Project Description

Methodology

Funded by Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council from 1997 to 2003, this research project focuses on the spoken French of Anglophone students enrolled in a French Immersion Program in Ontario, at the secondary school level. The project is based on a corpus of spoken French, collected in 1996, consisting of a sample of 41 Grade 9 and 12 students enrolled in an Immersion Program from three English language schools in a Toronto suburb. This corpus was collected through semi-directed face to face tape-recorded interviews. The interviews lasted around 40 minutes and were conducted by a female native speaker of French.

At the secondary school level, the 41 students receive about 25% of their instruction in French. At the elementary level, however, 50% of their instruction was in French. Prior to taking part in the interviews, the 41 students responded to a survey administered to all participating students enrolled in the Extended French Program from the three schools mentioned above. This survey provided the following background information: 1) social characteristics of the students (age, socio-economic status of their parents, etc.), 2) their linguistic usage at home and outside the home, 3) their stays in French-speaking milieus, 4) their attitudes to learning French, to French-Canadians and the varieties of Canadian spoken French.

None of the 41 students in this sample come from homes where French is spoken by their parents. However, these same parents are far from being all monolingual Anglophones. In fact, in 51% of the households another language other than English is spoken more or less often (e.g., Vietnamese, Polish, German, Serbo-Croatian). In 39% of the cases, this other language is a Romance one (Spanish or Italian). In other words, more than half of our students have two home languages.

In our student sample, we have almost the same number of students in Grade 9 as in Grade 12, more girls than boys and if we take into account the range of their parents' professions, it is clear that most of the students fall between the categories of middle and upper-working class. The predominance of girls and the rarity of students from lower-working-class families are two characteristics of the student population of immersion programs in Ontario. Most of the students do not use spoken Francophone media of any type. Still, there are more students in Grade 12 than in 9 who occasionally make use of this type of media. It is also noteworthy that if the majority of these students have visited francophone milieus, only 35% of them stayed with a francophone family. These stays, which lasted a modest amount of time, on average 16 days, were usually in Quebec.

Finally, data on their daily use of French, at school and outside of school revealed the following patterns. At school, the only situation where students actively use French is when they communicate with their teacher in the classroom. When they communicate with their classmates in the classroom, they sometimes use French. However, outside of the classroom their use of the language is marginal. It should also be pointed out that the immersion program in which our students are enrolled is housed in an English language school, where the vast majority of students are instructed totally in English and where English is by far the dominant language of communication between the students and between staff and students. Outside of school, with their neighbours and within the community, students rarely or never use French. This reflects the predominantly English-speaking area in which they live.

Objectives of the Project

During the 70s and 80s, a number of studies on the oral and written French competence of immersion students were undertaken. These studies revealed that the productive capacities of these students in French were much superior to those of students enrolled in regular French as a second language programs (Core French programs). However, these same studies also showed that immersion students have mastered oral and written French at a lower level compared to that of same age French-Canadian students and, notably, that their second language includes fossilized errors that should concern those responsible for designing and implementing immersion programs.

The goal of our project is to continue research on the competence in French of immersion students. However, compared to most previous studies, this study is centred on the acquisition of aspects of oral French where native French speakers use linguistic variants. Linguistic variants are forms that are equivalent in terms of their semantic value (or of their phonological value when referring to sounds) and whose use in discourse is influenced by various linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. For example, native speakers of French in Canada and elsewhere use two personal pronouns in the first person plural, the formal variant nous and the informal (or simply neutral) variant on. In the same vein, in spoken Canadian French, and in other varieties of French, negative particle ne is often omitted (e.g., Il comprend rien; j'en veux pas), whereas this particle would be kept in written texts.

Appropriate usage of linguistic variants, which is referred to as sociolinguistic competence in the literature on second language teaching or testing, is an important dimension of the communicative competence of native speakers. More specifically, in the discourse of native speakers linguistic variants have been shown to be associated with differences in style (elevated, formal, informal, familiar, etc.), differences in social status, differences in generation, etc. The use of linguistic variants by native speakers of Canadian French (particularly from Quebec and Ontario) has been the object of numerous studies. These studies were realized through corpora recorded via a semi-directed interview similar to the one that we used when we interviewed our 41 immersion students. These studies provide us with a wealth of comparative results that allow us assess the extent to which the repertoire of variants used by immersion students is comparable to that of native French speakers with which they are likely to interact most frequently. (cf. above).

It is probably because they are conscious of the importance of the mastery of linguistic variants that the authors of the Ontario Ministry of Education Curriculum guidelines regarding the teaching of French in French Immersion Programs specify that, by the end of their schooling, immersion students should have a good mastery (active and passive) of formal and informal registers of French, including those which are typical of local speakers. Further, in several studies, immersion students have been found to be aware of the fact their sociolinguistic competence is not advanced enough to allow them to have smooth interactions with L1 speakers of French in Canada.

In undertaking an in-depth study of the usage of linguistic variants by immersion students at the Secondary level, our research thus brings to light results which allow us to assess the extent to which the Ministry objectives mentioned above are met and the perceived lack of advanced sociolinguistic competence on the part of immersion students is justified. The results of our research also provide useful data for the development of pedagogical materials designed to  improve the weaker aspects of the immersion students' sociolinguistic competence.

Our project is geared towards the following specific objectives:

1. to analyze the variants used by immersion students and to identify those that are used by: i) native speakers of Canadian French and the immersion students; ii) native speakers of Canadian French, but not the immersion students; and iii) the immersion students only (e.g., European variants, non-native forms).

2. to verify if the immersion students' use of these variants is affected by the same social, stylistic, and linguistic factors that affect the use of these variants by native speakers of Canadian French.

3. to search for explanations for the presence or absence of specific variants in the immersion students' speech, and the effect (or absence of effect) of social, stylistic, and linguistic factors on the use of these variants.

The following explanatory parameters have been taken into consideration:

1. visits to francophone milieus and contacts with native speakers outside the school setting;

2. social and stylistic connotations of the variants, such as they are observed in the spoken French of native speakers of French;

3. the use of English/or any language other than English at home (Italian, Spanish, etc.) by the students in our sample --we want to verify if the knowledge of these languages (dis)favours the acquisition of certain variants;

4. the social background of the immersion students and their sex;

5. the educational input of the immersion students.

Concerning this last parameter, since, as we have pointed out above, the immersion students in our sample have had only minimal exposure to native French outside of the immersion classroom, an examination of this parameter is of special relevance. To this end, we analyze the frequency and treatment of variants in two aspects of the immersion students' educational input: i) the materials used for the teaching of French language arts in the school district where our sample was collected; and ii) a sample of French immersion teachers' speech recorded in classrooms (collected by Allen et al., 1987). The results of this analysis has indeed confirmed that of all the explanatory parameters under consideration, the educational input of the students provides considerable insights into the sociolinguistic competence of the French immersion students.

In sum, our project has both theoretical and practical implications. It contributes to the advancement of research on the learning of linguistic variants by advanced learners of French as a second language and, more generally, to the new strand of sociolinguistic research on the acquisition of linguistic variation by learners of second or foreign languages. It also highlights the difficulties experienced by immersion students in relation to the use of sociolinguistic variants and points to ways in which future studies can determine appropriate pedagogical responses to the difficulties.

Progress of Project

A final version of the transcriptions of the taped interviews and the concordance of the corpus are available. An extensive series of studies on the use of variants by the 41 French immersion students has been carried out. They have been presented as papers at various conferences or published as articles in scientific journals. Our project has also given rise to three Master's theses and two Doctoral dissertations and a volume synthezing the findings of the analysis of sociolinguistic variation in the immersion students' speech.

Project team

The project is running under the scientific direction of Dr. Raymond Mougeon (York University), Dr. Terry Nadasdi (University of Alberta) and Dr. Rehner (University of Toronto at Mississauga). Raymond Mougeon also assumes the administrative responsibility of the project. Masters and Doctoral students at York University and the University of Alberta are also involved in the research.

References

Allen, P., Cummins, J., Harley, B., & Swain, M. (1987). Development of Bilingual Proficiency Project. Toronto: OISE, University of Toronto.

Project Output

Volumes

Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. 2010. The Sociolinguistic Competence of Immersion Students. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Special issues of journals

Dewaele, J.-M. & Mougeon, R. (eds). 2002. L'appropriation de la variation sociolinguistique par les apprenants avancés du FL2 et FLE, special issue of Acquisition et Interaction en Langue Étrangère, no 17.

Mougeon, R & Dewaele, J.-M. (eds). 2004. Patterns of Variation in the Interlanguage of Advanced Second Language Learners, special issue of International Review of Applied Linguistics, 42, (4), 295-402.

Articles

Knaus, V., & Nadasdi, T. (2001). Être ou ne pas être en immersion. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 58, (2), 287-306.

McVea, J.-P. (1999). Une étude préliminaire de la prononciation du E instable dans le parler des élèves en immersion française. Unpublished manuscript, University of Alberta.

Mougeon, R. (2009). L'immersion française peut-elle rapprocher les deux solitudes? In C. Coates & G. Ewen (eds) Regard sur le Canada : Recueil d'articles en études canadiennes. University of Ottawa Press.

Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K., (2002). État de la recherche sur l'appropriation de la variation par les apprenants avancés du FL2 ou FLE. In J.-M. Dewaele and R. Mougeon (Eds.), L'acquisition de la variation par les apprenants du français langue seconde, Special issue of Acquisition et Interaction en Langue Étrangère, 17, 7-50.

Mougeon, R., Rehner, K. & Nadasdi, T. (2004). The learning of spoken French variation by immersion students from Toronto, Canada. In R. Bayley and V. Regan (eds.). The acquisition of sociolinguistic competence, a special issue of The Journal of Sociolinguistics, 8, (3), 408-432.

Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (2001). Variation in the spoken French of Ontario French immersion students: The case of juste vs seulement vs rien que. Modern Language Journal, 85, (3), 398-415.

Nadasdi, T. (2001). Agreeing to disagree: Variable subject-verb agreement in immersion French. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4, 87-101.

Nadasdi, T., & McKinnie, M. (2003). Living and working in Immersion French. Journal of French Language Studies, 13, (1), 47-62.

Nadasdi, T., Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (2003). Emploi du futur dans le français parlé des élèves d'immersion française. Journal of French Language Studies, 13, (2), 195-220.

Nadasdi, T., Mougeon, R. & Rehner, K. (2005). Learning to speak everyday (Canadian) French, The Canadian Modern Language Review, 61, (4), 543-564.

Rehner, K., & Mougeon, R. (1999). Variation in the spoken French of immersion students: To ne or not to ne, that is the sociolinguistic question. Canadian Modern Language Review, 56, (1), 124-154.

Rehner, K., & Mougeon, R. 2003. The effect of educational input on the development of sociolinguistic competence by French immersion students: The case of expressions of consequence in spoken French. In S. Roy (ed.) Rethinking the learning of French, a special issue of the Journal of Educational Thought, 37, (3), 259-281.

Rehner, K., Mougeon, R., & Nadasdi, T. (2003). The learning of sociolinguistic variation by advanced FSL learners: The case of nous versus on in immersion French. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 127-156. 

Uritescu, D., Mougeon, R., & Handouleh, Y. (2002). Le comportement du schwa dans le français parlé par les élèves des programmes d'immersion française. In C. Tatilon and A. Baudot (Eds.), La linguistique fonctionnelle au tournant du siècle: actes du vingt-quatrième colloque international de linguistique fonctionnelle (pp. 335-346), Toronto: GREF. 

Uritescu, D., Mougeon, R., Rehner, K. & Nadasdi, T. (2004). Acquisition of the internal and external constraints of variable schwa deletion by French Immersion students, International Review of Applied Linguistics, 42 (4), 349-364.

Written conference papers

Burdine, S., Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. (2000). The variable use of the future by French immersion students. Paper presented at NWAVE29, Michigan State University at East Lansing, October.

Mougeon, R. (2002). The State of Research on the Acquisition of the Variation of Spoken French by advanced FSL learners. Plenary paper given at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Applied linguistics, University of Toronto, May.

Mougeon, R. (2003). Patterns of linguistic variation in Quebec, Ontario and Immersion French. Paper presented at the London Conference for Canadian Studies, February.

Mougeon, R. (2003). Variation sur le continuum de restriction dans l'emploi du français : les adolescents francophones de l'Ontario. Paper presented at the Symposium on French in the United States, University of Indiana at Bloomington, April.

Mougeon, R., & Nadasdi, T. (1998). Use of analytic and synthetic verb forms to express the future time in the spoken French of high school French immersion students. Paper presented at the colloquium Trends in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Carleton University, Ottawa, May.

Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. (2000). Dynamique identitaire et usage des langues secondes. Invited presentation at the Annual Conference of ACFAS, Montreal, May.

Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. (2003). The role of interference in language change: the case of French. Paper presented at the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Arizona State University, May.

Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. (2003). Pas les chars: Vehicular variation in Ontario and immersion French. Paper presented at the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, Halifax, June.

Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., Rehner, K., & Uritescu, D. (2002). Acquisition of the internal and external constraints of variable schwa deletion by French Immersion Students. Paper presented at the 14th International Sociolinguistics Symposium, Ghent, Belgium, April.

Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (1997). Variation in the use of restrictive expressions juste, seulement, and rien que in Ontario French immersion students' speech. Paper presented at NWAVE 26, Université Laval, Quebec City, October.

Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (1997). Sociolinguistic variation in French immersion students' speech. Paper presented at the 28th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics. Memorial University, St. John's, June.

Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (1998). Recherche sociolinguistique sur la variation du français parlé d'élèves anglophones dans des programmes d'Extended French de la région du Grand Toronto. Paper presented to Groupe de recherche sur l'apprentissage et l'enseignement du français, Glendon College, York University, February.

Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (1998). The use of the negative particle ne in the spoken French of high school French immersion students. Paper presented at the colloquium Trends in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Carleton University, Ottawa, May.

Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (1999). Synthesizing research on variation in the spoken French of Canadian immersion students. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, Stamford, March.

Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (2000). Exploring sociolinguistic variation in Ontario French immersion students' spoken French. Invited presentation at the Colloquium in Second Language Education, OISE/UT, Toronto, January.

Mougeon, R., Rehner, K., & Nadasdi, T. (1998). Research on variation in the spoken French of Canadian immersion students: A synthesis. Paper presented at NWAVE 27, University of Athens, Georgia, October. 

Mougeon, R., Rehner, K., & Nadasdi, T. (1999). Variation in the spoken French of Ontario anglophone French immersion students. Paper presented at NWAVE 28, University of Toronto and York University, Toronto, October.

Nadasdi, T. (2001). La variation sociolinguistique en immersion française. Invited paper, University of Windsor, January. 

Nadasdi, T. The Do's and Don'ts of French Immersion. (2000). Invited paper, University of Calgary, December.

Nadasdi, T., & Knaus, V. (2000). Être ou ne pas être en Immersion, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, University of Alberta, May.

Nadasdi, T., & McKinnie, M. (2000). Living and Working in Immersion French, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, University of Alberta, May.

Nadasdi, T., Mougeon, R. & Rehner, K. (2003). "Pas les chars": vehicular variation in Ontario and Immersion French, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, Dalhousie University, June.

Rehner, K. (1998). Variability in the spoken French of immersion students. Paper presented as part of the OISE/UT Informal Colloquium, Toronto, November.

Rehner, K. (1999). Understanding second language variability. Invited presentation at the Linguistics Colloquium at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, November.

Rehner, K. (2001). Ontario French immersion students and their sociolinguistic abilities. Paper presented at the Conference of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, St. Louis, February.

Rehner, K. (2001). The variable use of French discourse markers by French immersion students. Paper presented at the OISE/UT Informal Colloquium, Toronto, February.

Rehner, K. (2002). The development of sociolinguistic competence by advanced second language learners. Invited presentation for the Spanish Resource Centre, York University, Toronto, December.

Rehner, K. (2002). The use of discourse markers by French immersion students. Paper presented at Second Language Research Forum, Toronto, October.

Rehner, K. (2002). The development of discourse and linguistic competence by Ontario French immersion students. Paper presented at Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, Toronto, May.

Rehner, K. (2002). The use of discourse markers and the French immersion curriculum. Paper presented at Canadian Society for Studies in Education, Toronto, May.

Rehner, K. (2003). Acquisition de la variation par les apprenants avancés du français: les élèves d'immersion. Invited presentation at the meeting of GRALEF, Glendon College, York University, Toronto, March.

Rehner, K. (2003). How well do French immersion students like use discourse markers? Invited presentation at the Colloquium in Second Language Education, OISE/UT, Toronto, January.

Rehner, K. (2003). The use of discourse markers by French immersion students. Paper presented at the American Association of Applied Linguistics, Arlington, March.

Rehner, K. (2003). Can immersion students like use discursive markers? Paper be presented at the Canadian Society for Studies in Education, Halifax, May.

Rehner, K., & Mougeon, R. (2003). The learning of sociolinguistic variation by advanced FSL learners: The role of educational input. Paper presented at the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Arizona State University, May.

Rehner, K. & Mougeon, R. (2005). Use of comme as a pause-filler by French immersion and Franco-Ontarian high school students. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, London, Ontario, June.

Rehner, K., Mougeon, R., & Nadasdi, T. (1998). Usage/non-usage of the negative particle ne in French immersion students' speech. Paper presented at Trends in Second Language Teaching and Learning, Carleton University, Ottawa, May.

Rehner, K., Mougeon, R., & Nadasdi, T. (1999). Variation in the spoken French of immersion students: Nous versus on. Paper presented at the Second Language Research Forum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, September.

Rehner, K., Mougeon, R., & Nadasdi, T. (2000). Sociolinguistic competence and the French immersion curriculum. Paper presented at the annual meeting of Canadian Society for Studies in Education, Edmonton, AB, May.

Rehner, K., Mougeon, R., & Nadasdi, T. (2001). Expressing the notion of consequence in immersion French. Paper presented at NWAVE30, University of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, October.

Uritescu, D., Mougeon, R., & Handouleh, Y. (2000). Prononciation du schwa par les élèves des programmes d'immersion en Ontario. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, May and at the 24th Colloque international de linguistique fonctionnelle, Glendon College, York University, Toronto, June.

Uritescu, D., Nadasdi, T. Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (2001). A sociolinguistic analysis of phonetic variation in the spoken French of Franco-Ontarian and immersion students. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, Université Laval, May. 

Theses and dissertations

Burdine, S. (2002). Means to an end: Speaking strategically in French immersion. Ph.D. dissertation, Rice University, Houston.

Knaus, V. (2000). Des auxiliaires en concurrence. L'utilisation d'avoir et être dans le parler immersion en Ontario. MA thesis. University of Alberta, Edmonton.

Rehner, K. (1998). Variation in the spoken French of grade 9 and 12 students from extended French programmes in the Greater Toronto Area: Negative particle ne, expressions of restriction, and markers of consequence. M.Ed. thesis, York University, Toronto.

Rehner, K. (2002). Aspects of the development of discourse and linguistic competence by advanced second language learners of French: The case of French immersion in Ontario. Ph.D. dissertation, OISE/UT, Toronto.

Boshoer, J. (2004). Les réalisations de /E/ par les élèves d'immersion. Maîtrise en études françaises, York University.