Advanced Learners Of French Research Articles

Processing reduced speech in the L1 and L2: a combined eye-tracking and ERP study

ABSTRACT We examined the cognitive processes underlying the comprehension of reduced word pronunciation variants in natives and advanced learners of French. In a passive listening visual world task, participants heard sentences containing either a reduced or a full form and saw pictures representing the target word, a phonological competitor and two neutral distractors. After each sentence they saw a picture and had to decide whether it matched the content of that sentence. Eye movements and EEG were recorded simultaneously. Because the two recordings offer complementary information about cognitive processes, we developed methods for analysing the signals in combination. We found a stronger effect of reduction on phonetic processing and semantic integration in learners than in natives, but the effects are different from the N100/N400 and P600 effects found in previous research. Time-locking EEG signals on fixation moments in the eye movements offers a window onto the time course of semantic integration.

Collaborative scaffolding in online task-based voice interactions between advanced learners

AbstractThis paper reports some of the findings of a distinctive innovative use of audio-conferencing involving a population (campus-based advanced learners) and a type of application (task-based language learning) that have received little attention to date: the use of Wimba Voice Tools to provide additional opportunities for spoken interactions between advanced learners of French. The experiment had a dual aim: (a) to examine the suitability of Wimba Voice Tools as an environment for sustained interactive talk, and (b) to study the nature of interactions between advanced learners, with particular reference to the processes supporting collaborative activity.After a brief summary of the rationale and main characteristics of the experiment, the paper focuses on the strategies used by three non-native speaker (NNS) dyads to resolve language problems as they worked on a set of four tasks. Extending the classical model of negotiation for meaning to cover other instances of language-related episodes identified through discourse analysis of the empirical data, the study offers a detailed account of the incidence and nature of negotiated interaction and collaboration between partners. This leads to a discussion covering the impact of functionalities, scaffolding and task effects. The paper ends with some suggestions for future research.

Dynamic assessment: The dialectic integration of instruction and assessment

This presentation is situated within the general framework of Vygotsky's educational theory, which argues that development in formal educational activity is a fundamentally different process from development that occurs in the everyday world. A cornerstone of Vygotsky's theory is that to be successful education must be sensitive to learners' zone of proximal development. This requires the dialectical integration of instruction and assessment into a seamless and dynamic activity. The presentation includes a discussion of how the integration is systematically achieved in the process known as dynamic assessment and illustrates through analysis of data from advanced learners of French how this functions in second language education.

Beyond the Aspect Hypothesis

The Aspect Hypothesis (AH) (Andersen 1986, 1991) suggests an eight-stage development of the Spanish tense–aspect system by English learners in which tenses progressively mark verb categories. The current paper, which presents some of the main findings from Labeau (2005), explores the relevance of the AH to an acquisitional setting other than that for which it was developed. Specifically, it tests the four tenets of the AH, as described by Shirai and Kurono (1998) against data from the acquisition of the French tense/aspect system by advanced learners of French in a tutored environment. It compares the use of French verbal morphology by advanced Anglophone learners with a control group of native speakers engaging in a variety of tasks: (1) oral and written narratives (2) a grammar cloze-test and (3) a written editing task. Having shown that the basic hypothesis is unable to account for the development of advanced French, the study tests an expanded version of the AH (Andersen 2002) and suggests further factors to take into account in the description of advanced stages of tense–aspect acquisition.

Clitic placement in L2 French: evidence from sentence matching

In this paper, we argue in favour of the NO IMPAIRMENT HYPOTHESIS, whereby L2 functional categories, features and feature values are attainable, and against the NO PARAMETER RESETTING HYPOTHESIS, according to which L2 learners are restricted to L1 categories and features, as well as against the LOCAL IMPAIRMENT HYPOTHESIS, which claims that the interlanguage grammar is characterized by inert feature values. An online experiment was conducted, investigating adult learners' knowledge of properties relating to clitic projections. Advanced learners of French (L1s English and Spanish), together with a native speaker control group, were tested on a variety of constructions involving clitics by means of the SENTENCE MATCHING procedure (Freedman & Forster 1985). L2 learners distinguished in their response times between certain kinds of grammatical and ungrammatical clitic placement, as did the native-speaker controls, suggesting the attainability of L2 properties distinct from the L1.

Agreement and discourse: from cohesion to coherence

AbstractThe article argues that, contrary to a widespread view (e.g. Haiman, 1985; Palmer, 1984), agreement in those languages which exhibit it is not a purely redundant, semantically empty and grammatically predictable phenomenon, but performs several important functions at the level of discourse.Taking French as the example language, I will argue (section 2.1) that agreement signals the function-argument interpretation to be assigned to pairs of expressions of various kinds; and second, that it may also code anaphorically the high-focus status of particular discourse referents (section 2.2). Section 3 compares certain written errors in agreement marking made by advanced learners of French, with certain other interpretative errors in their reading of French articles - errors based on agreement relations and leading to the mis-assignment of reference to an agreement target or personal pronoun. Finally, section 4 argues that third person personal pronouns should be treated differently from the (essentially predicative) agreement targets discussed in sections 2 and 3, claiming that they do not participate in agreement stricto sensu.

Systematic and Nonsystematic Variability in Advanced Language Learning

Variability, both systematic and nonsystematic, has been the subject of much debate in recent years in the study of learner interlanguage. This article presents empirical evidence from a longitudinal study of a small group of advanced learners of French. Variability is noticeable throughout the period of learning of a particular structure in French. Nonsystematicity observed in individual learners' performance is explained in the light of developmental stages such as those put forward in Gatbonton's diffusion model. When looked at in terms of developmental processes, nonsystematic variability becomes an essential element of progress. Patterns of development are observed across the subjects, and learning can thus be seen to follow a systematic route.

On the Adult's Ability to Acquire Phonology

During the preparation phase of research designed to test the strong version of the critical period hypothesis, the author noted a marked discrepancy between the perceptive and the productive performance of several English-French bilinguals who had evaluated the text instruments. Although these bilinguals spoke French with an English accent,; most were able to match the performance of native-speaking francophones on the initial version of the Foreign Accent Recognition Test especially prepared for the 1979 study. The inspiration for the research described here was drawn from the apparent asymmetry observed in the input and output of these fluent bilinguals. The Foreign Accent Recognition Test was administered to Englishspeaking students who were advanced learners of French and who had acquired their second language as adults. Although all Ss spoke French with traces of foreign accent, the investigator wished to know to what extent they could match the perceptive performance of native-speaking francophones. To assess the relevance of competence in L2 as a variable, another group of English-speaking adults who were less advanced in French was tested. The results of these follow-up studies are interpreted as tentative support for a dual model of linguistic competence. They also constitute, for the author, grounds for re-examining biological constraints in adult language learning as a psychomotor rather than psycholinguistic problem. When perusing the literature on child language, one notes with interest that learning ability is rarely discussed as a significant variable. Whether advocates of a species specific language acquisition device or proponents of a cognitive processing theory, first language acquisitionists accept without question that children possess the capacity to acquire native-like proficiency in their language at all linguistic levels. Although it has been shown that children vary in initial rate of acquisition and in the time at which they begin to use language systematically, these differences have not attracted serious attention in studies on first language acquisition. Our view of the child as indistinguishable from his peers with respect to language learning ability may change of course as a result of work conducted in the areas of pragmatics and individual