I am a variationist sociolinguist studying language use within its social context. I focus on issues such as morphosyntactic variation and change, minority languages, language contact, historical sociolinguistics, as well as the relationship between prescription, language prestige, and usage. My research applies sociolinguistic principles to the study of language variation and change, with a particular focus on Romance languages, especially French and Italian.In 2019, I graduated from the University of Ottawa where I obtained a doctorate in Linguistics. I am currently an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in French Linguistics at the Department of French at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada).

Academic Appointments

  • 2024 - present, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Department of French, Carleton University.

  • 2022 - 2024, Assistant Professor, Department of French, Dalhousie University.

  • 2021 - 2022, Adjunct Professor, Department of French, Carleton University.

  • 2020 - 2022, Research Advisor, University of Ottawa.

  • 2016 - 2020, Adjunct Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa.

  • 2011 - 2012, Adjunct Professor, Department of Languages, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Education

  • PhD Linguistics, 2019, University fo Ottawa - Thesis: Verum a fontibus haurire. A Variationist Analysis of Subjunctive Variability Across Space and Time: from Contemporary Italian back to Vulgar Latin - Thesis supervisor: Shana Poplack.

  • MA Études Romanes, Linguistics and Translation, 2012, Université Paris-Sorbonne - Thesis: "Need a bag? Voulez-vous un sac?". Le code-switching à Montréal. Une réinterprétation urbaine ? - Thesis supervisor: Alessandra Stazzone.

  • BA/Licence Langues, littératures et civilisations étrangères, Minor: Français langue étrangère (FLE), 2010, Université Paris-Sorbonne.

  • Diplôme d'Université (D.U.) Langue et culture japonaise, 大学の学位 、日本語と日本文化, 2009, Université Paris 7 Diderot.

Certificates

  • Programming in Python, 2022, eCornell, Cornell University.

  • Concepteur d’examen CLES1 (Compétence en langue de l’enseignement supérieur). Niveau B1 du Cadre de référence commun européen, Université de Grenoble III (Université Stendhal).

Research

In my research, I draw on insights and questions from sociolinguistic theory and link those questions to empirical observations by integrating quantitative and statistical modeling into the study of language. I believe that integrating evidence from multiple sources can lead to a better understanding of the structure of language.

FRENCH AND RELATIVE CLAUSESIn 2023, I joined the international research project, the CAPES-PRINT Initiative (Brazil), which explores variation in relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese (Rosane Berlinck, Unesp - Universidade Estadual Paulista), French (myself, Carleton University), and English (Stephen Levey, University of Ottawa).

PAN-ROMANCE PERSPECTIVEAnother important dimension of my research adopts a pan-Romance perspective. By comparing French, Italian, Portuguese, and, where relevant, Latin, I investigate how shared inherited structures and language-specific developments shed light on variation, change, and the social evaluation of linguistic forms across Romance languages

LANGUAGE CONTACTMy research interests include examining underlying mechanisms of language mixing. My goal is to investigate the outcomes of language contact, e.g. borrowing and code-swithing, in French-English and Italian-English/French bi-multilingual discourse.

FRENCH AS A SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGEAn emerging area of my research concerns sociolinguistic variation in French as a second and foreign language. I am particularly interested in extending variationist sociolinguistic methods to the study of L2 speech in order to examine how learners acquire variable linguistic patterns and develop sociolinguistic competence.

DATA COLLECTIONAnother core project is related to data collection through sociolinguistic interviews. My goal is to build different benchmarks for the study of French and Italian among both monolingual and bilingual speakers, in order to investigate variation and change. I am currently collecting data on Acadian French spoken in Atlantic Canada.

Non-Standard Variation & Linguistic Ideology

Forthcoming this Spring: Non-Standard Variation, Linguistic Prejudice and Ideologies, co-edited with Rosane de Andrade Berlinck (UNESP) and published by Pontes Editores. The volume explores the relationships between non-standard linguistic practices, language ideologies, and social evaluation in a variety of linguistic and sociocultural settings.
The publication of this volume was supported by the Vice-President Research & Innovation International Fund, Dalhousie University; the Society and Culture Research Fund – Publishing Support Program, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), Dalhousie University; and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.A link to the open-access version of the book will follow soon.

On October 24, 2023, together with my colleague Rosane Berlinck (Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP), I co-organized a workshop on non-standard linguistic variation, prejudice, and linguistic ideologies. The event was co-funded by the Office of the Vice-President Research and Innovation at Dalhousie University.Visit the event webpage and see the book of abstracts.

OTHER RESEARCH PROJECTS

Throughout the years, I have gained experience in data collection and handling, concordance software, and quantitative and statistical analyses by working on large-scale spontaneous speech corpora. These include monolingual Canadian French from the 19th to the 21st century, Italian, bilingual Canadian French/English, and British English. I have also participated in a number of research projects exploring morpho-syntactic and discourse-pragmatic features in Italian, French, and English, as well as language contact through a study of English compound words in French discourse.Research projects in which I have participated at the Sociolinguistics Laboratory, directed by Shana Poplack, at the University of Ottawa (2014-2019):🔖 Subjunctive variability in Romance.
🔖 Language ideology and prescription vs. usage of the Italian Subjunctive.
🔖 Comparative study of the variable expression of future temporal reference in French and Italian speech.
🔖 Conditionals in French: the alternation between indicative and conditional in si-clauses in 19th and 21st century Canadian French.
🔖 Complementizer deletion in British English in 7UP series: Change over a lifespan.
🔖 Language mixing: English compound words in French discourse.Research projects in collaboration with Stephen Levey, at the University of Ottawa:🔖 The acquisition of syntactic complexity in later childhood: a sociolinguistic study of English finite complement clauses.
🔖 A Romance perspective on the quotative system.
🔖 Complementizer deletion in French discourse.

Publications

to appear

Digesto, S., & R. Berlinck (Eds.) Non-standard variation, prejudice and linguistic ideologies. Pontes Editores: São Paulo, Brazil

to appear

Digesto, S., & Berlinck, R. “Mapping Standardness in Relativization: a Case Study of Acadian French and Brazilian Portuguese Vernaculars”. In S. Digesto & R. Berlinck (Eds.), Non-standard variation, prejudice and linguistic ideologies. Pontes Editores

to appear

Stazzone, A., & Digesto, S. “La norme avant la Norme. Enjeux et structures de la formularité dans les écritures commerciales privées dans quelques textes toscans du XIIe siècle”. In F. Dumora, Peterson, E. Louviot, & A. Neyrinck (Eds.), La Formule au Moyen Âge V. Turnhout: Brepols.

2025

Digesto, S. “Governor-Driven Subjunctive Selection: A Variationist
Study from Latin to Romance”, Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads, Vol. 5, no 2, 224-88 - Link

2022

Levey, S., Kastronic, L., Digesto, S., & Chiasson, M. “Quotative Variation and Change in French, with Additional Insights from Brazilian Portuguese and Italian”. In E. Peterson, T. Hiltunen, & J. Kern (Eds.), Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change: Theory, Innovations, Contact. Cambridge University Press

2021

Digesto, S. “Lexicalization and Social Meaning of the Italian Subjunctive”, Cadernos De Linguística, Vol. 2, no. 3, p. e609

2021

Digesto, S. “Overt manifestations of language contact in the discourse of Italian Canadians”, Blog article, Speaking Of Which.

2021

Digesto, S., & Poplack, S. “Le français canadien, un français comme les autres”. France Forum, 65, 93–94.

2018

Poplack, S., Torres Cacoullos, R., Dion, N., de Andrade Berlinck, R., Digesto, S., Lacasse, D., & Steuck, J. “Variation and grammaticalization in Romance: A cross-linguistic study of the subjunctive”. In W. Ayres-Bennett & J. Carruthers (Eds.), Manuals in Linguistics: Romance Sociolinguistics. Mouton de Gruyter

Conferences & Guest Lectures

2025

Future time reference in spoken Italian: a variationist study. Massimo Cerruti and Salvio Digesto. International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE) 13. University of Lausanne and the University of Bern. June 29–July 2, 2026. - Conference Program

2026

Bridging Typology and Variation: Relativization, Standardness, and Ideology in Acadian French and Brazilian Portuguese. Salvio Digesto and Rosane Berlinck. SLE 2026, 59th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea. 2026.

2026

Language Variation and Change: Principles, Methods, and Evidence (Invited lecture). Graduate Seminar, PhD Program Dialettologia, sociolinguistica e linguistica dell’italiano [Italian dialectology, sociolinguistics and linguistics]. Università di Torino, Turin, Italy. February 13, 2026.

2026

Variation pragmatico-discursive en français laurentien et en français acadien (Invited lecture). Course: Sociolinguistique, Prof. Émilie Urbain. January 29, 2026. Department of French, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.

2025

Anatomie d’un article savant en linguistique (Invited lecture). Course: Méthodologie de la recherche, Prof. Christine Duff. November 19, 2025. Department of French, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.

2025

Relativização no Português Brasileiro e no Francês Acadiano: Uma Perspectiva Sociolinguística Comparativa sobre Prescrição e Uso / Relativization in Brazilian Portuguese and Acadian French: A Comparative Sociolinguistic Perspective on Prescription and Use. With Rosane Berlinck (UNESP). Conference: Sociolinguística(S): variação e interfaces. October, 2025. Brazil

2025

Predire il presente e il futuro: analizzare la variazione linguistica in italiano con metodi statistici. With Chiara Paolini (UK Leuven). Conference: LVIII Congresso internazionale di studi della Società di Linguistica Italiana. Workshop 2
Metodi di analisi statistica della variazione linguistica nel dominio italo-romanzo. September, 2025. Italy - Workshop Program

2024

Linguistic Variation and Hidden Patterns: A Variationist Approach to Subjunctive Mood Selection. Invited speaker. October, 28, 2024. Department of Linguistics, KU Leuven, Belgium

2024

Cartographie sociolinguistique de la société médiévale dans le Ludus Scacchorum : une analyse des représentations sociales et linguistiques des pièces nobles et populaires. International conference : Divertir, éduquer et corriger : pratiques du jeu en Europe, du Moyen Âge à la première Modernité (XIIe-XVIe s.). October 9-11, 2024. Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium - Conference Program

2024

La norme avant la Norme. Enjeux et structures de la formularité dans les écritures commerciales privées des XIIème-XVIIème siècles. With Alessandra Stazzone (Paris-Sorbonne). International conference on stylistic formulas in Medieval culture, Formule au Moyen Âge. June 18, 19 and 20, 2024. Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France - Conference Program

2023

Cerner la variation syntaxique non standard. Le cas des propositions relatives en français acadien et en portugais brésilien. With Rosane Berlinck (UNESP). Workshop, Non-Standard Variation, Prejudice And Linguistic Ideologies. October 24, 2023. Dalhousie University

2023

Variation and typology in Romance: a cross-linguistic study of subjunctive selection in spontaneous speech. With Shana Poplack, Rena Torres Cacoullos, Nathalie Dion, Rosane de Andrade Berlinck, Dora Lacasse & Jonathan Steuck. International conference on typology and sociolinguistic methods, Naturally occurring data in and beyond linguistic typology. May 18-19, 2023. Università di Bologna, Italy - Conference Program

2023

Typology And Variation of Subjunctive Mood. On Shared (Probabilistic) Constraints. International conference on typology and sociolinguistic methods, Naturally occurring data in and beyond linguistic typology. May 18-19, 2023. Università di Bologna, Italy Conference Program

2023

Variation et changement linguistiques au sein et au-delà du français canadien : communautés, contact et apprentissage de la langue seconde. Invited speaker. March 7, 2023. Department of French, Acadia University

2022

Variation et changement discursifs en français canadien. Le cas des marqueurs d’introduction du discours rapporté. Invited speaker, French Lecture Series. November 25, 2022. Dalhousie University

2020

What the Italian subjunctive “actually” means. Linguistweets. ABRALIN - Brazilian Linguistics Association. December 5

2020

Manipulating Corpus Data with Kontext. Invited Speaker. Faculdade de Ciências e Letras, SoLAr Sociolinguistics Research Group, Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP, São Paulo, Brazil. October 19 and 20

2019

Assessing language contact in a minority context in Canada: The Case of Ontarian French. Invited Speaker. Course LIN 2760 Bilingualism. Prof. Stephen Levey. Fall 2019. University of Ottawa. Ottawa, Canada

2018

Putting the Romance back into reported speech: Evidence from Quebec French, Acadian French, Brazilian Portuguese and Italian. DiPVaC 4. 28-30 May. University of Helsinki. Helsinki, Finland. With Stephen Levey, Mélissa Chiasson-Léger, Ariane Dei Tos Cardenuto & Sarah Lefebvre. May 29

2018

Dealing with variability in loanword integration. Presenter and Discussion Leader. Graduate Seminar LIN 7342 Bilingualism, Prof. Shana Poplack. University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. February 6

2016

Unveiling the Future: the case of Italian. OCLU 2016. University of Ottawa. Ottawa, Canada. November 26. (Plenary Session)

2016

Unveiling the Future: the case of Italian. Invited Speaker. Graduate Research Seminar in Sociolinguistics, Prof. Shana Poplack. Fall 2016. University of Ottawa. Ottawa, Canada

2016

Meaningful variation? A multi-language study of the Romance subjunctive. Sociolinguistics Symposium (SS) 21. University of Murcia. Murcia, Spain. With Shana Poplack, Rena Torres Cacoullos, Nathalie Dion, Rosane de Andrade Berlinck, Dora Lacasse & Jonathan Steuck. June 17

2016

Patterns of futurity: A variationist study of future temporal reference in Italian. Change and Variation in Canada (CVC) 9. University of Ottawa. Ottawa, Canada. May 8

2016

Identical or fraternal twins? The Synthetic Future in French and Italian. Linguistics Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL) 46. Stony Brook University (SUNY). New York, USA. With Shana Poplack. (Accepted but withdrawn)

2016

Tracking grammaticalization across Romance: Evidence from the subjunctive. Linguistics Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL) 46. Stony Brook University (SUNY). New York, USA. With Shana Poplack, Rena Torres Cacoullos, Nathalie Dion, Rosane de Andrade Berlinck, Dora Lacasse & Jonathan Steuck. March 31

2015

Strong and Weak Claims. A Semantic Account of Counterfactuals in Italian. Invited Speaker. Doctoral Seminar, Prof. Éric Mathieu. Fall 2015. University of Ottawa. Ottawa, Canada

2015

Using variability to measure grammaticalization: A pan-Romance study of the subjunctive. New Ways of Analysing Variation (NWAV) 44. University of Toronto. Toronto, Canada. With Shana Poplack, Rena Torres Cacoullos, Nathalie Dion, Rosane de Andrade Berlinck, Dora Lacasse & Jonathan Steuck. October 23

2015

A pan-Romance perspective on subjunctive variability. Canadian Linguistic Association (CLA) 2015. University of Ottawa. Ottawa, Canada. With Shana Poplack, Rosane de Andrade Berlinck & Nathalie Dion. May 31

2015

Le Futur à Présent. Une étude variationniste de la référence temporelle du futur en italien parlé. Journées de Linguistique (JDL) 2015. Université Laval. Québec, Canada. March 6

2013

Langues et société à l'ère de la mondialisation. Le cas de Montréal. Valeur(s) et responsabilité(s) face à la globalisation. Université Paris-Est Créteil et Université Paris-Sorbonne. Paris, France. Novembre 22

2013

Lieux et enjeux du code-switching à Montréal. La frontière en soi. Université de Montréal. Montréal, Canada. May 2

Dissertation

Title

Verum a fontibus haurire. A Variationist Analysis of Subjunctive Variability Across Space and Time: from Contemporary Italian back to Vulgar Latin

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the use of the subjunctive in completive clauses governed by verbs in Italian, both synchronically and diachronically, and in Vulgar Latin. By making use of the tools provided by the Variationist Sociolinguistic framework (Labov 1972, 1994), the current study sheds light on the underlying conditioning on variability using actual usage and speech-surrogate data. Contemporary actual speech data comes from LIP (De Mauro et al. 1993) and C-ORAL-ROM (Cresti & Moneglia 2005) corpora, providing spontaneous discourse in casual and careful speech as well as sub-sample divisions representative of geographical variation. In order to measure any changes in the underlying conditioning on subjunctive selection, a diachronic benchmark is established: a corpus of speech-like surrogates of 16th to 20th century Italian, COHI (Corpus of Historical Italian), and a corpus of Vulgar Latin (Cena Trimalchionis, from the Satyricon by Petronius). The subjunctives were extracted in adherence to the principle of accountability (Labov 1972), using the method developed by Poplack (1992): every complement clause governed by a matrix verb (governor) that triggered the subjunctive at least once was included. This method enables us to circumvent the issue of the lack of consensus in the literature on exactly which contexts, i.e. verbs and/or meanings, should trigger the subjunctive in discourse. This issue surfaces as well from the meta-linguistic analysis of a compendium of 58 Italian grammars and treaties (CSGI, Collezione Storica di Grammatiche Italiane), constructed for the purpose of this research. A series of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors proposed by formal and prescriptive literature are operationalized and tested against the corpora of both Italian and Vulgar Latin, in order to ascertain the nature of variability in discourse: i.e. whether the use of the subjunctive is semantically motivated, productive in speech or undergoing desemanticization and lexicalization. Despite widespread assumption of a change that occurred after the political and the subsequent linguistic unification of Italy, i.e. that the subjunctive has lost ground in favour of the indicative when it was supposedly used categorically in the past, quantitative and statistical evidence shows that subjunctive selection is largely determined by lexical identity of the governor as well as embedded suppletive forms of essere, and that this pattern has been operative at least since the 16th century. On a more socio-linguistic aspect, this study confirms the linguistic prestige that the subjunctive has acquired in contemporary speech, being selected with a wider range of infrequent and singleton governors by highly educated speakers. Also, the highly lexicalized pattern on variability was found to be largely shared amongst the four main urban centres of Florence, Milan, Rome, and Naples, thus countering the assumption of divergent linguistic behaviour between northern and southern varieties of Italian. The study also shows that despite the significant time span targeted, no evidence of desemanticization has been found. Likewise, the variationist analysis on the Vulgar Latin subjunctive shows that subjunctive choice was already largely determined by, and restricted, to a few governors, identified as ‘volitive’ and ‘emotive’ matrices. These governors remained strong predictors for the selection of the subjunctive in Italian as well, suggesting that this lexical pattern has been transferred and consistently retained in the daughter language

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Comprehensive Papers & Unpublished manuscripts

✏️ 1st Comprehensive Paper in Variationist Sociolinguistics. L’évolution de l’expression de la référence temporelle du futur en italien : une étude synchronique et diachronique.✏️ 2nd Comprehensive Paper in Formal Semantics/Pragmatics. Strong and Weak Claims. A semantic account of counterfactuals in Italian.✏️ I think Ø something is missing here: A variationist study of complementizer deletion in Italian discourse. Seminar: Urban Dialectology II. University of Ottawa, Winter 2014.✏️ When is a black horse a black-horse? English compound words in French discourse. Seminar: Bilingualism. University of Ottawa, Winter 2015.✏️ T’es comme : « Ahh ! ». C’est le fun, tu sais. Réflexions variationnistes autour de être comme en français québécois. Seminar: Urban Dialectology I. University of Ottawa, Fall 2014.✏️ Assessing the counterfactual implicature in an experimental setting with R. Seminar: Experimental Pragmatics. University of Ottawa, Winter 2015.

Teaching

Department of French, Carleton University

Winter 2026

FREN 4060 : Projet de recherche supervisé
FREN 2451 : Sémantique formelle du français, upper-undergraduate course - syllabus
FREN 2401 : Introduction à la linguistique II (morphology, syntax, semantics)

Fall 2025

FREN/LING 4415-5415 : Français, entre usage et prescription, seminar - syllabus
FREN 3415 : Histoire du français, upper-undergraduate course - syllabus
FREN 2401 : Introduction à la linguistique II (phonetics and phonology)

Winter 2025

FREN 4060 : Projet de recherche supervisé
FREN 3414 : Sociolinguistique du français, upper-undergraduate course - syllabus
FREN 2401 : Introduction à la linguistique II

Fall 2024

FREN/LING 4412-5412 : Bilinguisme et contact des langues, seminar - syllabus
FREN 3412 : Morphologie du français, upper-undergraduate course - syllabus
FREN 2401 : Introduction à la linguistique I

Department of French, Dalhousie University

Winter 2024

FREN 5295 : Second Language Teaching and Acquisition, graduate seminar
FREN 4002 : History of French, Modern Period, upper-undergraduate course
FREN 1008 : Basic French II

Fall 2023

FREN 3017 : Differential Linguistics (Fall), upper-undergraduate course
FREN 2022 : Spoken French
FREN 1047 : Français intermédiaire I

Spring 2023

FREN 5998 : Independent Research on Language Contact, graduate course
FREN 5998 : Independent Research in Sociolinguistics, graduate course

Winter 2023

FREN 3000 : Advanced Oral French Workshop, upper-undergraduate course
FREN 2021 : Language and Culture, Le français : origines, diffusion et francophonie
FREN 1048 : Français intermédiaire II

Fall 2022

FREN 5295 : Second Language Teaching and Acquisition, graduate seminar
FREN 4014 : Language and Society, upper-undergraduate course
FREN 1047 : Français intermédiaire I

Department of French, Carleton University

Winter 2022

FREN 2401 : Introduction à la linguistique française II

Fall 2021

FREN 2401 : Introduction à la linguistique française I

Winter 2021

FREN 3412 : Morphologie, upper-undergraduate course

Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa

Fall 2020

LIN3742 : Sociolinguistique, upper-undergraduate course

Winter 2020

LIN3315 : Introduction to Semantics, upper-undergraduate course

Fall 2019

LIN3715 : Introduction à la sémantique, upper-undergraduate course
LIN2700 : Les langues dans le monde, upper-undergraduate course
LIN1700 : Qu’est-ce que le langage ?

Summer 2019

Introduction à la linguistique – Summer program for francophone students

Winter 2019

LIN2700 : Les langues dans le monde, upper-undergraduate course

Winter 2019

LIN1740 : Langue et société

Fall 2018

LIN3742 : Sociolinguistique, upper-undergraduate course
LIN1700 : Qu’est-ce que le langage ?

Summer 2018

Introduction à la linguistique – Summer program for francophone students

Winter 2018

LIN3742 : Sociolinguistique, upper-undergraduate course

Fall 2017

LIN3715 : Introduction à la sémantique, upper-undergraduate course

Fall 2016

LIN3742 : Sociolinguistique, upper-undergraduate course

Department of Languages, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Winter 2013

Italian as a Second Language 1, 2 & 4, undergraduate and graduate level courses

Fall 2012

Italian as a Second Language 1 & 2, undergraduate and graduate level courses

Invited Professor, Università di Bologna

Summer 2023

Language variation and linguistic structure. Invited professor at the Spring School On Language Variation. May 16, 2023. Università di Bologna, Italy

Contact

Department of French
Carleton University
Office: 1625, Dunton Tower
1125 Colonel By Dr
Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6
CanadaT 613.520.2600 x2184

Feel free to send an email directly at salvio.digesto@carleton.ca or fill in the contact form:

KONTEXT is a new concordance software designed to manage and perform operations on your text file or corpus. The software was designed to handle transcriptions of spoken language in particular, but it can be used with any type of text. It extracts words, phrases, or sequences of characters with both their preceding and following context. For each instance (or token) found by KONTEXT, results will display where exactly the token was found within the text, and provides the source/text file ID it belongs to, the line in the text where it appears and the speaker who uttered it. You can add .TXT files to your concordance and merge specific files and/or specific speakers in order to perform your concordance and search only a specific subset of the corpus.
You can search single words, compound words, or sequences of characters/clusters (e.g. useful to find all words ending in -ing). KONTEXT allows you to search the targeted word/sequence by also choosing its placement in the text, such as 'begins with', 'ends with', 'anywhere' in the word (e.g. useful to check the frequency of words containing a sequence of letters such as tr: treasure, instrument, control, etc.). Explore the many other options available to you (e.g. word lists, clipboard, exporting results, etc.) by downloading your copy of KONTEXT today and start concordancing your corpus.
Kontext uses UTF-8 as its encoding and can support many languages. Also.. it's 100% FREE.Your text files won't need much editing prior to using KONTEXT, but keep the following three things in mind:

  1. Save your transcription as a plain text file (.txt) and preserve line breaks;

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  3. All characters between parentheses are comments and won't count towards your concordance, such as (laughing/rire).

Example of a transcription of spontaneous speech (adapted from Poplack 1989: 446. The care and handling of a mega-corpus: The Ottawa-Hull French project):

Once you've checked your file meets these three conditions, you are good to go! Kontext will take care of everything else.

KONTEXT is currently available in its final beta version. Although it is ready to use, some testing is still ongoing. If you try it out, any feedback would be greatly appreciated and will be very helpful as I work toward the full release of the software.Download the version compatible with your computer's operating system (Windows or Mac OSX):

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KONTEXT beta version for
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KONTEXT beta version for
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Use the following method to cite/reference Kontext (APA style):

Digesto, S. (2025). Kontext (Version BETA) [Computer Software]. Ottawa, Canada: Carleton University. Available from https://www.digesto.ca/kontext

Contact

Coming soonÉchos is a knowledge-mobilization project designed to bring research on language to a wider public. The platform will feature journal-style articles, podcasts, and selected student work, with a particular focus on French, linguistic variation, language ideologies, and the place of language in society.