Browsing by Subject "French language"
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Item The acquisition of French by Chinese native speakers : influence from L1 or L2?(2006-05) Kao, Ju-hui; Meier, Richard P.The primary purpose of the study is to investigate whether learners' L1 or L2 plays a more influential role in their L3 acquisition. This study also seeks to discover the factors attributed to the influence, such as language typological distance and learning strategies. A total of 33 subjects are Taiwanese college students who have Chinese L1 and English L2 learn French as their L3. The survey asks the participants to finish a French test, which has 30 questions. Half of the questions have sentences with parallel structures in English and French, whereas the other half of questions have sentences with nonparallel structures. Quantitative results indicate that learners have significantly higher performance over the sentences where English and French do not have parallel structures. It draws a conclusion that English, as learners' L2, affects learners' L3 acquisition more because English and French are typologically closer. The learners also tend to apply the learning strategies that they use to acquire the second language to learn their third language.Item The acquisition of the perfective/imperfective aspectual distinction in French : output-based instruction vs. processing instruction(2007-05) Megharbi, Nora; Blyth, Carl S. (Carl Stewart), 1958-The effect of grammar instruction on second language acquisition continues to be a source of debate in SLA research. Previous studies have shown that input-based instruction such as Processing Instruction (PI) is more effective than traditional grammar instruction (TI) for the acquisition of grammatical structures such as object pronouns in Spanish, the Spanish preterite, the simple present vs. the present progressive in English, and the ser/estar contrast in Spanish (VanPatten and Cadierno, 1993; Cadierno, 1995; Buck, 2000; Cheng, 2004). This quasi-experimental, classroom-based study examines the effects of output-based instruction (OB) and PI on the acquisition of the perfective/imperfective aspectual distinction in French, shown to be difficult to master by English-speaking learners due to its linguistic and pragmatic complexity. Specifically, the research design investigates whether OB instruction and PI have significant effects on the learners' performance involving the interpretation and production of the passé composé and the imparfait in narration. Two second semester university level French classes at the University of Texas at Austin were randomly assigned to one of the two groups: an output-based instruction group (n=18) and a processing instruction group (n=17). A distinct instructional treatment was developed for both groups, and a pretest/posttest procedure was used to assess the effect of instruction. The two posttests were administered one day and one month after instruction. All tests except the pretest included a written interpretation task, a controlled written production task, and a written composition. The findings show that both the OB and the PI groups improved their performance significantly on the assessment tasks and that there was no statistical difference between the groups on any of the tasks. These results differ from those of previous PI research and suggest that either type of instruction, output-based or processing, may have had a significant impact on the learners' developing system. The type of output-based instruction used in this study differs from TI in that it does not include a mechanical component. The results of the present study are consistent with Farley (2004b) in showing that approaches to grammar instruction that are meaning-oriented may bring about significant effects on SLA.Item Planning language practices and representations of identity within the Gallo community in Brittany : a case of language maintenance(2010-12) Rey, Cécile Hélène Christiane; Montreuil, Jean-Pierre; Russi, Cinzia; Blyth, Carl; Boas, Hans; Woodbury, AnthonyThis study focuses on the representations of the Gallo language spoken in the Eastern part of Brittany among elder native speakers (group 1) and students of Gallo (group 2). Jones & Singh (2005) and Williams (2000) both stress the importance of an asserted community identity for language transmission and the active involvement of community members in the revitalization process. In light of these two studies and the revitalization models proposed by Grenoble & Whaley (2005), the present research establishes that, in order to obtain a more appropriate and possibly successful revitalization program, it is necessary to consult and probe the approval of native speakers of Gallo. Informants from both groups show little involvement in language planning activities; in contrast, revitalization efforts in the last decades have increased within associative and militant groups. Based on the findings of Jones & Singh (2005) and Williams (2000) on Jersey Norman French and Welsh respectively, this study provides evidence that Gallo is on the verge of achieving a different status. The framework used for the fieldwork was adapted from Boas TGPD project on Texas German (2001). Most of the interviews were conducted in a private setting. Two groups of individuals were involved in this study: older, native speakers (41) and students (17), and half of the respondents participated in a follow-up interview (1-2 hours). The results of field research on language attitudes show a positive Gallo identity: 50% of the native speakers answered that Gallo was part of their identity as much as French and 78.6% of the students selected the same statement. Only 20% of group 1 and 21.4% of group 2 declared that Gallo was not an important part of their identity. In the same set of questions on identity and representations, 90% of group 1 and 85.7% of group 2 expressed positive linguistic attitudes when asked whether or not speaking and/or understanding Gallo was valuable. Overall, above 80% of the informants think that the knowledge of Gallo is an advantage. This research demonstrates that the speech community expresses a more positive Gallo identity than expected, one of the main factors necessary to secure language maintenance.Item WH-interrogatives in spoken French: a corpus-based analysis of their form and function(2007) Myers, Lindsy Lee, 1973-; Lambrecht, KnudAn intriguing aspect of the French language is its complex system of interrogative structures; there exist many question variants to express the same content. For example, Où est-ce que tu vas? Où tu vas? C'est où que tu vas? Où c'est que tu vas? and Tu vas où? are potentially all ways of expressing "Where are you going?" In this dissertation, I examine the use of WH-questions from the Barnes-Blyth Corpus (1984) of Spoken French. Coveney (2002) contributed one of the first truly comprehensive studies on variation of interrogatives in Spoken French. This dissertation builds upon his work by contributing more in depth pragmatic analyses plus a more complete investigation of the system at play. My study begins with a WH-question inventory, categorization and description of structures found in the corpus and elsewhere when appropriate. In contrast to studies attributing variation to socio-stylistic choices, according to the data in this study, there is structural diversity of French interrogative structures within a single socio-stylistic context explainable by pragmatic differences. Therefore, Lambrecht's (1994) information structure framework is applied to the interrogatives in the corpus. Interrogatives prove to be a complicated case for information structure analysis; only the activation of the open proposition serves as a useful indicator of question structure choice. Highly active open propositions are often realized with in situ structures whereas inactive open propositions are often realized with fronted structures. These findings are consistent with initial observations by Coveney. Further, I examine the system involved in interrogative choice, which incorporates many areas of grammar including pragmatics, socio-stylistics, syntax and semantics. I propose the concept of answerability as an umbrella term to explain several seemingly diverse factors affecting WH-questions use. I explore the application of Optimality Theory to contextualized interrogative choices since it permits a complete analysis by allowing a combination of constraints from the various pertinent components of grammar. In conclusion, by implementing this combination of analyses, I not only contribute to the long-standing discussion regarding interrogative structure usage in French, but I also clarify the explanatory power of pragmatics and Optimality Theory for this particularly complex system.