The main objective of this synthesizing work package is to integrate the results from WP 1-5 into a fully developed framework of multi-modal fluency (cf. Segalowitz 2010), comprising a detailed typology of fluencemes and a finegrained annotation scheme, validated on authentic data from native and nonnative (spoken) English, and from spoken and signed French.
Part of the annotated corpora will be distributed as deliverables to the research community.
The advances made in the frame of the overall project also offer relevant societal perspectives, both in SL education and in foreign language learning and
testing, including technical applications.
The outcomes from WP3 in the form of features of fluent SL discourse, and causes of disfluent signing will be essential for all SL professionals: deaf education, SL teaching and interpreting. In addition, the advances made in the contrastive study of (dis)fluency in LSFB and French will be especially valuable for the planned interpreters’ training in the Communauté française de Belgique.
In terms of pedagogical applications, the project could help improve both the teaching and testing of foreign languages. While fluency markers are usually neglected in the teaching of foreign languages, a better knowledge of the way they function in efficient speech could encourage teachers to include them in the curriculum, if only in the form of awareness-raising activities.
Ultimately, it is hoped that textbook writers and publishing houses also become aware of the importance of teaching such devices and give them the place they deserve in pedagogical materials. From the perspective of language testing, the analysis of (dis)fluency markers and their relation to proficiency level will make it possible to refine descriptors such as those found in the CEFR, thus leading to a better exploitation of (dis)fluency markers in the evaluation of students’ competence.
Finally, the modelization of a number of these (dis)fluency markers could be implemented in automatic evaluation tools of fluency in first and second
languages.
Promoters:
L. Degand & S. Granger