PAUSING PRECEDING AND FOLLOWING à/de IN INFINITIVE PHRASES IN THE PRODUCTION OF NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS OF FRENCH

Abstract

Pausing strategies in speech of native and non-native speakers have been of significant interest for researchers since it was observed that the speech of both groups of speakers’ pausing patterns do display considerable differences. Since English is a syllable timed language, pausing strategies of native English speakers and non -native speakers, especially those whose languages are not syllable timed, display considerable differences. This study was conducted with a specific focus on the à/deinfinitive phrases in French . The study reports on the audio recordings produced by native (NSF), and non -native (NNSF) speakers of French and aims to identify different silent pausing strategies as they were employed by these speakers. Both groups watched the French dubbed version of the animated cartoon, Scrooge, and then commented on its various themes. Considerable attention was given to pausing preceding (PP) and following (PF) the à/de particle in à/de- infinitive phrases. The results display significant differences between pausing preceding and following à/de -infinitive phrases in the speech of native and non-native speaker groups. While pausing preceding à/de -infinitive phrases was observed to be significantly shorter than in the following position in the speech of native speaker group, in non-native speakers group there was no statistically significant difference between pausing in preceding and following positions. Not only does this observation, partly, justify the theory of principles and parameters (PPT) but also it may have significant implications for reading and speaking skills of French learners in particular, and L2 learners in general.

Keywords: Pausing; Teaching speaking/reading; First language acquisition; Second language acquisition; Principles and parameters theory