Context
PhD Candidate: Iulia Grosman
Promoters: Degand, L. & Simon, A-C. (UCL/Valibel)
Co-Promoters: Bolly, C. (UCL/Valibel) & Candéa, M. (Paris 8)
An integrated approach
Approaching fluency in L1 has to confront the “myth of the native speaker” (Davies 2003), since not every native speaker can be said to be perfectly fluent
and judgment studies on native speakers often single out speakers “representative (above all in terms of accent) of a privileged élite group” (ibid.
199). On the other hand, fluency in native speakers greatly depends on the degree of preparedness of their speech (this is commonly referred to as stylistic
variation, see Gadet 2007).
Research questions
- How can speakers’ fluency in native language be assessed?
- How can productive and perceptive fluency be measured in an integrated way, i.e. as two components of the same phenomenon?
- To what extent does fluency vary according to discourse genre?
Since “qualitative” prosodic features (variation of fundamental frequency, duration and intensity including intonation and accentuation phenomena) have
been less investigated in terms of “fluencemes of production”, we will focus on the specific impact of prosody on productive and perceptive fluency
(Scheffel-Dunand 2006).
Hypotheses
Prosodic fluencemes can be accounted for both in terms of productive fluency and perceptive fluency. The combined, integrated approach is
needed if one wants to transcend ad hoc (qualitative) descriptions (Hieke 1985).
Any type of spoken discourse is marked by fluent and disfluent passages.
Contrasting those passages with respect to the prosodic features involved will give insight into the fluencemes influencing the perception of a discourse as fluent or disfluent.
Results in terms of speaker variability, genre-specific fluency devices and multifunctional features will be compared to LFSB sign language.