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Article published In:
Language, Interaction and Acquisition
Vol. 12:2 (2021) ► pp.251–283

Second language acquisition of evidentiality in French and English in a narrative task

| University of Montpellier 3
| University of Montpellier 3
Evidentiality, i.e. the linguistic encoding of the mode of access to information (direct perception, inference, hearsay), despite not being fully grammaticalized in English and French, is expressed through a variety of means. This paper seeks to determine how a relatively non-salient concept in the source and target languages can be acquired by L2 learners. Using an oral elicited narrative task, we determine what markers of direct perception and inference are commonly used by native speakers of French (n = 10) and English (n = 10) and L2 learners of those two languages (at three levels of proficiency, n = 10 per group), and at which level they emerge. Our results point to a much more frequent use of inferential markers than direct perception markers, to slightly different patterns of evidential marking in French and in English, and to a late emergence of evidential markers in the speech of learners, who display sensitivity to their discursive functions, with types and tokens increasing as a function of proficiency level.
Keywords: evidentiality, SLA, French, English, direct perception, inference, discursive functions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1What is evidentiality?
    • 2.2Discursive approaches
      • 2.2.1Discursive functions of direct perception evidentials in English and French
      • 2.2.2Inferential evidentials in English and French
  • 3.Second language acquisition of evidentiality
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Film retelling task eliciting narrative discourse
    • 4.2Participants
    • 4.3Coding scheme
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Quantitative analysis
      • 5.1.1Database description
      • 5.1.2Speakers’ choice of evidential category
    • 5.2Qualitative analysis
      • 5.2.1Direct perception
      • 5.2.2Inferential markers
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 31 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.20025.lec
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Mélac, Eric & Pascale Leclercq
2024. The functions of evidentiality. Functions of Language 31:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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