ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the linguistic development of the subgroup of participants majoring in L2 French. It also presents L2 French study abroad research, and Language and Social Networks Abroad Project main findings for L2 French. The acquisition of French has been generally well studied from a variety of theoretical perspectives, and in a range of formal and informal settings. A distinctive body of L2 French research has examined learners' acquisition of sociolinguistic variation in phonology, lexis and morphosyntax, in both study abroad and L2 immersion contexts. Despite thorough examination of lexical development in instructed contexts, this area of linguistic development has also been subject to considerably fewer investigations in study abroad contexts. Results for three measures of syntactic complexity are presented: the ratio of clauses to T-units, mean length of T-unit and ratio of finite clauses to all clauses. The chapter presents L2 French learners' linguistic development in terms of general proficiency, fluency, accuracy and complexity.
