The Sociolinguistic Competence of Immersion Students

This book reports the findings of an extensive research project on the acquisition of the native norms of spoken French variation by French immersion students who have learnt their second language primarily in an educational context. The project focused on a range of phonetic, lexical and grammatical sociolinguistic variants documented in studies of contemporary first language varieties of spoken French, and assessed the extent to which the students master the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors which govern variant choice. The book also discusses pedagogical strategies to improve the students' mastery of spoken French variation. The book represents an important contribution to an under-researched aspect of advanced Second Language Acquisition in an institutional setting.