Sociopragmatic Competence in FFL Language Teaching: towards a Principled Approach to Teaching Discourse Markers in FFL

Abstract

Sociopragmatic competence is now a widely researched area in linguistics, language acquisition and language learning and teaching, and one of the goals of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe 2001/2011). Several studies in language acquisition demonstrate the benefits of instruction in various aspects of pragmatics, but principally for the teaching of English, and rarely for the teaching of discourse markers. These items are difficult to explain to learners, but they are very helpful to manage a conversation, for example donc/alors/tiens are particular ways of opening a conversation, whereas voila/ok can help to close a conversation, and also have a feedback role. The aim of this chapter is to propose a model for the creation of relevant fabricated dialogues for the learning and teaching of sociopragmatic competence, especially of discourse markers in French as a foreign language (FFL). Taking voila as a case study, we explore the ways in which an investigation of the functions and meanings of discourse markers in a corpus of spoken French can inform materials for teaching. We will first provide a definition of sociopragmatic competence and discourse markers in linguistics and in language learning and teaching. We will then present two different methodological approaches to the investigation of discourse markers and their implications for course design, taking as an illustration the analysis of voila. Based on a semantic approach in which voila has a ‘coremeaning’ with various contextual functions, we will propose a course design which involves the construction of model dialogues based on the study of authentic spoken interactions from the Lancom corpus (Louvain-Leuven University).