L2 French Research Articles

Restrictive Relatives in L3 English: L1 Transfer and Ultimate Attainment Convergence

This study examines the acquisition of the restrictive relative clause with respect to the distribution of gaps and resumptive pronouns in L3 English. The learners are L1 Arabic–L2 French adults. The study considers whether the L1 or the L2 or both constitutes the source of morphosyntactic transfer in the L3 initial stages. The predictions of three multilingual transfer models are tested: the Typological Primacy Model; the Cumulative Enhancement Model; and the L2 status factor. Additionally, the study investigates the upper limit of the advanced L3 learners' performance. The results of an acceptability judgment and a preference task show that knowledge of restrictive relatives in the L3 initial stages is influenced by L1 Arabic and that economical cognitive processing pre-empts (psycho)-typology and determines the source of transfer. For the advanced learners, their L3 English performance is nativelike.

The Role of Persian L1 and English L2 on the Acquisition of French L3 Syllable Structure

The aim of the present study is to investigate the role of two consonant coda clusters of first language Persian, second language English and third language French in the acquisition of French syllable structure when learners have achieved different levels of L2 proficiency.The following hypotheses are investigated in this study: (1) the L2 Status Factor (Rothman and Amaro, 2010) proposing that L2 impedes transfer from L1 into L3 , (2) the Cumulative Enhancement Model (Flynn et al. 2004) proposing selective transfer from the previously learned languages, (3) the Full Transfer/ Full Access Hypothesis (Håkansson, Pienemann and Sayheli, 2002), suggesting that the Universal Grammar (i.e. UG) is available in acquiring the succeeding languages.(4)Typological Primacy Model (Rothman, 2010) that believe in the similarities between the L3 and the previous languages determine the transfer into L3.To carry out the study, 30 Persian L3 French candidates at Tehran University who participated at Oxford Placement Test and French Placement Test were selected. In addition, two types of tasks were prepared to measure the L3 learners. The data analysis was carried out by one-way ANOVA as well as Mixed between-within subjects ANOVA. The results of the study proved ‘Full access/ Full transfer’ and TPM hypotheses.

The categorization of the relative complementizer phrase in third-language English: A feature re-assembly account

Research questions: The study considers (1) the nature of multilingual transfer in the pre-intermediate stage of third-language (L3) English and (2) the upper limit of L3 ultimate attainment with respect to the acquisition of definite and indefinite restrictive relative clauses. Methodology: The methodology used was four-point scale acceptability judgment tasks testing (un)-grammatical relative sentences. Data and analysis: The accuracy scores of two control groups of French ( n = 15) and English ( n = 12) natives and two groups of pre-intermediate ( n = 11) and advanced ( n = 15) adult learners of L3 English are submitted to parametric statistical analysis. Findings: The results of the pre-intermediate L3 learners indicate that the relative complementizer phrase structure is available as a block from the earlier stages, while the feature matrix of the complementizer is a hybrid of first-language (L1) Arabic and second-language (L2) French features [EPP, ±definite, –wh]. The L3 interlanguage at this stage presents simultaneous L1 non-facilitative and L2 facilitative transfer effects. The performance of the advanced L3 learners shows that they can successfully re-assemble the features of the complementizer matrix substituting the target [–wh] for the native [±definite]. Originality: This article uses a novel language triplet L1 Arabic–L2 French–L3 English to investigate the L3 acquisition of restrictive relatives in a formal foreign language context. The focus is on the interplay between the (in)-definiteness of the head noun and the nature of the complementizer. Significance/implications: The study extends the viability of Lardiere’s feature re-assembly account of L2 acquisition to L3 acquisition. The (in)-definiteness of the head noun of the relative clause needs adequate attention in language teaching, like the much-highlighted aspects of resumption.

Wh-questions in child L2 French: Derivational complexity and its interactions with L1 properties, length of exposure, age of exposure, and the input

This study investigates how derivational complexity interacts with first language (L1) properties, second language (L2) input, age of first exposure to the target language, and length of exposure in child L2 acquisition. We compared elicited production of wh-questions in French in two groups of 15 participants each, one with L1 English (mean age 8 years 10 months or 8;10) and one with L1 Dutch (mean age 6;3), which were further subdivided into subgroups matched for the different variables under examination. Although in their L1s wh-questions display wh-movement and subject–verb/aux inversion, the learners did not perform similarly. A high number of wh-in-situ questions (i.e. the least complex option) was produced by the L1-English children, suggesting that derivational complexity can override L1 influence. In the L1-Dutch group, questions with overt wh-movement were more frequent. This may stem from the influence of generalized XP-movement to the left periphery in Dutch. Inversion (i.e. the most complex option) was rare in both groups and was related to contact with formal schooling. These results hold across the different subgroups, which suggests not only that complexity plays a role in child L2 acquisition, but also that its effects may differ according to the properties of the L1.

The impact of discourse types on the acquisition of nominal determination in L2 French

+N) are much more frequent in descriptions than in narratives: the use of these forms is determined by the marking of the introduction of referents and change of reference, that are more common in descriptions. The comparison with the results of previous studies on NP acquisition allows us to put in perspective the precocity of the acquisition of the definite article compared to that of the indefinite article. Contrary to such studies, our results show that definite and indefinite determiners appear at the same time. Their frequency of use varies according to the communicative task and the type of discourse produced. The absence of a form in a certain type of production does not mean that it is absent in the learner's L2 system. Thus, the consideration of various contexts of production is imperative to describe the acquisition of linguistic

Spanish future of probability: teaching and learning

This project investigates how the acquisition of the future of probability in Spanish can be facilitated through classroom instruction, taking into consideration what L1 English and L1 French learners of L2 Spanish bring to the process of acquisition of this linguistic feature and how language instructors may need to manipulate the input to facilitate learning. We designed an experiment which measures different outcomes of form focused and meaning based instructional methods compared to the one currently used at the University of Ottawa in the Spanish program. We have developed grammaticality judgment and limited written production tasks. We also consider long-term effects of the instruction based on the results of the delayed posttest. Our preliminary results suggest that there is an advantage of meaning based instruction over the form focused one on both tests. At the same time, both instructional methods have had more positive effect on the learner acquisition compared to the results of the control group in both explicit and implicit knowledge. As expected, French L1 learners have a slight benefit over the English L1 learners due to the positive transfer from their L1 into L2 Spanish.

Lexical Aspects of Very Advanced L2 French

Abstract: The present study investigates the possibilities for adult learners to attain nativelikeness in the domain of lexis. Aspects investigated are general lexical knowledge (C-test), receptive deep knowledge, productive collocation knowledge, and productive lexico-pragmatic knowledge in a group of long-residency Swedish French second language (L2) users in France and a matched native control group. The analysis includes correlations between these different vocabulary aspects as well as their relation to the length of residence in the target-language (TL) community. The study reveals that it is possible for L2 learners to attain nativelikeness in general lexical knowledge and lexico-pragmatic knowledge, whereas deep knowledge and collocations are especially difficult for L2 learners, supporting earlier research findings. Furthermore, a strong correlation is found between general lexical knowledge and collocations, but surprisingly not between any of the other aspects, or between vocabulary aspects and length of residence. The results are discussed in light of individual differences in research.

The Second Language Acquisition of French Tense, Aspect, Mood, and Modality par Dalila Ayoun

Reviews 285 techniques ou trop détaillées semblent un peu longues, et la dernière partie du roman, qui décrit la création de la confrérie, est souvent invraisemblable (on a du mal à imaginer une trentaine de SDF qui entrent chez des dormeurs sans les réveiller). Pourtant, le roman invite le lecteur à entrer dans le jeu, à s’aventurer hors des confins du texte pour consulter une carte de l’Institut géographique national dont se sert le narrateur, y repérant des “zones blanches”, ou pour examiner les images satellites sur . Le jeu entre vérité et fiction chez Vasset, et ses projets sur les zones blanches (Un livre blanc, récit de 2007 qui décrit des explorations de l’Île-deFrance , et l’Atelier de géographie parallèle, collectif fondé par l’auteur, qui a pour objectif d’établir la géographie de ces zones) font en sorte que le lecteur se demande s’il n’y a pas parmi nous, dans les grandes villes, des promeneurs qui explorent les interstices urbaines, nous observant tout en restant invisibles. Eastern Illinois University Kathryn M. Bulver Linguistics edited by Stacey Katz Bourns Ayoun, Dalila. The Second Language Acquisition of French Tense, Aspect, Mood, and Modality. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2013. ISBN 978-90-272-0526-1. Pp. 252. $143. The intertwined concepts of tense, aspect, and modality (TAM) are perennial topics of investigation in the fields of linguistics and second language acquisition. These ways of communicating the timing of an event and its internal and external structure can differ substantially among languages,and such cross-linguistic differences are likely causes for difficulties in second language (L2) acquisition. The language learning pairing of French and English—the focus of this volume’s investigation—is notorious for confusion stemming from the fact that English tends to contrast perfective and progressive aspect, whereas the key contrast in French is perfective versus imperfective. The volume’s first three chapters introduce and catalog these and other features of TAM in the two languages, providing a background that is both descriptive from a theory-neutral perspective and explanatory within the Minimalist framework. A review of the extant research on L2 TAM acquisition takes a similar tack, first presenting an overview of less theory-dependent work and then shifting to a discussion of the generative research on French and other languages. The main contribution of the volume reports a large-scale study on L2 French, in which a series of elicitation tasks, cloze tests, and grammaticality judgment tasks were used to examine TAM in L2 learners. These tasks revealed that performance improved with increasing proficiency and that learners were capable of acquiring TAM features but did not use them systematically. Following a Minimalist account of TAM in the L2, Ayoun concludes that successful Anglophone learners of L2 French acquire several functional categories (Agreement Phrase, Tense Phrase, Mood Phrase), the appropriate mapping of the [perfective] feature on verbal morphology, the indicative-subjunctive distinction, and other features. The volume concludes with a section on “pedagogical implications” that, unexpectedly, is actually devoted more toward giving a general overview of SLA and pedagogical theories, rather than making specific suggestions for improving learners’ intake with respect to TAM issues. The suggestions that are made, on the other hand, offer common-sense advice to educators: TAM is best taught, Ayoun argues, by giving clear, explicit instruction using appropriate terminology; by relating TAM to universal concepts of time, temporality, and discourse; by relating new content to learners’ existing knowledge of TAM in their L1; and by appealing to metalinguistic knowledge. The volume is of great use on three levels. First, it provides a straightforward, thorough, and systematic rundown of the differences and similarities in TAM between English and French, thereby offering value to educators and linguists interested in reviewing or deepening their familiarity with this area. Second, the original study reported in the volume is impressive in its scope, and the volume handily sidesteps the long-term limitations of chaining itself to a current theoretical model of generative syntax by providing large amounts of descriptive data that are relevant to any syntactic-theory-neutral approach to second language acquisition . Finally...

Language awareness and perception of connected speech in a second language

To be effective second or additional language (L2) listeners, learners should be aware of typical processes in connected L2 speech (e.g. linking). This longitudinal study explored how learners’ developing ability to perceive connected L2 speech was related to the quality of their language awareness. Thirty-two learners of L2 French at a university in Quebec, Canada, took a course focusing on improving learners’ abilities to understand and decode standard and familiar connected speech processes in French. Learners engaged in numerous activities to raise their awareness of and to practise perception of connected speech processes. They also completed weekly journal entries about their learning experiences and language use. Results showed that learners with the most improved perception did not focus on rehearsing knowledge about connected speech processes, but focused on how to use that knowledge to extract meaning from speech. Results are discussed in relation to the relationship between L2 listening and different types of awareness.

La liaison en français langue seconde

This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of French liaison among Irish university learners. Quantitative analysis of their spoken language points to the clear distinction that underlies their use of liaison between obligatory and variable contexts. In the former case, they evidence near-categorical levels of use, while their use of liaison in variable contexts is more frequent than that observed in studies of native speakers in the same age group. Morphosyntactic and lexical analyses indicate that the learners use variable liaison in a small number of morphosyntactic contexts as opposed to the full range within which it is possible, while applying it to a limited number of words within these contexts. The findings are discussed in relation to a number of hypotheses that they raise concerning the acquisition of liaison in L2 French, along with some methodological issues that they evidence concerning the study of liaison in learner language.

Exploring the upper limits of the Aspect Hypothesis

This paper explores coalitions between tense-aspect morphology and the aspectual class of predicates in second language acquisition (the Aspect Hypothesis) on the basis of 36 oral narratives elicited with a picture book from French L1 adult learners of English. The observed distributional patterns are analysed in relation to the prototypical inflection/predicate coalitions observed both at early stages of L2 development and in English L1. While advanced learners are expected to make a productive use of tense-aspect morphology within all predicate classes, our data indicate that the prototypical coalition between the progressive form and activity predicates remains strong until very proficient stages of English L2, when the distribution of verb morphology within this class eventually becomes more flexible and activities as a class are predominantly encoded in the non-progressive present or past form. Non-grammaticalisation of the progressive in the learners’ L1 may interfere with the predictions of the Aspect Hypothesis for this form in English L2.

Direct teaching of vocabulary after listening: is it worth the effort and what method is best?

This paper reports a study comparing the effects of vocabulary instruction on recognition and recall through provision of either an L1 equivalent or an L2 (French) definition. Instruction was in the context of a focus-on-meaning listening activity. The study employed a quasi-experimental design, involving 262 Year 9 learners of French in seven intact classes. Results indicate that brief vocabulary instruction after the listening activity led to more effective recall than a listening-only condition. Gains were found in favour of the L1 equivalent condition over the L2 definition condition for higher and lower proficiency students. Pedagogical implications for this type of lexical focus in the context of a meaning-focused activity are discussed.

PROCESSING FOCUS STRUCTURE IN L1 AND L2 FRENCH

This study examined the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by focus processing among first language (L1) speakers and second language (L2) learners of French. Participants read wh-questions containing explicit focus marking, followed by responses instantiating contrastive and informational focus. We hypothesized that L2 proficiency would modulate nativelikeness in L2 processing. For the L1 and L2 groups, widespread word-long positive shifts reflected the processing of nouns receiving informational and contrastive focus. Nouns receiving contrastive focus showed an increased anterior negativity compared to informational focus for both groups. Second language proficiency modulated the amplitude of this negativity effect, and subgroup analyses of low- and high-proficiency L2 learners showed no significant effect of focus condition among low-proficiency learners. This modulatory relationship between L2 proficiency and nativelikeness of processing is consistent with the dynamic sequence of L2 ERPs observed for morphosyntactic processing and extends those findings to the syntax-pragmatics interface phenomenon of focus processing.

Focus on form as a joint accomplishment: An attempt to bridge the gap between focus on form research and conversation analytic research on SLA

Abstract Several debates have recently addressed complementarities and/or (in)compatibilities between two lines of research concerned with second language interactions: Focus on Form research and conversation analytic work on repair in second language interactions. While our expertise primarily lies in the latter, we follow up on recent calls emanating from the former for more qualitatively oriented analysis. In this paper, we report on a study of correction in naturally occurring French L2 classroom interaction addressing the following question: how is attention focus on form distributed among the participants and interactionally organized across the temporal unfolding of talk? We show the analytic difficulty of determining precisely whose focus we observe in focus on form episodes. The findings substantiate an understanding of attention focus – along with the cognitive orientations of participants – as a process that is interactionally occasioned and organized, and the transformation of which into joint focus hinges on the local contingencies of talk.

Beginner learners' progress in decoding L2 French: Transfer effects in typologically similar L1-L2 writing systems

Research into second language (L2) print-to-sound decoding has consistently underlined the importance of L1-to-L2 transfer. Facilitation has been reported where the L1 and L2 writing systems are typologically similar (e.g., English and French) rather than distant (e.g., English and Chinese). However, other studies have found that young beginner learners of French, whose L1 is English, have poor L2 decoding proficiency and make little progress in this area, despite the similarities between these writing systems. To explore this apparent contradiction, 76 young L1 English speakers learning French as their L2 completed a French decoding test at two time points: at the end of their first and third trimesters of learning French in secondary school. Rather than simply being judged correct or incorrect, as in previous studies, their oral productions were transcribed and analysed at the level of individual grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Participants were found to make very little progress in L2 decoding, as me...

Processing tense/aspect-agreement violations on-line in the second language: A self-paced reading study with French and German L2 learners of English

In this article, we report the results of a self-paced reading experiment designed to investigate the question of whether or not advanced French and German learners of English as a second language (L2) are sensitive to tense/aspect mismatches between a fronted temporal adverbial and the inflected verb that follows (e.g. * Last week, James has gone swimming every day) in their on-line comprehension. The L2 learners were equally able to distinguish correctly the past simple from the present perfect as measured by a traditional cloze test production task. They were also both able to assess the mismatch items as less acceptable than the match items in an off-line judgment task. Using a self-paced reading task, we investigated whether they could access this knowledge during real-time processing. Despite performing similarly in the explicit tasks, the two learner groups processed the experimental items differently from each other in real time. On-line, only the French L2 learners were sensitive to the mismatch conditions in both the past simple and the present perfect contexts, whereas the German L2 learners did not show a processing cost at all for either mismatch type. We suggest that the performance differences between the L2 groups can be explained by influences from the learners’ first language (L1): namely, only those whose L1 has grammaticized aspect (French) were sensitive to the tense/aspect violations on-line, and thus could be argued to have implicit knowledge of English tense/aspect distinctions.

Priming of verb inflections in L1 and L2 French: A comparison of `redundant' versus `non-redundant' training conditions

Abstract There have been several calls to adopt more implicit techniques for investigating how input is processed by second language (L2) learners. This study tested for aural repetition priming using a lexical decision test to establish whether a French verb inflection (-ons) can be primed amongst beginner classroom learners of L2 French during activities that broadly reflected two types of aural instructional activities. Fifty one school learners of French were randomly assigned either to an exposure activity which directed their attention to the target inflection or to an activity in which they were asked to try to understand sentences which contained the target inflection. The input was designed to simulate learning situations in which learners find aural comprehension effortful. All participants then did a lexical decision test, to measure the activation of representations of the French verb inflection during the exposure conditions. The results from this preliminary study indicated that greater priming effects followed the instructional activity that focused attention on the inflection than the activity that focused attention on sentence meaning. This is compatible with acoustic word priming research that suggests an orientation to meaning inhibits priming for some learners, and also with pedagogical research that suggests that focusing learners' attention to some features of the input is helpful. Our findings in the aural domain seem to run counter to recent research suggesting that regardless of the orientation of attention during training, orthographic representations of suffixes can be primed during visual word recognition. Future applications of this technique for investigating the allocation of attention in L2 input processing are discussed.

Prototypical influence in second language acquisition: What now for the Aspect Hypothesis

AbstractThis paper presents empirical evidence on the development of aspect by English- and German-speaking university learners of French L2 collected from a spoken narrative task and a sentence interpretation task. Contrary to the Aspect Hypothesis's predictions, this study's results suggest that increased use of prototypical pairings goes in hand with increased L2 proficiency. Following a small but growing number of studies, this study questions the route of L2 development proposed by the Aspect Hypothesis.

Explicit phonetics instruction in L2 French: A global analysis of improvement

Abstract The present research investigates the efficacy of explicit phonetics and pronunciation instruction on learners of L2 French, by comparing the progress made by students enrolled in a phonetics course at a university with a control group of other advanced L2 French students who are not enrolled in phonetics. This study investigates the extent to which these findings apply to learners of French. Results indicate a positive effect of explicit instruction; a series of two-tailed t-tests showed no significant difference between groups on the pretest, but a significant difference between groups both on the posttest score and rate of improvement; a repeated-measures ANOVA showed an effect for time as a within-groups factor and an interaction of time × group. Both pretest and posttest measured the percent of syllables correctly pronounced in the respective recordings.

Topic management in French L2

Drawing on Conversation Analysis, this paper investigates free occurring conversational data in French as a second language. Its focus of attention is a debated concept within the conversation analytic approach, i.e., topic management. After an overview of the existing literature on topic management and the conceptualisation of learning and L2 interactional competence, the main part of the article will be concerned with data analysis. The data show an au-pair girl speaking French with her host-family at different points in time. The longitudinal design allows for describing in detail and conceptualising L2 interactional competence and its development. In fact, taking into consideration interactional aspects, such as sequential and action organisation, it contributes to a better understanding of L2 learning. The results show how topic management is not only the object of, but also the means for, learning an L2, whilst being socialised into the very same L2. This article contributes to an ongoing debate in the field of CA and, especially, CA-SLA about conceptualising L2 learning and tracking the development of L2 interactional competence.