French language--Study and teaching

The French language is characterized by its many ambiguities.
These peculiarities of the language constitute pitfalls for the
learner who does not know how to disambiguate them. These ambiguities
illustrate the need for teaching orthography along with the
discrimination of sounds.
Many examples are given. The causes of ambiguities, such
as ignorance of phonetic contrasts, intonation, correct capitalization,
or linking and juncture are discussed, as are problems arising
from homophony, the mute e, and the "faux amis."
For the past fifteen years programming of foreign languages,
mostly based on B. F. Skinner's theory of learning, endorsed by
many linguists, emphasized varieties of the audio-lingual method. A
survey of methods, materials, experiments, and opinions of authorities
in the field of linguistics indicates that this method, although
often employing the most modern electronic material has failed to
produce meaningful results.
All of the above factors support the evidence for the need of
teaching orthography along with the study of sound, and the necessity
of continued research in theory and methods of teaching, particularly
in French.

This thesis is concerned with the question of the
applicability of transformational-generative grammar to the
teaching of French verb morphology and French interrogative
structure. Past theories of Language learning and acquisition
are reviewed in order to see how they correlate with
and affect methodology. Then, the implications of the
theory of transformational-generative grammar to language
learning are studied and an effort is made to apply it,
bearing these implications in mind, to French morphology
and syntax. The advantages and disadvantages of the
application are pointed out, and determinations are made
as to the direct applicability of transformationalgenerative
grammar to the teaching of French verb morphology
and interrogative structure as well as to foreign language
teaching in general.