On October 5th, Professors Raymond and Françoise Mougeon spoke on the acquisition of verbal inflection by French-English bilinguals. The recording of the talk can be found here
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Raymond Mougeon is a Professor Emeritus in the French Studies Department at Glendon College, York University. His work examines spoken French variation in Ontario’s Francophone communities and schools, the acquisition of French as a second language in Ontario, and the ethnolinguistic vitality of Canada’s Francophone minorities |
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Françoise Mougeon is a Professor Emerita in the French Studies Department at Glendon College, York University. Her research focuses on the sociolinguistic competence of advanced learners of French-as-a-second-language and on variation in the socio-stylistic choices of native speakers of French. |
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Undergraduate and graduate students from across UofT along with faculty from various departments attended the event, eager to learn about the Mougeon's latest study. |
Acquisition of 3pl. Verb Markings by (Very) Advanced FSL Learners and Francophone Students in Ontario, Canada
This study examines the acquisition of the use of 3pl. markings of French verbs by speakers along an enhanced French L1 – L2 speaker continuum, namely i) bilingual (French/English) students attending French-medium high schools in the Francophone communities of Hawkesbury, Cornwall, North Bay and Pembroke, Ontario, ii) FSL high school students enrolled in an immersion program in Toronto and iii) FSL students attending a bilingual university college, also in Toronto. It documents the impact of the following factors: i) the discursive frequency of the verbs; ii) the proportion of Francophones in the students’ communities of residence; iii) the students’ individual frequency of extra-curricular use of French; (iv) use of the 3pl. verb markings by teachers in French-medium schools and French Immersion programs and v) use of the 3pl. verb markings in the varieties of French spoken in the four Franco-Ontarian communities. Our study examines the role of these factors in the intergroup hierarchies in rates of acquisition of the 3pl. verb markings along the enhanced speaker continuum.