📖 ABSTRACT/OVERVIEW
Interlanguage development and its termination in fossilisation among advanced second language learners remains one of the most theoretically contested areas in second language acquisition research, with the Nigerian advanced French learner population offering a distinctive high-stakes empirical context for longitudinal investigation. This study conducts a five-year longitudinal investigation of French interlanguage development and fossilisation among a cohort of advanced Nigerian university French learners, tracking linguistic development from second undergraduate year through to postgraduate study. A longitudinal design with annual data collection points followed 45 participants from three Nigerian universities across five annual measurement occasions. Data collection methods included timed written production tasks, elicited oral narratives, grammaticality judgement tasks, and introspective think-aloud protocols. Computational analysis of longitudinal corpora used measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency, supplemented by error taxonomy coding. Dynamic systems theory analysis examined attractor state formation in individual developmental trajectories. Results confirm heterogeneous developmental pathways, with 18 participants exhibiting clear fossilisation patterns by year four characterised by stable attractor states in grammatical accuracy measures. Fossilised structures clustered around subjunctive mood, nominal gender agreement in complex noun phrases, and conditional tense formation. Participants with sustained authentic French interaction opportunities showed significantly fewer fossilised features. Dynamic systems analysis identified critical instability periods at transition between undergraduate and postgraduate study as windows of development potential. The study provides the first five-year longitudinal dataset on advanced Nigerian French interlanguage and advances a dynamic systems account of African learner fossilisation. Keywords: fossilisation, interlanguage, longitudinal study, advanced learners, dynamic systems theory
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