We investigate the cross-linguistic influence and the (longitudinal) impact of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) on the acquisition of intensifying constructions, using corpora of written French, Dutch, and English productions by L1 speakers, and L2 English and L2 Dutch produced by French-speaking learners in CLIL and traditional foreign language education. We hypothesize that learners will benefit from similarities between the L1 and target language (TL) intensifying constructions, and secondly, that more input and use (through CLIL) will lead to a more target-like use of intensifying constructions. The analyses include quantitative measures of frequency and productivity, and covarying analyses (Gries, 2007). Our findings suggest that, as expected, CLIL students produce intensifying constructions in a more target-like manner. The effect of the duration of TL learning, however, is more apparent in English than in Dutch.

In this study, we present a corpus-based comparison of the use of intensifying constructions in written L1 Dutch (Corpus Hedendaags Nederlands) and written L1 French (Frantext). We subsequently discuss intensification in Dutch as a second language (L2 Dutch) by French-speaking learners (Leerdercorpus Nederlands). The analysis adopts a constructional perspective (Goldberg 2006, Tomasello 2003) and aims to contrast French and Dutch preferences for morphological and syntactic intensifying constructions. Extending on the “Germanic Sandwich Hypothesis” (Van Haeringen 1956, Lamiroy 2011), we expect to find: i) more morphological intensifying constructions in Dutch, such as ‘elative’ compounds (e.g. knalrood ‘completely red’; Hoeksema 2012) and ii) more syntactic constructions in French, such as adverbial modification (e.g. tout rouge ‘completely red’) and adjective reduplication (e.g. rouge rouge ‘completely red’). The present study thus serves a twofold purpose: investigating whether the synthetic vs. analytic character of Germanic vs Romance languages holds in the domain of intensification, and on a more applied level, it contributes to identifying possible difficulties for French-speaking learners of Dutch in this field. Our corpus study partly confirms the expected difference in the use of morphological intensifying constructions between L1 Dutch and L1 French, with significantly more morphological intensifying constructions in L1 Dutch than in L1 French. Adverbial modification remains the default intensifying construction in both languages however. Whilst L2 Dutch productions displayed an overuse of intensifying adverbs (partly due to the overuse of ‘all-round’ intensifiers such as heel ‘very’), the learners did however also use elative compounds, a typical Germanic intensifying construction.

No abstract

No abstract

This study analyzes the acquisition of Dutch intensifying constructions by French-speaking learners in Belgium. Additionally, it compares learners enrolled in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programs with learners following traditional second language instruction. Within the framework of Diasystematic Construction Grammar, we study the potential impact of CLIL on the acquisition of Dutch intensification by conducting an in-depth constructional analysis at three different levels of schematization. The results of our study indicate that a beneficial CLIL effect is apparent throughout the different levels of abstraction. Moreover, the results allow us to unveil specific reorganizational processes that occur in the diasystem of French-speaking learners of Dutch, such as the overgeneralization of particular schematic patterns and the inaccurate tagging of specific intensifiers.