FR1114 Decoding France: Language, Culture, Identity

Terms 1-2

Convenor: Professor Ruth Harvey

Assessment:

Coursework:

Commentary (30%) 1200-1500w.

Essay (60%) 1500-2000w.

Moodle tests (10%)

Formative piece (0%)

Overview:

Language is not neutral. It contains values, beliefs and norms. Starting from this premise, this course explores the links between language, culture and identity in French and francophone societies. We will discover how language has historically been a powerful tool in the formation of a national and republican identity, as well the various forms of domination and exclusion that have accompanied this process. A key focus of the course will be the central importance of received linguistic and cultural norms in French society and culture, their aspiration to dominance, and the many challenges posed by forms of difference (linguistic, cultural, racial, regional).  

The course will be organized around four main blocks. Each of them will focus on a particular myth or sets of norms embedded in the use of language.

    French: the language of disability?

Focusing on Jean-Dominque Bauby's Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (1997), this block interrogates the way in which French language relates to normative notions of beauty, health and disability.

    ‘Le français et le bon usage’

This block looks at why one small dialect rose to become the language of the French nation, what have been the consequences for other languages, for other forms of speech, and how questions of identity can become bound up with ideas of correctness, status and even legislation. These issues will be discussed through the analysis of extracts and chapters indicated on Moodle.

Defending French: Vocabulary and Identity (Prof R Harvey)
This part of the course examiners norms and the myth of purity by examining France's reactions to the use of English words, comparing legislation against it and the creativity of language users.

       French: the language of resistance or collaboration?

This block explores how the French language was used as a tool of power and propaganda during WW2. The block shows how both the anti-semitic ideology of Vichy and the universalist resistance message of De Gaulle employed in different ways a traditional French vocabulary of liberation and of saving the Nation.

Key bibliography:

 Jean-Dominque Bauby, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon

(1997).

Students are free to use the edition of their choice. The recommended edition is available on Kindle via Amazon (£8.49):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scaphandre-papillon-French-DOMINIQUE-BAUBY-ebook/dp/B0063DEOKU/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1410333456

Recommended Further Reading

Claire Kramsch, Language and Culture (OUP, 1998)

D. Ager, Identity, Insecurity and Image. France and Language (Clevedon, 1999)

Kristin Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture (MIT, 1992)

Valerie Holman and Debra Kelley, France at War in the Twentieth Century: Myth, Metaphor and Propaganda (Berghahn, 2000)

Max Gallo, L'âme de la France: Une histoire de la Nation des origines à nos jours (Fayard, 2007)

Jill Forbes & Michael Kelly (eds), French Cultural Studies: an introduction (OUP, 1995)