Second Language Acquisition and "Real" French:
An Investigation of Subject Doubling in the French of
Montreal Anglophones
Naomi Nagy, Hélène Blondeau & Julie Auger
Abstract
We investigate the French of the first generation of Montreal Anglophones
that had access to French immersion schooling. Our aim is to determine the
extent to which Anglophones acquire the variable grammar of their Francophone
peers—and how that is related to the type of French instruction received and
to the types of exposure to French.
In Montreal French, a subject NP may be "echoed" by a pronoun,
without emphatic or contrastive effect. Because this is not a feature of
standard French, it is not expected that Anglophones who learned French
primarily in school will exhibit it. On the other hand, Anglophones who
frequently spend time with Montreal Francophones are expected to have picked it
up. To test this hypothesis, we use a database of speech from 29 speakers,
varying in their quantity and type of exposure to French.
Multivariate analyses determine the degree of correlation of several
linguistic and social factors (related to type and quantity of exposure to
French) to the presence of a doubled subject. These data are compared to L1
French data. Speakers who are more native-like with respect to the rate of
subject-doubling and effects of linguistic factors are those who have had more
contact with native speakers, especially as adults.
