An exploratory study of discourse organisation in French L1, Dutch L1, French L2 and Dutch L2 written narratives

Abstract

Three major questions are dealt with in this contribution: (i) what principles of discourse organisation do French and Dutch native speakers use when writing narratives?; (ii) what strategies do (pre-)advanced French-speaking learners of Dutch and Dutch-speaking learners of French display in their texts?; and (iii) to what extent do the interlanguages differ from the source and target languages, and resemble each other? Our analyses reveal that it is not so much the degree of packaging, nor the use of subordinate clauses that distinguishes French from Dutch narratives, but the frequency of non-finite clauses and the use of present participles in secondary predication. Furthermore, the impact of target and source language on the learner’s interlanguage differs according to the construction that is being examined. The most striking differences were the absence of secondary predication in French L2 and the frequent use of complement clauses in Dutch L1. Finally, no clear organisational pattern typical of (pre-)advanced interlanguage was evident.