This study investigates whether re-thinking the separation of lexis and grammar in language testing could lead to more valid inferences about proficiency across modes. As argued by Römer, typical scoring rubrics ignore important information about proficiency encoded at the lexis-grammar interface, in particular how the co-selection of lexical and…

Formulaic language is notoriously difficult for second language learners of French to master (Edmonds, 2014; Forsberg, 2010). Yet, no study has examined formulaic language in French textbooks despite the fact that in many contexts, textbooks represent a significant proportion of the input that learners receive. The current study addresses this…

This study uses a mixed-effects model to examine the acquisition of targetlike patterns of phonological variation by 17 English-speaking learners of French during study abroad in France. Naturalistic speech data provide evidence for the incipient acquisition of a phonological variable showing sociostylistic variation in native speaker speech: the…

The objective of this chapter is to explore the relevance of cognitive linguistics for teaching [noun] + [noun] constructions to French learners of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and more specifically, for process engineering. After a review of research on Compound Nouns (CNs) and explicit versus implicit learning, three basic tenets of…

The present study investigates the possibilities for adult learners to attain nativelikeness in the domain of lexis. Aspects investigated are general lexical knowledge (C-test), receptive deep knowledge, productive collocation knowledge, and productive lexico-pragmatic knowledge in a group of long-residency Swedish French second language (L2)…

Phraseological phenomena--ranging from idioms to collocations to discourse organizers--have received increasing attention in second language acquisition (SLA), and examinations of such strings are characterized by two distinct perspectives on formulaic language. On the one hand, different speech acts seem to be commonly realized using certain…

By means of a phraseological identification method, this study provides a general description of the use of conventional sequences (CSs) in interviews at four different levels of spoken L2 French as well as in interviews with native speakers. Use of conventional sequences is studied with regard to overall quantity, category distribution and type…