Aims

- Acquire insight into the basic principles which govern word order (in particular the Functional Sentence Perspective or FSP).
- Acquire a theoretical and practical knowledge of the characteristics of the interlanguage of French-speaking learners of Dutch.

Main themes

In this course, J. Firbas' theory of Functional Sentence Perspective will be introduced and applied to modern written Dutch.
Next, this course will deal with the principal concepts of foreign language learning (for example, the concept of errors, the notion of interlanguage, the role of the native language in foreign language acquisition and learning, the different learning strategies, etc.) Prominent aspects will be: morphosyntactic, phonetic, and lexical aspects of the interlanguage of learners of Dutch (as a foreign language), especially of French-speaking learners of Dutch

Content and teaching methods

The course, which comprises two parts, tackles word order in modern Dutch. The first part of the course (during the first term) will deal with word order in the interlanguage of French speaking learners of Dutch. We will go through the processes which can explain word order errors in the interlangue.
The second part (during the second term) will tackle what's commonly known as the 'Functional Sentence Perspective'. We will analyse how syntactic and semantic constraints are modulated - in written language - in function of the communication situation. A lot of practical applications will be shown.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Evaluation Oral exam.

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