The contextualization of French grammatical description in grammar books published in China: the case of the article.

Summary The present research is situated in the Chinese context of teaching-learning French as a foreign language. More specifically, it concerns the French article, the use of which constitutes an obstacle that Chinese-speaking learners face in their learning of French. The "rules" produced by Chinese learners in a pre-survey led us to question the grammatical descriptions of the French article that informed these learners. These descriptions, proposed by local teachers, seem to take variable forms in relation to the reference description of the French article written by the French-speaking authors. These forms of variation are called contextualization (DILTEC, 2011), which refers to a set of adaptive gestures, performed by teachers according to the educational and metalinguistic cultures of their audience. The study examines the grammatical descriptions of the French article in nineteen French grammar books written by Chinese authors and published in China. The analysis focuses on how local authors adapt the reference descriptions according to the knowledge available to Chinese learners. The data analyzed allow us to identify eleven modalities of contextualization, based on the linguistic repertoire and the educational and metalinguistic cultures of the learners. This research leads to critical reflections and proposals for improvement by testing the contextualized descriptions against the linguistic descriptions and representations of Chinese learners on the French article.