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open access

An Age-based Etic Analysis of Orthographic Variation in Computer-mediated French Discourse

Description: This study examines orthographic variation in synchronous computer-mediated French discourse. All nontraditional variations of selected frequently occuring items are quantified in order to provide an etic (i.e., from an external perspective) analysis. The primary variable of interest is age since this study focuses on providing a comparison of chat participants in their twenties versus those in their fifties. The widespread claim is that younger people communicate using more informal and/or non… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Kharrat, Laila Kiblawi
open access

A Case Study of Tu and Vous Use in the French Dubbing and Subtitling in an American Film

Description: Translation and subtitling has always been a complicated dimension of the motion picture industry for years. The problem of dealing with linguistic elements in films and conveying them to audiences of different languages across the globe encompasses many difficulties regarding forms and structures of other languages. One of the more highly researched topics in French linguistic studies has been the use of address pronouns and a range of aspects related to their use and interpretation. Many stud… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Reed, Sarah
open access

A Comparative Analysis of Web-based Machine Translation Quality: English to French and French to English

Description: This study offers a partial reduplication of a 2006 study by Williams, which focused primarily on the analysis of the quality of translation produced by online software, namely Yahoo!® Babelfish, Freetranslation.com, and Google Translate. Since the data for the study by Williams were collected in 2004 and the data for present study in 2012, this gives a lapse of eight years for a diachronic analysis of the differences in quality of the translations provided by these online services. At the time… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Barnhart, Zachary
open access

Daughters of the King and Founders of a Nation: Les Filles du Roi in New France

Description: The late seventeenth century was a crucial era in establishing territorial claims on the North American continent. In order to strengthen France's hold on the Quebec colony, Louis XIV sent 770 women across the Atlantic at royal expense in order to populate New France. Since that time, these women known as the filles du roi, have often been reduced to a footnote in history books, or else mistakenly slandered as women of questionable morals. This work seeks to clearly identify the filles du roi t… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Runyan, Aimie Kathleen
open access

L'emploi variable des signes diacritiques dans le français tchaté : une étude variationniste en temps apparent .

Description: After providing an historical overview of the French spelling system and orthographic variation, this study analyzes selected internal (i.e., linguistic) factors and one external (i.e., social) factor that can influence the use of diacritics in online French-language chat sessions. From a corpus of synchronous computer-mediated communication, 3,855 tokens of graphemes capable of bearing diacritics were coded with the following scheme: Letter, Diacritic, Grapheme (i.e., Letter and Diacritic comb… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Al-Rashdan, Omar
open access

Étude Comparative De Messages Publicitaires Anglophones Et Francophones À La Lumière D'éléments Culturels [Comparative Study of English and French Advertisements Through a Cultural Lens]

Description: This thesis aims to demonstrate the crucial role of cultural aspects such as attitudes, values, social common places, and expectations in the international advertising industry. Through the analysis of written advertisements used in the United States and France, general trends regarding various commercial sectors and products (automobiles, electronics, cosmetics, and so forth) are highlighted and explored. From a linguistic perspective, the purpose of this thesis is not only to observe the sema… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Tison, Jean-Bernard
open access

Etude Comparative Et Intertextuelle Sur Le Thème Des “Fenêtres” Dans Quatre Poèmes De Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Marie Krysinska Et Guillaume Apollinaire.

Description: Written in French, this thesis presents a comparative and intertextual study on the theme of « windows » in four poems by Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Marie Krysinska and Guillaume Apollinaire. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), Stéphane Mallarmé (1842 -1898), Marie Krysinska (1857-1908) and Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) use « windows » as a common theme in their poetry. My study compares this common theme found in four poems: (1) “Les fenêtres” by Charles Baudelaire in Spleen de Pa… more
Date: December 2011
Creator: Opsitch, Yann
open access

France and the United States: Borrowed and Shared National Symbols

Description: This thesis analyzes and demonstrates the similarities and differences between some of the national symbols of France and the United States. This includes the shared and borrowed aspects of each one and the ways in which each culture is reflected through, and built around them. The flags, national anthems, and several national icons such as France's Marianne and Uncle Sam are discussed. This analysis deals with the historical contexts and cultural meanings of the symbols, showing the changes ea… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Crawford, Katlyn Marie
open access

The Great Rivalry: The Planning Legacies of London and Paris in the Modern Era

Description: This thesis seeks to examine the respective histories of London and Paris, two of the most influential and iconic cities in the world, in order to better understand how each respectively developed and their impact upon modern urban planning. Comparisons are made between, not only the history, but also the noble classes and gentry, religions, and cultural values which influenced the development of each capital city. Additionally, this thesis also seeks to explore how the development of Paris can… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Wilson, Aubrae N.
open access

Integrating Online Discussion Forums into the Foreign Language Curriculum: A Case Study of Advanced Learners of French

Description: This exploratory case study aims to develop a set of best practices for integrating online discussion forums into the foreign language curriculum, focusing specifically on a group of learners in an advanced French grammar course at a large, public U.S. university. During a period of two months, 26 participants completed a series of tasks designed to provide three different types of data: 1) exploration and analysis of interactional, linguistic, and social features of Web forum discourse; 2) par… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Mbuye, Kanku Lisette
open access

Mosques in France: The Visible Presence of Islam

Description: Numerous laws are being directed toward subduing the visible presence of Islam throughout France, and in return French Muslims are becoming bolder in the projection of their faith. This thesis examines the presence of Islam in France throughout history and in contemporary French civilization. Specifically, this thesis addresses the issues regarding the visible presence of Islam in France through such institutions as mosques and how they are the key symbols representing the prominence of Islam i… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Arnold, Ashley Patricia
open access

The Passage of the Comic Book to the Animated Film: The Case of the Smurfs

Description: The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of history and culture on the passage of the comic book to the animated film. Although the comic book has both historical and cultural components, the latter often undergoes a cultural shift in the animation process. Using the Smurfs as a case study, this investigation first reviews existing literature pertaining to the comic book as an art form, the influence of history and culture on Smurf story plots, and the translation of the comic book… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Baldwin, Frances Novier
open access

Présentations de la Grammaire et Représentations du Discours Dans les Manuels de Français Publiés aux États-Unis: une Étude Diachronique

Description: This study partially replicates and re-explores specific dimensions of a textbook analysis of the presentation and use of specific grammatical elements and sociolinguistic variants in textbooks published in the United States for learners of French. Authenticity is situated as a central construct in the analysis of interrogatives, relative pronouns, and the negative particle ne in selected textbooks and ancillary materials. The findings reveal that little progress has been made over the past twe… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Grall, Christophe
open access

Remembering and Narrating in Borges’ “Funes the Memorious” and Camus’ the Stranger

Description: In The Stranger, a novel by Albert Camus, and in “Funes the Memorious,” a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, the homodiegetic narrators have a significant effect on the referential aspect of their personal experiences. Chronologically these remembered experiences are positioned before the moment when they are narrated. The act of remembering is thus a form of subsequent narration. In both texts, memory is a project rather than an object because it is recounted and not found. In the sense that it… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Stroud, Carl Eugene
open access

Same-Sex Parent Families in France: Past, Present, and Future

Description: This thesis contains four chapters. The first chapter gives an overview of the current situation concerning same-sex parent families in France. This involves discussions of the PACS (Pacte civil de solidarité), adoption, and marriage, as well as the societal influences that caused the massive negative response to the Taubira law. The second chapter goes into more detail concerning portrayals of homosexuality in French media throughout the years. There is a focus, however, on one of the earliest… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Griffin, Janna Lee
open access

Tâches d'apprentissage et langues étrangères: analyse et application en classe de FLE de niveau secondaire

Description: Teaching a foreign language using task-based language teaching (TBLT) has garnered a lot of attention and has been the object of worldwide scientific studies for the last thirty years. Few of these studies, however, include an evaluation of this method by the teachers themselves, or are conducted by them directly. My thesis, centered around the notion of task-based language learning, a teaching method recommended more and more though sometimes still snubbed, relies on my professional experience… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Sessions, Gwenola Jane
open access

The Variable use of ne in Negative Structures: An Apparent-Time Variationist Study of Synchronous Electronic French Discourse

Description: This study of the variable use of ne in synchronous electronic French discourse follows the methodological guidelines and the theoretical framework proposed and subsequently elaborated by Labov for analyzing variable features of language. This thesis provides a quantitative variable rule (i.e., VARBRUL) analysis including age as a factor group (i.e., independent variable), thereby making a new contribution to this area of inquiry. The data (50,000 words from the vingtaine 'twentysomething' chan… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Gould, Rebecca J.
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