French L8: Example 3
Example 3: Conversation with host mother
Madame Guindé — Quels sont les plats typiquement néo-zélandais?
Hannah — Euh! Bonne question! Alors, voyons voir un plat typiquement néo-zélandais! Un moment … je réfléchis … À dire la vérité, je ne suis pas certaine d’en avoir un exemple. Ce n’est pas comme en France où il existe tant de plats régionaux comme la choucroute ou le cassoulet. Si je devais vous recommander quelque chose, je dirais essayer les biscuits secs, nous sommes très bec sucré nous les kiwis. Je pense notamment aux afghans ou à la pavlova. Vous en avez entendu parler?
Madame Guindé — Non, je ne crois pas. Comment tu as dit? Une pavlova?
Hannah — Oui, la pavlova.
Madame Guindé — C’est un gâteau?
Hannah — Non. Ça ressemble à une grosse meringue – c’est léger mais très sucré. Sinon … [5 second pause] Oh! j’allais oublier, ne ratez pas le fameux hangi, c’est un plat māori avec des légumes et de la viande cuite dans la terre. C’est vraiment délicieux! Vous comprenez ce que je viens d’expliquer?
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Context and text type
Extract from a conversation. Hannah, a New Zealand exchange student, and her host mother Madame Guindé, discuss food over lunch.
Text type
Conversation, semi-formal. Interactive.
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Examples showing how the student is:
Communicating information, ideas, and opinions through extended and varied texts
In response to the question 'Quels sont les plats typiquement néo-zélandais?', Hannah offers her opinion on which items she would identify as typical New Zealand foods.
Hannah is challenged by the question, and finds herself in an intercultural space. She buys time with expressions such as:
- Euh! Bonne question! Alors, voyons voir un plat typiquement néo-zélandais! Un moment … je réfléchis … while she explores her thinking.
Hannah highlights for her host mother a key difference between the two countries:
- Ce n’est pas comme en France où il existe tant de plats régionaux comme la choucroute ou le cassoulet.
Hannah is identifying herself as a New Zealander when she selects the hangi as a specifically New Zealand meal, and attempts to describe it:
- c’est un plat māori avec des légumes et de la viande cuite dans la terre.
It is important to remember that this is a spoken interaction. Therefore, spoken features such as pronunciation, intonation, rhythm patterns, delivery speed, audibility, and stress patterns have a bearing on the overall effectiveness of the communication and must also be taken into consideration.
Exploring the views of others
Madame Guindé’s initial question challenges Hannah to explore her own views and come up with a response:
- Euh! Bonne question! Alors, voyons voir un plat typiquement néo-zélandais! … À dire la vérité, je ne suis pas certaine d’en avoir un exemple.
Using questions, Hannah involves her host mother in the conversation, asking her to connect the dishes she mentions to whatever prior knowledge she may have:
- Je pense notamment aux afghans ou à la pavlova. Vous en avez entendu parler?
Hannah’s selection of typical New Zealand items challenges those engaging with the text to think about which dishes or foods they would select as typical if they were in a similar situation.
Developing and sharing personal perspectives
Hannah makes it clear that she is challenged by her host mother’s question:
- À dire la vérité, je ne suis pas certaine d’en avoir un exemple.
Hannah shares a personal perspective by drawing on her knowledge of France and New Zealand:
- Ce n’est pas comme en France où il existe tant de plats régionaux comme la choucroute ou le cassoulet.
Justifying own ideas and opinions
Hannah justifies her choice of item by prefacing it with a conditional statement. This communicates her uncertainty, and her sense of being obliged to respond to a question that she finds particularly challenging:
- Si je devais vous recommander quelque chose je dirais essayer les biscuits secs.
Supporting or challenging the ideas and opinions of others
Madame Guindé is supportive of Hannah’s efforts to think of examples of typical New Zealand dishes.
Hannah is clearly challenged by the question Madame Guindé puts to her. This can be seen by the way in which she hesitates and then verbalises her difficulties:
- Euh! Bonne question! Alors, voyons voir un plat typiquement néo-zélandais! … À dire la vérité, je ne suis pas certaine d’en avoir un exemple.
The examples that Hannah offers may support or challenge the ideas and opinions of those who engage with the text.
Engaging in sustained interactions and producing extended texts
Hannah responds to her host mother’s question by thinking out loud and producing extended oral texts:
- Euh! Bonne question! Alors voyons voir un plat typiquement néo-zélandais ! Un moment je réfléchis …
She asks the question 'Vous comprenez ce que je viens d’expliquer?', which invites a response that will sustain the interaction.
The same question also reveals how Hannah sustains the use of the pronoun vous throughout the text. There is a clear difference between the consistent and appropriate use of vous in this sample, and the switch between tu and vous in the level 7 sample.
Hannah uses appropriate conversational conventions to keep the dialogue going:
- Un moment, je réfléchis; Euh (hesitation marker), Sinon …
She gives examples, then immediately checks the other’s comprehension:
- Je pense notamment aux afghans ou à la pavlova. Vous en avez entendu parler?
Checks like this are a means of sustaining interaction.
Exploring how linguistic meaning is conveyed across languages
Hannah refers to herself as a kiwi. In French contexts, the word kiwi can refer to kiwifruit and Kiwi shoe polish. So the meaning of the word in this context may not be immediately clear to the host mother.
Hannah uses idiomatic expressions such as Nous sommes très bec sucré. In English this expression becomes:
- “We have a very sweet tooth”. Students could compare other equivalent expressions in different languages.
The word choucroute comes from the German Sauerkraut. In English, we use Sauerkraut, but the French have developed their own word.
Cassoulet is a dish from the Languedoc region, consisting principally of a stew of white beans cooked with meat such as goose, duck, or pork. The term cassoulet is now widely used in English cookery.
Although the subject shifts to pavlova, Hannah could have checked what Madame Guindé understands by the word afghan. Would her host mother know that an afghan is a crunchy chocolate biscuit? Or would she have associated the word with, for example, a knitted or crocheted shawl, a sheepskin coat with fur trimming, a breed of dog, or a person from Afghanistan?
Analysing how the language expresses cultural meanings
Hannah consistently uses vous to address her host mother:
- Si je devais vous recommander quelque chose je dirais essayer les biscuits secs, nous sommes très bec sucré nous les kiwis.
Madame Guindé, however, addresses Hannah using 'tu'. Both are respectful forms of address.
Hannah asks herself what she can suggest as examples of typical New Zealand dishes. She puts her finger on a key difference between French and New Zealand cooking by referring to dishes that Madame Guindé would associate with particular regions:
- Ce n’est pas comme en France où il existe tant de plats régionaux comme la choucroute ou le cassoulet.
Hannah uses the Māori term hangi, then goes on to describe what it means, assuming that her host mother would not know it:
- ne ratez pas le fameux hangi, c’est un plat māori avec des légumes et de la viande cuite dans la terre.
Hannah struggles to identify typical New Zealand dishes and must do some deep reflection to get to where she does. Her participation in this interaction has helped her to communicate appropriately with a native speaker of French, linguistically and culturally. At the same time, as taken-for-granted cultural meanings are suddenly challenged, Hannah is able to construct new personal meanings and to understand herself better as a New Zealander.
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Opportunities for developing intercultural communicative competence
Explore with students what thoughts go through their minds when asked 'Quels sont les plats typiquement néo-zélandais?' How would they respond if in a situation similar to Hannah’s? How would they feel? And how would they describe these dishes to someone from a French-speaking country. What would they need to know or ask about the typical dishes in that country to make connections with that person?
Adapt this question to different contexts, for example, Quels sont les loisirs typiquement néo-zélandais?
Last updated April 17, 2013
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