Faculty Publications

Document Type

Dissertation

Keywords

Wh- questions, French interrogatives, French questions, partial questions

First Page

1

Last Page

181

Abstract

Research on variability in French interrogatives and the factors affecting word order in questions has many foci, but largely centers around socio-stylistic factors. In contrast, this dissertation explores two under-investigated constraints on French questions: communicative function and WH-element as well as the role metalinguistic awareness plays in the question structure produced. A corpus of 1200 questions each for L1 (n=30) and advanced L2 (n=30) groups was collected via a Discourse Elicitation Task crossing five communicative functions (echo, presupposition, topic-introduction, rhetorical, and self-addressed) and four WH-words (où, pourquoi, combien, and qui). Post DCT, the participants were interviewed regarding metalinguistic knowledge affecting their question forms. Responses in the form of questions were analyzed for the effects of function, WH-word, and metalinguistic awareness. Results suggest that communicative function and WH-element both play a role in determining which question variants are more likely to be produced in French questions. Clear patterns were seen in questions with certain functions and WH-words either favoring or disfavoring particular question types. Findings from this study complement previous research on the variety of constraints affecting form in L1 French interrogatives, contributing new aspects to this body of work with implications for L1 and L2 pragmatics.

Department

Department of Languages and Literatures

Original Publication Date

2008

Object Description

1 PDF File (181 p.)

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Copyright

©2008 Elizabeth Zwanziger

Language

en, fr

File Format

application/pdf

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