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http://www.msvu.ca/apla40

40th Annual Conference

40e Colloque annuel

28-29 October 2016 / 28-29 octobre 2016

Mount Saint Vincent University

Halifax NS Canada

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LIST OF SPONSORS / LISTE DES COMMANDITAIRES

We sincerely thank the following offices and departments for their generous support:

Nous tenons à remercier les organismes suivants de leur généreux appui :

Office of the President and Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Ramona Lumpkin, MSVU

Office of the Vice President (Academic), Dr. Elizabeth Church, MSVU

Office of the Vice President (Research), Dr. Gayle MacDonald

Office of the Dean of Arts & Science, Dr. Brook Taylor, MSVU

Office of the Dean of Education, Dr. Sal Badali, MSVU

Department of Modern Languages, Chair, Dr. Larry Steele, MSVU

Canadian Linguistic Association, President, Dr. Wladyslaw Cichocki

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE / COMITÉ ORGANISATEUR

Dr. Alexandra Tsedryk, Department of Modern Languages, Mount Saint Vincent University

Dr. Christine Doe, Faculty of Education, Mount Saint Vincent University

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE / COMITÉ SCIENTIFIQUE

Dr. Elissa Asp, English Department and Linguistics Program, Saint Mary’s University

Dr. Patricia Balcom, Department of English, Université de Moncton

Dr. Christine Doe, Faculty of Education, Mount Saint Vincent University

Dr. Daniel Hall, English Department and Linguistics Program, Saint Mary’s University

Dr. Jasmina Milićević, Department of French Studies, Dalhousie University

Dr. Catherine Mimeau, Language and Literacy Lab, Dalhousie University

Dr. Alexandra Tsedryk, Modern Languages Department, Mount Saint Vincent University

Special thanks to our assistants / Nos remerciements aux assistantes :

Julie Duguay, Konner Russell and Madison Ouellette

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http://www.unb.ca/apla-alpa

OFFICERS OF THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES LINGUISTIC ASSOCIATION, 2015-2016

BUREAU DE L’ASSOCIATION DE LINGUISTIQUE DES PROVINCES ATLANTIQUES,

2015-2016

President / Présidente

[on leave /en congé]

Mona-Luiza Ungureanu Université de Moncton

Vice President / Vice-président

[Acting President/ Président par intérim]

Philip Comeau Université du Québec à

Montréal

Past President/ Ancien président

Raymond Mopoho Dalhousie University

Secretary / Secrétaire

Brandon J. Fry University of Ottawa

Treasurer / Trésorier

Egor Tsedryk Saint Mary’s University

Members-at-large /

Membres élus

Bernard Mulo Farenkia

Carmen LeBlanc

Cape Breton University

Carleton University

Acting Editor / Rédacteur par intérim Egor Tsedryk Saint Mary’s University

Editor / Rédactrice en chef Virginia Hill University of New Brunswick

Associate Editors /

Rédacteurs adjoints

Patricia Balcom

Bernard Mulo Farenkia

Université de Moncton

Cape Breton University

Archivist / Archiviste Gerard Van Herk Memorial University of

Newfoundland

Communication and recruitment

committee / Comité de

communications et de recrutement

Philip Comeau

Brandon J. Fry

Université du Québec à

Montréal

University of Ottawa

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Angela Birt (Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada) angela.birt@msvu.ca

Emily Wood (Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada) emily.wood@msvu.ca

The Role of Prosody in Silent Reading: Advances in Scientific Study and Real-World

Applications

Prosody - the suprasegmental features in language, including patterns of stress, intonation,

syllabicity, and rhythm - is essential for effective communication. It is the way we say words and

phrases beyond their phonemic and lexical qualities. The effect of prosody on interpretation and

comprehension is obvious while speaking and reading aloud, but remains unclear while reading

silently (Frazier & Gibson, 2015). The study of prosody in silent reading focuses primarily on

manipulating text visually, most often through punctuation, but also by capitalizing words to

emphasize word stress (Gross et al., 2014) and color coding words to represent differentiated

syllabic rhythm (Häikiö et al., 2015). However, these manipulations are often distracting and

unnatural to readers (Erekson, 2010). Focusing on emphatic (expressive) prosody with minimal

visual manipulation in poetry written to elicit emotion, we draw upon previous research to

propose a combination of methods for examining the effects of prosody on interpretation in silent

reading. The general emotional/ affective tone of poetic phrases will be determined and

manipulated a priori by (1) calculating phonological saliency and syllabic units (Aryani et al.,

2016), (2) using normative databases and software that measure nature and intensity of emotion,

and (3) rhythm expressed predominantly by line breaks. Other elements, such as word frequency,

use of affective words, number of syllables, rhyme, and punctuation will be controlled for,

leaving readers to identify the affective tone of poetic phrases based primarily on rhythm.

Spoken prosody is considered a necessary skill to be considered a fluent reader, yet prosody

created internally while reading silently is often overlooked. Using more controlled methods for

determining the extent to which prosody influences silent reading comprehension

has important implications for both teaching and learning. Additional implications for prosody in

everyday communication will be discussed, including interpreting meaning and emotion

conveyed through social media text.

Emily Black (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany) black@leuphana.de

Can we say anything else about this topic?: Extending talk on a prescribed discussion topic in

a learner-native speaker eTandem learning task

Opportunities for language learners to access authentic input and engage in consequential

interactions with native speakers of their target language abound in this era of computer

mediated communication. Synchronous video calling software represents one opportunity to

access such input and address the challenges of developing pragmatic and interactional

competence (Barron and Black 2015; Belz 2007). The synthesis of telecollaborative technology

with the development of pragmatic and interactional competence represents an area of

burgeoning research (Taguchi 2011; Takamiya and Ishihara 2013) The present study represents a

contribution to this growing area set in the particular context of an eTandem partnership.

Data is drawn from Language LINC, a corpus of telecollaborative eTandem interactions

between German learners of English and Irish English learners of German. The eTandem

meetings that comprise this corpus were centred around tasks to be completed for the students’

respective language classes. The study investigates how learners and native speakers manage a

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pre-specified discussion topic set for the English portion of an eTandem meeting. As the topic is

prescribed, it imposes constraints on the students’ interactions and requires them to continue talk

on this topic for an extended amount of time. Student participants delimit their talk by clearly

initiating and later closing down the topic. Within these boundaries, questions are used as a

resource to confront the interactional problem of extending talk on the prescribed topic.

Roshni Caputo-Nimbark (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada) rcn557@mun.ca

You wants aioli on that seal carpaccio, luh?

On the viability of local dialect in the St. John's restaurant industry

This project aims to demonstrate the role of the workplace in shaping dialect. As St. John's'

growing service sector strives to accommodate global values of growth and competition, I

question whether spoken language is being reflected in these values. Specifically, I investigate

how organizational identification (OI) (Cheney 1983; De Decker 2012) and restaurant category

influence the use of a Newfoundland English (NE) phonetic variable.

I first recorded a series of hour long, Labovian-style, semi-structured interviews with

fourteen female restaurant servers and hostesses from Newfoundland, working at any of six pre-

determined categories of restaurant in St. John's. Participants also completed an Organizational

Identification Questionnaire (OIQ) (Gautam et al. 2004). Interviews, which were followed by a

reading passage, focused on employees' experience in the industry while simultaneously eliciting

tokens corresponding to the phonetic variable of interest, slit fricative (Clarke 1986), in both

informal and formal speech. I then transcribed the interviews and coded for frication. For

analysis of the influence of several external factors on OI score and slit frication, multiple mixed-

effects logistic regression models were run using the glmer package in R.

The most significant results are found among non-local restaurant employees, who

exhibit the highest frequency of slit fricatives (p=0.014). This finding mirrors De Decker's

showing the prevalence of local linguistic features in non-local, inexpensive coffee shop chains,

which he ascribes to hypercorrection on the part of local coffee shop employees, or the

“Starbucks Effect”. Non-local restaurant employees also had the lowest OIQ scores (p<.000),

suggesting the greater prestige of local restaurant identities but not necessarily local dialect.

Results also indicate the relative prominence of slit frication in inexpensive restaurants, with

17% of viable tokens being fricated, compared with 7% for mid-range restaurants and 5% for

expensive ones. Whereas Clarke's 1986 study of slit frication in St. John's claimed its prestigious

associations due to heightened usage in careful speech, the present study shows the opposite

effect in careful speech. Thus, either some employees are exhibiting prestigious features to

compensate for their organization's lower prestige, or perhaps thirty years later, the prestigious

associations of slit frication are shifting in favour of more neutral speech, at least in certain

speech communities. Indeed, the relative lack of frication observed among higher end restaurant

employees, coupled with incrementally higher OI, points to the linguistic capital (Bourdieu

1991) of neutral speech, which appears to play a role in shaping the organizational image of

expensive restaurant.

It is hoped that this study encourages a discussion about how alignment with perceived

market identity relates to linguistic capital and how the economic evaluation of specific dialects

is being manifested in variations of spoken English in the workplace.

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Wladyslaw Cichocki (University of New Brunswick, Canada) cicho@unb.ca

Yves Perreault (Université de Moncton, Canada) yves.perreault@umoncton.ca

Acoustic characteristics of postvocalic word-final /r/ in New Brunswick Acadian French

Varieties of Acadian French are currently undergoing a shift from apical to dorsal pronunciations

of /r/ (Cichocki & Perreault 2016; Flikeid 1984, 1988). However, this change does not appear to

be taking place in postvocalic word-final position. The auditory impression is that there is often

no consonantal constriction in the place of the /r/; the vowel that precedes the R consonant may

be longer and diphthongized – a process called r-vocalization– as in père [pɛə], or the vowel may

be followed by no consonantal articulation at all – called r-deletion – as in mort [mo:]. This

paper presents an acoustic description of the pronunciations of word-final postvocalic /r/ in a

small but representative corpus of New Brunswick Acadian French.

Speech materials are from the RACAD (Reconnaissance automatique du français

acadien) Speech Corpus (Cichocki et al. 2008); this database contains ten sentences read by 140

speakers from the five main francophone regions of New Brunswick. The speakers are stratified

by age and gender; there are two age groups: younger (average age 21.1 years) and older (48.3

years). For the present study, we retain one of the sentences that was read by all speakers, and we

analyze two words – lire and pêcheur – where /r/ occurs in postvocalic word-final position.

Acoustic measurements of the targeted syllable rimes, including durations and formant

frequencies, were obtained using Praat.

Acoustic information reveals three main variants of /r/: two distinct offglides (due to r-

vocalization) and a zero variant (due to r-deletion). In the case of lire, the two offglides are the

most frequent variants; in pêcheur, the zero variant is the dominant pronunciation. In fact, less

than 5% of all tokens are apical, dorsal or retroflex consonants. Results point to the usefulness of

acoustic analysis for the study of coda /r/s, and they highlight the complex nature of sound

change involving /r/.

Philip Comeau (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada) comeau.philip@uqam.ca

Stefanie Fritzenkötter (Université de Trèves, Allemagne) fr@gymnasium-asterstein.de

Marie-Eve Perrot (Université d’Orléans, France) marie.eve.perrot@gmail.com

Comparaisons dans les dynamiques de l’emprunt en français acadien : les conjonctions de

subordination dans deux communautés acadiennes

Cette communication s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un projet de comparaison des emprunts à l’anglais

dans les variétés de français acadien parlées dans les Provinces Maritimes au Canada (Nouveau-

Brunswick, Nouvelle-Écosse, Île-du-Prince-Édouard). Si elles ont pour caractéristique commune

le contact inégalitaire, intensif et prolongé avec l’anglais, ces provinces présentent néanmoins

des situations contrastées, dans la mesure où elles comptent respectivement 32,5 % 3,7 % et 4,2

% de francophones. L’analyse s’appuiera ici sur des corpus constitués à Moncton (N-B) et à la

Baie Sainte-Marie (N-É).

Nous nous concentrerons sur l’emprunt de conjonctions (et locutions conjonctives) de

subordination, dont les énoncés suivants, extraits de corpus oraux, présentent quelques

exemples :

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- Whether que je vas fit-er in ou point / I don’t know

- Si tu comprends pas i va te le conter conter until que tu comprennes

- Je suis allé à l’école even though je feel-ais mal

- Tu watch-es le TV / pis c’est en anglais / t’écoutes la radio / unless c’est Cifa / c’est en anglais

Combinant approches qualitative et quantitative, nous dresserons un inventaire exhaustif des

conjonctions de subordination et décrirons leur distribution et leurs emplois dans nos corpus.

Pour Moncton comme pour la Baie Sainte-Marie, nous disposons de données recueillies au début

des années 1990 et dans les années 2000, ce qui nous permet de mener des analyses

diachroniques en temps réel et de mettre ainsi en lumière des dynamiques de l’emprunt propres à

chaque communauté.

Nous nous interrogerons sur les facteurs favorisant ce type d’emprunt dans les Provinces

Maritimes, mais aussi, plus localement, sur les facteurs susceptibles d’expliquer les

ressemblances et différences observées dans les communautés étudiées.

Richard S. Drake (Saint Mary’s University, Canada) rationalrichard@gmail.com

Nicole J. Conrad (Saint Mary’s University, Canada) nicole.conrad@smu.ca

Writing with Feeling: How Imageability Influences Spelling

Central to language performance is our ability to activate representations of words stored in the

mental lexicon. Investigations of this activation process have pointed to variables like word

frequency and grapheme-phoneme consistency as predictors of the strength and accessibility of

the representation. A subset of this research (e.g., Strain, Patterson, & Seidenberg, 1995) has

further probed a semantic contribution through imageability, a construct that reflects the salience

of a word’s sensory features as measured by collective ratings (traditional sources of normative

data include Gilhooley & Logie, 1980; Paivio, Yuille, & Madigan, 1968; and Toglia & Battig,

1978). Words like “boulder” or “duck”, whose meaning is more easily related to the senses (e.g.,

easy to visualize, tangible, or associated with a characteristic sound), are said to be of high

imageability, while more abstract words like “stingy” and “traitor” are of low imageability

(Strain et al., 1995). Theory predicts that higher imageability words should be more readily

retrieved from memory.

Although this has been documented in word naming studies (e.g., Strain, Patterson, &

Seidenberg, 2002) and with patients with language deficits (e.g., Crisp & Lambon Ralph, 2006),

there has not been any work directly addressing a possible link between imageability and

spelling performance. This presentation will report on an in-progress investigation seeking to fill

this gap in the literature, and will include a discussion of methodological issues, such as the

field’s reliance on a subjectively-defined construct, and ways to account for task administration

confounds. In the study, undergraduate students will be asked to spell a series of words differing

in frequency, consistency, and imageability. It is hypothesized that words with high ratings for

each of these variables will be spelled faster and more accurately, and, consistent with Strain et

al. (1995), that the effect of imageability will be most pronounced for low-consistency, low-

frequency words. Interactions between these variables will be considered in addition to their

individual contributions.

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Brandon Fry (University of Ottawa, Canada) brandon.j.fry@uottawa.ca

Are relative clauses double-peaked structures?

This paper explores the idea that relative clauses are double-peaked structures (in the sense of

Epstein et al. 2015), with the head NP being simultaneously the Merge-partner of the CP and of

the D. Epstein et al. (2015) point out that given Simplest Merge, Merge(X,Y) = {X,Y}, some

syntactic structures may involve intersecting sets, where Merge is applied to a single category

more than once, for example Merge(X,Y) = {X,Y} and Merge(X,Z) = {X,Z}. In informal graph-

theoretic terms, this resembles a double-peaked structure, as in (1).

(1)

Z X Y

This paper proposes that relative clauses are characterisable in these terms, where the head of the

relative clause is the category belonging to both of the intersecting sets. The resulting structure is

represented in (2).

This account explains several important relative clause facts. For example, it straightforwardly

explains the island hood of relative clauses: Epstein et al. (2015) observe that for interpretability,

one of the intersecting sets must be elimated via Transfer (Chomsky, 2008). In the case of

relative clauses, the set {NP,CP} undergoes Transfer (represented in (2) by the dashed lines),

making the CP impenetrable to further syntactic operations. The double peaked structure also

resolves a selectional problem that has persisted since Kayne’s (1994) influential analysis of

relative clauses, which proposes that D takes CP as its complement. Given the double-peak

structure, however, D takes an NP complement, as it typically does. There are also some

problems with the proposed analysis, for example the evidence to suggest that D must scope over

the CP in relatives (see de Vries (2002) for a nice overview). It is not clear how this fact can be

accounted for under the proposed analysis, since the D never scopes over the CP.

Megan Gotowski (University of California in Los Angeles, USA)

megangotowski@gmail.com

La production des questions en français chez les enfants

En français, il y a deux types de questions, comme les exemples (1) et (2) ci-dessous : soit le

pronom interrogatif est au début de la phrase, soit à la fin (on dit alors qu’il est « in situ »).

(1) Qu’est-ce que tu fais ?

(2) Tu fais quoi ?

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Même si les deux types sont grammaticalement corrects, la recherche indique que les adultes

utilisent plus souvent la forme (1) que la forme (2). Cependant, la recherche avec la production

spontanée du corpus CHILDES montre que les enfants ont naturellement plutôt tendance à

utiliser la forme dite in situ (Hamann 2006 ; Gotowski & Becker 2015). Pour cette raison,

certains linguistes affirment que des enfants sont motivés par « l’économie » de syntaxe. Cette

étude avait pour but de mettre en évidence cette différence apparente entre adultes et enfants en

utilisant des méthodes de recherche expérimentales. Nous avons fait cette recherche dans un

lycée à Paris avec 19 enfants (3 ;09-5 ;08 ans) ; il y avait également 12 adultes. Nous avons

constaté que même si les enfants utilisent plus de questions in situ (n= 18) que les adultes (n= 2),

ils produisent plus souvent la forme (1) (n= 78), par rapport à la production spontanée. En plus, il

y a seulement 5 enfants sur 19 qui produisent des questions « in situ ». Ce résultat indique que

les enfants ne sont pas motivés par l'économie, et qu’ils sont capables de former les deux types

des questions, même à trois ans.

Virginia Hill (University of New Brunswick, Canada) mota@unb.ca

Root infinitives in Acadian French

This paper focuses on constructions as in (1), where an infinitive clause occurs in juxtaposition

(and also coordination) with a regular root indicative clause. The question is what derivational

factor is at work so that infinitive and indicative clauses may converge to equivalent

interpretations in root configurations.

(1) Faullait faire la grande demande mais j’ai pas pris de boisson. [Travailler un peu de la

tête]. (Brasseur 1998: 88; C.É.A, coll. Lauraine Léger, Shippagan, NB, 68a/2212)

The proposal is that the semantic Assertion Operator that takes scope over the proposition in

declaratives (Meinunger 2004) is syntactically mapped in the root infinitive, but not in root

indicatives, where the declarative clause typing arises by default from the morphosyntactic

specification on the verb. Comparison with other languages that display non-finite root clauses

indicates that the mapping of the Assertion Operator depends on the high incidence of null

operators in Spec, CP, which is the case in Acadian but not in standard French (where clause

typing operators are mostly lexical).

Gary Libben (plenary lecture, Brock University, Canada) glibben@brocku.ca

Words as the Backbone of Language Ability

The mental ability to represent and process words may constitute the core of human language

ability. Key to understanding this ability are the facts that most words of a language are

multimorphemic and that most language users speak more than one language.

In this presentation, I draw on psycholinguistic data from the processing of compound

words (with examples from English, German, and Hebrew). Compound words offer a privileged

vantage point from which to consider lexical representation and processing because they are the

most common multimorphemic structures across languages and may be the structures from

which all other types of morphology have developed.

I present a view that the human cognitive system for language is organized to achieve the

‘maximization of opportunity’ for meaning creation and in which bilingualism is the default

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state. I discuss the extent to which constructs from the linguistic analysis of morphology can be

applied to the psycholinguistic characterization of language processing and the consequences

that the ‘maximization of opportunity’ perspective may have for approaches to language teaching

and learning.

Jean-Guy Mboudjeke (Université de Windsor, Canada) mbou@uwindsor.ca;

jeanguy.mboudjeke@gmail.com

Regards croisés sur les mots d’ici :

le marquage des québécismes dans le Petit Robert et dans Antidote

En lexicographie, le marquage est une sorte de restriction placée sur l’unité lexicale décrite, une

note d’avertissement à l’intention des usagers du dictionnaire. Dans un dictionnaire de la langue

commune par exemple, un terme technique dévie du caractère général de la langue décrite dans

le dictionnaire. De même, dans un dictionnaire contemporain, un mot archaïque est un écart par

rapport au caractère contemporain de la langue décrite dans le dictionnaire (Svensén : 2009).

L’ensemble des codifications textuelles et typographiques qui découlent de telles descriptions est

appelé « marques d’usage » tandis que l’unité lexicale qui les porte est dite « marquée ». Dans

cette communication, je compare les traitements lexicographiques de 30 (trente) mots

caractéristiques du québécois dans deux dictionnaires : Antidote et le Petit Robert. En rappel,

Antidote est une plateforme électronique d’aide à la rédaction conçue et produite au Québec par

des Québécois, tandis que le Petit Robert est un dictionnaire général du français produit en

France par des Français. Alors, pourquoi comparer les traitements lexicographiques des

québécismes dans les deux dictionnaires? Premièrement, pour voir dans quelle mesure le point

de vue contribue à définir l’objet. Deuxièmement pour mettre en lumière les non-dits

idéologiques qui influencent les systèmes de marquage. Enfin, parce que le croisement des deux

regards (interne et externe) sur le français d’ici permet de mieux mesurer non seulement sa

complexité et son instabilité, mais aussi sa beauté et sa richesse. Les données utilisées

proviennent de la version en français québécois de trois épisodes de la série Les Simpsons.

Hedy McGarrell (Brock University, Canada) hmcgarrell@brocku.ca

Use of Lexical bundles in L1 and L2 graduate writing and vocabulary

According to Conrad & Biber (2004), approximately 20 percent of the words in written academic

texts in English occur within three or four word groups called Lexical Bundles (LBs). Their

frequent occurrence underlines the need for Non-Native speakers (NNS) of English to acquire

them for fluent production. This study compared LB use in texts from native (NS) and NNS

English speaking graduate students to identify similarities and differences. Twelve native

speakers (NS) of English and 17 NNS from three different first language backgrounds (Arabic,

Mandarin, Korean) participated. The study focused on quantitative and qualitative differences in

LB use by examining the overall frequency of use and the breadth of different lexical bundles

used by each group. A writing assignment, on an assigned topic, that formed part of regular

graduate work was available from each participant. The bundles generated by the NS and NNS

were compared to a list of LBs identified in previous research as the most frequently occurring

bundles in the humanities and in applied linguistics (Hyland, 2008). Results show that the NNS

group used a greater total number of LBs than the NS group, but that the NS group used a wider

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variety of different bundles. The NNS group used more bundles that occurred in the published

paper on which the texts were based, and fewer of the frequent bundles than the NS group. A

discussion of how these results relate to previous research and writing pedagogy concludes the

paper.

Jasmina Milićević (Dalhousie University, Canada) milicevj@gmail.com

French PERMETTRE and its English Counterparts: Translation Based on Paraphrase

The closest English equivalents of the French verb PERMETTRE, taken in the sense ‘make

possible’, are ENABLE and ALLOW (1). However, these verbs are not the ones most frequently

used to translate their French counterpart (2). The examples are taken from the Linguee

translation bank (www.linguee.com).

In this talk, I will first show that the use of ENABLE and ALLOW is difficult because

each of these verbs has a mismatching Government Pattern (≈ argument structure) with respect

to that of PERMETRE; cf. (the mismatching features are in red):

I will then describe the translation techniques used to get some of the alternative translation

solutions in (2). For instance, the translational equivalence in (2f) is a result of 1) the lexical

substitution permettre de Y-er ⇒ succeed in Y-ing (possible in a context where Y, in addition to

being desirable, is difficult to achieve) and 2) the inversion of syntactic subordination succeed in

Y-ing ⇒ have Y-ed successfully. Finally, I will propose a sample of the corresponding transfer

rules, an important part of which are paraphrasing, or equivalence, rules, valid both inter- and

intra-linguistically. My frame of reference is the Meaning-Text linguistic theory (Mel’čuk 1974,

Kahane 2003), in particular the Meaning-Text theory of paraphrase (Žolkovskij & Mel’čuk 1967,

Mel’čuk 1974, 1992 & 2013, Milićević 2007).

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Raymond Mopoho (Dalhousie University, Canada) raymond.mopoho@dal.ca

La formation des interprètes coloniaux en Afrique francophone :

entre idéalisme, idéologie et réalisme

Le premier corps d’interprètes professionnels en Afrique francophone est celui de l’armée de

conquête et des débuts de l’administration coloniale en Algérie. Ces interprètes sont des

« drogmans » formés à l’École spéciale des langues orientales de Paris, traditionnellement pour

servir d’interprètes et d’intermédiaires commerciaux dans ce qu’on appelait alors les « échelles

du Levant », c’est-à-dire les ports et les villes de l’empire ottoman situés au Proche-Orient ou

en Afrique du Nord. Comme l’indique le décret portant création de l’École, celle-ci est

« destinée à l’enseignement des langues d’une utilité reconnue pour la politique et le

commerce ». La formation porte en conséquence sur l’acquisition des langues

orientales « utiles » de l’époque (arabe littéraire et vulgaire, turc et tatar de Crimée,

persan et malais), ainsi que sur la diplomatie, l’histoire, la géographie, les sciences politiques, les

sciences commerciales, la religion, etc. Les enseignements sont suivis à la fois à Paris et dans un

couvent de moines capucins à Constantinople. Les apprenants sont recrutés très jeunes, parfois

dès l’âge de huit ans, et les effectifs sont limités à un maximum de 12 par an. Avec la conquête et

la colonisation de l’Algérie s’impose la nécessité d’accélérer la formation des interprètes pour

faire face à des besoins pressants sur le terrain. Mais la pénurie de candidats Européens oblige

bientôt à envisager la formation d’interprètes « indigènes », sur la base d’un programme adapté.

La conception et la mise en œuvre de ce programme donnent lieu à de nombreux tiraillements

qui trahissent les difficultés qu’éprouve le discours colonial à s’accommoder de la réalité. Le

même scénario se reproduira plus tard en Afrique subsaharienne, où la situation est rendue

encore plus complexe par la grande multiplicité des langues.

Bernard Mulo Farenkia (Cape Breton University, Canada) bernard_farenkia@cbu.ca

Refuser (im)poliment une demande de service en français L2

Cette étude s’inscrit dans le cadre de la pragmatique de l’interlangue (Interlanguage Pragmatics)

(voir Trosborg 1995 ; Kasper 2010). Elle porte sur l’expression du refus, un acte tellement

récurrent dans les interactions verbales qu’il constitue un élément important de la compétence

communicative. L’analyse vise à mettre en lumière comment des apprenants canadiens

anglophones refusent des demandes de service en français L2. L’étude s’appuie sur un corpus de

données obtenues auprès de 12 apprenants et 19 locuteurs natifs du français. Nous comparons les

choix de stratégies de refus des apprenants interrogés avec ceux des locuteurs natifs du français.

Les résultats sont discutés du point de vue des types de formulation (expressions directes et

expressions indirectes) et des procédés d’adoucissement et d’intensification du refus. Il est aussi

question de mesurer l’influence de la distance sociale et du statut social sur les choix des

apprenants et des locuteurs natifs du français ; volet permettant d’en savoir plus sur la

compétence socio-pragmatique des premiers.

En comparant les choix des deux groupes de répondants avec ceux des locuteurs natifs de

l’anglais (l’objet d’une prochaine étude), l’on pourra identifier des cas de transferts pragmatiques

et réfléchir sur l’acquisition de l’acte de refus en français L2.

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Sulaiman Palizhati (Centre de Recherches de Linguistique d’Asie Orientale, France)

spalizhati@hotmail.fr

Acquisition du lexique chez des enfants bilingues ouïgour-chinois :

Étude sur les classificateurs de la langue chinoise par les enfants bilingues ouïgours

Trois étapes marquent notre recherche. D’abord, une présentation des particularités des classes

bilingues en Chine surtout au Xinjiang. Ensuite, une étude des caractéristiques des langues

ouïgoure et chinoise. Enfin, une analyse des acquisitions lexicales chez les enfants ouïgours

bilingues, en nous basant sur les recherches que nous avons effectuées : « Le bilinguisme

pendant la période de l’éducation obligatoire: le cas des écoles de la région d’Ili en Chine ». Les

langues altaïques des minorités chinoises, comme la langue ouïgoure, ont toujours été en contact

avec la langue chinoise. Depuis surtout un demi-siècle, elles subissent l’influence de la langue

chinoise qui apporte des changements dans tous les aspects linguistiques. Avec l’application de

la politique du bilinguisme, les enfants ouïgours qui suivent leurs études depuis l’école primaire

dans une classe bilingue chinois-ouïgour, font des emprunts profonds et importants à la langue

chinoise.

L’acquisition de la langue ouïgoure, langue première, par l’enfant est précoce et

relativement simple du fait de la régularité de sa morphologie et de la clarté de son organisation

sémantique. Ainsi, l’enfant maîtrise un langage syntaxiquement correct avant d’aller à l’école

primaire. Néanmoins, en raison de la particularité de la classe bilingue1, l’acquisition des

structures plus complexes est plus tardive et pose plus de difficultés aux enfants.

La langue ouïgoure et la langue chinoise disposent de fonctionnements respectifs,

totalement différents au niveau morphosyntaxique, voire opposés. En ouïgour, il n’existe

normalement pas des classificateurs, mais les enfants bilingues ouïgours ajoutent des

classificateurs dans les phrases ouïgoures. Nous avons analysé des centaines de phrases

enregistrées auprès des élèves des classes bilingues, et nous allons plus particulièrement nous

concentrer sur les classificateurs du chinois dans les phrases ouïgoures.

Cynthia Potvin (Université de Moncton, Canada) cynthia.potvin@umoncton.ca

Les pronoms personnels : reflets des formes de traitement en espagnol langue seconde

L’omission ou non de certains pronoms personnels permet de classifier les langues selon qu’elles

sont des langues à sujet nul ou non. Tel est le cas de l’espagnol, reconnu pour faire abstraction de

l’utilisation des pronoms sujets dans la majeure partie des contextes. Cette particularité de

l’espagnol vient du fait que les terminaisons verbales permettent d’identifier clairement le sujet

d’une phrase. Ainsi, outre son usage dans le but de différencier deux interlocuteurs ou pour

éviter l’ambiguïté, la présence des pronoms sujets en espagnol n’est tout simplement pas

obligatoire.

Du côté de l’enseignement de l’espagnol langue seconde, on sensibilise les apprenant.e.s dès le

niveau débutant à cette propriété caractéristique de la langue espagnole. Par la suite, au niveau

intermédiaire-avancé, la tendance tirée du Plan Curricular del Instituto Cervantes est d’enseigner

les quelques cas d’utilisation des pronoms sujets en espagnol que nous venons de citer.

1 Dans les classes bilingues au Xinjiang, tous les cours sont enseignés dans la langue chinoise, sauf la littérature ouïgoure.

15

En dépit de cela, l’utilisation des pronoms sujets est tout de même de mise lorsque l’on interpelle

notre interlocuteur, rendant manifeste les différentes formes de traitement dans le monde

hispanique. Ainsi, seule la version standard des formes de traitement est enseignée. La présente

communication a pour but de présenter les diverses formes de traitement du monde hispanique,

pour ainsi argumenter contre l’enseignement d’un schéma général des formes de traitement dans

les cours d’espagnol langue seconde. Pour ce faire, nous présenterons le schéma général des

formes de traitement et nous le confronterons à d’autres utilisations assignées au tutoiement et au

vouvoiement de l’espagnol hispanoaméricain. Nous terminerons en déterminant les

caractéristiques des formes de traitement à intégrer dans les cours d’espagnol langue seconde

afin de préparer les étudiant.e.s à une réalité distincte de celle que l’on retrouve en salle de

classe.

Asmaa Shehata (University of Calgary, Canada) rasmenia1@gmail.com

The lexical encoding of novel phonological features:

unfamiliar orthography effect

Prior research indicates that adult second language (L2) learners encounter difficulty in

distinguishing novel L2 contrasting sounds that are not contrastive in their native languages

(Bradlow et al., 1997; Darcy et al., 2012; Ota et al., 2009; Weber & cutler, 2004). Recent studies,

however, have displayed that the presence of a spelled form while learning new L2 words can

influence L2 learners’ ability to perceive and lexically encode non-native phonemic contrasts

(Bassetti, 2006; Weber & Cutler, 2004). For example, Escurdero, Hayes-Harb, & Mitterer (2008)

showed that the availability of written forms helped native Dutch speakers to discriminate the

English /ɛ/-/æ/ contrast. These studies have mainly considered a familiar written script (i.e., the

Roman script); whereas the influence of an unfamiliar script on L2 phonological acquisition

remains poorly understood. In this study, therefore, I synthesize previous findings that bear on

controversies about the role of the written input, and present new data that support the utility of

orthographic information in the acquisition of non-native phonological contrasts.

Bonita Squires (Dalhousie University, Canada) bonita.squires@dal.ca

Elizabeth Kay-Raining Bird (Dalhousie University, Canada) rainbird@dal.ca

Patricia Cleave (Dalhousie University, Canada) pcleave@dal.ca

Un-dating and quarter-ponies: Production of derivational morphology and compound words

in the discourse of school-aged children

As children, we learn to spontaneously generate words using combinations of word parts known

as morphemes. Children’s spontaneous production of English grammatical suffixes, called

inflectional morphemes (e.g., talk-ed), has been well documented and charted (e.g., Brown,

1973). In contrast, limited research has documented English-speaking school-age children’s

spontaneous use of morphology to generate new words using derivational (e.g., dis-taste-ful) and

compound (e.g., fire-truck) morphology. The present study will describe and compare the use of

derivational and compound morphology in the discourse of monolingual English-speaking

children aged 7/8 years old (n=12) and 11/12 years old (n=11). Three types of discourse

language samples (conversational, narrative and expository) were collected, transcribed and

coded for derivational morphemes and compound words. Preliminary analyses suggest an

16

interaction between age and discourse type. Derivational morphemes and compound word types

will be categorized and examples shared. In addition, challenges regarding the identification of

derivational morphemes and compound words in child language samples will be considered and

discussed.

Antoine Tremblay1,2,3, Graham Flick4, Ariel Blanchard3, Estelle Cochingyan2, Kayla

Dickie2, Kailtyn Macgillivray2, Hayam Ashraf Mahmoud-Ahmed2, Sarah Schwartz2, Caleb

Sher2, Elissa Asp3 and Aaron J. Newman2

(1NovaScape Data Analysis and Consulting, 2Dalhousie University, 3Saint-Mary’s

University, Canada; 4New York University, Abu Dabi, United Arab Emirates)

Corresponding author: Antoine Tremblay trea26@gmail.com

Free, Unscripted Conversation with MEG Recordings is a

Viable Experimental Paradigm for Research into Language Processing

Our knowledge of language processing in the brain almost entirely originates from experiments

that have focused on responses to linguistic stimuli in carefully controlled settings. As in any

other research endeavour, the assumption is made that knowledge gained from these controlled

experiments generalizes to natural settings, such as the conversations we engage in every day.

But does it really?

The present study is a first step towards answering this question. We applied magneto-

encephalography (MEG) to record brain activity from four participants while they each engaged

in fifteen minutes of constraint-free conversation with a researcher. In the initial proof-of-

concept analysis presented here, we focused on the influence on language processing of the

lexical frequency of nouns heard by participants. A large body of work has demonstrated that

lexical frequency modulates responses that are believed to index access to a word’s meaning or

representation. This includes modulation of the MEG signal approximately 350–450 ms after the

onset of a word.

Consistent with previous reports, lexical frequency significantly modulated sensor-level MEG

responses at bilateral anterior and posterior, as well as central sensor locations approximately

400 ms after participants encountered a noun. In the low frequency range, we found the expected

amplitude decrease with increasing frequency, reflecting less demanding lexical access.

However, in the upper frequency range the opposite effect was observed: An increase in

frequency corresponded to an increase in amplitude.

In brief, our results indicate that lexical frequency effects observed in controlled MEG

studies generalize to free, unconstrained conversation. Furthermore, the consistency of our

results with previous reports regarding both facilitatory and inhibitory effects on MEG

amplitudes 350–450 ms after encountering a noun validates the kind of experimental paradigm

advocated for here. We therefore present this work in hopes that others will be motivated to

pursue similar avenues of research.

17

Egor Tsedryk (Saint Mary’s University, Canada) egor.tsedryk@smu.ca

Wh-words and their projections

One of the questions surrounding operation Merge in syntax is the label, or projection

(understood here as a set of features), produced by this operation (Chomsky 2013; see Bošković

2016 for a comprehensive overview). When a syntactic object α is merged with a syntactic object

β, the features of either α, β or both could define the product of Merge(α, β) (Citko 2008). In this

paper, I focus on the syntactic objects derived by the wh-movement. It is traditionally assumed

that wh-questions (root What have you written? or embedded I wonder [what you have written])

are CPs. Nevertheless, if movement is an instance of Merge, the following question arises: Why

does C have to be a projecting category? (Starke (2001), e.g., has proposed to dispense with

Spec,CP.) According to Cecchetto and Donati (2015), C projects only if it has a probe (a wh-

feature that triggers the wh-movement). They suggest that C does not have such a feature in free

relatives (I’ll read [what you have written]), where the moving wh-word projects. Their analysis

of free relatives is based on two assumptions: (i) free Merge (not triggered by a probe) is

possible and (ii) if free Merge involves a word and a phrase, it is the word that projects by

default. I argue that these assumptions are unnecessary on conceptual grounds. If C has a probe

targeting a wh-word, it is expected that the latter’s features are copied to (or shared with) C. That

is, a probe-goal relationship, followed by Merge, necessarily implies that all instances of wh-

movement (whether wh-questions or free relatives) end up in a syntactic object that bears the

label of the probed wh-word. I propose that the interpretation of this label at the interface

(definite or interrogative) depends on two factors: (i) the wh-word’s featural composition

(determined in the lexicon; e.g., what vs. whatever) and (ii) syntactic context (root or non-root, a

merger with an interrogative predicate, e.g. wonder, or a predicate assigning a -role, e.g. read).