The Faculty of Integrated Communication Sciences (FICS) held its second Research Seminar on Wednesday, November 24, 2021, to encourage the exchange of ideas among members and to promote impactful research.
The seminar which took place at the North Dzorwulu Campus of the Institute was addressed by Mrs. Mawuenam Jeffery Adibo, Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Languages. Mrs Jeffery Adibo presented the analysis of a linguistic corpus entitled “Récit d’itinéraire /de Déplacement. The research sought to investigate the use of the French language by both the native and non-native speakers of French in a given conversation.
The study was based on primary data obtained during interviews in which the researcher asked interviewees for directions to assess their use of the French language when giving directions. A sample of nine (9) interviewees participated in the study, four (4) non-natives of B1 – C1 language proficiency based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL), one (1) non-native having studied French since infancy, three (3) natives having French as their mother tongue and one (1) native having a different language as mother tongue.
Preliminary findings reveal that “aller” which was used 36 times (18 times by both speakers) representing 26.1% is the most used verb for both native and non-native speakers. Apart from “aller” native speakers used “passer” and “longer” more frequently. Non-native speakers on the other hand used “marcher” and “tourner”.
With regards to tenses, the findings reveal that while the most frequent tense of the natives are présent de l’indicatif – infinitif- futur simple- futur proche – participe présent respectively, that of the non-natives are présent de l’indicatif – future proche – future simple – infinitive – passé composé respectively.
Furthermore, findings also revealed that both speakers, employed the use the future tenses (proche and simple) just before a landmark and though speakers LFF 1 and LFF 2 used the present tense more often, the few times they introduced the future tenses were before a landmark just like the other speakers .
Finally, the findings revealed a varied use of the pronoun “on”. That depending on the context of enunciation this pronoun is either indefinite or specific having the second person singular “tu”, the first-person plural “nous” or the third person plural “ils” as its antecedent.
It also emerged that native speakers, possess a larger scale of the verbal moods and tenses than non-natives. Mrs. Jeffery Adibo called for further research into why non-native speakers seemed limited in their choice of verbs and the implications of such limitations on the Français Langue Étrangère- FLE (French as a Foreign Language).
The Dean of FICS, Dr. Modestus Fosu, chaired the Seminar. It was attended by a cross section of Faculty members and other senior members of the Institute including Dr. Mavis Essandoh, Dean of the Faculty of Public Relations, Advertising, and Integrated Marketing (FoPAM), Dr Collins Adu-Bempah Brobbey, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Research (SoGSaR) and Mr. Stephen Frimpong Manso, Ag. Head, Department of Advertising.