Course Work: Two coursework assignments (c.2,500 words each)
100%
Supplementary Assessment
Resit will be by resubmission of assessed work
Learning outcomes
On completion of this module, students should be able to
understand how one dialect amongst several becomes a language
read critically conventional histories of French
see how and why ideological presuppositions have influenced those histories
understand the principal tenets of variationist linguistics
Brief description
A history of French from a variationist perspective, deliberately stressing the variety which has always existed in reality, and identifying the ways in which diversity has been stifled in the life of the language, and has been camouflaged in histories of French.
Reading Lists
Books ** Recommended Background
Cerquiglini, Bernard (1993) La naissance du francais
Paris University Press
Green, John, & Ayres-Bennett, Wendy (eds) Variation and change in French: essays presented to Rebecca Posner on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday Lodge, R (1993) French: From Dialect to Standard
Routledge
Posner, Rebecca (1997) Linguistic Change in French
Oxford University Press
Parry, M M, Davies, W V, and Temple, R A M (eds) (1994) The changing voices of Europe: social and political change and their linguistic repercussions, past, present and future
University of Wales Press/MHRA