Non-native Speakers Of French Research Articles

Health mediation for promoting cancer screening and vaccination in deprived neighbourhoods in France

Abstract Social inequalities in health affect access to healthcare and prevention. In Marseille, these inequalities are pronounced, with 26% of the population below the poverty line. In September 2022, a health mediation and outreach program was launched in deprived neighbourhoods to promote cancer screening and vaccination by going towards populations and providing information and orientation adapted to individuals’ health literacy and autonomy. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention. A repeated cross-sectional study compared knowledge, attitudes and practices about cancer screening and vaccination before and after health mediation interventions and between control and intervention neighbourhoods. Trained investigators administered a questionnaire door-to-door to individuals aged 18-74 years in randomly selected households. A first T0 survey was conducted in September 2022, and a second T1 survey is underway in May 2024, in 13 intervention and 26 control neighbourhoods. We compared the before-and-after participation rates and associated risk factors for cancer screening and vaccination between both areas using mixed regression models. Of the 2,647 respondents at T0, 61% were women, 43% non-native French speakers, 40% unemployed, and 53% had public health insurance. Survey respondents were socially deprived and had lower participation rates in cancer screening and vaccination compared to national levels. At T0, the cancer screening participation rate was 31% for colorectal cancer, 51% for breast cancer, and 68% for cervical cancer. Factors associated with non-participation were not believing in the effectiveness of cancer screening, not being aware of its existence or not speaking French. At T0, only 54% knew about human papillomavirus vaccine and only 35% of eligible women were vaccinated. A comparison of these T0 results with results of the ongoing T1 survey will be presented, in order to assess the effectiveness of this health mediation intervention. Key messages • Health mediation promotes cancer screening and vaccination by going towards populations in deprived neighbourhoods and providing information adapted to individuals’ health literacy and autonomy. • Survey respondents were socially deprived and had lower participation rates in cancer screening and vaccination compared to national levels.

The role of complexity in the ability to notice incoherent uses of connectives for L2

Abstract When learning a second language, some connectives are more difficult to acquire and to master than others. While previous research has assessed different factors responsible for this difficulty by using offline tasks, little is known about the extent to which L2-readers are sensitive to different connectives while reading. In our study, we compared self-paced reading times of native and non-native speakers of French for sentences that were correctly or incorrectly marked with either the infrequent connective cependant (‘however’) or the more frequent mais (‘but’). Results showed that incorrect uses only produced longer reading times when mais was used. Yet, in a sentence-evaluation-task using the same set of sentences, L2-speakers were able to discriminate incorrectly marked sentences with cependant from correctly marked ones. We conclude that a good theoretical understanding of connectives for L2 (Experiment 2) does not always warrant a quick activation of their meaning while reading (Experiment 1).

A Variationist Study of Quotative System in the Non-native Speech of French

Abstract: Based on sociolinguistic data collected with 40 Chinese L1 learners of French in Paris, this article examines the quotative markers used by nonnative speakers of French in their direct speech reporting. Our results confirm previous findings in other ethnic groups that both linguistic and extralinguistic factors influence the use of some socio-pragmatic variables in non-native speech. On the one hand, it provides new data on the acquisition of socio-pragmatic competence by a less studied learner group; on the other hand, it offers a further reflection on the influence of linguistic taboo on learners’ L1 and the impact of the critical period in the immigration process on their language acquisition.

The timing versus resource problem in nonnative sentence processing: Evidence from a time-frequency analysis of anaphora resolution in successive wh-movement in native and nonnative speakers of French.

Nonnative processing has been argued to reflect either reduced processing capacity or delayed timing of structural analysis compared to the extraction of lexical/semantic information. The current study simultaneously investigates timing and resource allocation through a time-frequency analysis of the intrinsic neural activity during syntactic processing in native and English-speaking nonnative speakers of French. It involved structurally constrained anaphora resolution in bi-clausal wh-filler-gap dependencies such as Quelle décision à propos de lui est-ce que Paul a dit que Lydie avait rejetée sans hésitation? 'Which decision about him did Paul say that Lydie rejected without hesitation?'. We tested the hypothesis that nonnative speakers may allocate greater resources than native speakers to the computation of syntactic representations based on the grammatical specifications encoded in lexical entries, though both native and nonnative processing involves the immediate application of structural constraints. This distinct resource allocation is likely to arise in response to higher activation thresholds for nonnative knowledge acquired after the first language grammar has been fully acquired. To examine this bias in nonnative neurocognitive processing, we manipulated the wh-filler to contain either a lexically specified noun complement such as à propos de lui 'about him' or a non-lexcially specified noun phrase modifier such as le concernant 'concerning him'. We focused on processing at the intermediate gap site, that is, the point of information exchange between the matrix and the embedded clauses by adopting a measurement window corresponding to the bridge verb dit 'said' and subordinator que 'that' introducing the embedded clause. Our results showed that structural constraints on anaphora produced event-related spectral perturbations at 13-14Hz early into the presentation of the bridge verb across groups. An interaction of structural constraints on anaphora with group was found at 18-19Hz early into the presentation of the bridge verb. In this interaction, the nonnative-speaker activity at 18-19Hz echoed the concurrent general patterns at 13-14Hz, whereas the native-speaker activity revealed distinct power at 18-19Hz and at 13-14Hz. There was no evidence of delay of structural constraints on intermediate gaps with respect to lexical access to the bridge verb and subordinator. However, nonnative speakers' allocation of power in cell assembly synchronizations of fillers and gaps at the intermediate gap site reflected the grammatical specifications lexically encoded in the fillers.

Virtual Classroom Experiences for Second Language Learning and Cultural Exchange

This article is about the college experience and the design and implementation for a first-time virtual classroom linking non-native speakers of French in the U.S. with native speakers of French in France. Virtual exchange programs have begun to appear over the past 25 years as technology has made such initiatives possible. The virtual classroom described here was designed to address second language skills and intercultural competencies including non-verbal communication skills, cultural knowledge, and to encourage personal engagement. This article offers an account of how such a course between two universities became a reality and reviews the methodological steps adopted and the challenges involved in creating the program. It also offers recommendations for future virtual classrooms involved in university-wide virtual exchange initiatives.

Sensitivity to Inflectional Morphology in a Non-native Language: Evidence From ERPs

The extent to which non-native speakers are sensitive to morphological structure during language processing remains a matter of debate. The present study used a masked-priming lexical decision task with simultaneous electroencephalographic (EEG) recording to investigate whether native and non-native speakers of French yield behavioral and brain-level responses to inflected verbs. The results from reaction time and EEG analyses indicate that both native and non-native French speakers were indeed sensitive to morphological structure, and this sensitivity cannot be explained simply by the presence of orthographic or semantic overlap between prime and target. Moreover, sensitivity to morphological structure in non-native speakers was not influenced by proficiency (as reflected by the N400); lower-level learners show similar sensitivity at the word level as very advanced learners. These results demonstrate that native-like processing of inflectional morphology is possible in adult learners, even at lower levels of proficiency, which runs counter to proposals suggesting that native-like processing of inflection is beyond the capacity of non-native speakers.

How to Assess Executive Functions in a Low-Educated and Multicultural Population Using a Switching Verbal Fluency Test (the TFA-93) in Neurodegenerative Diseases?

Few neuropsychological tests are available to assess executive dysfunction in low-educated and multicultural populations. To address this issue, the TFA-93, a switching verbal fluency test to assess cognitive flexibility, was administered to 70 healthy controls, 57 patients with a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, and 21 with a clinical diagnosis of a neurodegenerative disease associated with frontal disorders. Most of the participants were low-educated and nonnative French speakers. The TFA-93 comprises 2 categorical fluency tasks (animals and fruits) and a fluency task in which participants have to switch between animals and fruits. Correct responses and errors were collected, and a flexibility index expressed the switching cost. Results showed that correct responses were lower, and the switching cost was greater in both patient groups. In low-educated and multicultural populations, the TFA-93 seems to be a good alternative to assess flexibility compared to the standard neuropsychological tools based on academic abilities.

A qualitative investigation of the experience of accent stigmatisation among native and nonnative French speakers in Canada

Decades of language attitudes research have documented negative evaluations of non-standard speakers. However, fewer studies have investigated the experience of stigmatization from the perspective of the non-standard speakers themselves. The study aims to explore the following questions: (1) What perception do speakers hold of their accent? (2) What does perceived accent discrimination look like? (3) How do stigmatized speakers respond to discriminatory experiences? Semistructured interviews were conducted among 36 (native, n=18; non-native, n=18) French-speaking participants in Canada. Participants were systematically selected from three regions in Canada for each group, capturing the experiences of nonstandard speakers from areas with varying levels of French ethnolinguistic vitality. The results show that (1) attitudes towards one’s accent often appear to reinforce or diminish pride in one’s way of speaking, and feelings of belonging or language competency; (2) accent stigmatization among French speakers in Canada is perceived by many non-standard speakers, and discrimination is perceived to occur in various settings and to take multiple forms; (3) behavioural, cognitive and affective responses to and consequences of discrimination are identified.

The crossover effects of morphological awareness on vocabulary development among children in French immersion

The purpose of the current study was to explore longitudinally the bidirectional cross-language effects between morphological awareness and vocabulary development across English and French over one year. Participants included 81 Grade 1 students and 75 Grade 2 students. All were non-native speakers of French, and demonstrated average English word reading and vocabulary skills. They received formal instruction entirely in French at school. Children were tested at two time points spaced one year apart with tasks tapping inflectional and derivational morphological awareness, and vocabulary. They also completed measures of phonological awareness, word reading, and non-verbal reasoning. The Grade 1 students were assessed in English only at pretest, and in English and French at post-test. The Grade 2 students were assessed in English and French at both time points. As predicted, regression analyses revealed that English inflectional awareness predicted unique variance in French vocabulary among Grade 1 students. Among Grade 2 students, cross-lagged analyses showed that both English inflectional and English derivational awareness predicted gains in French vocabulary between Grades 2 and 3. Conversely, counter to our expectations, French morphological awareness did not predict gains in English vocabulary over time. Taken together, these results extend the extant corpus of research to substantiate that children can leverage morphological awareness from their primary language to facilitate their vocabulary learning in their second language.

Linguistic Proficiency Assessment in Second Language Acquisition Research: The Elicited Imitation Task

This study investigated the elicited imitation task (EIT) as a tool for measuring linguistic proficiency in a second/foreign (L2) language, focusing on French. Nonnative French speakers (n = 94) and native French speakers (n = 6) completed an EIT that included 50 sentences varying in length and complexity. Three raters evaluated productions on five scales: meaning, syntax, morphology, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Participants also completed a cloze test and a language background questionnaire. Results from regression and principal component analyses showed a strong relationship between EIT performance and cloze test scores and significant relationships between EIT performance, sentence length, and learners’ knowledge of and experience with French. Ratings were internally consistent, and all test items discriminated well between lower‐ and higher‐level learners. We argue that this EIT exhibits good validity and reliability, discriminates among French learners of different proficiencies, and is a practical tool for L2 proficiency assessment.

Le verbe en friche: approches linguistiques et didactiques éd. par Marie-Noëlle Roubaud, Jean-Pierre Sautot

interprétations, est un guide aussi fantasque que le texte.Ainsi, il reste un autre travail d’érudition à faire sur ce texte surprenant afin d’en percer les nombreux secrets. On regrette que Bricout ne se soit pas lancée dans cette entreprise. Randolph College (VA) Françoise Watts Roubaud, Marie-Noëlle, et Jean-Pierre Sautot, éd. Le verbe en friche: approches linguistiques et didactiques. Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2014. ISBN 978-2-87574-117-2. Pp. 254. 46 a. This volume includes a collection of papers presented at a conference organized by Episteverb, a team of nine French and Canadian academics working to examine and eventually improve upon French grammar instruction. Central to a more profound mastery of the French language is the verb—which seems to represent a dense and uncultivated notion in the minds of many students, both native and nonnative speakers of French. Paradoxically, as one author points out, evolving linguistic analyses seem to have only muddied the waters of grammar instruction rather than clarifying it. The twelve contributions are organized into three sections: the first section consists of four articles that present linguistic analyses or theoretical musings on specific verb constructions: Moncó Taracena discusses the status of clitic verb constructions such as s’en aller; Tsirlin considers the nature of nouns that appear as verbal complements with or without determiners (for example, faire [un] signe); Guehria assesses whether devenir should be deemed a linking verb by examining its compatibility with a range of attributive past participles; finally, Camus analyzes the interjection La ferme! All contributions are interesting but somewhat limited in scope and seemingly far-removed from the purported goals of rethinking French grammar instruction. The next sections, however, are more interesting and relevant to French language teachers. The four articles of the second section critique current pedagogical standards with respect to verb orientation (Deronne), conjugation paradigms (Germolimich and Stabarin), inversion (Roig), and verbal aspect and mood (Van Raemdonck and Meinertzhagen). Deronne presents anecdotal evidence that even college students struggle with the passive voice and examines how both reference grammars and grammar textbooks present this structure. Roig similarly points to inadequacies in the treatment of non-interrogative inversion in traditional grammar texts. Gerolimich and Stabarin propose a verb classification system based on oral forms and present the results of a study designed to evaluate how Italian-speaking learners of French apply this system when faced with new verbs. Van Raemdonck and Meinertzhagen suggest a new framework for approaching discussions of tense, mood, and aspect across various verbal constructions. The four articles that make up the third section all report on production data from French schoolchildren, with a great deal of overlap: Roubaud and Gomila, Lavieu-Gwodz, and Gourdet each discuss elementary school pupils’ 284 FRENCH REVIEW 89.3 Reviews 285 responses to the question Qu’est-ce qu’un verbe?, with Roubaud and Gomila as well as Lavieu-Gwodz presenting the results of simple verb identification tasks. The final article by Sautot examines the use of complex verb forms (passé composé, faire causatif, venir de, and so on) in written production data from elementary and middle school students. Unfortunately, the volume suffers from several typographical and production errors.Although most are minor distractions that have no effect on meaning, some are more serious, including the transcription of one of the verbal stems of devoir as [dev] (rather than [dv]) in Gerolimich and Stabarin’s verb classification system, and reference in one article to bolded and italicized items in a table that has no such formatting. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis A. Kate Miller Sayahi, Lotfi. Diglossia and Language Contact: Language Variation and Change in North Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014. ISBN 978-0-521-11936-8. Pp. 251. $95. Sayahi’s volume provides a wealth of information regarding the present state of language contact and language change in a linguistically diverse region that includes areas of North Africa, Iberia, and the Maltese Islands. The book’s scope is significant, particularly because it covers a large geographic area and deals with a complex linguistic situation. Comprised of an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion, Sayahi’s study is a fresh look at diglossia and language...

Les 100 mots du management de projet par Elsebeth Lange

Lange, Elsebeth. Les 100 mots du management de projet. Paris: Ophrys, 2014. ISBN 978-2-7080-1380-3. Pp. 151. 14 a. This little book is designed for a very specific audience, non-native speakers of French who will be serving as members of a project team (or possibly even leading a team) in a French-speaking country. It contains approximately one hundred terms related to project management. Each term is the focus of a unit (of approximately one page), containing a definition, the English equivalent, and a few expressions using the term, as well as related vocabulary. The problem with this book, a drawback which will impose severe limitations on its usefulness, is the extreme narrowness of its focus. While it may indeed be appropriate for employees who have been recently assigned to project teams in France or Francophone countries, the highly specialized nature of the book is not likely to help those individuals whose working French may be minimal or even non-existent, and who would probably be better served by more rudimentary language instruction that will enable them to negotiate a number of daily tasks and to engage in social interaction to some acceptable degree. One might consider including the book in a business French course, but given the current cost of textbooks and the very limited scope of this particular book, it would be difficult to justify its inclusion as a required text. Furthermore, a number of the terms are either identical or very close to the English equivalent: documentation, contrat, communication, logistique. One might imagine that the book could be useful to those students enrolled in an international MBA program who are receiving special language training to serve in managerial positions abroad, but given its limitations, it would be very hard indeed to find convincing arguments to adopt this book for any French course at the undergraduate level. University of North Carolina, Greensboro David A. Fein Rosillo M.P., P. Maccotta, et M. Demaret. Quartier d’affaires: français professionnel et des affaires. Paris: CLE, 2013. ISBN 978-2-09-038660-8. Pp. 144 (+ DVD-ROM). 22 a. Les auteures expliquent dans leur avant-propos que la cible principale de leur manuel est un public d’apprenants adultes de niveau A1 se destinant à intégrer le monde du travail francophone. L’objectif est de leur donner des outils de niveau A2 pouvant optimiser leur profil professionnel et de faciliter leur transition ultérieure vers le niveau B1. Ces outils sont majoritairement d’ordre linguistique et culturel. Le manuel aux couleurs et illustrations attrayantes propose au fil des dix unités un contenu qui augmente judicieusement en difficultés. La même structure se répète à l’intérieur de chaque unité, aidant la préparation des cours: un texte à lire et à écouter qui aborde le thème du chapitre; des encadrés de mots et d’expressions,sans traductions, 228 FRENCH REVIEW 89.1 ...

Morphological decomposition in native and non-native French speakers

This study investigates whether late second/foreign language (L2) learners can rely on mechanisms similar to those of native speakers for processing morphologically complex words. Specifically, it examines whether native English speakers who have begun learning French around the onset of puberty can decompose -er (Class I) French verbs. Mid-to-high-proficiency L2 learners and native French speakers completed a masked-priming word-naming task. Latencies for morphologically related, orthographically related, and semantically related prime–target combinations were compared to latencies for identical and unrelated prime–target combinations. The results reveal the following effects: full morphological priming for both native and non-native speakers, with this effect increasing with French proficiency for L2 learners; partial orthographic priming for both groups; greater priming in the morphological condition than in the orthographic condition for both groups; and no semantic priming for either group. We conclude that L2 learners have access to similar mechanisms to those of native speakers for processing morphologically complex words.

Development of a test of speaking proficiency in multiple languages

The Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH) at Michigan State University has a foreign language proficiency graduation requirement. The RCAH has found it necessary to revise its language proficiency program and to develop a local test of language proficiency in lieu of using existing, internationally-recognised assessments of speaking proficiency. Situated within Critical Language Testing (Shohamy, 2001a, 2001b), the paper presents motivations for this decision reached after a yearlong program review. Treating the processes of teaching, learning, and assessment as interdependent, the RCAH’s new Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum program and the new performance-based proficiency test are built on the same methodological principles. Grounded in a social interactional theory of second language acquisition and assessment, the RCAH Test employs a paired format and is intended to assess intermediate speaking proficiency in the more commonly taught and the less commonly taught languages. Initial trials have been conducted with native speakers of English, and native and non-native speakers of French, German, and Spanish. Using discourse analytic methods, preliminary analyses highlight the potential influence of sociocultural context and bring into question the importance of syntactic complexity in the conceptualisation of speaking proficiency.

CONVENTIONAL EXPRESSIONS

Conventional expressions, a subset of multiword units, are the target of the current study, which aims to address questions concerning native and nonnative speakers’ knowledge and processing of a set of such strings. To this end, 13 expressions identified as conventional in the southwest of France were tested in an online contextualized naturalness judgment task, which was administered to 20 French natives, 20 long-stay (i.e., >1 year in the southwest of France) Anglophone nonnative speakers of French, and 20 short-stay (i.e., 4–6 months in the same region) Anglophones. The naturalness judgments provided by the participants revealed that all groups judged the conventional expressions similarly and significantly differently from the matched conditions, which involved grammatical but not conventional strings. The reaction time results suggested that conventional expressions have a mental correlate for both natives and nonnatives, although the processing patterns recorded differed for the two groups. The reaction time results are argued to be most consistent with a pragmatic competence model of conventional expression processing.

Literal Translation from English and Malay in the Written Communication among Malay Learners of French

This study intended to examine the use of literal translation from English and Malay language in the written communication. The objectives were to investigate the most present language used in the translation to French, the use of the literal translation (LT) of Malay and English in the written communication among across gender, and to determine at which sentence level (words, phrase or syntax) the translation was used by the learners. The research utilized qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis. The study was conducted among Malay non-native speakers of French as a foreign language at Universiti Putra Malaysia. A total of 50 subjects took part in this study. The task was to complete a writing task of 150-200 words after 100 hours of French learning. The results indicated that Malay language played a more important part in the translation, where 163 elements of translation were found as opposed to 76 elements from English language. Among the translations produced by the learners, 57 items were in the word form, 77 items in the phrase form and 105 items in the sentence form. The results of this study could help in the teaching of French to Malay learners by making them aware of literal translation which already in their repertoire and by encouraging them to use the translation effectively.

Examining the contribution of metasyntactic ability to reading comprehension among native and non-native speakers of French

The particular contribution of metasyntactic ability (i.e., the ability to consciously reflect about the syntactic aspects of language and intentionally to control grammatical rules) to second language reading skills is still not clear. While some studies concluded that metasyntactic ability contributes to reading among non-native speakers (NNS), others did not observe any particular contribution of that specific metalinguistic ability among NNS, despite showing a predictive value for their native speaker control group. Methodological aspects might explain these conflicting results, namely the target population, the measurement of metasyntactic ability, and the reading skill examined. The present study was set out to verify whether the particular contribution of metasyntactic ability to French reading comprehension would be the same among native and non-native upper-elementary children. A cross-sectional study was carried out in which 73 children (37 native and 36 non native speakers of French) were given syntactic, metasyntactic, receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension and phonological memory tasks. As in previous studies, results of the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) first revealed that the NNSs of French participants obtained lower MSA results than the native speaker children. However, results from the multiple regressions showed that MSA accounted for a significant part of variation in L2 reading among the native as well as among the NNS children and that language group was not a significant factor. This indicates that the weight of each variable, including metasyntactic ability, did not vary according to language status.

étudiants natifs et allophones face à l’orthographe française: le cas des homonymes

As a mixed system, French spelling has both significant phonographic and semiographic characteristics. Due to the impact of spelling structure on learning and acquisition strategies, one must take into account these specificities when elaborating teaching tools. Nonetheless, most FFL spelling textbooks focus on the phonographic dimension and give little weight to semiography. The survey on homonyms conducted among native and non native speakers of French, studying at the University of Strasbourg, unveiled the better results of the latter in writing logograms during a written examination. However, in gap filling exercises, their success rate is significantly lower than that of natives, due to difficulties encountered in vocabulary. Both groups relied heavily on meaning to write the logograms they heard. This fact shows that the semiographic dimension gains importance when phonography is powerless to help the writers.

Repetitions as vocalized fillers and self-repairs in English and French interlanguages

The use of communication strategies (CS) varies among second language (L2) learners. According to research, L2 learners resort to CS in times of difficulty. These strategies are also consciously or unconsciously utilized during language learning. One common CS strategy is the use of repetition, which entails the repetition of syntactic and/or lexical items by L2 learners. In order to observe prevalence, type and systematicity of repetition, two movies were shown to non-native speakers of English (NNSE) and non-native speakers of French (NNSF). Oral comments about the movies were elicited from the participants and then analyzed with a specific focus on repeated elements. The results of this study indicate that repetitions of grammatical and/or lexical elements were made irrespective of types or word class, phrase or sentence level. Most repeated elements among NNSE were observed to be verbs, pronouns and prepositions, and among NNSF, pronouns, determiners and verbs. Repetitions were made (1) as vocalized fillers, and (2) as self-repairs. These findings have significant implications for the teaching of English and French with specific reference to L2 learners’ oral communicative competence.

Cercles francophones et franais lingua franca: pour une francophonie liquide

The concept of francophonia tends to remain homogeneous and fixed in official and day-to-day parlance. Non-native speakers of French who live outside the geographic French-speaking world(s) and who use the language on a daily basis (often with other non-native speakers) are not systematically included in the notion of Francophonia. This article suggests a new perspective on francophonia, the third circle, which is based on extraterritoriality, instability and liquid identification in interaction. A deconstruction of discourses on Francophonia, the solid native speaker and francophone culture will provide the basis for a definition of liquid francophonia.