Étude contrastive entre le conditionnel du français et son expression en vietnamien

Abstract

The subtleties inherent in the uses and values of the conditional pose significant challenges for Vietnamese learners
of French as a Foreign Language (FLE). Thus, it is essential to understand the common traits of the conditional and explore their
equivalents in the learners’ native language. This study presents a contrastive analysis aimed at exploring the nuances of the French
conditional and identifying its Vietnamese equivalents, based on the corpus of Honoré de Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet. The authors focus on determining the underlying values of the French conditional, operating on the premise that its various uses are based on common modal and temporal values. Analyzing 262 occurrences of the conditional in the corpus reveals a predominance of the imaginative value, followed by eventuality and attenuation values, with the prospective value being less frequent. Regarding the expression of the conditional in Vietnamese, the language primarily relies on context to convey modal and temporal values, although lexical markers are also used in some instances. This research provides a comprehensive understanding of the different temporal and modal values of the French conditional and the methods for rendering them in Vietnamese. Additionally, it offers valuable insights for teaching the conditional in FLE to Vietnamese learners.