Oral Aspects in French as a Foreign Language Teaching

Abstract

This study handles the specific aspects of oral communication at various linguistic dimensions within the context of teaching French as a foreign language. Oral language is prone to a particular organization at the prosodic, morphosyntactic, and discursive dimensions, which interact once speech is brought into play. In order to delve into orality in French, as the problematic of this study, and to draw its pedagogical implications, a linguistic review of some hypothetical utterances was first carried out. Then, an interview-based video retrieved from an open source was analyzed in terms of its specific oral aspects by excluding lexical and kinesic characteristics. The findings show the relevance of some oral features which bear a close relationship with each other. As far as the prosodic aspects are concerned, it is found that the filled pause, the false start, the contraction, the syllable lengthening, and most importantly the intonation, which plays a distinctive role when conveying meaning, are utilized in oral communication in French. The relevant morphosyntactic features of orality in the scope of French include the thematization, the omission of the first negative adverbial particle, the use of presentative structures, neutral demonstrative pronouns as well as that of bivalent indefinite/personal pronoun, and the recourse to direct speech or to various corrections/repetitions/reformulations. Concerning the specific discursive aspects of French, the findings reveal the use of phatic markers as pragmatic discourse organizers. Lastly, based on the findings, a communicative-linguistic activity in the form of a task was proposed for didactic purposes.