The illocutionary acts in the didactic discourse of french as a foreign language - study applied at the beginner level

• Author: Alina Iftime
• Position: University of Ankara, Turkey / University of Bucharest, Romania
• Pages: 19-28

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşo v

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 12(61) No. 1 – 2019

https://doi.org/10.31926/but.ssl.2019.12.61.1.2.

THE ILLOCUTIONARY ACTS IN THE DIDACTIC

DISCOURSE OF FRENCH AS A FOREIGN

LANGUAGE - STUDY APPLIED AT THE

BEGINNER LEVEL1

Alina IFTIME2

Abstract: Since the early 1980, the didactics of French as a Foreign

Language has been significantly marked by the pragmatic-enunciative

approach. It postulates that grammar is only taught for the benefit of the

enunciation and that any form is equivalent to a function in communication.

In the teaching of FFL, in regard to the access to the language, the

preference for the use of speech acts is recognized. In this study, we

investigated the occurrence of speech acts as a teaching / learning unit in

the A1 level French textbooks published in Romania. We analysed to what

extent the presented acts of language activate the grammar or vocabulary

previously exposed in the supporting texts of the teaching unit where they

are integrated.

Keywords: speech act, French as a Foreign Language, textbook.

1. Introduction

In the last decades, the concept of "speech act" has become one of the objects of

study of language didactics and it has become the new unit around which linguistic and

thematic contents are organized. The speech act having become a basic notion of

language teaching, the curricula of French as a Foreign Language in Romania have been

revised and reworked many times. The purpose of our mini-study is to examine the

implementation of speech acts in some A1 level FFL textbooks published in Romania.

This paper proposes an overview of speech acts in textbooks for beginners, according to

the taxonomies proposed by Austin and Searle and their disciples. The conclusion will be

drawn after having analysed to what extent the presented acts of language activate the

grammar or vocabulary previously exposed in the supporting texts of the teaching unit

where they are inserted.

1 Paper presented at the Internationa l Conference “Contemporary Perspec tives in Psychology, Educatio n

and Social Work” – 3rd edition (COPES 2019), Constanța, 24-26 May 2019

2 University of Ankara, Turkey / University of Bucharest, Romania, alinaiftime@yahoo.com