Education et Sociétés Plurilingues n°17-décembre 2004
Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
Ifeoma ONYEMELUKWE and Vanessa ADIE OFFIONG
150 soggetti (50 professori di francese e 100 alunni) hanno partecipato a questo studio
che cercava di individuare, con l’ausilio di questionari e di valutazioni, le difficoltà che
sia gli uni che gli altri – soprattutto gli alunni- potevano avere di fronte ai “falsi amici”
(FA) durante una lezione di francese in Nigeria. Abbiamo scoperto che la maggior parte
degli insegnanti non hanno problemi con i “falsi amici” che tuttavia risultano essere la
causa di molti errori da parte degli alunni. Secondo gli intervistati l’origine del
problema sta nel fatto che essi ignorano o trascurano l’esistenza del fenomeno. Le
difficoltà specifiche connesse ai “falsi amici” durante la lezione di francese sono
risultate scaturire da problemi di interferenza, di incomprensione del vocabolario e dei
testi, di fraintendimenti culturali, di blocco e di una debole competenza comunicativa in
generale. Sono state proposte alcune soluzioni, tra cui l’insegnamento dei FA come un
argomento grammaticale a sé stante e una lista dei “falsi amici “ più comuni che possa
servire nei parametri di valutazione. I risultati di questa ricerca hanno così delle
conseguenze sulla pianificazione e sulle decisioni relative ai temi dell’educazione
nazionale.
150 sujets (50 professeurs de français et 100 élèves) ont participé à cette étude, qui
cherchait à pointer, avec l'aide de questionnaires et d'observations, les difficultés que les
uns et les autres – surtout les élèves – éprouvent face aux “faux amis” (FA) dans une
classe de français au Nigéria. Nous avons trouvé que la majorité des enseignants n'ont
pas de problème avec les “faux amis” qui en revanche sont à la source de beaucoup
d'erreurs chez les élèves. Les causes de ces problèmes, selon les répondants, sont surtout
le fait qu'ils ignorent ou négligent l'existence du phénomène. Ont été cités comme
spécifiques aux FA en classe de français, les problèmes d'interférence,
d'incompréhension du vocabulaire et des textes, de malentendus culturels, de blocages,
d'une faible compétence communicative en général. Quelques solutions sont avancées,
par exemple que les FA soient enseignés comme un sujet de grammaire à part entière et
qu'une table des “faux amis” les plus courants puisse servir dans la batterie
d'évaluations. Les résultats de cette recherche ont ainsi des retombées pour les
planificateurs et les décideurs de l'éducation nationale.
It has become increasingly important today to be able to speak and
understand several other languages apart from one’s own mother tongue
(L1), whether within a monolingual setting as in France, or a multilingual
setting as in Nigeria, or in respect to the international community. Recent
awareness of the importance of language and looking favourably upon
polyglottism among those in the corridors of power and curriculum
developers, have informed a new language policy which insists on
bilingualism. As spelt out in the latest revised edition of National Policy on
Education (FRN, 1998), every Nigerian child shall learn the language of
I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
the immediate environment and one of the three major Nigerian languages
– Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
The document adds that for smooth interaction with our Francophone
neighbours, it is desirable for every Nigerian to speak French. The French
language is, therefore, accorded the status of second official language in
Nigeria and is a compulsory subject in schools. Onyemelukwe (1995: 69)
aware of the geographical isolation of Nigeria (an Anglophone country in a
sea of Francophonie) observed that Nigeria needs French for healthy
communication and diplomatic relations with her Francophone neighbours.
Thus, the new language policy of bilingualism, belated as it may be, is still
a welcome development especially at the turn of the 21st century
characterised by the internet and a multidisciplinary approach to education,
in a world fast turning into a small village. Bilingualism is relevant to
communication not only with our Francophone neighbours but with other
French speaking countries of the world. In short, it promotes global
communication in all spheres of life – education, commerce, religion,
politics.
New centres for teaching and learning of French are springing up (for
example, the Institute of Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria,
presently runs a Diploma course in French Language Education for
candidates with little or no previous knowledge of French), to complement
the efforts of the existing ones, curb the incidence of dearth of French
Language Teachers (FLTs) and French Language Learners (FFLs), cope
with the challenges of the new craze for French language literacy following
recent awareness of the importance of French in Nigeria. Thus, there is
need to identify some of the linguistic problems FLLs may encounter in a
French language class so as to offer solutions. One such problem is
interference or negative transfer. Some researchers have shown that the
phenomena of code switching and code-mixing generate negative transfer
and are disastrous in a French class. For Lawal (1991), for instance, codeswitching and code-mixing cause linguistic confusion in a French class.
Onyemelukwe (1997b) demonstrated that they cause poor expression and
ineffective communication in a French class. She advised FLTs to
disengage from the practice and adhere to the strictly direct method,
making profuse use of audio-visual aids.
Deceptive cognates or “faux amis” (FA) pose problems to French
Language Teachers (FLTs) and particularly French Language Learners
(FLLs) in a French class in an Anglophone setting such as Nigeria. It is
normal that learners should have problems with false cognates, since in the
learning process they rely on the perceived resemblances between
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I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
languages. And one should not forget that many French/English cognates
are «good friends»! However, this paper is most specifically centred on
why learners have problems with "deceptive cognates" or “faux amis”. It is
also hoped that in the course of this investigation some of the more
common deceptive cognates or “faux amis” might be identified.
The French term “faux amis” literally means “false friends”. The English
refer to them as “false friends” or deceptive cognates. In effect, the term
“faux amis” is used to depict words in two different languages that are in
contact and purported to be identical – yet are not identical. For example,
“Un petit garçon malicieux” can be wrongly interpreted as “a malicious
little boy”. Malicieux and "malicious" are thus deceptive cognates. In other
words, they seem to mean the same thing, but in reality, they mean totally
different things. The correct equivalent of “malicieux” is “mischievous”.
Thus, “un petit garçon malicieux” is "a mischievous little boy".
Therefore, the concept of “faux ami” portrays a false resemblance, a
deception. The phenomenon of false resemblance of words within a
particular language is known as homonyms. Homonyms refer to:
•
Words of similar pronunciation but different spellings and meanings; in
this context, they are also known as homophones): saint, ceint, sein in
French, for example.
•
Words of similar pronunciation and spellings (homographs) but different
meanings, for example, cousin (an insect) and cousin (a relative).
Homonyms are a feature of every existing language. For example, in
English, we have "principal" (head) # "principle" (rule), "hear" # "here",
"ape" (animal) # "ape" (to mimic). In Igbo, we have nma (beauty) # nma
(fine, all right), ala (leaking) # ala (going), akwa (cloth) # akwa (egg) #
akwa (bed) # akwa (cry), anya (eyes) # anya (driving).
Igbo is a tone language, and it is doubtful that all the words listed here bear
the same tone(s); therefore they may not necessarily be homonyms either.
Homonyms are not only intralingual as in the above examples but also
interlingual. Interlingual homonyms, equally referred to as “faux amis” in
French, is only one of several other phenomena that occur when two
languages are in contact. Koessler and Derocquigny (1961) have rightly
spoken of the omnipresence of “faux amis”. According to them, this
linguistic phenomenon concerns all Romance and Germanic languages and
also Latin. It also concerns totally unrelated languages, as mentioned
below.
In a multilingual setting like Nigeria, which has about 400 autochtonous
languages (Dawulung, 1999), a French language teacher may find, in a
39
I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
French class of about 70 FLLs, as many as twenty indigenous languages
aside from English, which is Nigeria’s first official language. It goes
without saying that the FLT will have to cope with problems of deceptive
cognates resulting from the contacts between French, the target language,
and the numerous autochtonous languages, as well as English. For
example, one FLT in a school in Zaria, while using the communicative
approach to teach a beginners’ French class, was laughed at when he told a
student: “Tout ça, c’est à toi!”. “Tout ça” ("All that") has a deceptive
cognate in Hausa → “Tusa”, meaning “Pass fletus” (medical terminology).
The students in the class probably thought that the teacher was ordering
their classmate to fart, which would explain their roaring with laughter.
Also “Allô!” (exclamation to answer the telephone) has a deceptive cognate
in Igbo → alo, meaning "counsel" or "advice". Since a majority of FLLs
usually know English better than their mother tongues – following the
recent trend among the younger generations of the dwindling use of mother
tongues and subsequent language endangerment – FLLs are likely to have
FA ("faux amis") problems in English more than in their mother tongues.
The Hausa and Igbo examples cited above show that other African
languages such as the “Bantu” and “kwa” languages, are also concerned by
the FA syndrome.
As explained elsewhere (Onyemelukwe, 1997b), the linguistic phenomenon
of “faux amis” is quite different from code-switching. Code-switching does
not involve the resemblance of certain words in two languages. Codeswitching (CS), code-mixing (CM), and faux-amis must be carefully
distinguished. CS and CM being part of language use, not necessarily due
to problems in language learning, but sometimes resulting from problems
in the course of learning; whereas faux amis are a characteristic of language
itself.
For Chuquet and Paillard (1987), deceptive cognates constitute “une mode
de franglais”. Take, for example, attire ("attract") in French # attire
(clothing) in English. But, as the two earlier examples indicate, deceptive
cognates can also be “Franhaoussa” or “Frenchhausa”, or “Franigbo” or
“Frenchigbo”. They can also be tagged “Engligbo” as in Hallo! ("Hello!")
# Ha lo ("let them swallow"). Franglais, franhaoussa, etc.. are instances of
CM, and do not necessarily imply faux amis, except in some deliberate uses
of the language(s).
Investigations here will be limited to interlingual homonyms and
specifically French-English “faux amis” or “franglais” to borrow Chuquet
and Paillard’s terminology. Ekpenyong (1997: 161) observed that “les faux
amis” constitute a major problem in translation and felt that every translator
40
I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
and foreign language teacher ought to be made aware of this fact. After
examining the problem from the translator's standpoint, he suggested that
"les solutions des problèmes de faux amis viennent au fur et à mesure que
l’on travaille avec une combinaison linguistique donnée", adding that
attention should be paid concurrently to the text and to the context.
However, “faux amis” pose problems which are not limited to translation
alone but cut across all areas of learning in a foreign language class.
Interlingual homonyms are quite problematic considering the inherent
dangers – misunderstandings and interrupted communication or lack of
communication which may generate conflicts and even wars across borders
and within a community. Onyemelukwe (1997a) raised the issue of the
misunderstanding that took place between the Chadian soldiers and the
Nigerian Peace Keeping Force in the Chad Republic some decades ago.
This was the result of the inexistence of a common linguistic medium of
communication, since the Nigerian soldiers lacked knowledge of French
while the Chadian soldiers could not understand a word of English. Such
situations breed “quiproquos” (taking one thing to mean a totally different
concept) and may lead to serious misunderstandings. For example, “to
ignore” in English could be mistaken for “ignorer” (not knowing) in
French. Similarly, "to demand" for demander (ask); "virtually" for
virtuellement.
A member of the standing committee of the Federation of Intellectual
Unions, Emile Borel, quoted by Koessler and Derocquigny (1961), was
cognisant of the importance of being bilingual to be able to deal with
interlingual homonyms. In its General Assembly which took place in
Vienna in October 1926, the Federation of Intellectual Unions discussed
the usefulness of publications meant to highlight the misunderstandings
that frequently occur between nations as a result of misleading vocabulary.
For obvious political reasons, the Federation felt that the most pressing
need concerned Franco-German relations. It therefore decided to prepare a
French-German dictionary specially devoted to about one hundred words
which, if wrongly translated, could lead to or perpetuate intellectual and
political misunderstanding between the two nations. But the Federation
welcomed with great sympathy my suggestion to work on a French-English
dictionary immediately after the French-German one.
In a somewhat similar manner, we would like to produce, as a guide, a
table of the most common “faux amis” which militate against
comprehension and effective communication in a French class today.
Method
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I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
The researchers used criterion sampling to select 150 subjects, including 50
Foreign Language Teachers (FLTs) and 100 Foreign Language Learners
(FLLs), in five institutions of higher learning (one university in the North
and one in the South) and three colleges of education (one in the North and
two in the South). Through random sampling the subjects were selected
from all levels of the French language study including Preliminary French
and its equivalent, Pre-NCE French (i.e. preliminary French studies
qualifying successful candidates to go for the Nigeria Certificate in
Education).
Questionnaires, partly structured and partly open-ended were prepared, one
set for FLTs, the other for FLLs. Also, the researchers, through
observation, were able to identify some common “faux amis” in a French
class. The researchers went to the various institutions of higher learning
and personally administered the questionnaires which were all properly
completed.
Simple percentage analysis was used to analyse the tabulated results. Table
I shows that 4 FLTs (8%) claimed to have problems of average intensity
with FA; 11 FLTs (22%) claimed to have mild problems with FA while 35
FLTs (70%) claimed to have no problems at all with FA. The findings
showed that majority of FLTs used in the study had no problem with FA
while teaching French. The majority of FLTs encountered no problem with
FA probably because they had been in contact with the French language for
a long time, and as a result, had developed a fairly good communicative
competence in French. Moreover, as can be expected of a good FLT, they
probably prepared effectively for the lessons before going to class (V.
Onyemelukwe, 1995).
On the other hand, as can be seen from Table I, only 15 students (15%)
claimed not to have any problem with FA whereas 84 FLLs (84%) claimed
to have problems with FA in a French class. It is understandable that FLLs
encounter problems with FA: they are learners and some of them (e.g. those
in Prelim-French and its equivalent had only a rudimentary knowledge of
the language. Much as they were being empowered linguistically through
such courses as Lexical development and acquisition, oral/aural expression,
their linguistic competence is a far cry from that of their teachers. They
lacked the discriminatory power that could shield them from errors arising
from the use of French words which have look-alikes in English. But
regarding the intensity of the problems they encountered with FA, most
students (80%) perceived it as average.
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I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
Table 1
Perception of intensity of problems with "faux amis"
Perceived intensity of
problem
Nil
Mild
Average
Severe
TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION
Number of
FLTs
35
11
4
-
Number of
FLLs
15
4
80
1
Percentage
70%
22%
8%
-
Percentage
15%
4%
80%
1%
Table 2
Degree of mistakes made by FLLs owing to “faux amis”
Perceived intensity
(teachers’ perception)
Number of FLLs
Percentage
Mild
Average
High
Very High
12
38
-
TOTAL
50
24%
76%
100%
A majority of FLTs – 38 (76%) – perceived the problems that FLLs had
with FA to be on the high side. It would seem that FLTs who marked
students’ papers and evaluated their performances in oral French were in a
better position to give a more accurate, valid and reliable assessment. The
researchers, therefore, concluded that “faux amis” lead FLLs to committing
many mistakes in a French class. In response to the question, “why should
FLLs have problems with FA?” a majority of both teachers and students
felt it was due to ignorance or lack of awareness of the existence of “faux
amis”. The discrepancy in Tables 1 and 2 , i.e. teachers’ vs. students’
perceptions of problems, seems to confirm this observation and probably
means that students’ awareness in this area should be increased.
Other reasons given for difficulties included:
•
Non-teaching of “faux amis” that would enable students to discriminate
adequately between the English and French lexical terms which are look-alikes;
•
Insufficient teaching;
•
Insufficient learning;
•
Insufficient exposure to French segments;
•
Inadequate exposure to instructional materials – textbooks, audio-visual aids and
other resource materials;
•
Lack of qualified and experienced teachers.
43
I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
In respect to the specific problems generated by deceptive cognates in a
French class, the respondents noted the following:
1. Interference of known English words/cues in perception of target vocabulary and
expressions as in the negative transfer of the English word, "comment", leading to
erroneous perception and pronunciation of the French lexical term, comment ["how"].
Notice the two words are spelt alike but have different meanings. Of course, homonyms
are not synonyms. The two words, although they have the same spelling have different
meanings. It has been established in contrastive analysis that points of disparity in the
two languages in contact account for interference:
Elle m’attend. (she is waiting for me) / She attends to me (she is attending to me)
The verb “attend” in French resembles “attends” in English spelling wise but they have
different meanings. It is the disparity in meanings that brings about interference,
misunderstanding and ineffective communication. “She is waiting for me” is mistaken
for “She is attending to me”.
2. Misinterpretation of words and texts: “fastidieux” (tiresome, irksome, tedious) being
taken for the English word "fastidious" (hard to please) or “actuellement” (at present, at
the moment, currently) for the English word, "actually" meaning "in reality".
3. Spelling errors. Sometimes the languages in contact have words which differ slightly
in spelling but have similar meanings thereby generating spelling errors.
Misunderstanding of contextual meanings of words; Blockage; Ineffective competence;
Lack of attention/concentration; Loss of confidence and motivation/psychological
problems; Perception of French as difficult.
Proposed solutions: teaching–related factors
Teaching “faux amis” as a particular subject
A majority of the respondents suggested that a possible solution for the
problems associated with deceptive cognates is to teach “faux amis” as a
vocabulary subject. “Homonyms” are a familiar English vocabulary topic,
particularly at the foundation stage in primary schools or in basic English
courses in institutions of higher learning. This has not been the practice
with the regular teaching of French in primary schools – beginners’ French
in JSS and Prelim French – although good grammar books like Le bon
usage (Grevisse) dealt with French homonyms very well. Course books for
the mentioned levels seem to have omitted this very important topic as well
as, more importantly, interlingual (French-English) homonyms, probably
because neither of them has been included in the curriculum or course
outline. This is a serious omission. “Faux amis” or false friends as a
vocabulary topic has implications for Educational planners and curriculum
developers. We recommend that course outlines in the institutions of higher
learning be reviewed to reflect this suggestion.
Table of common “Faux amis” as a Corrective Measure
44
I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
The researchers, through observation, were able to identify some common
“faux amis” in a French class. They pooled these together with the
examples furnished by FLTs and FLLs participating in the study and came
up with a Table of common “faux amis”. They provided meanings of the
resembling French and English words to guide learners into perceiving the
differences in meanings of the two words and boost their linguistic
discriminatory power.
We recommend that FLTs prepare similar tables of "faux amis" to serve as
a guide for FLLs. Adequate exposure of FLLs to such batteries of
correction will help immensely in curbing the problems of deceptive
cognates. FLTs should prepare French and English segments which contain
“faux amis” to enable FLLs to discriminate adequately between the two
similar but somewhat different words.
Table 3
Some common “faux amis” as a battery of correction
FAUX AMIS
MEANINGS
FRENCH
ENGLISH
FRENCH
ENGLISH
Actuellement
Assister
actually
Assist
In reality
To aid, help
Attendre
Attention
Attire
Aviser
Bouche
Comment
Communication
Attend
Attention!
Attire
Advise
Bush
Comment
Communication
presently
To attend, be present,
witness
To wait (for)
To pay attention (to)
attracts
To perceive, recognise
Mouth
How
Academic paper
Crayon
Crayon
Pencil
Doubler
Double
Ensemble
Ensemble
To quicken or double
one’ step
Together
Eventuellement
Fastidieux
Eventually
Fastidious
Formation
Formation
Formidable
Formidable
Homme
Ignore
Home
Ignore
Librairie
Luxurieux
Library
Luxurious
Stupendous,
tremendous
Man
Know nothing about,
ignorant of,
Bookshop
Lustful, lewd
Manifestation
Manifestation
Demonstration
Possibly, if necessary
Tedious, tiresome,
irksome
Training, Education
45
To give care, help (to)
To stand at attention
Clothing
To counsel
Shrub, Forest
To pass a remark
Sending / receiving
messages
Coloured material for
paintings, crayon
In twos or two parts
A small group of
musicians, or actors
Finally
Hard to please,
meticulous
The action of forming
something
Causing fear, anxiety or
admiration, dreadful
Abode, residence
Overlook, not to pay
attention to
A collection of books
Splendid, very
comfortable
Clear evidence
I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
Meeting
Meeting
Rally
Phrase
Porte
Présenter
Phrase
Pot
Present
Présentation
Presentation
A sentence
Door
To introduce (someone,
something)
Introduction
Président
Rapport
Réaliser
President
Rapport
Realise
Sale
Sensible
Sympathique, sympa
Sale
Sensible
Sympathetic
Chairman of a meeting
A report, an account
Actualise, concretise,
materialise
Dirty, filthy
Sensitive
Likeable, attractive,
nice
An assembly of people
for a particular thing
A group of words
Container, vessel
A gift, make somebody
a gift
The way in which
something is presented
Head of State
A relationship
Recognise, understand
Act of selling
Reasonable
Feeling or showing
sympathy
N.B. If language is taught in context, learners will not confuse words such as the French
«comment(?)» and the English «comment» because they are different parts of speech in
each language and occur in different contexts.
Exposure of FLLs to More Aural/Oral Practice
It was suggested that FLLs be given more aural/oral practice to enable them
to increase their power of discrimination of words that are similar in
pronunciation and spelling but have different meaning. FLLs who are raw
beginners in French should be encouraged not to read French segments
before being exposed to correct pronunciation of these segments. The basic
principles of foreign language teaching must be strictly adhered to both by
FLTs and FLLs, i.e. in the following order: Listening – speaking – reading
– writing. The learner must first listen to the segment (auditory perception),
and be made to articulate it correctly before moving to the stage of reading
it either written on the board or in a textbook. Finally, he gets to the stage
of writing it. If these principles are badly applied in a French class, FLLs
risk to internalise erroneous pronunciations and concepts and will surely
have problems with “faux amis”. FLTs are advised to make appropriate use
of audio-visual aids.
N.B. Students should be enabled to distinguish words that look alike, and made aware
that some of them are very different in pronunciation (realise, attire, sale…). On the
other hand, one cannot expect the students to be exposed to the written forms of a word
only after they have mastered its meaning and internalised its pronunciation because in
a communicative approach, the four language skills tend to be developed
simultaneously.
It is suggested that the authorities concerned recruit the adequate number of
qualified and experienced FLTs, of whom, needless to say, there is critical
shortage in Nigerian schools. Nevertheless, efforts are being made to
eradicate the problem. Through a special arrangement between the Nigerian
46
I. Onyemelukwe, V. Adie Offiong, Deceptive cognates in a French class in Nigeria
and French governments, some French teachers from Benin have been
deployed in secondary schools. As more of their FLLs go on to university
and other tertiary institutions, there is hope that Nigeria will have a
sufficient number of qualified FLTs in the near future.
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