The document discusses adjective position in English and French and how it is acquired by L2 learners of French. It presents three key findings:
1. Native French speakers demonstrated knowledge of the position-interpretation correlates of French adjectives, favoring non-intersective interpretations in pre-N position and intersective in post-N.
2. L2 learners did not show significant knowledge of these correlates until advanced levels, with 4th year students only distinguishing post-N positions.
3. The acquisition of adjective position correlates appears to be a gradual, late-acquired aspect of L2 French, emerging fully only at postgraduate levels, suggesting it requires explicit instruction and feedback.
The document discusses adjective position in English and French and how it is acquired by L2 learners of French. It presents three key findings:
1. Native French speakers demonstrated knowledge of the position-interpretation correlates of French adjectives, favoring non-intersective interpretations in pre-N position and intersective in post-N.
2. L2 learners did not show significant knowledge of these correlates until advanced levels, with 4th year students only distinguishing post-N positions.
3. The acquisition of adjective position correlates appears to be a gradual, late-acquired aspect of L2 French, emerging fully only at postgraduate levels, suggesting it requires explicit instruction and feedback.
The document discusses adjective position in English and French and how it is acquired by L2 learners of French. It presents three key findings:
1. Native French speakers demonstrated knowledge of the position-interpretation correlates of French adjectives, favoring non-intersective interpretations in pre-N position and intersective in post-N.
2. L2 learners did not show significant knowledge of these correlates until advanced levels, with 4th year students only distinguishing post-N positions.
3. The acquisition of adjective position correlates appears to be a gradual, late-acquired aspect of L2 French, emerging fully only at postgraduate levels, suggesting it requires explicit instruction and feedback.
ACQUISITION OF ADJECTIVE POSITION IN L2 FRENCH Bruce Anderson CHALLENGES IN FORMAL ACCOUNTS OF ADJECTIVE POSITION IN ENGLISH VERSUS FRENCH the word-order patterns In English the adjective comes before the noun In French either post-N; pre-N or in both positions Post-N (la voiture rouge la rouge voiture the red car) Pre-N (le petit elephant lelephant petit the small elephant) Both positions - (le bijou cher le cher bijou the expensive jewel- the cherished jewel la valise lourde la lourde valise the heavy suitcase the correlation between position and interpretation in French the instantiation of these position-interpretation correlates is guaranteed in the case of native language (L1) ADJECTIVE POSITION AND REPRESENTATIONAL FORMATS
The basic proposal of generative accounts of adjective position is the surface
position of the noun with respect to other elements. ( articles, adjectives, genitives). To account the fact that French, like Enlish, allows for pre-N order attributive adjectives as well as post-N order, adjuction to the higher functional projection NumP rather than NP, is posited. Thus, for une petite voiture rouge a little red carboth languages are claimed to share a common representational format in which petite and little are adjoined to NumP, where rouge and red are adjoined to NP; both adjectives appear before the noun in English (and in order little > red), whereas noun movement separates the two in French, with petite preceding the noun and rouge following it. ADJECTIVE POSITION AND AVAILABLE EVIDENCE Gass (1997) defined prior knowledge as consisting of L1 knowledge, existing L2 knowledge, language universals, & knowledge of other languages. Only the first two will be addressed in this study. Since language universals have already been discussed in terms of domain-specific representational format and knowledge of other languages does not apply to the experimental population of this study. Explicit Rules Most adjectives in French are in post-N, although few are Pre-N. According to the textbook used by the second-year university-level students who participated in the study, a number of adjectives change meaning depending on whether theyre placed after or before a noun. In general, an adjective placed after the noun retains its basic, concrete meaning while adjective placed before the noun is used in an abstract or figurative manner. a. ancient former versus old, ancient b. cher- dear, well loved versus expensive c. grand great versus tall, large Learners might therefore be expected to accept as grammatical an adjective in post- N position and ungrammatical in pre-N position. Explicit Rules It is noteworthy in most pedagogical treatments, no explicit rules are given relating to possibility of both pre-N & post-N adjective positions for adjectives other than those that have particular English-based meaning differences. Example: lourde heavy in (3b) Important gap: Pedagogical treatment of adjective position in French as Anderson (2002, 2007b) found that roughly 60% of the 205 most frequently adjectives across a number of text genres in French are regularly attested in both positions. Classroom Input Frequency Anderson (2002, 2007b) has an observation in L2 French classes at different levels in the university setting to determine quantity and quality of input on adjective position. The observation throughout the undergrad curriculum the explicit rules just summarized are rarely contradicted by examples of unexpected pre-N and post-N position despite the fact that adjectives occurred in the classroom input from 42 times per 50-min class period in a 1st year introductory course to 156 times per class in 4th year civilization course for French majors. Finally, Anderson (2002, 2007b) demonstrated that very few adjectives showed variation in position. L1 Knowledge L1 and L2 grammars do not produce mutually exclusive word-order strings. Instances of post-N position in English include the types of uses exemplified: (7-10) (7) Poetic use: The River Wild (film title) (8) After indefinite pronouns: something blue; someone charming (9) In complex or heavy adjective phrases: a box too heavy to lift on your own; a car small enough to fit in any parking space (10) In reduced relative clauses or small clauses: We delivered the flowers (while they were) fresh. (Bouldin, p.30) RESEARCH QUESTIONS & METHODOLOGY Research Questions Whether classroom L2 French learners, like native French speakers, come to demonstrate knowledge of the position- interpretation correlates of French adjective position and if so; What point during grammatical development they do so; Whether learners demonstrate knowledge of these correlates earlier in the course of development Study Populations 157 participants (divided in 6 groups) 1. Monolingual English-speaker control group 30 freshmen students enrolled in a course on English composition 2. Learners group 100 English-speaking students of French at a Midwestern American university 2nd year 29 ; 3rd year 24 ; 4th year 27 (undergrad students)
3. Graduate Students at the same institution ;
4. Graduate students from other institution; & 5. Secondary Education Teachers 20 (Advanced group)
6. French-speaker control group - 27
Task Design and Tokens A two-part acceptability judgment task was administered via computer in a controlled setting ( university computer lab) on two different days spaced a week apart. Participants completed Web-based form: biographical information 7 previous experience with French and other foreign language. Participants read a page of instructions; provide judgment of each test sentence by clicking buttons marked fine, odd, or cannot decide in response to the prompt This particular sentence sounds _________ in the context. Context sentence pairs involving the position of only in English were used as an example ( e.g., Only Tom likes spinach vs. Tom only likes spinach) Total number of context-sentence pair tokens was 104, randomly divided between 2 tasks of 52 context-sentence tokens each. The contexts were written in English Eight sentences with pre-N adjective position and 8 sentences with post-N adjective position were presented in a context favoring a general intersective interpretation and nonintersective interpretation, for a total of 32 tokens randomized across the two tasks. Scoring Participants responses were recorded by a Web-based testing service. Fine and odd answers for each of the 4 conditions were converted into percentage: 9e.g., post-N position in and itersective/nonitersective context Intersective: 87.5% converted rate (fine); 12.5 % (odd) = 100% (7/8 tokens) Nonitersective: 25% converted rate (fine); 75% (odd) = 100% (2/8 tokens) Net difference: 52.5% - therefore, paired samples t tests were run to determine whether this net difference between conditions reached significance within each study group. RESULTS Native-French-Speaker Control Group The task was moderately sensitive to the interpretive distinctions. Pre-N position with nonintersective interpretation, preferred 75-47% over an intersective interpretation Post-N position with an intersective interpretation, preferred 59-14% over a nonintersective interpretation The data related to nonitersective interpretation is much more robust: clearly favored in pre-N position at, 75%, and clearly disfavored in post-N position, at 14%. One could argue that the intersective contexts the adjective cher expensive belovedas an example. In other words, a piece of jewelry worth $100,000 might still be beloved not because of its segmental value, which the intersective context tried to mitigate against, but because of the wealth it bestows on its owner. Native-English-Speaker Control Group Adjectives are accepted in pre-N (79%) and rejected in post-N (12%) and 8% for the a noninterselective interpretation, a nonsignificant difference (p= .195). Such rates provides a clear picture of the acceptability (=grammatically) of pre-N and concomitant rejection (=ungrammatical) of post-N position. Learner Groups Intersective-nonitersective distinction: Learner results There is no stastically difference in means in either position on the part of the 2nd & 3rd year learners (favor of acceptance is from 51%- 64%) By the fourth year level, a significant and nativelike difference appears only in post-n position (70% for inter & 39% noninter interpretations) Advance level significant Frenchlike distinction is made in both pre- N (82% noninter; 36% inter and post-N (76% inter; 12% noninter) DISCUSSION & IMPLICATIONS Results of the present study show the following:
1. Second language French learners, like native French speakers, acquire
the position interpretation. 2. On the basis of aggregate group data, such correlates would appear to be a gradual and late-acquired property, given the stastistically significant distinctions based on interpretation in both adjective position do not rise in the data until the postgraduate level. Position-interpretation correlates for the adjectives in the instruction set do not appear to be acquired any earlier than the adjectives in the noninstruction set. Norris and Ortegas (2000) meta-analysis of research on the effectiveness of pedagogical intervention convincingly showed a stronger and more durable effect for explicit evidence (focus-on-forms), rule presentation, correction, feedback, etc.) in combination with input than for input alone, as provided during implicit, meaning oriented interventions.
The Learning of Spoken French Variation by Immersion Students From Toronto, Canada - Mougeon - 2004 - Journal of Sociolinguistics - Wiley Online Library