L1 Speakers’ Attitudes toward L2 Speakers’ Negation Use in French

Abstract

This article explores French L1 speakers’ attitudes toward French L2 speakers’ negation use. Negation in prescriptive grammars calls for a pre-verbal ne and a post-verbal element like pas. Although orally ne deletion is frequent, it is rarely or never taught. One common, albeit meagrely supported, explanation is that L1 speakers do not like L2 speakers to use informal styles. To test this assumption, the article addresses the following questions: Does L2 speakers’ ne deletion or retention influence their social evaluation by L1 speakers? Do age, gender, or being an educator influence judgments? A group of 157 French L1 speakers, aged 20 to 60, completed a matched-guise test judging three female L2 speakers. They gave statistically significant higher scores for politeness and distinction to two of the speakers in their ne-retention guise; judgments of the third speaker did not follow this pattern. The use of either ne retention or ne deletion had a significant impact on leadership assessment depending on the speaker. Findings refute the assumption that L1 speakers expect L2 speakers to behave prescriptively regardless of context. The conclusion presents pedagogical implications for teaching the social meanings of stylistic variants and developing students’ critical cultural competence.