Abstract

Over the last few decades, the Spoken Corpus Linguistics (SCL) has achieved a great deal in terms of quantity and quality of works (O’Keeffe, McCarthy 2010). Enormous progress has been made in the last thirty years and the increment of multimodal corpora stimulates sophisticated investigations on the relationship between the verbal and non-verbal component of spoken communication (Knight 2011). The SCL is a very vital field of research, which is able to provide essential data and tools for the advancement of language knowledge. In this article I will focus on the contribution that SCL and the resulting data provide to general linguistics. In § 2, I discuss the contribution that the SCL gives to a better understanding of linguistic variation; in § 3, I show how the SCL can improve the descriptive adequacy of grammar; finally, § 4 is dedicated to the contribution that speech data can give to a better knowledge of the grammaticality of languages. Across the article I will use mainly data from Italian corpora, but widely validated by comparison with data from corpora of other languages.

Abstract

This paper first reviews the advantages and disadvantages associated with both pre-coordination and post-coordination in classification. It then argues that we can have the advantages of both if we couple a post-coordinated (synthetic) approach to classification with a user interface that privileges the word order in search queries. Several other advantages of such an approach to classification and search are reviewed. It better captures the nature of a work (or object), addresses important issues with respect to social diversity, and facilitates user queries. It produces subject strings that resemble sentence fragments; this serves to clarify the meaning of terms within the subject string, and makes subject strings more comprehensible since humans typically think in sentences. These various benefits are then illustrated in the classification of works of music. It is shown that many important characteristics of works of music are best handled by such a system. These are generally poorly addressed, or not addressed at all, by existing approaches to the classification of music.

Abstract

The quality of the French language in Quebec is a very sensitive topic that is always of interest because of the sociolinguistic situation of French in North America. This paper focuses on the implementation of a new grammar in Quebec’s schools, a French-speaking province of Canada, in order to raise the students’ level of their written language. Orthographic difficulties inherent to the French language will first be outlined to clarify the reason why the mastery of many grammatical concepts just for spelling is necessary. Then, key aspects of this new grammar will be defined and distinguished from the traditional grammar. The implementation of this new grammar is finally addressed from two points of view: the official programs on the one hand, and the practices in the classroom on the other hand, which inevitably leads to the issue of teacher training. Potential solutions emerging from research and some advice are presented in conclusion for those interested in the renewal of grammar teaching.

Abstract

This article deals with some grammar aspects of oral language, which includes an extense sense of the concept of grammar itself. The linguistic characteristics of orality are studied in relation to the physical, cognitive and sociopragmatic factors that intervene in speech’s production and reception. The specific grammatical elements that are presented, in a panoramic vision, are the tonal unit, basic unit of oral speech; the informative progression and the RUT restriction; the grammatical categories and the verbal style; the role of subordination in clausal composition; and, to conclude, the nature and the function of textual connectors in the organization of oral discourse. On the whole, a contribution to the explanation of the mobile, diverse, polyvalent and complex nature of the oral language is attempted.

Abstract

The question of the teaching of the language in the school is sensitive in France and trigger regularly debates and controversies that go beyond the school. Grammar crystallises such controversy, at linguistic, didactic, pedagogic, political, institutional, and social levels. Indeed, we are dealing with an issue under tension. This contribution will seek to interrogate and combine two dimensions, the knowledge prescribed, and the knowledge taught. Two axes will articulate such an approach: first, from a diachronic viewpoint, we will present the analysis of some of the institutional texts released over the last two decades to understand the Ministry’s attempts in a very centralised national context; and second, from a synchronique viewpoint, drawing on recent research outcomes, we will try to shed light to the pedagogic reality of two groups, one in CE2 (8-9 years of age) and one in CM1 (9-10 years of age). Grammar tasks proposed to the pupils will be analysed, as well as the institutional rules set up in the class to explain the language, and the different steps set up in the textbooks, which are meant to follow the official syllabuses (those published in 2020). From these elements, we will attempt to shed light to the points in tension and see the paradoxes that cross the teaching of the language in Language Arts in the French context.