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Text grammar, uses
&
Cognition
These courses are aimed at students who need to work on texts, usually written (literary or otherwise), or at anyone interested in the French verbal system or the cognitive management of texts.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions after exploring this page.
French past tenses
Advanced level
- analysis of usage difficulties
- installation in memory of an effective system for detailed comprehension of texts and independent production
- application and practical training
French past tenses
Advanced level
The aim of this course is to provide a description of the French past tenses that will enable students to use them correctly, but also to “feel” them as a real means of expression for personal production (translation from your language into French, text commentary). This course is open to all students, whatever their mother tongue.
My mastery of the German language enables me to offer German speakers in-depth comparisons with the German verbal system, illustrated if you wish by a comparative analysis of German literary texts and their French translations.
Of course, I’d be delighted to talk with English speakers (or any other native speakers!) about comparative verbal systems, and issues specific to their teaching.
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The course is based on many moments of explanation, given in easily accessible language (no linguistic jargon). At the same time, practical, individually-guided training enables you to get to grips with the proposed system of rules, while understanding the origins of many of the difficulties you may have encountered up to now.
- The work begins with a brief presentation of certain cognitive processes of comprehension, which will be useful for our analysis.
- Armed with these psycholinguistic foundations, we will then make a critical analysis of the explanations and rules of use proposed by grammars. This study will show both the positive aspects and the limitations of the explanatory systems generally used. The focus will be on areas that are generally perceived as particularly problematic (foreground/background distribution, problems with the imperfect tense and its contextual meanings of “habit” or “duration”, which need to be predictable, etc.).
- In parallel with this critical reflection, we will systematically organize our solutions and explanatory alternatives, so as to integrate all possible contexts of use (past tense, indirect discourse, conditional with SI).
- This analytical work will be supported by numerous practical applications: illustration of the proposed rules from French texts and active use (French texts with verbs in the infinitive and/or translations from your language into French).
N.B. The solutions and new directions proposed in this course are the fruit of a long course of research begun in the 90s on the acquisition of the verbal system by foreign learners (particularly German speakers). This journey led me to offer grammar seminars on this subject at various German universities (Koblenz, Erlangen, Cologne), before pursuing theoretical exploration in France in various publications, as well as explanatory adjustments (courses at Lumière-Lyon 2 and Paris 3- Sorbonne Nouvelle universities in particular). A text-based grammar manual on the verbal system for French as a foreign language is currently in preparation, and participants undertake to respect the intellectual property of the content proposed to them, and not to distribute it until it has been published.
The French verbal system
Intermediate or Advanced level
- a better understanding of tenses and modes
- memorize usage contexts more easily
- automate their oral and written use
The French verbal system
Intermediate or advanced level
This course offers a condensed overview of the essential functioning of past tenses, seen in less depth than the course devoted exclusively to them. A few hours are also devoted to the subjunctive and future tenses, which also pose particular problems for students. This course is open to all students, whatever their mother tongue.
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The subjunctive appears in so many different contexts, and so heterogeneous, that the uses of this mode end up appearing arbitrary – and therefore difficult to memorize. Since it’s much easier to memorize something that makes sense, all contexts of use must be linked to a single meaning. This “deep” meaning gives a coherent sense to all the contexts of use and thus facilitates understanding and learning. This global meaning of the Subjunctive is simple and highly accessible from a pragmatic/communicative perspective.
In the case of the future tense (the compound future like vais aller and the simple future like irai), the explanations generally given assert that the compound form (vais aller) expresses temporal proximity, while the simple form (irai) is associated with future events that are more uncertain or more distant in time. The problem (and it’s a frequent one with grammar rules about the verbal system) is that many uses are in total contradiction with these presumed meanings. These contradictory contexts make the meaning of these tenses incomprehensible, and their use becomes random and arbitrary for non-French speakers.
It is possible, however, to explain the meaning of these verb tenses in an alternative, homogeneous and coherent way, which integrates the totality of uses and cases of exclusion of one or other form of Future tense. Once again, by adopting an explanatory framework truly rooted in the sphere of communication between interlocutors.
(The explanations proposed in this course take up, in language accessible to non-linguists, the principles for distinguishing these two verb tenses published in an article published in 2010 in l’Information grammaticale, n°127: Comment choisir le meilleur des futurs? Contraintes et libertés d’usage pour le Futur Simple et le Futur Composé).
FREE INDIRECT SPEECH and reported speech
Advanced level
Spotting free indirect discourse in French literary texts:
identification of a cognitive decoding routine
Identifying Free Indirect Speech in literary texts
Advanced level
The aim of this course is to overcome this paradox: on the one hand, it is accepted that there is no explicit verbal marking of Free Indirect Speech (FIS) in texts (= no specific signal clearly indicating that an utterance belongs to FIS). But on the other hand, expert readers are perfectly capable of “sensing” and thus spotting DIL in literary texts. What, then, is the basis for this expertise, if there is no specific signal for the emergence of FIS?
The aim of this course is to demonstrate the implementation of a FIS decoding routine in expert readers, by identifying signals of complementary natures (verbal and cognitive signals) in the text.
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“The case has long been established that there is no signal – morphological or syntactic – specific to SIL” (or style / free indirect discourse). Vuillaume’s remark echoes that of Maingueneau, who notes in the same vein that “there are no specific linguistic markers for this form of quotation. In other words, we can’t say that a statement, taken out of context, is DIL [free indirect discourse]. »
Paradoxically, while we can’t identify a category of linguistic markers that are necessary and sufficient to affirm that a text fragment is free indirect discourse, expert readers have no difficulty in sensing its materialization in texts.
The acquisition of this expertise, although difficult to describe from a linguistic point of view alone, is akin to a “reading routine”, as this term is understood in cognitive psychology. It is possible to describe cognitive processes that guide the interpretation of regular textual elements in the emergence of free indirect discourse.
Drawing on well-known psycholinguistic principles, the aim of this course is to highlight a predictable process for actualizing Free Indirect Discourse in texts, whether by French or German authors (Guy de Maupassant, Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, Thomas Mann, Robert Schneider etc.).
For English-speaking students, (whose language I’m not sufficiently familiar with to be able to explore literary texts on my own with the aim of identifying the DIL in the same way as for French or German texts), I will nevertheless be able to discuss with you the markings you will make thanks to my course in the texts of your choice, in order to assess their relevance with you.
Information for linguist users: this course is based on the content of two articles whose references follow.
Barbazan M. (2002) : « Le discours indirect libre : éléments cognitifs de décodage et implications dialogiques pour le signifié de l’imparfait ». Nouveaux Cahiers d’Allemand. Revue de linguistique et didactique. 20 /1, pp 65-91
Barbazan M. (2008) : De la psycholinguistique à la stylistique : discours indirect libre et polyphonie en contexte. L’Information Grammaticale, n°119, oct. 2008, pp. 14-21.
Learning or teaching a foreign language:
the valuable contributions of cognitive psychology
Learning or teaching a foreign language:
the valuable contributions of cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology has uncovered unconscious but essential processes that are extremely useful for optimizing foreign language learning.
Whether it’s your own learning or that of your future pupils/students, or whether you want to explore the didactics of grammar for a research project, for example, there are great benefits to be gained from the work of cognitive psychologists.
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Here, I offer you a summary of the contributions of cognitive psychology, geared to your personal project.
- Universal processes for perceiving information and categorizing the world,
- Memory levels, knowledge acquisition and language installation in memory.
- Learning a foreign language: mother tongue influences and strategies for optimizing learning. Text comprehension and production: cognitive tools for the foreign language teacher/grammarian?
You’ll see how cognitive psychology (and psycholinguistics) offer invaluable tools that can act both as a driving force and a safeguard to guide thinking in linguistics and language teaching.
FLE.solutions 