Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Foreword
- Foreword by His Excellency
- Part I: Contextualisations
- Part II: Research and Public Engagement Strategies
- Part III: The Place of Women and Gender in French Studies
- Part IV: The Place of Literature
- Part V: The Place of Linguistics in French Studies Today
- 12 French Linguistics Research and Teaching in UK and Irish HE Institutions
- 13 The Rise of Translation
- Part VI: Theatre, Cinema and Popular Culture
- Part VII: Area Studies, Postcolonial Studies and War and Culture Studies
- Part VIII: Adventures in Language Teaching
- Appendices. Addresses to the Future of French Studies Conference
12 - French Linguistics Research and Teaching in UK and Irish HE Institutions
from Part V: The Place of Linguistics in French Studies Today
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Foreword
- Foreword by His Excellency
- Part I: Contextualisations
- Part II: Research and Public Engagement Strategies
- Part III: The Place of Women and Gender in French Studies
- Part IV: The Place of Literature
- Part V: The Place of Linguistics in French Studies Today
- 12 French Linguistics Research and Teaching in UK and Irish HE Institutions
- 13 The Rise of Translation
- Part VI: Theatre, Cinema and Popular Culture
- Part VII: Area Studies, Postcolonial Studies and War and Culture Studies
- Part VIII: Adventures in Language Teaching
- Appendices. Addresses to the Future of French Studies Conference
Summary
Introduction
The research and teaching of French linguistics in UK higher education (HE) institutions have a venerable history; a number of universities have traditionally offered philology or history of the language courses, which complement literary study. A deeper understanding of the way that the phonology, syntax and semantics of the French language have evolved gives students linguistic insights that dovetail with their study of the Roman de Renart, Rabelais, Racine or the nouveau roman. There was, in the past, some coverage of contemporary French phonetics but little on sociolinguistic issues. More recently, new areas of research and teaching have been developed, with a particular focus on contemporary spoken French and on sociolinguistics. Well supported by funding councils, UK researchers are also making an important contribution in other areas: phonetics and phonology, syntax, pragmatics and second-language acquisition. A fair proportion of French linguistics research occurs outside French sections in psychology or applied linguistics departments. In addition, the UK plays a particular role in bringing together European and North American intellectual traditions and methodologies and in promoting the internationalisation of French linguistics research through the strength of its subject associations, and that of the Journal of French Language Studies. The following sections treat each of these areas in turn.
History of the French Language
There is a long and distinguished tradition in Britain of teaching and research on the history of the French language, particularly, but by no means exclusively, at the universities of Cambridge, Manchester and Oxford. Since at least the 1930s, British scholars have produced general single-volume histories of the language, which are excellent examples of research-informed works, which serve undergraduates and more advanced researchers alike; examples include Ewert, Price, Rickard and Posner. These have been complemented by collections of texts, typically with commentaries, which illustrate the language at various points of its history; some, such as Studer and Waters, or Rickard, focus on a particular period or century of the language's development, showing the diversity of its uses and its expansion into new domains, others, such as Ayres-Bennett, A History of the French Language through Texts, aim to trace the history of the language from the earliest extant texts to the present day.
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- French Studies in and for the 21st Century , pp. 141 - 154Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011