Abstract DGKL : Paul Sambre, Sabine De Knop and Fabio Mollica
TITLE : ‘Parler de la pluie et du beau temps’: The lexicalization patterns of
meteorological events by French- and Italian-speaking learners of German
 This contrastive study describes the lexicalization patterns of
meteorological events by French- and Italian-speaking learners of
German, and more precisely of dynamic events (motion, change of
state,…) related to weather forecast. Juste une question: pourquoi
nous limiter à static ou dynamic… les méthodes que j’ai vite
parcourues montrent plutôt des états… j’imagine que des étudiants
L2 maîtrisent mieux ces expressions. Plus près de leur niveau de
départ. En outre… les changements sont intéressants. En écoutant
la météo NL j’observe pas mal de constructions aspectuelles sur des
états. Exemple :morgenmiddag is er een nieuwe stormkern die
binnenschuift (donc: on part d’une construction statique nominale,
la transformation (aspectuelle, inchoative ou progressive) s’opère
dans la subordonnée relative, qui dit que ce nouveau noyau entre
en glissant…
 The methodology we used were interviews of French- and Italianspeaking learners. Starting from short mute weather forecast films
(how many minutes?/how many films?), the learners were asked to
depict the forecast in German (L2).
 The participants were French-speaking learners: (How many)
students of German in translation and interpretation studies (level
B1-B2 in the reference frame of the Council of Europe); and Italian
learners of the same (?) level, I would take the same pairs (1
meaning native, and 2 second language), e.g. FR1>DE2 / DE1>FR2
etc or FR1>IT2 / IT1>FR2. Do we need other combinations? Our
students have NL1, we have many studs in French, about 25 in DE,
about 15 in IT
I would think of let’s say following combinations with :
Paul Anvers Leuven NL1-DE2/NL1-FR2/NL1-IT2
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Sabine-Paul B’xelles Louvain // FR1-DE2/FR1-DE2/FR1-IT2
Fabio // IT1-DE2/IT1-NL2 (Paul Trieste o Padova)/IT1-FR2
10 individuals per combination or 5 pairs with 2 studs per
combination would be splendid…
Limit to BA1-BA2 or BA2-BA3? Or maximalist? Perhaps we
We compare the expressions by the learners with the expressions
by the German journalists who present the weather forecast.
It is difficult to find videos in different languages which can be
compared, downloading them is difficult I had this experience while
making recordings with Geert, unexpectedly working with static
images is easier, because you can develop 1 common format and
translate them in 2 or 3 languages cf image infra: 4 day forecast
with 1)sun-rain-snow-clouds 2) wind and beaufort 3) temperature
min max
Then we give instructions like:
o Describe “state” of meteo lun/merc
o Describe changes occurring between days or begin/end
o Describe stable features between days
We could make like 3 different slides with this similar setup and
different contexts for weather conditions or intensity of change (like
winter day in Brussels, sunny summer in Milan and snow in the Alps
or sth, hoping to get variation (I did the test on ilmeteo.net with
different cities like oslo, nairobi, sankt moritz and it’ really fun 
You could also have comparisons of 2 of these contexts: compare
week in winter alps with summer in palermo
as far at I could check, very little info in grammars only things like piove,
nevica, il fait chaud, de zon schijnt etc. // language methods large range of
approaches… we need to narrow down our approach for this first talk
 Observations and Results: Description of motion and state change
schemas by learners (in contrast with natives?).
1. Which constructions? >this is the endpoint, in other words, what
is the frequency, variation of constructions, possible errors or
deficit,
2. And what student profiles do we get
3. what error types
4. Which verbs in the constructions? (cf. light verbs)
this is a another subset we could test: the instruction then
contains a construction or part of that construction,
a. we could ‘force’ them to use “caldo” “wolkig”, or
“scheinen” “briller for states or “baisser” “aumentare”
“trasformare” / “transformation” for changes (hoping that
b. as well as verbs of change (infinitive)
c. generally, I prefer not to provide these hints, but it can be
done e.g. at the end of the test, providing 10 hints, in the
foreign language or in their mothertongue, and ask them
to produce in the foreign language, mostly I prefer not to
use translations…
5. Which expressions of causality? > leave this out, we test statics
and change…
6. Basic vs. more elaborated constructions?
7. Interference with L1?
8. …
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vandaag
morgen
vrijdag
zaterdag
zondag
ochtend
middag
avond
ochtend
middag
avond
ochtend
middag
avond
ochtend
middag
avond
ochtend
middag
avond
Min (°C)
3°
6°
8°
6°
5°
Max (°C)
11°
10°
11°
10°
9°
Wind Bft
Neersl. (%)
Neersl. (mm)
Weercijfer
5/
4/
5/
5/
5/
100%
90%
90%
90%
85%
1,5 mm
5,5 mm
7 mm
8 mm
4,5 mm
6
6
5
4
4
Laatste update 5 februari 21:51 u
http://www.weeronline.nl/Europa/Belgie/Antwerpen/4053795