LE LANGAGE PREFABRIQUE EN FRANÇAIS L2: ETUDE ACQUISITIONNELLE ET COMPARATIVE [PREFABRICATED LANGUAGE IN L2 FRENCH: AN ACQUISITIONAL AND COMPARATIVE STUDY].Fanny Forsberg. Stockholm: Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of French, Italian and Classical Languages, 2006. Pp. iv + 183 + CD-ROM. Available for free download at http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-1347.

In this dissertation, Forsberg describes the acquisition of formulaic sequences (séquences préfabriquées or “prefabs”) among Swedish learners of French ranging from beginners to near-native speakers. After a detailed discussion of existing models, Forsberg gives her own definition of prefabs, one that is contextually based and accommodates second language (L2) learners. She adopts and extends Erman and Warren's (2000) model for her own study using six categories: lexical (coup de foudre “love at first sight,” c'est la vie “that's life”), grammatical (être en train de “to be in the process of”), discursive (textual: c'est “it is,” il y a “there is”; own speech management: je pense “I think”; and interactive: bien sûr “of course”), interlanguage or “idiosyncratic” (ils n'ont pas la morale “they aren't in good spirits”), and situational (je m'appelle “my name is”). Interview materials from the Stockholm-based French learner corpus InterFra as well as materials collected by the author for very advanced and native-speaker groups are used for the study. There are four groups: (a) six high school students; (b) six university-level beginners; (c) six very advanced learners, most of whom have spent several years in Paris; and (d) six native speakers.