Title: Laffect: Un outil de mdiation pour lappropriation des reprsentations culturelles et linguistiques en
1Laffect Un outil de médiation pour
lappropriation des représentations culturelles
et linguistiques en langue étrangère?Affect A
mediating tool to internalize cultural and
linguistic representations in a foreign language?
Pascale GOUTÉRAUX EA 3967 CLILLAC-ARP Université
Paris Diderot
Colloque ALDIDAC Vers un Paradigme de la
Reliance? 27-28 novembre 2009 Université Cergy-
Pontoise
2Representations cognition affect
- Constructivist et cognitivist theories
- From Piaget to Vergnaud (1996-1999)
- Socioconstructivist social-interactive
theories - Vygotsky (1985)-Bruner (1993)
- Enactives, neurobiological ecological
theories - Varela (1996), Damasio (1994), Tomasello al
(2005), Trochme-Fabre (1994), Van Lier, Pavlenko
(2000) and others
3Affect in bilingual discourse
- Pavlenko (2008), Pavlenko al (2006)
bilinguals - Dewaele Pavlenko (2002) L2 learners
- De Cock (Lindsei, Locnec, 2008) NNS NS
4Hypotheses and questions (1)
- General Hypothesis
- To become a more proficient speaker, a learner
must internalize cognitive and affect
representations in English, store and use
appropriate linguistic tools to express them. - Can pedagogical tasks help EFL learners develop
that specific language proficiency? - Can task variation induce different modes of
relatedness between cognition and affect in
learner speech?
5Hypotheses and questions (2)
- Triggering spontaneous reactions to English
cultural artefacts a direct access to cultural
otherness? - A means to boost the internalisation of cultural
declarative knowledge?
6Corpus, Tasks and Academic Context
- 28 EFL students (two groups) and a teacher
- 12 weekly sessions of collective oral
interactions (Classe de Seconde), recorded over
four months - 14 communicative macro-tasks 22 sub-tasks and
activities - Curriculum in Seconde focusing on argumentative
speech - Official directives (2002) Promoting linguistic
and cultural integration
7Appraisal Systems in English
8Instructions and spontaneous discourse
9Students reactions to affect-laden discourse
- New Years Resolutions (The American assistant)
- Memories of Thanksgiving (a students mother)
- The Merry-Go-Round (recording A poem by Langston
Hughes)
Results Few affect tokens, indirect appraisal of
others feelings She likes putting up the lights
(rephrasing) Shes shy, shes sensitive
(appreciation) He sounds angry (appreciation)
10Reactions to Summertime Task One
- Task instructions The students were to react
spontaneously to different interpretations of
Summertime one by Ella Fitzgerald and L.
Amstrong, the other by Janis Joplin. - Production
- Gr.1 12 speakers, 22 turns 18 LT(355 words), 31
affect tokens, 16 cognitive tokens. - Gr.2 12 speakers, 30 turns, 24 LT, (529 words),
48 affect tokens, 18 cognitive tokens.
11Reactions to Summertime ( Gr.1)
12Reactions to Summertime ( Gr.2)
13Reactions to Summertime grid Gr.1
14Reactions to Summertime grid Gr.2
15Affect tokens distribution (Gr.2)
16Affect tokens Distribution (Gr.1)
17Metaphors and attitudinal stance
- S1Shes like yelling
- S2 She seems like suffering.
- S1 I cant imagine myself hearing that on my
headphones. - S3The poor baby willmake nightmares
- S4 Not if he is a rock baby!
- S5 She a rebel (positive stance)
- S6 I want to stop my activities and listen.
- S4 It makes me think tohoney When you are
in a sofa in a cosy interior and you listen to
this, you dont feel stressed, you dont think to
anything else and youre relaxed.
18Intensifiers and attitudinal stance
19Partial conclusions
- A task designed to trigger affect-laden speech.
- Cognitive wording of instructions (opinions? Tell
me what you think) little impact on the
production of affect tokens. - Think cognition verb, introduction to affect
markers, turntaking signal/time-saving device. - Emotions and feelings mostly verbs.
- Appreciation and judgement (of others or
objects) mostly predicative adjectives. - Metaphors and intensifiers enriching
affect-laden discourse.
20Reacting to a Poem Task Two
I have eaten the plums that were in the
icebox and which you were probably saving for
breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so
sweet and so cold.
This is Just to Say William Carlos Williams
21This is Just to Say (Gr.2)
- Task instructions Read the poem, share your
reactions with the class. Say what you
understand. - Production 27 cognition tokens (5.94 total
n.words) 12 affect tokens (2.64).
22Accounting for discrepancies
- Re-ordering instructions
- Ill start with the description of what Ive
understood. - Making sense of the narrators identity child or
adult? (12 turns). - Using affect for identification to the narrator
- I think it can be both, it can be a children
oh, a child, but I would have eaten them and
said nothing or a vicious one who says Mmm, its
so sweet and you didnt eat it, I did!.
23Tips for successful task completion
- Take text complexity into account no direct
access to the implicit meaning of the poem. - Order task instructions to fit sequencing of
cognitive-communicative L2 natural processing. - Provide linguistic tools to express feelings and
aesthetic appreciation.
24Its silly, this day! Task Three
- Reactions to unfamiliar cultural features
- Instructions Look at this (a Buy Nothing Day
pamphlet) and react to it. - Results 7 students limited production
- 9 cognitive markers I agree (2), I disagree
(2), uncertainty (I dont know, Im not sure)
explanations (It means, explain). - 7 affect markers negative stance (silly,
stupid, bad for shopkeepers) indirect negative
stance - If I want to buy something I like, I will buy it.
But I wont follow it, because if I want to buy
something today, I will buy it. - Perplexity, misunderstanding, outright rejection
25Closing the gap?
- Affect cognition? Fuzzy boundaries/slippery
words - Words do not have immutable meanings and stable
affective dimensions-rather, their meanings and
affective connotations are internalized,
constructed, and negotiated in context(Pavlenko,
2008). - Commenting on others feelings vs. expressing
ones feelings impact on productivity and
lexical richness - Attitudinal stance cultural integration
- Emotions and judgements anchor declarative
cultural knowledge - Spontaneous reactions to alien features may act
as deterrents to building up cultural knowledge - Task design and sequencing as modifying factors
26On-going projects on affect and cognition markers
in learner corpora
- Need for larger longitudinal corpora
- Longdale project an international study of
college students spontaneous monologues and
dialogues to be carried out over 3 years. - Different tasks (memories and experiences)
- Fluency Prosody-intonation- as affect
markers.
Thank You!