Studies in the field of transcultural nursing in the USA and Australia have shown that bilingual nurses who work in their non-dominant language face many communication challenges. The majority of the linguistic problems they encounter are related to their inability to interpret and use language appropriately in different, authentic nursing situations. Expecting similar language barriers with regard to French as a second language for university students registered in a bilingual nursing programme in Western Canada, a language course that focused on expanding students' stylistic repertoire was developed. To inform the design of the course, an experiment was carried out to identify the linguistic resources French L2 nursing students needed to acquire in order to offer linguistically appropriate nursing care to the French-speaking patients they would treat. More specifically, the linguistic attitudes of 42 elderly patients were measured using a matched-guise experiment in an effort to determine the stylistic norm favoured in the context of nursing student--patient interactions. The results shed light on the forms favoured in the community and serve as a basis for a description of the productive communication skills expected in the target situation.