Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:35:15.637Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The influence of classroom input and community exposure on the learning of variable grammar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2016

RAYMOND MOUGEON  and
KATHERINE REHNER
RAYMOND MOUGEON*
Affiliation:
York University
KATHERINE REHNER
Affiliation:
University of Toronto/Mississauga
*
Address for correspondence: Raymond Mougeon, Department of French Studies, York Hall, Glendon College, York University, 2275 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4N 3M6[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As pointed out by Carroll (Carroll), our team has investigated the influence of input on the spoken French competence of older Ontario bilinguals. Our research has examined the learning of invariant and variable aspects of French grammar. We focus here on the learning of variation, since it is an under-researched topic not covered by Carroll. Our research examines adolescent speakers of Ontario French from French-medium schools (e.g., Mougeon & Beniak, 1991), same-age immersion students (e.g., Mougeon, Nadasdi & Rehner, 2010) and advanced learners from a bilingual university (e.g., Mougeon & Rehner, 2015). Two key dimensions of input are teacher classroom speech and frequency of use of French in the community for the Franco-Ontarian students and amount of extra-curricular interactions with Francophones for the FSL students. Having collected corpora from these student groups, we compared the output of learners with primarily classroom-based input with that of learners with broader ranging (extra-) curricular input. The availability of teacher in-class recordings for these learner groups has been crucial in identifying additional factors influencing these students’ output.

Type
Peer Commentaries
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 21 - 22
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Carroll, S.E. Exposure and input in bilingual development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. doi:10.1017/S1366728915000863.Google Scholar
Mougeon, F., & Rehner, K. (2010). Identity and nativelikeness in bilingual FSL learners. In Regan, V. and Ni Chasaide, C. (eds.), Language Practices and Identity Construction by Multilingual Speakers of French L2: The Acquisition of Sociostylistic Variation, pp. 11–28. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Mougeon, F., & Rehner, K. (2015). Engagement portraits and (socio)linguistic performance: A transversal and longitudinal study of advanced L2 learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 37, 425–456.Google Scholar
Mougeon, R., & Beniak, É. (1991). Linguistic consequences of language contact and restriction: The case of French in Ontario, Canada. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. (2009). Évolution de l'usage des conjonctions et locutions de conséquence par les adolescents franco-ontariens de Hawkesbury et de Pembroke (1978-2005). In Martineau, F., Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., and Tremblay, M. (eds.), Le français d'ici: études linguistiques et sociolinguistiques sur la variation du français au Québec et en Ontario, pp. 128–145. Toronto: GREF.Google Scholar
Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K. (2010). The sociolinguistic competence of immersion students. Bristol, U.K.: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Mougeon, R., & Rehner, K. (2015). The neglected topic of variation in teacher classroom speech: Investigating je vais/je vas/m'as in Ontario French-medium high schools. In Cacoullos, R.T., Dion, N., and Lapierre, A. (Eds.), Linguistic Variation: Confronting Fact and Theory, pp. 165–177. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yang, J., & Rehner, K. (2015). Learner beliefs about sociolinguistic competence: A qualitative case study of four university second language learners. Language Learning in Higher Education, 5 (1), 157–180.Google Scholar