Une approche interactionniste de la grammaire: réflexions autour du codage grammatical de la référence et des topics chez l?apprenant avancé d?une L2

This paper proposes an interactionist approach to the grammatical coding of reference in a second language and its discourse functions. It argues that referential coding and its interpretation are based on three inter-related dimensions of discourse : the possibilities offered by the linguistic system, the structure of information in discourse and the socio-interactive organization of discourse activities. While the relation between the first two is at the core of dominant work on reference in native speakers' as well as second language learners' discourse, the interactional dimension has hardly been accounted for in research. This dimension is at the heart of the recently developed line of interactional linguistics advocated here.
The paper first exposes the basic principles of this approach and then presents an analysis of dislocated structures in face-to-face interactions involving advanced French learners whose first language is German. The main results are as follows: (i) left and right dislocations show a more diverse functioning than what has so far been documented in research, accomplishing namely a series of specifically interactional functions; (ii) the way advanced learners functionally use these structures and how they formally realize them does not substantially differ from what native speakers do; (iii) differences subsist as regards the frequency of occurrence of certain forms of dislocations and some pragmatic constraints on the grammatical coding of the relevant referents. This last point identifies some zones of resistance in L2 learning which mainly concern form-function mappings.