Browsing by Author "Edmonds, Amanda"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Collocational Development during a Stay Abroad
    Edmonds, Amanda; Gudmestad, Aarnes (MDPI, 2021-01-12)
    The purpose of the current study was to explore if and how additional-language learners may show changes in phraseological patterns over the course of a stay in a target-language environment. In particular, we focused on noun+adjective combinations produced by a group of additional-language speakers of French at three points in time, spanning 21 months and including an academic year in France. We extracted each combination from a longitudinal corpus and determined frequency counts and two strength-of-association measures (Mutual information [MI] score and Log Dice) for each combination. Separate analyses were conducted for frequency and the strength-of-association measures, revealing that phraseological patterns are significantly predicted by adjective position in the case of all three measures, and that MI scores showed significant change over time. We interpret the results in light of past research that has reported contradictory findings concerning change in phraseological patterns following an immersion experience.
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    Moving Beyond the Native-Speaker Bias in the Analysis of Variable Gender Marking
    Gudmestad, Aarnes; Edmonds, Amanda; Metzger, Thomas (2021-08-09)
    In the current study, we respond to calls for reform in second language acquisition that center on the field's preoccupation with native-speaker and prescriptive targets as a benchmark for additional-language learning. In order to address these concerns, we examine the use and development of grammatical gender marking in additional-language Spanish in a prescriptive-independent manner. Specifically, we depart from previous analyses that have centered on accuracy and targetlikeness and we shift the object of analysis to the linguistic forms (i.e., feminine and masculine modifiers) that additional-language participants use. We adopt a variationist approach to explain how participants vary their use of modifier gender and how this use changes longitudinally. We argue that such an approach to studying additional languages allows us to offer new insights about the acquisition of grammatical gender marking in additional-language Spanish. We end by critically reflecting on some of the challenges that we encountered in trying to integrate this paradigm shift into the examination of a well-studied grammatical structure.
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    Near-Native Sociolinguistic Competence in French: Evidence from Variable Future-Time Expression
    Gudmestad, Aarnes; Edmonds, Amanda; Donaldson, Bryan; Carmichael, Katie (Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, 2020)
    This study aims to advance the understanding of sociolinguistic competence among nearnative speakers and to further knowledge about the acquisition of variable structures. We conduct a quantitative analysis of variable future-time expression in informal conversations between near-native and native speakers of French. In addition to examining linguistic constraints that have been investigated in previous research, we build on prior work by introducing a new factor that enables us to consider the role that formality of the variants plays in the use of variable future-time expression. We conclude by comparing these new findings to those for the same dataset and other variable structures (namely, negation and interrogatives, Donaldson, 2016, 2017) and by advocating for more research that consists of multiple, complementary analyses of the same dataset.
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    On the role of the present indicative in variable future-time reference in Hexagonal French
    Gudmestad, Aarnes; Edmonds, Amanda; Donaldson, Bryan; Carmichael, Katie (University of Toronto Press, 2018)
    This study investigates variable future-time expression among native speakers of Hexagonal French who participated in informal conversations. The quantitative analysis is the first to examine the inflectional future, periphrastic future, and present indicative as separate forms in a single statistical model of French oral production. Results indicate that temporal distance and presence/absence of a temporal expression predict use of these verb forms. The second phase of the analysis focused on the use of the present indicative in future-time contexts. The examination of each instance of the present indicative shows that an immediate lexical temporal indicator is not necessary for this form to convey futurity and that future-time reference is often established at the discourse level and occasionally through apparent shared knowledge between the interlocutors. This investigation suggests the value of including the present indicative in the analysis of future-time reference in Hexagonal French in order to fully capture variation.