French Immersion Programs: A Comparison of Immersion and Non-Immersion Parents

Bienvenue, Rita M.

doi:10.3138/cmlr.42.4.806

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Finally, Table 1 shows that 51% of the students came from homes where a language other than English was spoken. This finding is in line with previous research that points to the presence of significant numbers of students from non-French and non-English-speaking backgrounds in French immersion programs in metropolitan areas in Canada (e.g., Bienvenue, 1986;Dagenais & Day, 1998). More specifically, among the students speaking a non-French or non-English language at home, 38% spoke a Romance language (Italian or Spanish) and 62% spoke a non-Romance language (Chinese, Croatian, German, Korean, Polish, Tagalog, Vietnamese).…”

Section: Belowsupporting

confidence: 93%

Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variants by French Immersion Students: The Case of Restrictive Expressions, and More

Mougeon

Rehner

2001

The Modern Language Journal

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This article investigates the learning of sociostylistic variation by students in French immersion programs in Ontario. It is primarily focused on their learning of the 4 expressions of restriction, ne . . . que, seulement, rien que, and juste, all meaning 'only.' Compared with Canadian Francophones, we found the students' range of variants to be narrower. They used only 2 variants, seulement and juste. Also, the frequency of their use of these variants was affected by a number of extralinguistic and linguistic parameters (e. g., amount of extracurricular exposure to native Canadian French usage, languages spoken at home, social background and gender, and syntactic context). We discuss our findings in the broader context of research on the learning of linguistic variation by: (a) Canadian learners of French as a second language (FSL), including our own previous research on these same students; and (b) second language (L2) learners of other languages. Finally, we touch on the sociopolitical and pedagogical implications of our findings.FIRST LANGUAGE (L1) SOCIOLINGUISTIC research has underscored the fact that native speakers' alternation between two or more linguistic elements (variants) that express the same notion (referred to henceforth as L1 variation) is a crucial dimension of spoken language competence. It affects all components of language (syntax, morphology, lexicon, etc.), is highly recurrent in the speech chain, and is constrained by linguistic factors (e.g., factors pertaining to the linguistic context in which the variants are used) and by extralinguistic factors (e.g., gender, social status or group identity, and register or style).However, the bulk of previous research in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has focused on aspects of the target language where native speakers display invariant linguistic usage (i.e., use only one linguistic element to convey a given notion). In contrast, recent research taking a sociolinguistic perspective on

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confidence: 93%

Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variants by French Immersion Students: The Case of Restrictive Expressions, and More

Mougeon

Rehner

2001

The Modern Language Journal

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“…In other words, more than half of the 41 students have two L1s. This finding is consistent with previous research pointing to the presence of significant numbers of students from non-French and non-English-speaking backgrounds in French immersion programs in metropolitan areas in Canada (e.g., Bienvenue, 1986;Dagenais & Day, 1998). Table 9 also shows that we have almost equal numbers of grade 9 and 12 students, 7 more females than males, and more students from middle-class backgrounds than from the upper working class.…”

Section: Student Speaker Samplesupporting

confidence: 92%

THE LEARNING OF SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION BY ADVANCED FSL LEARNERS

Rehner

Mougeon

Nadasdi

2003

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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This paper synthesizes research on the acquisition of linguistic variation by learners of French as a second language-an overview that, to our knowledge, is the first of its kind. It also presents a case study on French immersion students' acquisition of the pronouns nous and on "we," an alternation in many varieties of spoken French. The study shows that the students use the mildly marked variant on slightly more often than the formal variant nous but much less often than native speakers (who use it almost categorically) and immersion teachers (who strongly favor it). Female and middle-class students favor nous, students with greater extracurricular French language exposure favor on, and students who speak a Romance language at home favor nous. Various explanations are proposed for these correlations. Finally, the students, like L1 Francophones, favor on in linguistic contexts in which the referent is both nonspecific and unrestricted.We would like to thank the following people for their comments on a previous version of this paper:Our study presents a variationist analysis of the alternation between the subject pronouns nous and on, both of which designate two or more individuals including the speaker. This case of variation has been documented in many varieties of contemporary spoken French. The objective of our study is twofold. First, we seek to determine whether French immersion students use both pronouns nous and on to mean "we" (e.g., Ma soeur et moi nous allons à la même école and Ma soeur et moi on va à la même école, both of which mean "My sister and I, we go to the same school"). Second, we seek to determine whether the immersion students' usage of these pronouns is conditioned by the same linguistic and extralinguistic constraints that have an impact on native speaker usage as well as by independent variables that are specific to second language (L2) learners-for example, the amount of exposure to native French outside school and the learners' first language (L1). As such, this study belongs to a strand of SLA research that investigates the learning of sociolinguistic variation by L2 learners. Within this strand of research, numerous studies have focused on French as a second language (FSL), but no synthesis of these studies' findings has yet been attempted. Thus, our paper will include such a synthesizing overview. RESEARCH ON VARIATION IN SLAL1 sociolinguistic research has demonstrated that native speakers' alternation between two or more linguistic elements (variants) expressing the same meaning (referred to hereafter as L1 variation) is an integral part of spoken language competence (Labov, 1966(Labov, , 1972. It affects all components of language (syntax, morphology, lexicon, etc.). It is highly frequent in L1 discourse and constrained by both linguistic factors (e.g., factors pertaining to the linguistic context in which the variants are used) and extralinguistic factors (e.g., gender, social status or group identity, and register or style).However, the bulk of research on SLA has focused on as...

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Variation in the Spoken French of Immersion Students: To ne or not to ne, That Is the Sociolinguistic Question

Rehner¹,

Mougeon²

1999

The Canadian Modern Language Review

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This paper investigates a case of linguistic variation observable in the spoken French of students from French immersion programs in Ontario, namely alternation between negative constructions with and without the negative particle ne (e.g., II ne comprend pas vs. II (θ) comprend pas, 'he does not understand.') Our students' use of ne is markedly more frequent than that documented in previous studies of both Canadian francophones and Irish FSL speakers. Our students clearly favour the standard variant (ne usage). We also found that our students vary their frequency of ne usage/non-usage to reflect their own socioeconomic background and gender, but that they do not shift their level of ne non-usage in accordance with topic formality. Our findings suggest that the learning of even a mildly marked non-standard variant, like ne non-usage, requires a minimum of interactions with francophones, especially if such a variant is not explicitly taught by immersion educators.

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French Immersion Programs: A Comparison of Immersion and Non-Immersion Parents

Cited by 3 publications

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Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variants by French Immersion Students: The Case of Restrictive Expressions, and More

Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Variants by French Immersion Students: The Case of Restrictive Expressions, and More

THE LEARNING OF SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION BY ADVANCED FSL LEARNERS

Variation in the Spoken French of Immersion Students: To ne or not to ne, That Is the Sociolinguistic Question

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