In this panoramic study, Freeman Henry chronicles the rise to prominence of French language and culture. He meticulously analyzes the protracted government-sponsored efforts to foster and maintain that status and--ultimately--the latter-day challenges to France's national linguistic identity posed by Anglocentric globalization and a multicentric European Union. The internal history of the language is closely intertwined with its external history: phonology, morphology, lexicography, and orthography come alive against a backdrop of political, cultural, and institutional manifestations. A felicitous blend of documentary evidence and critical analysis serves to elucidate crucial stages, events, and concepts: 16th-century exuberance, 17th-century foundations, 18th-century expansionism, Revolutionary ideology. Restoration restructuring and commercialization, the advent of linguistic science, the coming of the media age, encroaching technocracy, and clamors for linguistic parity. Individual chapter focus on the plight of minority linguistic communities such as the blind and the deaf, language monitoring policies and legislation such as the Loi Toubon, as well as the feminization project legitimizing Madame la ministre. --Publisher description.

"This book offers a multidisciplinary approach to the consideration of aspects of Europe's linguistic and cultural heritage. The ten contributions explore the relationship between language, culture and modern communication, either taking Europe as a whole or looking at specific countries. The authors' backgrounds and expertise span a number of disciplines, from linguistics, sociolinguistics and translation studies to information technology and cultural studies."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A study of the attempt by French politicians to use the law to forbid the use of words of English and American origin. Classifies some of these words and lists expressions in current use in America and England which are particularly difficult to render in French, comparing these with some equally untranslatable French turns of speech.

This volume offers perspective on modern French society and culture through thematic chapters on topics ranging from geography to popular culture. Ideal for students and general readers, this book includes insightful, current information about France's past, present, and future. France is the country most visited by international tourists. Aside from clichéd images of baguettes and the Eiffel Tower, however, what is French society and culture really like? Modern France is organized into thematic chapters covering the full range of French history and contemporary daily life. Chapter topics include: geography; history; government and politics; economy; religion and thought; social classes and ethnicity; gender, marriage, and sexuality; education; language; etiquette; literature and drama; art and architecture; music and dance; food; leisure and sports; and media and popular culture. Each chapter contains an overview of the topic and alphabetized entries on examples of each theme. A detailed historical timeline covers prehistoric times to the presidency of Emmanuel Macron. Special appendices offer profiles of a typical day in the life of representative members of French society, a glossary, key facts and figures about France, and a holiday chart. The volume will be useful for readers looking for specific topical information and for those who want to develop an informed perspective on aspects of modern France.

An international team of scholars contribute over 700 entries on contemporary French culture that range from Art, Gender, Politics and Literature to Media and the Economy. It is a vital companion for anyone interested in the culture of modern France.

This book examines policy planning and implementation and language variation in the realm of intercultural communication in France, Europe, the Americas, Australia, North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. The book aims to discern trends in the development of the capacity of Francophone speakers to engage in dialogue across linguistic boundaries. Each study in the volume seeks to evaluate and analyse the antagonistic situations that have resulted from colonial culture and the post-independence hegemonic cultures. These situations are investigated through their expression in the French language and the languages with which it coexists in the countries considered here. The expertise of linguists and language specialists in this volume provides formalist and structural insights and an innovative phenomenology of language and newly available quantitative and qualitative studies of synchronic language. These methodologies are applied to a wide range of subject areas: law, history, literature, politics and society. Taken as a whole the book offers a fresh perspective on the issues surrounding French within and beyond France in the post-colonial and Francophone contexts.

This book offers a new perspective on the cultural politics of the Napoleonic Empire by exploring the issue of language within four pivotal institutions - the school, the army, the courtroom and the church. Based on wide-ranging research in archival and published sources, Stewart McCain demonstrates that the Napoleonic State was in reality fractured by disagreements over how best to govern a population characterized by enormous linguistic diversity. Napoleonic officials were not simply cultural imperialists; many acted as culture-brokers, emphasizing their familiarity with the local language to secure employment with the state, and pointing to linguistic and cultural particularism to justify departures from which what others might have considered desirable practice by the regime. This book will be of interest to scholars of the Napoleonic Empire, and of European state-building and nationalisms.