Albert Valdman

Letting French Students Hear the Diverse Voices of Francophony

This response to Jean-Marie Saliens editorial “Quebec French: Attitudes and Pedagogical Perspectives” (MLJ, 82, 1998, pp. 95–102) deals with linguistic variation—particularly as it exists in Quebec—and aims at familiarizing students of French as a foreign language in the U.S. with variation in that language. The article stresses how important it is for French teachers to have an accurate understanding of the French spoken in Quebec. A characterization of Quebec French should include the different varieties spoken, recognize sociolinguistic differences, and acknowledge the functional effectiveness of all varieties. To acquaint American learners of French with language variation, it is appropriate to expose them to the varieties that can be found in neighboring communities, such as Quebec. This exposure can begin early so that learners will be able to recognize local particularities and variation. The use of a “pedagogical norm” is advisable, however, in guiding the learners’ own usage, because attitudes toward linguistic variants can produce negative reactions to nonnative speaker use of these features.

Le ou la? : the gender of French nouns

Testing your gender assignment competence learning from children about learning genders the great divide - sematic versus grammatical gender the link between gender and phonetic word ending meaning and the gender of inanimate nouns the role of word structure in determining gender biological or sociological gender - the gender of animate nouns gender makes the difference - distinguishing between homophones seeing how the network operates in conclusion.

The Structure of Louisiana Creole

Arguably, Louisiana offers the most complex linguistic situation found in the Caribbean rim.1 In the so-called “Francophone Triangle,” one finds a finely meshed continuum in which it is possible to delineate two idealized speech norms: Standard French (SF) and Louisiana Creole (LC). During particular speech events, however, speakers modify their linguistic behavior according to various factors in the communicative situation, for example, participants, location, topic, and it is difficult for the external observer to assign particular features to any one of the speech varieties in contact.2 The reintroduction of SF through the French revival program of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL) has complexified the linguistic situation. Moreover, English, which has already eliminated Louisiana French from its main focal centers in New Orleans and along the Mississipi coasts, is exercising strong pressures on the only two varieties that show any signs of vitality, Cajun French (CF) and LC.

The Lexicon of Louisiana French

We chose to entitle this chapter “The Lexicon of Louisiana French,” rather than “The Lexicon of Cajun French and Louisiana Creole,” to underscore the dilemma faced in the description of the lexical resources available to speakers of these languages. The line of demarcation between the two languages is even fuzzier for the lexicon than for the grammar and the phonology. As the review of the literature will show, the information currently available on the lexicon of the two languages remains too incomplete and fragmentary to help one determine whether speakers draw on a common lexical stock, whether they have access to a relatively well delimited lexicon specific to each of the two languages, or whether they have at their disposal a lexical stock that varies from region to region but is shared by the speakers of a particular regional variety of Cajun French (CF) and Louisiana Creole (LC).

Classroom Foreign Language Learning and Language Variation

There is a growing recognition among researchers and observers of second-language learning that the foreign language classroom constitutes a special environment for the learning and the communicative use of the target language. In a special issue of Studies in Second Language Acquisition devoted to that topic, several of the contributors underscore both the complexity and the specificity of the foreign language classroom (Edmonson, 1985; Faerch & Kasper, 1985; Kramsch, 1985). Edmonson neatly characterizes the special nature of the foreign language classroom environment by underscoring the paradoxical nature of the language behavior we wish to impart to learners: “we seek in the classroom to teach people how to talk when they are not being taught” (1985, p. 162).

The Use of Creole as a School Medium and Decreolization in Haiti

Education in a multilingual context must have a dual objective: on the one hand, it must respect the dignity of the student and promote the vernacular culture by raising the status of the native language; on the other hand, it must allow students a certain level of participation in modern life and insure that they have some chance of social betterment by giving them access to their society’s dominant language and to the major languages of international communication used in their region.

Toward Self-instruction in Foreign Language Learning

Publisher Summary The generally neglected components of foreign language instruction can best be interrelated and manipulated to make the design of foreign language teaching systems more effective, efficient, and congruent with the learning theories and the technology currently being developed and applied. The remarkable revolution in foreign language teaching methodology and technology, now labeled the New Key, constitutes both the strength and the weakness of language teaching. The New Key procedure reveals more accurately the structure of spoken French and is pedagogically more efficient. In Intensive Method programs, contact is also intensified by the modification of the traditional foreign language teaching context: small classes, seldom containing more than ten students; variation in class size; and specialization of teaching function, the linguist providing guidance and the native informant functioning as a drilling machine.