Faculty of Modern Languages French/Romance Studies – Bachelor 25%

The Bachelor’s degree programme in French with a weighting of 25% encompasses the following areas: 

Literary studies

French literary studies considers French and francophone literature, theatre and film. Texts of all genres, and from various periods; from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first  century, along with theatre productions and film adaptations of literary works, are considered. There is a particular focus on the following areas: 

• literature and cultural history 
• literary theory and poetry 
• literary genres (i.e. the three major genres; the epic, drama and poetry) 

Linguistics

• the transition from Latin to a Romance language and the development of French 
• the history and spread of the French language 
• French language contact and French in francophone countries 
• analysis of the French language system (morphology, lexic, grammar, phonetics/phonology) 
• language and society, language variation and varieties of French 
• contemporary French 
• media and discourse analysis 
• language standardisation, language policy and language criticism 
• linguistic theories and methods 

Cultural studies

• analysis of cultural phenomena in the French-speaking world; from artistic expression (e.g. film) to popular culture (e.g. fashion), both in the past and in the present day 
• analysis of public discourses and their presentation in the media 
• analysis of the relationships between culture and power (e.g cultural inheritance, mass media) 
• theories and methods of cultural analysis (e.g. performance, construction of space) and comparative cultural analysis (e.g. intercultural and transcultural approaches) 
• interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches 
• postcolonial theories 

Language practice

French language courses are designed to enable students to: 

• speak and write correctly and fluently 
• understand complex contemporary texts (novels, newspapers, academic texts etc.), films, radio and television programmes, song lyrics etc. 
• reflect on and discuss, both orally and in written form, aspects of French society, literary works and linguistic phenomena 
• master and make accurate and differentiated use of grammatical structures, in particular in the area of French syntax 
• recognise and distinguish between different registers (formal, informal, official French) 
• translate texts of all types into French (i.e. literary, academic, journalistic texts) 

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