Read moreIt is always fashionable to lament the decline of the French language. Typically, this impression is based on a few examples among the tens of thousands of words and phenomena that make up a language. But we must distinguish the social view that we intuitively have of language, which conveys feelings, impressions and values, from the scientific view that is interested in the effective functioning of language without postulating an ideal for it – the criteria for which are, moreover, quite vague… Recently, the adverbial phrase "du coup" has been widely criticised as "incorrect". But according to what criterion(s) should we consider that a perfectly attested and banal form would be faulty, contemptible or would constitute “a speech tic”? We sometimes read vaguely historical justifications giving "du coup" the meaning of "immediately" by referring to Grévisse's Bon Usage - but no one uses "du coup" in this sense any more. Why should outdated uses legitimize contemporary uses? A historical evolution of words In this regard, it must be remembered that there is no word that has not undergone historical evolution over the centuries. One example among many: in the negation “ne… pas”, the word pas initially refers to a stride (with verbs of movement, such as “je ne marche pas”, in the sense of “negation of a minimal quantity of movement”). Should we therefore consider that it would be wrong to use pas for negation in general? This phenomenon is called grammaticalization and refers to the loss of the designative meaning of a word in favor of a functional use. [Nearly 80 readers trust The Conversation newsletter to better understand the world's major issues. [Subscribe today] Similarly, "du coup" does not mean "following a blow", but "given what has just been said". The idea of ​​suddenness has disappeared in favor of the idea of ​​consequence. We do not see why this expression should be subject to moral, social and aesthetic condemnation, presenting it as an incorrectness of a mysteriously "narrowed and simplified" French. The phenomenon is commonplace: once we have noticed a fact, we no longer see anything else, hence the impression that "suddenly", which went unnoticed despite its frequency, is now in the spotlight. So, let's talk about orality. Through hypercorrection, some purists get involved in introducing good manners into grammar and decide that certain words should be banned, taking perfectly normal functioning of the language as faults - and we must understand normal in the sense that these are indeed norms and not accidental facts. These judgments arise in particular when we forget the distinction between written and oral, which do not obey the same discursive and syntactic norms. Oral markers are thus condemned as deficiencies by the sole decree of an indignation based on a vague impression. Other than "not finding it beautiful," no reasoning is offered to explain what would be correct and what would not. Read more: French women, French men: inclusive language is not a new thing!
For some time now, it seems to have been agreed that "du coup" is a horror, without really knowing why. It is in reality one of the most banal expressions, which we classify in the category of discursive connectors. They abound in speech because they are essential to the construction of discourse. Going to war against these markers would make about as much sense as castigating the frequency of "le" or "de". Each of these connectors is distinguished by very precise semantic nuances, each ensuring a particular type of link: ah yeah; me for me; well then; you know (/tsé/); you see; yes but no; wait (/tã/), listen (/kut/); finally; I don't know (/ʃsepa/), I think (/ʃkʁwa/); there; there; and then; no but; well yes; so; by the way; seriously; damn (/tɛ̃/); on the other hand; huh; anyway; okay; ok; say-so; remark; ah that; go ahead; because; of course; in any case, etc. These markers are not the sign of a "relaxed" language: they are the very material of oral grammar. Dictionaries almost never list these markers which have an autonomous function in oral speech and are not constructed in the same way as in writing. No one speaks like a book - except in extremely formal situations - and in spontaneous oral speech, a well-formed French utterance looks like this:
"On the other hand, yeah, uh, you know, I told him, huh, but hey, he doesn't listen to anything."
It is actually rare to produce statements of the type "Paul loves Marie" that are not framed by what are called full pauses ("uh"), post-rhemes ("it's true, what)" and preceded by a more or less extended preamble ("in fact, I think"). We owe in particular to Mary-Annick Morel for having described these particularities that are structuring for French, with Laurent Danon-Boileau for intonation and Danielle Bouvet for gestures. Let's take a perfectly normal statement:
"Yeah, well, I'm telling you, your plumber won't come for ten days."
It is broken down as follows: in the preamble, we put the markers of sequence ("yeah, right"), point of view ("me, I tell you"), thematic framing ("your plumber"), before concluding with what we call the rheme, that is to say the predicative content ("he won't come before ten days"). Mary-Annick Morel described this syntactic structuring, specific to spoken French, under the name of decondensation. At the same time, the work of formulation is indicated by the "euh", the lengthening, the repetitions: as we elaborate on a content, we indicate to the co-speaker the status of this elaboration. These marks mark the construction of the statements for the other: without this sectioning, understanding would be difficult. So, what do we do? The ligator "du coup" is integral to this oral organization. It is no more widespread or faulty than any other of these markers. It is not an indicator of any register. Only purist discourses construct a negative social view of this poor adverbial phrase that had asked nothing of anyone… Should we also despise “tout d’un coup”, “d’un coup”, “pour le coup”, “tout à coup”, “à coup sûr”? Banally, du coup is used to express the consequence orally. It is distinguished from “par donc”, which has a different logical value from “du coup”. Let us substitute “par donc” in a position where “du coup” works well:
"So what do we do tomorrow?" "So what do we do tomorrow?"
The statement with "par donc" is unnatural. The difference comes from the fact that "du coup" expresses a discursive and not a logical consequence: as a ligator, its function is to establish a link between the statement that is announced and the one that precedes it. For its part, "par donc" establishes a demonstrative link. They therefore do not have the same uses or the same nuances: synonymy is not substitutability. "Du coup" is closer to " alors". Substitution seems possible, with one nuance: " alors" has more to do with the situation as a whole (" alors, comment ça va, toi, depuis l'autre jour ? ") while "du coup" establishes a tighter link of implication with the preceding statements, which gives it an anaphoric function (which can be paraphrased as " donné ce qui vient d'être dit ")). " Alors " and " du coup " have in common a resumptive dimension, that is to say that they indicate that the speaker is taking up a thread of thought, a subject or the conversation itself (like " bon " or " ben "). Judging language, judging people A certain snobbery can blind us to linguistic reality. Indeed, the conventions of writing sometimes constitute a prescriptive reference for considering speaking. This is the result of a "purist" attitude that we forget to apply to ourselves. Read more: Babies learn the art of conversation before they can even speak
And for good reason: without these supposed dross, we could not construct statements. The situation of oral improvisation requires special marking, in particular by ligators, by "euh" indicating the speaker's formulation work, etc. These linguistic tools are obviously absent from writing, as are the gestural and intonational dimensions. When we become aware of the existence of such markers, the guilty reflex is to consider "that we speak badly" so accustomed are we to the normative discourse and to the weight of a school vision of the language based on learning to write. However, French is characterized by a profound difference in structure between oral and written speech: try to do without "euh", which is undoubtedly the most frequent marker in our language, and we will see if you can still express yourself! Jean Szlamowicz is the author of the books The Sheep of Thought (2022, Cerf) and Sex and Language (2018, Intervalles). 

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