The longitudinal development of French foreign language pragmatic competence: Evidence from study abroad participants

This study is a longitudinal investigation into the acquisition of pragmatic competence by adult learners of French. Pragmatic competence, or the ability to understand and produce utterances according to the sociolinguistic rules of appropriate use in a given culture, is a critical component of the process of acquiring a second language. In addition to teaming the linguistic aspects of a language, learners must also develop the ability to use language appropriately in given contexts if they are to communicate effectively. The learners in the present study are university students participating in a study abroad program in France. Developing pragmatic competence is of particular importance for this group, as the experience of living in the target culture offers unlimited opportunities for authentic interaction with native speakers. This study examines the learners' pragmatic development during the course of the study abroad: experience. The objective was to determine whether and to what extent these learners demonstrate approximation to native speaker norms over time and also whether extended exposure to the target environment facilitates the acquisition of pragmatic competence by adult learners.; The pragmatic skills of fourteen study abroad students from Indiana University were elicited through a production questionnaire on three occasions over a period of sixteen months. In addition, ten students of French who did not participate in the study abroad program served as a control group, French baseline data was also collected from 25 native speakers of French. The conversational functions of greeting and leave-taking and the speech act of compliments provided a meaningful framework for analysis by allowing for the examination of learners' acquisition in controlled contexts. The analysis revealed that the learners did exhibit pragmatic development over time but that this development was often slight and limited in scope. The findings became more significant, however, when compared with the results of the nonnative control group, who did not demonstrate similar development.; This research project responds to the dearth in interlanguage pragmatics of acquisitional studies and of longitudinal studies in particular. It also provides new findings to the field of French pragmatics.