Tóm tắt luận án_Tiếng Anh

Since the beginning of our teaching of argumentative texts in French, it was difficult for us to formulate precisely, to ourselves and to the students, what was wrong with their text in

HANOI UNIVERSITY Department of post-graduate studies CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Letters

LA COHÉRENCE TEXTUELLE EN FRANÇAIS

ET APPLICATIONS PÉDAGOGIQUES (Textual coherence in French and pedagogic applications)

Thesis summary

Presented by : NGUYEN Hong Hai

Under the direction of: Prof Dr Silvia LUCCHINI (Catholic University of Louvain)

Prof Dr VU Van Dai (Hanoi University )

Hanoi, 2022

HANOI UNIVERSITY Department of post-graduate studies CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Letters

LA COHÉRENCE TEXTUELLE EN FRANÇAIS

ET APPLICATIONS PÉDAGOGIQUES (Textual coherence in French and pedagogic applications)

Thesis summary

Presented by : NGUYEN Hong Hai

Under the direction of: Prof Dr Silvia LUCCHINI (Catholic University of Louvain)

Prof Dr VU Van Dai (Hanoi University )

For obtaining the degree of Doctor of French Language (University of Hanoi) and Doctor of Languages and Letters (Catholic University of Louvain)

Field: French Language Code: 9.22.02.03

Hanoi, 2022

INTRODUCTION

1 Problem

Whether the sentence is judged to be grammatically correct or not, the text must obey well-defined rules to be considered coherent by the reader Therefore, coherence is an essential object of study when it comes to learning a language However, the mastery of textual coherence by learners is a thorny learning process Some studies conducted in French as a first language such as those by Cornish (1996) and Apothéloz, Mieville and Grize (1989) show that the construction of texts respecting the rules of textual coherence is not an easy task even for a native This work is even more complex as each text must respond to

a code specific to its genre, which requires adaptation to the communication situation Thus, the acquisition of textual coherence is difficult for non-native speakers such as Vietnamese learning French as a foreign langue (FFL) During our teaching of FFL at French Department (from now on “FD” ), University of Languages and International Studies - National University of Vietnam in Hanoi (from now on “ULIS”  ), we have often been confronted with student’s writing whose lack of textual coherence, especially that of the argumentative texts, put

us in disarray Students encounter, in fact, difficulties in organizing and structuring their writting, in using logical connectors, punctuations and in divising a text into paragraphs They do not know how to link ideas or master the processes that contribute to advancing the text and making it more coherent

If they can produce correct sentences and paragraphs from the grammatical point

of view, they often experience difficulties in assembling these units into a coherent textual whole, since a well-made text includes a structuring consistent with all of its constituents

Since the beginning of our teaching of argumentative texts in French, it was difficult for us to formulate precisely, to ourselves and to the students, what was wrong with their text in terms of coherence and argumentation Detecting problems of consistency in the texts was based on an intuition that had developed during our teaching without ever relying on solid theoretical and practical

foundations Consequently, we could not often bring the students to perceive the errors of textual coherence and to remedy them This reality led us to choose as

the subject of the doctoral thesis: Textual coherence in French and educational applications

Through this research work, we plan to make the concept of coherence operational for our public of students as well as for those who teach and correct their writings The study of textual coherence in argumentative text requires a research about the structure of the discursive genre to which it belongs (the way

in which the text progresses, the connectors, the elements of nominal and pronominal repetition, the articles, the context in which it is produced, etc.) Consequently, the didactic device that we propose for the teaching of the coherence in argumentative texts plans to abandon the writing approach in force

in Vietanamese university establishments which includes the reading-comprehension of different textual types (descriptive, narrative, informative, explanatory, argumentative) followed by writing activities It refers to the didactic model of the discursive genres with regard to the indisputable advantages attested by the didacticians of writing The consistency criteria that

we will highlight will help to specify the dysfunctions observed in the student copies Our study will revolve around five main axes, namely 1) the argumentative text, 2) the discursive genre, 3) the textual coherence, 4) the writing process, 5) the teaching device We are thus brought to the crossroads of three vast areas of research These are textual linguistics, argumentation and didactics These three fields of investigation themselves call on several disciplines: pragmatics, cognitive psychology, rhetoric, etc As a result, our study will be part of a broader theoretical framework claiming many influences

2 Research objectives

The general objective of our research is to propose a teaching-learning device of textual coherence for an argumentative genre in order to allow teachers and learners to improve their respective skills Our specific objectives are as follows

- specify the criteria of consistency in an argumentative genre;

- build an analysis grid serving as a theoretical basis for the production and correction of this type of text;

- detect the most frequent errors related to coherence in students' argumentative texts;

- propose a device for teaching the coherence of an argumentative genre to Vietnamese students learning French as a foreign language

3 Questions et hypothesis of research

Based on the above objectives, our thesis will have the task of solving the initial

problem raised by the following question: How to make the concept of the coherence of argumentative texts operational both for teachers and for Vietnamese students learning French as a foreign language , in order to set up

a didactic device for its teaching?

To answer this general question, we ask ourselves the following specific questions:

1 What are the criteria for consistency in argumentative genres in French?

2 What are the major difficulties of Vietnamese students, in terms of coherence

of the argumentative text and what are the reasons?

3 What coherence teaching device can be offered to Vietnamese FLE students?

For these research questions, we formulate the following hypotheses: Apart from the general criteria of textual coherence, the text belonging to an argumentative genre includes specific criteria of coherence in relation to the argumentation The greatest difficulties for students in ensuring the coherence of the argumentative text are linked to these specific criteria and are due to an insufficient mastery of the argumentative structure and the interference of the Vietnamese language on the French language The elaboration of a device which conditions both the teaching-learning of the criteria of the coherence of the text belonging to an argumentative genre and the processes involved in the production of the writing

makes it possible to improve the skill of writing students in terms of the coherence of the argumentative text

4 General research methodology

Our research is carried out in the light of a theoretical framework which relates both to the criteria of the coherence of the argumentative text and to their didactics Thus, before embarking on an empirical study, we will examine the theories related to text, discursive genre, argumentation, textual coherence, which are at the crossroads of the fields of textual linguistics, rhetoric and pragmatics In a didactic perspective, we will define the criteria of the coherence

of texts belonging to argumentative genres and will illustrate their respect or not

by good and bad examples These are taken from editorials collected from French-language daily newspapers and copies from students in the department

In order to complete the theoretical part, we will also study the concepts related

to scriptural competence, the didactics of writing and the coherence of the argumentative text in FFL

After determining the theoretical framework that underlies our thesis, we will proceed to the field study following the methodology of action research We will begin by diagnosing the difficulties that students encounter in terms of the coherence of the argumentative text and the teaching-learning practices in the course of writing that can account for it The observations on the shortcomings

of the students and on the inappropriate teaching practices will lead us to develop

a didactic device which will be evaluated by an experiment and modified for a later transfer During our field research, we will use observables made up of student copies, analyzed by a criteria grid relating to the argumentative text and developed by us, and questionnaires (addressed to students and teachers in the

department) These different tools provide us with the quantitative and qualitative data necessary to carry out our research

5 Plan of the thesis

Our research is carried out in the light of a theoretical framework which relates both to the criteria of the coherence of the argumentative text and to the didactics

of these Thus, before embarking on an empirical study, we will examine the theories related to text, discursive genre, argumentation, textual coherence, which are at the crossroads of the fields of textual linguistics, rhetoric and pragmatics In a didactic perspective, we will define the criteria of the coherence

of texts belonging to argumentative genres and will illustrate their respect or not

by good and bad examples These are taken from editorials collected from French-language daily newspapers and copies from students in the department

In order to complete the theoretical part, we will also study the concepts related

to scriptural competence, the didactics of writing and the coherence of the argumentative text in FFL After determining the theoretical framework that underlies our thesis, we will proceed to the field study following the methodology of action research We will begin by diagnosing the difficulties that students encounter in terms of the coherence of the argumentative text and the teaching-learning practices in the course of writing that can account for it The observations on the shortcomings of the students and on the inappropriate teaching practices will lead us to develop a didactic device which will be evaluated by an experiment and modified for a later transfer During our field research, we will use observables made up of student copies, analyzed by a criteria grid relating to the argumentative text and developed by us, and questionnaires (addressed to students and teachers in the department) These different tools provide us with the quantitative and qualitative data necessary to carry out our research

PART 1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In this part reserved for the theoretical bases, we will review the concepts which seem necessary to us to achieve the final objective of our research, which, we recall, consists in developing and evaluating according to a research-action methodology a device didactics aimed at teaching the argumentative text intended for Vietnamese university students learning French The first chapter will focus on the objective to be achieved: the argumentative text Thus, we will first define the text examined in its relationship with the discourse, the context, the genre and then the argumentation as being an approach to be mastered as well as its components We will show that the argumentative text is inseparable from the discursive genre to which it belongs, which will include argumentative textual sequences, which we will describe The second chapter will focus on the object of teaching, textual coherence We will focus in particular on defining an operational concept that is at the same time clear, relevant, simple and complete Thus, we tried to identify the factors that manage the production of a coherent text according to a particular enunciative context and a communicative intention

in accordance with the discursive genre To do this, we have gone through the key concepts concerning this notion and tried to identify the points most shared

by specialists in the field Thus, coherence is considered not only as a property

of the text, but also as a concept closely dependent on the interpretant It depends

in a joint way on the realization of two internal dimensions (macrostructural, microstructural) and another, external (situational) The third chapter will be reserved for the verification of the operational notion highlighted in the previous chapter concerning the argumentative texts of the journalistic genre We will thus constitute the criteria of coherence by means of the meta-rules proposed by Charolles (1978) Each criterion will be illustrated with examples of its respect, taken from editorials in French, a textual genre that contains essential elements

of the argument and those of its violation drawn from the student copies Thus,

we found that the Problem and Opinion components of argumentative structure are implicitly discussed in editorials and readers must infer them through rs a thorough reading of the text Similarly, the writer sometimes hides his arguments

behind convincing data, facts and argumentative examples, which characterizes the style of argumentation of journalists By taking into account these particularities of the argumentation in the press article, we have shown that the argumentative structure must be congruent with the context and the textual genre

After defining the operational concepts that will allow us to describe and teach argumentative texts/genres, we will move on to defining a writing process, because, as Charolles says (1986, p.10), questions bearing on the cognitive processes of the production activity are " essential when we are concerned with didactics " Finally, in the fourth chapter, we will explore the didactics of the teaching of scriptural competence, since this is what it is also about in the case

of the teaching of the writing of the argumentative text, focusing on the editorial processes and the models of existing devices that are based on them In this chapter, we have presented the critical analyzes of the models of written production in order to retain the elements that a device for teaching the coherence

of the argumentative text must absolutely take into account Our principles favor

a textual approach which consists in helping students to structure their argumentative text and to ensure consistency in a particular genre, by taking care

to define, in the instructions, the situation of production of the text We will end this part on the principles of elaboration of the didactic device that we will propose and evaluate in the second part of this thesis according to the methodology of research-action Indeed, following the principles of action research that we have adopted, given that we are aiming for a change in practices

on the part of the actors concerned, we will base the content of the system not only on the theoretical foundations presented in this first part, but also on the problematic situation in terms of difficulties in writing argumentative texts and initial skills in terms of textual coherence

PART 2 FIELD RESEARCH

As field research, we will carry out three studies The first and the second aim to answer the first question of the research, which was stated in the problematic and

which evolved following the highlighting, in the first part of this work of the criteria of coherence:

- What are the difficulties of Vietnamese students, in terms of coherence of the argumentative text, in particular the meta-rules of relationship, repetition and progression?

The third study addresses the second research question, namely:

- What system for teaching coherence, in the case of a discursive genre with a dominant argumentation, can we offer Vietnamese students in French as a foreign language?

To answer this question, we are going to experiment with a device for teaching coherence designed from an existing device, but adapted (Itinéraires), which aims to acquire scriptural competence in discursive genres We have, in fact, highlighted, in the first part, the importance of integrating the discursive genre

in the teaching of coherence and its meta-rules The device is also based on the writing processes described in chapter 4 of the first part, in particular on the revision of the written text, giving rise to successive rewritings Concerning the structure of the second part, in chapter 5, we will present the general methodology of the research To justify our methodological choice, we will first mention the contextual aspects of field research We will first describe the current program of the FD of ULIS and developed for the teaching of the argumentative text in French We will continue with the presentation of the subjects participating in the three studies, namely the students and the teachers The general methodological framework, which is that of action research, will then be approached with five stages, namely: 1 Determination of the problematic situation 2 Development of a device for teaching the coherence of the argumentative text 3 Testing of the device developed 4 Device evaluation 5 Modification of the device for later transfer

In order to analyze or evaluate the coherence in student papers that we will obtain

in stage 1 or stage 4 of the action research, we resort to the criteria grid that we