ALTERNANCE CODIQUE EN FRANÇAIS L3. Étude de la production orale d'apprenants russophones en Biélorussie

Abstract

The aim of the present essay is to contribute to the understanding of cross-linguistic influence in general, and more precisely in the acquisition of French L3 by Russianspeaking learners. Williams & Hammarberg (1998) put forward that the source languages, L1 and L2, take on different roles during oral L3 production of multilingual speakers, either as supplier or instrumental. Our 16 Belarusian informants are all in the process of acquiring French at university, but they have different levels of competence and the background languages differ too. The informants were given the task to orally retell the plot of a silent film. The informants were subsequently recorded and the recordings were transcribed. After having answered to questions on the distribution of code-switches among the informants, we have used the model by Williams & Hammarberg in order to explain the result and answer our questions on the different roles of the languages included in the study. We confirm that the model is applicable to our specific case, with Russian as L1, and we also show that a psychosocial factor is needed in order to better explain similar results.