Toujours chantante’: Acadian Songs and Acadian French Vernaculars on Cape Breton Island, applicant: Meghan Forsyth (Memorial University of Newfoundland); co-applicants: Catherine Léger (University of Victoria), Marcia Ostashewski (Cape Breton University), Pierre-Don Giancarli (Université de Poitiers)

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Connection Grant, 2016

New Ways of Analyzing Variation: Pachantsut | Spreading Roots, applicant: Alexandra D’Arcy, co-applicants: Catherine Léger and Panayiotis Pappas (Simon Fraser University)

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Connection Grant, 2014

Signs, their combination, and the fundamental properties of language/Les signes, leur combinaison et les propriétés fondamentales du langage, applicant: Anne-Marie Parisot (Université du Québec à Montréal), co-applicants: Catherine Léger and Reine Pinsonneault

 

Selected publications

Edited volumes

Léger, Catherine, Anne-Marie Parisot and Reine Pinsonneault, eds. 2019. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, special issue Signs, their combination, and the fundamental properties of language/Les signes, leur combinaison et les propriétés fondamentales du langage (bilingual issue/numéro bilingue). 64(2). 405 p.: https://doi.org/10.1017/cnj.2018.34

Léger, Catherine, Matthieu LeBlanc, Laurence Arrighi and Isabelle Violette, eds. 2013. Usages, discours et idéologies linguistiques dans la francophonie canadienne: perspectives sociolinguistiques, Revue de l’Université de Moncton. (printed version and digital version). 44(2). 219 p. http://www.erudit.org/revue/rum/2013/v44/n2/index.html     

Forewords

Léger, Catherine, Anne-Marie Parisot and Reine Pinsonneault. 2019. “Avant-propos/Foreword”. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, special issue Signs, their combination, and the fundamental properties of language/Les signes, leur combinaison et les propriétés fondamentales du langage. Eds. Catherine Léger, Anne-Marie Parisot and Reine Pinsonneault. 64(2). 159–170. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/cnj.2018.34

Léger, Catherine, Matthieu LeBlanc, Laurence Arrighi and Isabelle Violette. 2013. “Avant-propos”. Revue de l’Université de Moncton, special issue Usages, discours et idéologies linguistiques dans la francophonie canadienne : perspectives sociolinguistiques. Eds. Catherine Léger, Matthieu LeBlanc, Laurence Arrighi and Isabelle Violette. 44(2). 1–5: https://doi.org/10.7202/1030998ar

Recent articles/chapters

Léger, Catherine, Marcus Lunguinho and Patrícia Rodrigues. 2021. “To see as a marker of contextual salience in Romance languages: Evidence from Acadian French and Brazilian Portuguese”/“Ver em francês acadiano e português brasileiro: Codificação de imperativo e saliência textual” (article with one version in English and one version in Brazilian Portuguese). Alfa: Revista de Linguística. 65. 1–28 (English version); 1–27 (Brazilian Portuguese version): https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-5794-13711 

Trerice, Spencer and Catherine Léger. 2019. Pour sûr de France Daigle : un miroir des représentations linguistiques à l’égard du chiac”. Revue de l’Université de Moncton, 50(1–2). 169–210.

Léger, Catherine. 2019. “Le verbe aspectuel cesser et la contrainte stative : cesser obéit-il à la règle ou la transgresse-t-il?/ The aspectual verb cesser ‘cease’ and the stative constraint: Does cesser conform to the rule or does it deviate from it ”. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, special issue Signs, their combination, and the fundamental properties of language/Les signes, leur combinaison et les propriétés fondamentales du langage. Eds. Catherine Léger, Anne-Marie Parisot and Reine Pinsonneault. 64(2). 326–359. https://doi.org/10.1017/cnj.2018.36

Léger, Catherine. 2018. “L’utilisation discursive de voir en français acadien : de la perception à l’évidence” (coll. Les Voies du français). In Regards croisés sur les français d’ici. Eds Laurence Arrighi and Karine Gauvin. Sainte-Foy: Presses de l’Université Laval. 87–111. https://www.pulaval.com/produit/regards-croises-sur-les-francais-d-ici

Caws, Catherine, Catherine Léger and Bernadette Perry. 2017. “Peer editing in French

using digital tools: A micro-analysis of learner-computer interactions”, Canadian Journal

of Applied Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique appliquée. 20(1). 77–97.

https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/CJAL/article/view/24491/29678

Courses taught

  • FRAN 120 (Intensive French II)
  • FRAN 160 (Words in Context)
  • FRAN 180 (Intensive French III)
  • FRAN 200 (Introduction to French Linguistics)
  • FRAN 275 (Writing in French I)
  • FRAN 305 (Intermediate French Linguistics)
  • FRAN 375 (Writing in French II)
  • FRAN 385 (French Syntax and Semantics)    
  • FRAN 405 (Varieties of French)
  • FRAN 407 (Canadian Francophonie and Linguistic Ideologies)
  • FRAN 500A (Introduction to Research Methods)
  • FRAN 500B (Application of Research Methods)
  • FRAN 502 (Studies in Applied Linguistics: French in Contact)
  • FRAN 503 (Studies in French Linguistics)