forms, especially with irregular verbs. Whilst Patrick also favored verbs in the present tense( 77.4 %, see Table 6), only nine( 29 %) were in the impersonal form( see Table 7) as opposed to 18( 47.3 %) for Olivia. Although the first person singular present tense was used by Patrick in a similar proportion to Olivia’ s( Table 7), Patrick managed to diversify verbs more. Patrick also produced twice as many verbs in a tense or mode other than the present indicative( 22.5 % for Patrick as opposed to 7.8 % for Olivia, Table 7).
In terms of expression, Patrick used a wider range of expressions to express likes and dislikes: Olivia used aimer three times whilst Patrick chose adorer, aimer, préférer. Other verbs such as jouer, faire, être, croire are also quite easy for students to use in the first person singular mainly because they are high frequency words and may be used in set expressions such as je crois que(‘ I think that’) or je voudrais(‘ I would like’). The more sophisticated expressions are to be found in the subordinate clauses used by Patrick such as l’ école fait en sorte que l’ on réussisse( subjunctive clause –‘ the school strives to our success’), or si je reçois de fortes notes, je vais étudier le droit peut-être( if clause –‘ if I gain a good score, I might study Law’)( see Appendix 2, lines 11-12, and line 27 respectively).
Indeed, Patrick successfully used a range of complex sentences( Table 8) which included four relative clauses introduced by a variety of relative pronouns( e. g. ce que, qui, que). He also included two if clauses and two subjunctives. In contrast, Olivia confined herself to simple statements involving subject-verb-complement or combine c’ est with a range of conjunction such as line 12 c’ est seulement si ça vous intéresse( Appendix 1, line 12) or c’ est parce que je voudrais communiquer …( Appendix 1, line 24). In addition, Olivia’ s attempts to use object pronouns failed on all four occasions. She used the standard negative form ne-pas( i. e.‘ not’) twice whilst Patrick also chose ne-aucune( i. e.‘ not any’ in the feminine singular form, line 22).
Fluency
Both learners were quite fluent. As previously discussed, Olivia’ s text contains far more AS-units than Patrick’ s( Table 2). However, Patrick’ s text contains more words in total and more subordinate clauses, suggesting that his utterances are markedly longer than that of Olivia’ s. Patrick had twice as many short pauses than Olivia( 28 and 14 respectively) and 7 false starts compared to 5 for Olivia( Table 9). This seems to indicate that Patrick was more dysfluent. However, Patrick’ s disfluencies tended to be chunks of words repeated several times, such as:
Extract 3: Mais ce que j’ adore dans mon école, c’ est, c’ est, c’ est(…):: quand(…) il y a une avenue pour chaque personne différente( Patrick, line 9)
Accuracy
Complexity
Fluency
Measure
Percentage of error free AS-units * divided by total number of AS-units Total number of errors and error types( lexical, phonological, syntactical) Error per 100 words
Proportion of subordinate clauses divided by total number of AS units Average length of AS-units Grammatical range( verb type and form, tenses and moods; type of clauses, etc.)
Number and length of pauses Number of false starts Total number of words
Table 1: Summary of measures of accuracy, complexity and fluency * AS-units: an independent clause and any subordinate clause associated with it
Measure Olivia Patrick Number of AS-units 31 22 Number of subordinate clauses 4 8 Mean length of AS-units 8.2 words 12.5 words Total number of words( minus dysfluencies) 257 275 Table 2: Comparative analysis of speech produced by Olivia and Patrick
Measure of accuracy Olivia Patrick Self corrections 1 2 Error-free AS-units 13 12 Percentage of error free AS-units 42 % 54.5 % Table 3: Accuracy results
Type of error
Total number of errors Olivia
Patrick Lexical( wrong word) 6 4 Pronunciation 2 0 Syntactical Article( gender, form) 5 6 Verb + preposition( wrong prep./ lack of) 1 3 Object pronouns 4 0 Agreement( adjectives- nouns) 0 1 Verb form( tense, conjugation) 3 0 Total number of errors 20 14 Error per 100 words 7.8 % 5 %
Table 4: Error analysis
complexity Olivia Patrick Mean length of AS-units 8.2 words 12.5 words Proportion of subordination 4 / 31 – 12.9 % 8 / 22 – 36.3 % Table 5: Complexity results: mean length of AS units and proportion of subordinate clauses
Total number of verbs conjugated in the indicative present
Total number of verbs conjugated in a tense / mode other than indicative present
Total number of conjugated verbs in the text
Frequency Olivia
Table 6: Complexity results: verbal tenses / modes use
% Frequency Patrick
35 92 % 24 77.4 %
3 7.8 % 7 22.5 %
38 100 % 31 100 %
%
8 BABEL