The development of category knowledge is in part a function of one's experiences with the world. The types of errors produced during category generation tasks may reveal the boundaries of these experiences and the ways in which they are organized into lexical networks. Examining the errors made by bilingual children with and without language impairment (LI) and bilingual adults may help to distinguish the effects of ability versus experience on the development and organization of lexical-semantic categories. The purpose of this study was to examine the types of errors made by bilingual (Spanish-English) children with (n=37) and without (n=35) LI and bilingual adults (n=26) on category generation tasks in both their languages and at two category levels: taxonomic and slot-filler. Results revealed a main effect for level (taxonomic vs. slot-filler) and error type (semantic vs. other) and suggest that bilingual seven to nine-year-old children's and adults' proportions and types of errors produced on category generation tasks differ significantly based on ability (i.e., TD or LI) but not on experience (i.e., TD or Adults). / text

Résumé : En raison de la concurrence qu’il y a au Québec entre une norme québécoise et une norme internationale, les questionnements normatifs sont nombreux chez les professionnels de la langue, et tout particulièrement chez les enseignants de français. Dans cette étude, nous avons cherché à voir comment les représentations de la norme lexicale chez les professeurs de français langue d’enseignement au secondaire se manifestent dans leur discours à partir d’usages dont la valeur normative n’est pas clairement définie. Pour ce faire, nous avons mené des entrevues auprès de 20 enseignants et enseignantes de français au deuxième cycle du secondaire au Québec au cours desquelles nous leur avons demandé de corriger de courts textes et de justifier leurs corrections. Puis, nous les avons interrogés sur leur conception de la norme lexicale écrite et sur leurs positions normatives à l’endroit de diverses catégories d’emplois lexicaux. Il en ressort que cette norme est le français québécois standard tel qu’on peut le dégager des dictionnaires les plus usuels ou encore perçu selon l’intuition linguistique des participants. Ce français se distingue du français oral et il exclut les anglicismes critiqués, les mots vulgaires, les impropriétés et les barbarismes. Si certains types d’emplois sont clairement jugés non compatibles avec la norme, d’autres donnent lieu à des prises de position normatives moins tranchées, plus instables. Ainsi, les néologismes, les archaïsmes, les mots familiers et les emprunts peuvent être acceptés, selon la situation de communication et selon des critères comme l’usage et l’absence de synonyme. Le modèle de l’Imaginaire linguistique d’Houdebine nous a servi de grille pour catégoriser et analyser les représentations linguistiques observées dans le discours des participants. Cette analyse révèle que les enseignants s’appuient principalement sur des critères d’ordre prescriptif et constatif, soit le dictionnaire et l’usage, et parfois aussi sur d’autres critères comme la précision, l’intercompréhension, la fréquence ou la valeur identitaire de certains usages lexicaux pour décider de les corriger ou de les accepter lors de la correction de productions écrites. / Abstract : Due to a competition between two linguistic norms in Quebec, a Quebec norm and an international norm, language professionals – especially French teachers – often deal with prescriptive questions. Our study aims at studying how high school French language teachers’ attitudes towards the lexical norm are reflected in their discourse based on examples of uses without a clearly defined prescriptive value. To do so, we conducted individual interviews with 20 Secondary French teachers (Cycle Two) in Quebec. During these interviews, they were asked to correct short texts and to justify their corrections. Then, they were questioned on their conception of the written lexical norm and on their normative positions towards various categories of lexical uses. This research reveals that their norm is the Quebec French standard as it is described in dictionaries or, in many cases, perceived according to the informant’s linguistic intuition. This French variety is distinguished from spoken French and excludes criticized anglicisms, coarse language, language errors and barbarisms. Although some categories of uses are clearly deemed incompatible with the norm, not all categories are given a clear-cut, stable stand. Thus, neologisms, archaisms, colloquial words and loanwords may be accepted, depending on the context and based on certain criteria such as usage and non-existence of synonyms. Houdebine’s model of linguistic imaginary served as a grid to classify and analyze the linguistic representations observed in the participants’ discourse. This analysis shows that teachers rely heavily on prescriptive and constative criteria, that is to say dictionaries and usage, and sometimes also on other criteria such as accuracy, mutual understanding, frequency or identity value of some lexical uses in order to decide whether to correct them or not while assessing written productions.

This thesis addresses the issue of the interplay of product form changes and experience in simultaneous interpreting from English into Czech comparing students and graduates in Interpreting. The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic overview of language form errors in simultaneous interpretation performed by interpreters on different stages of acquiring interpreting skills. The study is divided into two sections - theoretical and empirical. The theoretical section introduces the current state of knowledge and the findings of previous studies concerning product form changes on a language level in simultaneous interpreting. The present study is based on the assumption that growing experience and regular interpreting excercise improve interpreter's output form achieving thus a smooth and fluent interpreting perfomance without any language disfluencies unpleasant to the listener. The study also addresses listener's perception of the language form of interpreter's output with all of its potential infelicities. The empirical section consists of an experiment which is divided into two parts. The first part aims at classifying and quantifying product form changes in simultaneous interpreting performed by three groups of interpreters - beginning students, advanced students and graduates in...

Sammanfattning Den här uppsatsen undersöker verbanvändningen i skriftlig produktion hos en grupp avancerade svenska som andraspråkselever. Studien granskar såväl kvantitativa som kvalitativa aspekter i elevernas verbordförråd. Uppsatsens syfte är att kartlägga L2-elevernas verbvokabulär med avseende på frekvens, variation, fördelning över semantiska fält samt semantisk och konstruktionsmässig korrekthet. L2-gruppens resultat kontrasteras mot en kontrollgrupp bestående av L1-elever. Undersökningsmaterialet består av 20 argumenterande uppsatser skrivna av komvuxelever med svenska som andraspråk samt 20 argumenterande uppsatser skrivna av komvuxelever med svenska som förstaspråk. Samtliga verb har extraherats, räknats och, i de fall det varit tillämpbart, satts in i ett av de 13 semantiska fält som undersökts i uppsatsen. De olika typer av inkorrekt verbanvändning som påträffats i materialet har kategoriserats utifrån feltyp. De typer av fel som varit av intresse i denna studie är konstruktionsfel i prefixverb, reflexivverb, partikelverb samt fel i verb + substantiv- kollokationer. Förutom konstruktionsfel undersöker uppsatsen även primärt semantiska fel, dvs. fel som i första hand har att göra med verbets semantiska betydelse. Undersökningsresultatet visar att verbfrekvensen hos L2-talarna är lägre i jämförelse med L1-gruppen. Orsaken därtill är att L1-uppsatserna i snitt är längre än L2-uppsatserna och därmed innehåller många fler verb. Det verkar inte föreligga någon anmärkningsvärd skillnad i verbvariationen om man ser till verben i sin helhet. Vissa semantiska fält är dock mer utbyggda och mer varierade i L1-gruppen.         Verbfrekvenstabellerna visar att andelen partikelverb är hälften så stor i L2-gruppen jämfört med L1-gruppen. Listan över de 20 vanligaste verben visar att andraspråkseleverna, vid en jämförelse med L1-eleverna, underanvänder verben få och ska och överanvänder säga, vilja och finnas. Eftersom inga fler indikationer på överanvändning av kärnverb ges i materialet måste just detta interimspråkdrag ses som en mycket begränsad företeelse hos de avancerade L2-eleverna.         De allra vanligaste feltyperna hos såväl L1- som L2-talare är av primärt semantisk karaktär. Bland dessa fel är, i L2-gruppen, fel kopplade till det semantiska fältets betydelsesidoordning vanligast. Det innebär att studien pekar mot att det som ställer till mest problem för andraspråkseleverna, när det gäller verblexikonet, är sådant som har att göra med semantisk precisering och nyansering, dvs. att välja rätt synonym. / Abstract This essay deals with lexical competence in written language production among advanced learners of Swedish as a second language. The study focuses on the use of verbs with regard to both quantitative and qualitative aspects. The aim of this essay is to examine the L2-learners verb vocabulary, paying attention to frequency, variation, distribution in semantic fields as well as semantic and constructional correctness. The results of the investigations are compared to the results of a control group consisting of L1-speakers.         The material in the present investigation consists of 40 argumentative essays written by 20 adult students with Swedish as their second language and 20 adult students with Swedish as their first language. All students were enrolled in an adult education program, attending the courses Swedish as a second language B and Swedish B at senior high school level.         All verbs have been extracted, counted and, where applicable, inserted into the 13 semantic fields which are examined in this study. Errors in connection with the use of verb have been categorized according to two major error types, i.e. constructional errors (errors connected to prefixed verbs, reflexive verbs, particle verbs, and errors in verb + noun combinations) and primarily semantic errors.         The investigation demonstrates that the verb frequency is lower in the L2-group compared to the L1-group. The higher verb frequency in the L1-group is probably due to the, on average, longer essays in that particular group.            The verb frequency tables show that use of particle verbs is twice as high in the L1-essays compared to the L2-essays. The tables of the 20 most common verbs demonstrate that L2-students, compared to the L1-students, tend to underuse certain verbs and overuse others. Three verbs that are particularly overused by the L2-students, are säga, vilja and finnas, while the verbs få and ska underused to a great extent by the same group. The tree overused verbs are nuclear verbs in their specific semantic fields (VERBAL COMMUNICATION, WISH and EXISTENCE). Apart from the overuse of these nuclear verbs the investigation material does not give further indications of overuse of nuclear verbs. This shows that overuse of nuclear verbs as an interlanguage feature is not particularly prominent in the advanced L2-learners.              There does not seem to be any notable difference in verb variation when looking at the verbs in their entirety. However, certain semantic fields are more extended and more varied in the L1-group.         In the essays written by the L1-students there are very few occurrences of constructional errors. The most frequent error type, in both student groups, is of a semantic nature. The L2-material shows that the most common semantic error is related to the horizontal structure (and not the vertical structure) of the semantic fields. This means that L2-students find it hard to differ between synonyms in the same semantic field at the same hierarchical level. The current study thus indicates that, as far as the verb vocabulary goes, the L2-students main difficulty is semantic specification, i.e. choosing the right synonym. Among the combinatory errors, the errors connected to verb + noun combinations have the highest frequency.