Negation in Near‐Native French: Variation and Sociolinguistic Competence
I thank the audience at EuroSLA 25 (Aix‐en‐Provence), the anonymous reviewers, and the Language Learning editors for their valuable discussion and comments. I am grateful to Mark Amengual for assistance with the statistical analyses and to Alexander Frogner for assistance with the data.
Abstract
This study investigated how adult second language (L2) speakers of French with near‐native proficiency realize verbal negation, a well‐known sociolinguistic variable in contemporary spoken French. Data included 10 spontaneous informal conversations between near‐native speakers of French and native speakers (NSs) closely acquainted with them. Although some near‐native speakers retained ne more frequently than their interlocutors, others produced ne at rates indistinguishable from the NSs. A variationist analysis of 1,877 examples of negation revealed that the near‐native speakers had largely acquired the relevant linguistic and sociostylistic factors that condition NS use, although an important subset of the near‐native speakers did not vary their ne use according to whether the negation appears in a lexicalized or nonlexicalized phrase. The results contribute to understanding L2 near‐nativeness, specifically with respect to sociolinguistic competence in adult learners.
Number of times cited: 4
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