Sandrine Zufferey
Biographic Data
| ID | 1064070 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sandrine Zufferey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sandrine |
| FAMILY NAME | Zufferey |
| SIGNATURE | ZUFFEREY S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bern |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5403-6709 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 87 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Modulating Politeness in Criticism and Responses to Criticism
We present results from a qualitative analysis illustrating how people handle criticism in a workplace environment, including both the production of and responses to criticism. Our data comes from responses provided by 80 participants in a written Discourse Completion Task (DCT) in French. In the scenarios, relative power (equal vs. hierarchical) and social distance (close vs. distant) were manipulated. Our analysis focuses on three recurrent pat…
Connectives in French
The study of French connectives has undergone significant evolution since the 1970s, with foundational research paving the way for the development of key concepts in discourse and pragmatics. This contribution provides an in‐depth examination of various French connectives, focusing on their linguistic functions, syntactic behaviors, and cross‐linguistic comparisons. It highlights the distinction between objective and subjective discourse relation…
Troubles-talk
In everyday communication, criticisms are important and commonly occurring face-threatening acts. In this paper, we investigate the way people deal with criticisms by conducting two experiments in French involving the production of, and response to, criticisms using a written Discourse Completion Test. In each experiment, we presented participants with scenarios in which we manipulated power relations (equal vs. hierarchical) and horizontal socia…
[Droit de réponse] Comprendre la recherche expérimentale sur le genre grammatical
Pragmatic and syntactic constraints on French causal connectives
When writing a text, the choice between seemingly equivalent connectives, such as but and however, is not arbitrary: aside from preferences linked to the register or modality of the utterance, there are often pragmatic or syntactic constraints that limit the choice to only one particular connective. For French, theoretical approaches have extensively discussed the syntactic and pragmatic constraints that allow only either parce que (‘because’) or…
Vocabulary size and exposure to print predict mastery of connectives in teenage years
Connectives such as because and but are crucial for signaling coherence relations in discourse. They contribute to a better reading comprehension and, thus, academic performance. The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of connective development during teenage years by studying individual differences in the performance of native Russian-speaking teenagers (N = 107, M age = 13.93, range: 11 to 17) in a connective-cloze task. T…
Individual Variations in the Mastery of Discourse Connectives from Teenage Years to Adulthood
Many connectives, such as therefore and however , are used very frequently in the written modality. Their acquisition thus represents an important milestone in developing written language competences. In this article, we assess the development of competence with such connectives by native French speakers in a sentence‐level insertion task ( N = 307, aged 12 to 64) and a text‐level insertion task ( N = 172, aged 13 to 71). Our results indicate tha…
The Linguistic Formulation of Fallacies Matters
While the role of discourse connectives has long been acknowledged in argumentative frameworks, these approaches often take a coarse-grained approach to connectives, treating them as a unified group having similar effects on argumentation. Based on an empirical study of the straw man fallacy, we argue that a more fine-grained approach is needed to explain the role of each connective and illustrate their specificities. We first present an original…
Roger Broke His Tooth. However , He Went to the Dentist”
Understanding discourse connectives is an important step to achieving effective verbal communication. Yet, the ability of adult native speakers to understand the broad range of connectives found in most Indo-European languages has seldom been assessed. In this article we demonstrate that some adults have difficulties recognizing correct and incorrect uses of connectives in their native language. In Experiment 1 we show that adults have a lower ab…
Second Language Acquisition and the Mastery of Discourse Connectives
Even though the mastery of discourse connectives represents an important step toward reaching high language proficiency, it remains highly difficult for L2-learners to master them. We conducted an experiment in which we tested the mastery of 12 monofunctional French connectives conveying six different coherence relations by 151 German-speaking learners of French, as well as a control group of 63 native French speakers. Our results show that the c…
Do teenagers know how to use connectives from the written mode
What makes a straw man acceptable? Three experiments assessing linguistic factors
The linguistic marking of coherence relations
Connectives and cue phrases are the most prototypical linguistic elements that signal coherence relations, but by limiting our attention to connectives, we are likely missing out on important other cues readers and listeners use when establishing coherence relations. However, defining the role of other types of linguistic elements in the signaling of coherence relations is not straightforward, and it is also not obvious why and how non-connective…
Methodological issues in the use of directional parallel corpora
The recent emergence of large parallel corpora has represented a leap ahead for cross-linguistic and translation studies. However, the specificities of these corpora and their influence on the nature of observed linguistic phenomena remain underexplored, especially in the field of contrastive linguistics. In this study, we compare the translation equivalences of four concessive adverbial connectives in English and in French across three corpora v…
Cognitive complexity and the linguistic marking of coherence relations
French Connectives
An overview is given of pioneering work in the field of French connectives. Among the seminal notions and distinctions introduced in descriptive studies of French connectives are (1) the distinction between objective and subjective readings of causal relations; (2) the notion of procedural meaning of connectives; and (3) language‐specific semantic distributions of connectives. The entry closes with discussion of the ongoing LEXCONN project, which…
The Role of Perspective Shifts for Processing and Translating Discourse Relations
Previous research has suggested that some discourse relations are easier to convey implicitly than others due to cognitive biases in the interpretation of discourse. In this article we argue that relations involving a perspective shift, such as confirmation relations, are difficult to convey implicitly. We assess this claim with two empirical studies involving the ambiguous French connective en effet, which can either convey a causal relation or …
Advanced learners’ comprehension of discourse connectives
Discourse connectives are important indicators of textual coherence, and mastering them is an essential part of acquiring a language. In this article, we compare advanced learners’ sensitivity to the meaning conveyed by connectives in an off-line grammaticality judgment task and an on-line reading experiment using eye-tracking. We also assess the influence of first language (L1) transfer by comparing learners’ comprehension of two non-native-like…
Givenness, procedural meaning and connectives. The case of French puisque
"Car, parce que, puisque" revisited
"Car, parce que, puisque" revisited
Cognitive complexity and the linguistic marking of coherence relations
Advanced learners’ comprehension of discourse connectives
Discourse connectives are important indicators of textual coherence, and mastering them is an essential part of acquiring a language. In this article, we compare advanced learners’ sensitivity to the meaning conveyed by connectives in an off-line grammaticality judgment task and an on-line reading experiment using eye-tracking. We also assess the influence of first language (L1) transfer by comparing learners’ comprehension of two non-native-like…
Roger Broke His Tooth. However , He Went to the Dentist”
Understanding discourse connectives is an important step to achieving effective verbal communication. Yet, the ability of adult native speakers to understand the broad range of connectives found in most Indo-European languages has seldom been assessed. In this article we demonstrate that some adults have difficulties recognizing correct and incorrect uses of connectives in their native language. In Experiment 1 we show that adults have a lower ab…
Givenness, procedural meaning and connectives. The case of French puisque
Second Language Acquisition and the Mastery of Discourse Connectives
Even though the mastery of discourse connectives represents an important step toward reaching high language proficiency, it remains highly difficult for L2-learners to master them. We conducted an experiment in which we tested the mastery of 12 monofunctional French connectives conveying six different coherence relations by 151 German-speaking learners of French, as well as a control group of 63 native French speakers. Our results show that the c…
What makes a straw man acceptable? Three experiments assessing linguistic factors
The Role of Perspective Shifts for Processing and Translating Discourse Relations
Previous research has suggested that some discourse relations are easier to convey implicitly than others due to cognitive biases in the interpretation of discourse. In this article we argue that relations involving a perspective shift, such as confirmation relations, are difficult to convey implicitly. We assess this claim with two empirical studies involving the ambiguous French connective en effet, which can either convey a causal relation or …
Do teenagers know how to use connectives from the written mode
Individual Variations in the Mastery of Discourse Connectives from Teenage Years to Adulthood
Many connectives, such as therefore and however , are used very frequently in the written modality. Their acquisition thus represents an important milestone in developing written language competences. In this article, we assess the development of competence with such connectives by native French speakers in a sentence‐level insertion task ( N = 307, aged 12 to 64) and a text‐level insertion task ( N = 172, aged 13 to 71). Our results indicate tha…
Methodological issues in the use of directional parallel corpora
The recent emergence of large parallel corpora has represented a leap ahead for cross-linguistic and translation studies. However, the specificities of these corpora and their influence on the nature of observed linguistic phenomena remain underexplored, especially in the field of contrastive linguistics. In this study, we compare the translation equivalences of four concessive adverbial connectives in English and in French across three corpora v…
"Car, parce que, puisque" revisited
Givenness, procedural meaning and connectives. The case of French puisque
Advanced learners’ comprehension of discourse connectives
Discourse connectives are important indicators of textual coherence, and mastering them is an essential part of acquiring a language. In this article, we compare advanced learners’ sensitivity to the meaning conveyed by connectives in an off-line grammaticality judgment task and an on-line reading experiment using eye-tracking. We also assess the influence of first language (L1) transfer by comparing learners’ comprehension of two non-native-like…
French Connectives
An overview is given of pioneering work in the field of French connectives. Among the seminal notions and distinctions introduced in descriptive studies of French connectives are (1) the distinction between objective and subjective readings of causal relations; (2) the notion of procedural meaning of connectives; and (3) language‐specific semantic distributions of connectives. The entry closes with discussion of the ongoing LEXCONN project, which…
The Role of Perspective Shifts for Processing and Translating Discourse Relations
Previous research has suggested that some discourse relations are easier to convey implicitly than others due to cognitive biases in the interpretation of discourse. In this article we argue that relations involving a perspective shift, such as confirmation relations, are difficult to convey implicitly. We assess this claim with two empirical studies involving the ambiguous French connective en effet, which can either convey a causal relation or …
Methodological issues in the use of directional parallel corpora
The recent emergence of large parallel corpora has represented a leap ahead for cross-linguistic and translation studies. However, the specificities of these corpora and their influence on the nature of observed linguistic phenomena remain underexplored, especially in the field of contrastive linguistics. In this study, we compare the translation equivalences of four concessive adverbial connectives in English and in French across three corpora v…
Cognitive complexity and the linguistic marking of coherence relations
The linguistic marking of coherence relations
Connectives and cue phrases are the most prototypical linguistic elements that signal coherence relations, but by limiting our attention to connectives, we are likely missing out on important other cues readers and listeners use when establishing coherence relations. However, defining the role of other types of linguistic elements in the signaling of coherence relations is not straightforward, and it is also not obvious why and how non-connective…
What makes a straw man acceptable? Three experiments assessing linguistic factors
Roger Broke His Tooth. However , He Went to the Dentist”
Understanding discourse connectives is an important step to achieving effective verbal communication. Yet, the ability of adult native speakers to understand the broad range of connectives found in most Indo-European languages has seldom been assessed. In this article we demonstrate that some adults have difficulties recognizing correct and incorrect uses of connectives in their native language. In Experiment 1 we show that adults have a lower ab…
Second Language Acquisition and the Mastery of Discourse Connectives
Even though the mastery of discourse connectives represents an important step toward reaching high language proficiency, it remains highly difficult for L2-learners to master them. We conducted an experiment in which we tested the mastery of 12 monofunctional French connectives conveying six different coherence relations by 151 German-speaking learners of French, as well as a control group of 63 native French speakers. Our results show that the c…
Do teenagers know how to use connectives from the written mode
The Linguistic Formulation of Fallacies Matters
While the role of discourse connectives has long been acknowledged in argumentative frameworks, these approaches often take a coarse-grained approach to connectives, treating them as a unified group having similar effects on argumentation. Based on an empirical study of the straw man fallacy, we argue that a more fine-grained approach is needed to explain the role of each connective and illustrate their specificities. We first present an original…
Individual Variations in the Mastery of Discourse Connectives from Teenage Years to Adulthood
Many connectives, such as therefore and however , are used very frequently in the written modality. Their acquisition thus represents an important milestone in developing written language competences. In this article, we assess the development of competence with such connectives by native French speakers in a sentence‐level insertion task ( N = 307, aged 12 to 64) and a text‐level insertion task ( N = 172, aged 13 to 71). Our results indicate tha…
Pragmatic and syntactic constraints on French causal connectives
When writing a text, the choice between seemingly equivalent connectives, such as but and however, is not arbitrary: aside from preferences linked to the register or modality of the utterance, there are often pragmatic or syntactic constraints that limit the choice to only one particular connective. For French, theoretical approaches have extensively discussed the syntactic and pragmatic constraints that allow only either parce que (‘because’) or…
Vocabulary size and exposure to print predict mastery of connectives in teenage years
Connectives such as because and but are crucial for signaling coherence relations in discourse. They contribute to a better reading comprehension and, thus, academic performance. The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of connective development during teenage years by studying individual differences in the performance of native Russian-speaking teenagers (N = 107, M age = 13.93, range: 11 to 17) in a connective-cloze task. T…
[Droit de réponse] Comprendre la recherche expérimentale sur le genre grammatical
Connectives in French
The study of French connectives has undergone significant evolution since the 1970s, with foundational research paving the way for the development of key concepts in discourse and pragmatics. This contribution provides an in‐depth examination of various French connectives, focusing on their linguistic functions, syntactic behaviors, and cross‐linguistic comparisons. It highlights the distinction between objective and subjective discourse relation…
Troubles-talk
In everyday communication, criticisms are important and commonly occurring face-threatening acts. In this paper, we investigate the way people deal with criticisms by conducting two experiments in French involving the production of, and response to, criticisms using a written Discourse Completion Test. In each experiment, we presented participants with scenarios in which we manipulated power relations (equal vs. hierarchical) and horizontal socia…
Modulating Politeness in Criticism and Responses to Criticism
We present results from a qualitative analysis illustrating how people handle criticism in a workplace environment, including both the production of and responses to criticism. Our data comes from responses provided by 80 participants in a written Discourse Completion Task (DCT) in French. In the scenarios, relative power (equal vs. hierarchical) and social distance (close vs. distant) were manipulated. Our analysis focuses on three recurrent pat…
Linguistics (17 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (8 works) · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism (8 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (6 works) · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works)