This study examined the acquisition of a linguistic property that is underrepresented in the input available to second language (L2) learners, namely, interpretation of French strong pronouns as [-animate]. To understand how pronouns are used and interpreted and how this topic is treated in pedagogical grammars, three types of analyses were…

The present study evaluated the effects of explicit instruction on advanced French second language (L2) learners' (n = 18) contextually appropriate use of two stylistic variables (/l/ deletion vs. retention and "ne" deletion vs. retention) using two different task types. A planned and unplanned oral task was used to assess students'…

This study explores complex language in adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI) with the aim of finding out how aspects of language characteristic of typical syntactic development after childhood fare and, in particular, whether there is evidence that individuals with SLI avoid using structures whose syntactic derivation involves…

Recent research on advanced and near-native second-language (L2) speakers has focused on the acquisition of interface phenomena, for example at the syntax-pragmatics interface. Proponents of the Interface Hypothesis (e.g. Sorace, 2005; Sorace and Filiaci, 2006; Tsimpli and Sorace, 2006; Sorace and Serratrice, 2009) argue that (external) interfaces…

This article presents the preliminary steps to the implementation of detection and correction strategies for the erroneous use of N+N structures in the written productions of French-speaking advanced users of English. This research is carried out as part of the grammar checking project "CorrecTools", in which errors are detected and corrected…

The present study is concerned with the upper limits of SLA--specifically, mastery of the syntax-discourse interface in successful endstate learners of second-language (L2) French (near-native speakers). Left dislocation (LD) is a syntactic means of structuring spoken French discourse by marking topic. Its use requires speakers to coordinate…

The 2015 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (CSCTFL) was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota together with the Minnesota Council on the Teaching of Languages and Cultures, who served as local host. This year's theme underscores the transformative nature of learning a foreign language. As language teachers we have a great…

The article discusses the potential of combining learner corpus research with experimental studies in order to fine-tune the understanding of learner language development. It illustrates the complementarity of the two methodological approaches with data from an ongoing study of the acquisition of the English tense and aspect system by French…

By means of a phraseological identification method, this study provides a general description of the use of conventional sequences (CSs) in interviews at four different levels of spoken L2 French as well as in interviews with native speakers. Use of conventional sequences is studied with regard to overall quantity, category distribution and type…

The main goal of this study was to investigate whether computer-mediated communication (CMC) intercultural exchange offers the conditions necessary for the development of the sociolinguistic competence of second language learners. Non-native speakers (NNS) of French in British Columbia interacted through CMC with native speakers (NS) of French in…

In this study we tracked the development of the "passe compose" in second-language learners of French whose first language is English. Although the "passe compose" is a highly used tense among native speakers of French and it appears to present particular difficulty for first-language English speakers, its second-language development has been…

This paper describes a set of simulations which explore the way different features of lexical organisation affect the probability of finding a pair of associated words in a set of five randomly selected words. The simulation is equivalent to giving Ss a set of five words and asking if they can identify a pair of associated words among them. The…

Corpus-based research has shown that the frequency of use of particular grammatical structures and lexis in English is not always congruent with the content or ordering of explicit rules in pedagogical materials. The present study provides an additional example from French, focusing on word-order rules related to adjective position and the…

This study investigates whether second language (L2) phonological learning can be characterized as a gradual and systematically patterned replacement of nonnative segments by native segments in learners' speech, conforming to a two-stage implicational scale. We adopt a dynamic approach to language variation based on Gatbonton's (1975, 1978)…

The frequency of liaison in French is studied in the context of the grammatical function of contiguous words involved, the phonetic characteristics of the liaison consonant and a number of paralinguistic variables such as sex, age, occupation, syllabic rate, loudness, attitude of the speaker and subject matter. Results are tabulated. Available…