Cet article relate deux expérimentations autour de l’enseignement du lexique des émotions en classe de FLE auprès d’étudiants mongols en Mongolie de niveau A2 et B1 (CECRL, 2001). Ces expérimentations ont de créatif l’introduction d’une atmosphère autour des émotions évoquées : la peur et la tristesse. Nous montrerons comment les étudiants articulent lexique appris et description d’une atmosphère permettant de déceler l’émotion attendue. En outre, les textes produits révèlent une certaine créativité de la part des apprenants, mais aussi des aspects culturels non négligeables pour l’expression des émotions. Nous tenterons ici d’expliquer ces phénomènes à l’aune des résultats d’analyse des textes tant par des aspects quantitatifs (statistiques fréquence d’utilisation des mots) que par des aspects qualitatifs (analyse linguistique des textes). En conclusion, nous aborderons les aspects culturels inhérents à ce lexique spécifique des émotions en comparant notamment les manifestations universelles physiologiques et les influences culturelles relatives à chacune des émotions choisies.
This article describes two experiments on the teaching of the lexicon of affects in FFL (French as a Foreign Language) class with Mongolian students of A2 and B1 accordinge to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CECRL, 2001) in Mongolia. Recent works in semantics, as in other disciplines, underlines the specificities of the lexicon of affects and feelings (cf. Grossmann & Tutin, 2005). The frequency of use of this lexicon makes it important in the field of foreign language didactics. We will be reflecting the teaching of this lexicon to learners of French as a foreign language and to suggest ways to overcome the particular difficulties that such a teaching method raises. The underlying hypothesis of this work is twofold: (1) the teaching of this lexicon should enable learners to better write fictional texts in which the characters feel emotions (2) To express the variety, the subtlety and the intensity of the emotions felt, it is necessary to have a imaged vocabulary and expressions based on collocations, idioms or metaphorical constructions wich allow to set up an atmosphere related to the taught emotion (see Boch & Cavalla, 2005 ; Berdal-Masuy, 2015 ; Cavalla, 2015). Of course, it should be noted that we are not discussing of an exhaustive teaching of all these expressions. The educational objectives of the sequences are (1) the acquisition of expressions of emotions; (2) the distinction of different mood elements from expressions of emotions (« fantôme » [ghost], « avoir la chair de poule » [having goose bumps], for example); (3) improving the setting in text of emotions. The purpose of these courses is therefore to improve the learners’ use of the vocabulary of emotions - affects for the description of the emotions of the characters, during written tasks. Having this in mind, we introduced a set of vocabulary explaining fear and sadness from audio and audiovisual media, to put learners in the mood of those affects. These documents made it possible for the learners to be first aware of this emotion, as well as a reminder of their previous knowledge of the lexicon related to it. This approach is innovative as soon as the teacher takes into account the psychological aspect of the introduction of this type of lexicon into a language class. This is to encourage the learners to produce a speech by appealing to the atmosphere previously created and the feelings of their own culture. The expressions of feelings discussed in this work are of three types: (1) The lexicon of affects: « inquiétude, angoisse » [anxiety, distress] (2) The collocations: « être submergée de joie » [to be overwhelmed with joy] (Tutin et al., 2006) (3) The idioms: « il a la gorge nouée » [he felt a lump in his throat](Cavalla et al., 2005) The analysis proposed by Grossmann et al. (2006) of these three categories of expressions through literary corpus serves as a support in the present work for the creation of scenarios for the teaching of this lexicon. These experiments have creative introduction of an atmosphere around the evoked emotions: fear and sadness, we will show how students articulate learned lexicon and description of an atmosphere to detect the taught emotion. In addition, the texts produced reveal a certain creativity from the learners’ side, but also significant cultural aspects for the expression of emotions. We will attempt here to explain these phenomena in terms of the results of text analysis both quantitative aspects (statistics of use of words) and qualitative aspects (linguistic analysis of texts). A quantitative analysis of the learners’ productions at the end of the pedagogical sequences validates their achievements (see Boch & Cavalla, 2005). This analysis is summarized by the diagrams of Figures 1 and 2 and by Table 1, which synthesizes them. A qualitative analysis makes it possible to observe ease and difficulties in writing texts that effectively express the emotions studied by comparing them. This comparison allows us to address the cultural aspects inherent to this specific the lexicon of affects by comparing in particular the universal physiological manifestations and the cultural influences relating to each of the chosen emotions. We observe several metaphors that are likely to be direct translations from Mongolian into French (for example “he shouted to the world again” to express the sadness), but which are quite inappropriate to express the emotion sought in French. The use of such tropes reveals the desire for creativity that lack of linguistic knowledge cannot be accepted in French. As Iordanskaja’s (1986) work for Russian clearly shows, the metaphorical expressions describing the symptoms of emotions can vary widely from one culture to another, especially when expressions refer to social manifestations rather than to physiological manifestations. However, this variation mainly informs the cultural differences that can exist between two languages (see Wierzbicka, 1993, for a comparison between Russian and English). Considering the above, and despite cultural differences in emotional evaluation (Scherer & Brosch, 2009), the physiological manifestations of these emotions are universal (Scherer, 1986). It could therefore be easier for a learner to grasp the meaning of a metaphorical expression denoting the physical symptom of an emotion that he has already been able to experience himself and/or for which he could have seen a talking image (cold sweat, shaking like a leaf), rather than remembering an abstract sign (to feel blue) almost never use expressions involving the body. In a result, during micro-productions exercises performed during the two sequences, students spontaneously proposed free expressions intended to express the taught emotion, expressions translated directly from Mongol: they were imaged expressions that did not work in French, but whose motivation was clear. From this point of view, the lexicon of sadness, with few references to physical manifestations of emotion, could be more complex to integrate and therefore be at the root of some of the difficulties encountered by learners to use it in a proper context. In conclusion of this work, we will emphasize the importance of the setting in text to develop the expression of affects in the writing: the terms must be used in contexts that are appropriate to be interpreted correctly. Therefore, if the mastery of a minimum number of vocabulary is required, it does not seem necessary to control a large number, but rather to learnthe lexical associations of the affects studied and where and how to use it: find “the right place at the right time” - and this is especially true in writing. On the other hand, similarities and cultural differences can be an interesting subject to study in order to set up a lexicon of affects -feelings that allows learners to grasp the subtle variations of meaning. For that, the emotional frameworks proposed by Cavalla (2015), can be a powerful tool to present the atmosphere related to the lexicon of the taught emotion. Once some semantic concepts are well assimilated by the learners, it will be possible to focus on the text in order to better make them work the coherence of their writings. An effective teaching method of the lexicon of affects-feelings will have to suggest a specific educational program for each type of affect. The method will have to be able to insist more or less on the different aspects of the vocabulary: it will be important to produce sequences adapted to each affect, considering the cultural aspect of this specific lexicon, the ambiances which are culturally related, the frequency of use of this or that expression by a native speaker, the possible descriptions of physical manifestations and the more or less universal character of the concepts used, depending on the languages and cultures of the learners.
