Presentation

Are French Immersion “Accents” Unique?

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Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether or not the British Columbia French immersion program produced differing accents (in this case defined as pronunciation) from other L2 French programs in the province. Five native speakers of French teaching in the Department of French at Simon Fraser University evaluated words, sentences, and narrative utterances of 17 L2 French speakers living in a non-Francophone environment, who completed either high school French immersion or Core French (FSL). Using a program ID choice task, listeners indicated which program the anonymous speakers had completed. Results suggested that French immersion speakers can be distinguished from Core French speakers at above chance levels, though success rates among listeners varied slightly. Formal analysis demonstrated that longer utterances produce more accurate choices. Self-reports of immersion speakers suggest that they spent a greater amount of time with their immersion peers both inside and outside the school environment than with English- speaking peers.

How to Cite:

Poljak, L., (2014) “Are French Immersion “Accents” Unique?”, Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings 6(1).