L2 French Research Articles

What vocabulary size tells us about pronunciation skills: Issues in assessing L2 learners

AbstractMeasures of second language (L2) learners’ vocabulary size have been shown to correlate with language proficiency in reading, writing and listening skills, and vocabulary tests are sometimes used for placement purposes. However, the relation between learners’ vocabulary knowledge and their speaking skills has been less thoroughly investigated, and even less so in terms of pronunciation. In this article, we compare vocabulary and pronunciation measures for 25 Italian instructed learners of L2 French. We measure their receptive (Dialang score) and productive (vocd-D, MTLD) vocabulary size, and calculate the following pronunciation indices: acoustic distance and overlap of realizations for selected L2 French vowel pairs, ratings of nasality forratings of foreign-accentedness, fluency metrics. We find that vocabulary measures show low to medium correlations with fluency metrics and ratings of foreign-accentedness, but not with vowel metrics. We then turn our attention to the impact of research methods on the study of vocabulary and pronunciation. More specifically, we discuss the possibility that these results are due to pitfalls in vocabulary and pronunciation indices, such as the failure of Dialang to take into account the effect of L1-L2 cognates, and the lack of measures for evaluating consonants, intonation and perception skills.

Vocabulary development in a CLIL context: A comparison between French and English L2

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has expanded in Europe, favored by the large body of research, often showing positive effects of CLIL on L2 development. However, critical voices have recently questioned whether these positive findings apply to any language, given that most research focuses on English. Taking into account this concern, the present study investigated the (productive and receptive) vocabulary development in L2 English and L2 French of the same group of learners within a CLIL context. The aim was not to evaluate the benefits of CLIL over non-CLIL, but, instead, to examine whether vocabulary gains in CLIL learning are language-dependent. More specifically, this study included 75 Flemish eight-grade pupils who had CLIL lessons in both English and French. The results show that although the pupils have a larger English vocabulary, the level of improvement (from pretest to posttest) is not different across the languages. The findings indicate that within CLIL vocabulary knowledge also develops in languages other than English.

La périphérie gauche et droite dans la production des locuteurs natifs et non-natifs de français et chez les locuteurs natifs de suédois

Romance languages, including French, tend to put much information in the left periphery whereas in Swedish the trend seems to be the opposite (Morel & Danon-Boileau, 1998, Conway, 2005, Hancock, 2007, Fant, in press). The first objective is to provide a global overview of the taxonomy of the constituents of the left and right periphery in French and Swedish L1, in order to afford a comparative analysis. The second objective is to compare French L2 usage with that of French L1. The results indicate significant differences between the patterns employed in the syntactic peripheries in French and Swedish. Swedish speakers tend to use the right periphery significantly more than L1 French speakers. As far as the left periphery is concerned, the production of French speakers far exceeds that of Swedish speakers. Advanced speakers of French L2 approach French L1 except regarding the most complex left peripheries.

L3 French Conceptual Transfer in the Acquisition of L2 English Motion Events among Native Chinese Speakers

L3 French Conceptual Transfer in the Acquisition of L2 English Motion Events among Native Chinese Speakers

So That All May Speak: Inviting All to Describe Themselves in the L2 French Classroom

In this article, I examine two focal students of L2 French whose curiosity and embodied learning inspired me to rethink my teaching about personal gender expression and grammatical gender and to develop curricular innovations that would open up pathways for self-expression in the L2 French classroom.

Examining Processability Theory's predictions for grammatical gender agreement in intermediate L2 French

The current study investigates Processability Theory's PT) predictions for grammatical gender agreement in L2 French. Previous studies examining advanced L2 French learners did not find significant differences in accuracy rates for attributive and predicative adjectives and thus concluded that PT's predictions were not supported. The current study examines adjective agreement in three positions: within a noun phrase, a verb phrase, and a relative clause. Forty‐five intermediate L2 French learners completed a spot‐the‐difference task targeting noun‐adjective agreement. Learners were significantly more accurate with agreement occurring within phrasal boundaries than agreement across phrasal boundaries, in line with PT's predicted order of acquisition.

Future Temporal Reference in L2 French Spoken in the Laurentian Region: Contrasting Naturalistic and Instructed Context

Les auteures s’intéressent au français L2 parlé dans deux milieux laurentiens au Canada : le français L2 parlé par les anglophones dont les pratiques linguistiques ont été acquises dans la collectivité bilingue de Montréal, où le français est la langue de la majorité ; et le français L2 parlé par les anglophones qui ont appris le français dans un contexte structuré en Ontario, où le français est la langue d’une minorité. Les résultats de leur étude mettent en lumière l’utilisation du même répertoire de variantes dans les deux groupes. L’analyse révèle une nette préférence pour le futur périphrastique associé à un usage limité du futur fléchi. Bien qu’il s’inscrive au troisième rang des variantes utilisées par les anglomontréalais, le présent à valeur de futur occupe le second rang chez les locuteurs de L2 de l’Ontario. Les résultats révèlent également l’incidence marginale de divers facteurs linguistiques, tels que la polarité, l’écart temporel et la spécification adverbiale. L’analyse jette aussi un éclairage sur le rôle de l’environnement social dans la variabilité affichée, ainsi que sur l’incidence d’un contact intense sur l’utilisation du futur fléchi.

La construction linguistique de la durée en anglais et en français par Agnès Leroux

Reviewed by: La construction linguistique de la durée en anglais et en français par Agnès Leroux Jeff Tennant Leroux, Agnès. La construction linguistique de la durée en anglais et en français. Peter Lang, 2018. ISBN 978-2-8076-0700-2. Pp. 274. Writing primarily for an audience of specialists in enunciation theory and English language teaching, the author presents a fine-grained analysis of expressions of duration in French (pendant, pour) and English (for). The discussion is situated within the framework of Antoine Culioli's Theory of Predicative and Enunciative Operations (TOPE, in French). Working with the two languages in parallel, the study is situated within a contrastive linguistics perspective. The data are drawn from written-language corpora: the Corpus of Contemporary American (COCA) and British National Corpus (BNC) for English; Lextutor and Frantext for French, as well as the Corpus de littérature contemporaine (CODEXT). The primary goal is to contribute to the teaching of these expressions by addressing the specific challenges they pose to French L1 learners of English L2. The introduction gives a general overview. Chapter 1 presents the [End Page 284] theoretical perspective, the concepts of markers and structures within the TOPE framework, and the notions of language pedagogy that motivate the study, as well as the methodology. Chapters 2 to 5 delve into the details of the analysis: typology of referential expressions in English and French: constructions or markers? (chapter 2); operational schemata of for, pendant and depuis (chapter 3); target, scope and construction of durational meaning, from the temporal to the subjective (chapter 4); construction of durational meaning and intersubjectivity: diversification of relational expressions in French (chapter 5). Categories of duration expressions in English and French are presented in several tables, with table 5 in the concluding chapter summing up the core classification. The classification distinguishes different types of processes viewed from the angle of their duration (discrete, dense, or compact), showing correspondences between the two languages for various combinations of verb tenses with the prepositions pendant and depuis in French, and for in English. Chapter 6 focuses on language instruction. Following a discussion of the competing priorities of action-based versus reflection-based approaches, of learning based on usage or explicit study of language forms, the treatment of duration expressions in three published grammars of English for Francophones is analyzed critically, their key shortcoming being the presentation of correspondences in forms between the two languages without the interface of an analysis of the expression of duration in English. Findings are presented from an exploratory teaching experiment based on written productions of quatrième (eighth grade) students who were provided, following an exercise serving as a pre-test, instruction focusing their attention on the expression of duration with for. Results of the post-test show a lower error rate than in the pre-test, thus illustrating the promise for successful application of the findings to teaching. The concluding chapter sums up key findings and offers liminary reflections on teaching applications through guided reflection and an interface appropriate to learners' level. The presentation is highly technical and thus a reader lacking a solid background in Culioli's theory will struggle to follow the detailed, rigorous presentation and discussion of examples. However, curriculum designers for English language instruction can glean core findings from the introduction, chapter 6 and the concluding chapter. Jeff Tennant University of Western Ontario Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

Grammatical aspect and L2 learners’ online processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences in English: A self-paced reading study with German, Dutch and French L2 learners

The results of a self-paced reading study with advanced German, Dutch and French second language (L2) learners of English showed that their online comprehension of early closure (EC) sentences which are initially misanalysed by native English speakers (e.g. While John hunted the frightened rabbit escaped) was affected by whether or not, like English, their first language (L1) encodes aspect grammatically (French) or only via lexical means (German, Dutch). The English and the higher proficiency French participants showed a processing asymmetry in their online reading of the temporarily ambiguous sentences, assumed to be caused by the difference in the aspectual perspective a comprehender takes when initial verbs appear in the past simple vs. the past progressive. In contrast, the German and Dutch learners, irrespective of proficiency, treated both progressive and simple sentences in the same way, despite the fact that all the L2 learners were matched according to their metalinguistic knowledge of English aspectual distinctions. Furthermore, despite patterning with the German learners online, the Dutch L2 learners’ offline judgments were more akin to those of the English native speakers and the French L2 learners, showing an effect of aspect, which could be argued to lend support to the idea that progressive aspect may be becoming grammaticalized in Dutch. Taken together, the results of this study add to our growing understanding of cross-linguistic influences during online L2 sentence processing, and differences between L2 parsing and learners’ metalinguistic L2 performance.

The Contribution of Working Memory to L2 French Pronunciation among Adult Language Learners

Le rôle que joue la mémoire de travail, c’est-à-dire la capacité d’emmagasiner temporairement l’information et de procéder à son traitement cognitif, a fait l’objet de multiples études dans le domaine de la recherche en langues secondes (L2). Au sens général, il a été établi que la mémoire de travail était liée à divers aspects de l’apprentissage et de l’usage de la L2 ; les connaissances en ce qui a trait à son lien avec la prononciation de la L2 sont toutefois limitées. L’auteure étudie la relation entre les résultats obtenus dans la réalisation d’une tâche numérique complexe sollicitant la mémoire de travail et de deux tâches de prononciation du français L2, soit une tâche de lecture à haute voix et une tâche de narration à partir d’une image, réalisées par 30 apprenants adultes parlant mandarin. Les résultats de l’étude révèlent que, malgré l’absence d’écart significatif entre les notes obtenues dans chaque tâche de prononciation, seule la prononciation observée dans la tâche de lecture à haute voix s’explique par la mémoire de travail.

Adaptive and selective production of syllable duration and fundamental frequency as word segmentation cues by French-English bilinguals.

Despite the significant impact of prosody on L2 speakers' intelligibility, few studies have examined the production of prosodic cues associated with word segmentation in non-native or non-dominant languages. Here, 62 French-English bilingual adults, who varied in L1 (French or English) and language dominance, produced sentences built around syllable strings that can be produced either as one bisyllabic word or two monosyllabic words. Each participant produced both English and French utterances, providing both native productions (used as reference) and L2 productions. Acoustic analyses of the mean fundamental frequency (F0) and duration of both syllables of the ambiguous string revealed that speakers' relative language dominance affected the speakers' prosodic cue production over and above L1. Speakers also produced different prosodic patterns in English and French, suggesting that the production of prosodic cues associated with word-segmentation is both adaptive (modified by language experience) and selective (specific to each language).

LAS PERIFERIAS SINTÁCTICAS EN EL HABLA COLOQUIAL DE ESPAÑOL L1 Y L2 Y DE SUECO L1: UN ESTUDIO TIPOLÓGICO Y ADQUISICIONAL

Las dos últimas décadas han visto crecer el interés en las denominadas periferias sintácticas, la de izquierda así como la de derecha. Deriva la presente contribución de un proyecto que se va realizando en Estocolmo y cuyo objetivo es comparar la actuación de suecos muy proficientes en español y francés L2 con la de hablantes nativos de una y otra lengua. En esta comunicación se enfocarán los usos del español L1 y L2 así como del sueco L1. Por un lado, se aplica una perspectiva tipológica al examinar en qué aspectos difieren las pautas del español L1 de las del sueco L1. Por el otro lado, se toma en cuenta la perspectiva adquisicional al formular la pregunta de hasta qué punto llega a parecerse el comportamiento de hablantes no nativos, aunque muy proficientes, a la pauta nativa. Con respecto al primer parámetro, resulta que la lengua española muestra una tendencia considerablemente mayor que la sueca a colocar elementos a la izquierda del núcleo oracional, mientras la lengua sueca arroja una preferencia, más clara todavía, por la colocación en periferia de derecha. En relación con el segundo parámetro, salta al ojo la gran similitud entre los hablantes de español L1 y L2, dándose solo pocas aunque interesantes excepciones. Además, no se puede constatar ningún indicio claro de transferencia de la L1 sueca en los hablantes de español L2.

La notion de transfert appliquée au français comme langue étrangère

Our main objective in this paper is to show how linguistic properties can be transferred from one system to another. Consequences of transfer are evaluated, both positive and negative, for the acquisition of possessives in French L2 or L3 by Norwegian learners. We take as a starting point a comparative description of the possessive systems in French and Norwegian and examine interlanguage grammars of adult learners of French both in a Norwegian university setting and in an immersion context. On the basis of results from production-comprehension tests we can predict and explain interlanguage errors in the students' L2-grammar (negative transfer) using comparative grammatical constraints (reflexive-irreflexive contrasts, binding constraints, explicit marking of the possessor, orientation towards the possessor or the possessum, etc.). We can also predict cases where the learners make fewer errors or no errors at all (positive transfer). In this way we are able to measure the importance of transfer, both negative and positive, for the acquisition of French as foreign language by Norwegian adult learners.

Lexical semantics in advanced second language French: The acquisition of genericity

The study considered the genericity of count nouns among L1 Arabic adult learners advanced in L2 French. The experimental task was a context-based acceptability judgment test on the interpretation of five nominal forms in NP-level and sentence-level generic contexts: definite, indefinite and bare singulars in addition to definite and bare plurals. The results revealed that the L2 learners did not perform to a nativelike degree. Additionally, their response pattern demonstrated that they did not differentiate between the two types of genericity in French, expressing both by definite singulars and definite plurals as in L1 Arabic. They tended to interpret indefinite singulars in characterizing sentences existentially, due to non-facilitative influence of L1 Arabic. The learners correctly excluded bare singulars and plurals as they are existential in the L1 and ungrammatical in this usage in French. The study concluded that the learners’ knowledge of genericity in L2 French was not monolithic, mixing nativelike and transferred expressions.

Intergenerational language transmission in Quebec: patterns and predictors in the light of provincial language planning

ABSTRACT The study presented here is the first empirical investigation of the patterns and predictors of the intergenerational transmission of French in Quebec. An online questionnaire was used to gather data from 274 parents from different mother tongue (L1) groups: L1 French, L1 English, L1 French and English, and L1 Other. The results show that L1 French-and-English-speaking parents and L1 Other parents displayed particularly low rates of French transmission. Three variables were found to be significant predictors of the intergenerational transmission of French: having it as one’s L1, high proficiency, and positive attitudes towards the language on the solidarity dimension. The same three variables were also found to be significant predictors for the intergenerational transmission of English in Quebec, indicating that they may not be merely language-specific. Not significant for either French or English were language used with partner, attitudes on the status dimension, Quebec-based social identity, migration background, and location within Quebec. Further research is needed to ascertain whether the identified predictors are context-specific, and what other variables are at play. The article discusses the implications of this study’s findings for theory as well as for language planning in Quebec, and especially the potential effectiveness of acquisition and prestige planning.

Using information technology to support empirical SLA research

This article argues the case for more widespread adoption of information technology in second language acquisition research. The extent to which electronic datasets and analysis tools such as concordancers and parsers are being adopted across applied linguistics research more widely is briefly reviewed. Reasons for relative lack of adoption of such tools within SLA to date are discussed, and a case is made for use of the CHILDES suite of tools to support SLA research. The background to the CHILDES project in L1 acquisition research is explained, and a detailed account is provided of how CHILDES has been adapted to support a corpus-based programme of research into French L2. The article concludes with a brief assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of CHILDES, and an outline of issues to be addressed if the full benefits of information technology are to be realised in SLA.

The role of previous foreign language knowledge when translating from Italian as an unknown language into L2 English or L3 Spanish or French

The aim of the present study is to examine and describe Swedish upper secondary students’ use of their background languages while translating a text from Italian, a language unknown to them, into either their L2 English or their L3 French or Spanish. The assumption here is that searching for similarities between these languages is a natural feature of language learning and that intercomprehension can lead to at least limited understanding of an unknown language. The written translations were analysed quantitatively by calculating translation accuracy in the different languages and qualitatively by means of a retrospective questionnaire on the translation process. A psychotypology questionnaire was also included to examine the participants’ perceptions of the similarities between the languages involved. The majority of the participants stated that they perceived Spanish to be more similar to Italian than any of the other languages involved in the study. Moreover, the results show that the students in the group that translated into Spanish translated the text more accurately than those who translated into French and English. The comments in the retrospective questionnaire show that the students reflected on similarities between the languages on a lexical level, but also on structural and phonological similarities. Contextual cues were also important for the participants’ inferences and translations.

PARATAXE ET HYPOTAXE DANS L’ACQUISITION DU FLE PAR DES APPRENANTS POLONOPHONES. APPROCHE LONGITUDINALE

This paper focuses on the acquisition of the second language (L2) and the development of syntactic competence in communication. The topic is discusses in relation to syntactic structure of narratives produced by Polish learners of French L2. The author observes in detail how language learners build simple and complex sentences (coordinating/subordinating conjunctions, complex/simple sentences ratio, para- and hypotactic sentence structures) at the three different moment of SLA: 6th, 12th and 35th month of their classroom learning/teaching (developmental and comparative approach).

The effect of task sequencing on second language written lexical complexity, accuracy, and fluency

Planning and sequencing lessons in task-based language teaching has been considered a challenge because there is no agreed-upon theoretical framework for sequencing tasks. The SSARC model (stabilize, simplify, automatize, reconstruct, and complexify) of task sequencing allows for predictions about L2 learners’ interlanguage development. However, previous task sequencing studies have reported mixed findings. Therefore, the current study further investigated the effectiveness of sequencing tasks using the SSARC model for promoting L2 written lexical complexity (e.g., lexical diversity), grammatical accuracy, and fluency. Novice French L2 writers (N = 42) at an elementary school in Lebanon carried out three experimental tasks in two different orders: simple-to-complex, and complex-to-simple. Pre-test and post-test measures of their written production and discrete point tests of target lexical and grammatical forms were administered. Results showed that the writers in both groups improved in terms of their lexical diversity, grammatical accuracy of relative clauses, and fluency, but the simple-to-complex group maintained the gains over time. Pedagogical implications for task sequencing in L2 contexts are discussed.

First versus subsequent foreign language development in situated interaction from a Vygotskyan SCT perspective: microgenetic analysis of Persian-speaking learners

ABSTRACTThe present study compared L2 and L3 learners of the same additional language in two parallel case studies framed within a Vygotskyan SCT perspective to examine how foreign language learners’ background knowledge impacts on the path of their development. Interactive data were collected on the development of interrogative formation by four Persian learners of English (N = 2) and French (N = 2) in sessions tutored by a Persian L1, English L2, French L3 instructor with experience in teaching both languages. Data were collected, analysed, and interpreted employing Vygotsky’s microgenetic method and his constructs of ZPD and mediation. Four aspects of language development were compared across the cases and studies: (a) responsiveness to instruction, (b) responsiveness to graded mediation, (c) exploiting current affordances for further development and (d) approach to task accomplishment. The findings showed that differing linguistic profiles made the subjects fundamentally different from the outset. The L3ers were more sensitive to the structures, could extract more from the instructions/interactions, better able to exploit their resources to make meaningful connections between past and present, and experienced a faster-paced, more efficient transition of the structures from inter to intrapsychological functioning. Additionally, heightened metalinguistic and metacognitive awareness equipped them to more systematically approach challenging tasks.