Ch. Lindgren, "Regarde, maman : le soleil se leva". Emploi des temps du passé dans des récits d'enfants francophones en Suède

Charlotte LINDGREN

« Regarde, maman : le soleil se leva »: Emploi des temps du passé dans des récits d'enfants francophones en Suède



Vasteras : Uppsala Universitet, coll. "Studia Romanica Upsaliensis", 2008.

Présentation en anglais de l'éditeur bien que l'ouvrage soit intégralement rédigé en français

The present study presents an account of the use of past tense forms in the narratives of fiveyear-old French-speaking children following a French school curriculum in Stockholm.The study is based on five longitudinal corpora, each of which contains from six to twelve adultchild interactions recorded over a period of six months. One adult-child narrative of Frog where are you?, a textless picture book, was also recorded for each child, for comparison. The narratives were based on previous readings to each child, by the researcher, of books from a selection of ten, five texts written in the present and five in the past. Each child told the story in collaborative interaction with the researcher and with the support of the pictures. The aim of the study is to observe the use of past tenses by the children in relation to their use by the adult and their occurrence in the texts. The analysis is based on Aktionsart theory. Verbal forms are dealt with in terms of context of use and discourse goals. A qualitative approach to the data shows that in spite of marked individual differences French-speaking children tend to experiment with lexical aspect and tense forms and to use past tense verbal forms in a way congruent with tense theories.