ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the acquisition of pragmatic principles relating to the structuring of information at the syntactic level. It aims to observe the patterns used to introduce referential entities into discourse by Chinese learners of second language (L2) French and French learners of L2 Chinese. The chapter shows that bi-directional combinations of the source and the target language may result in different outcomes. It proposes how Chinese advanced learners adapt to pragmatic constraints in French as a target language and, conversely, how French advanced learners do the same in their L2 Chinese. The chapter describes some of main research questions: Does the presence in the target language of the same type of presentational structure in the source language trigger its use by learners? How do learners adapt to the pragmatic constraints specific to the presentational structures of the target language?
