French literature, Recommended Reading

Candide App-eal

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The enlightenment philosophe, Voltaire, and his riotously entertaining, very accessible philosophical satire, Candide, are topics this blog will be getting around to discussing in the near future. In the meantime, the Voltaire Foundation, a research institute that forms part of Oxford University, have been working on an app, available for free on iTunes, and they would like to tell you a little about it…

Capture d’écran iPad 1

posted by Clare Fletcher of the Voltaire Foundation

The Candide app for iPad brings the most famous of Voltaire’s tales to life. There’s more to the work than writing on a page.

As you read the Voltaire Foundations’ edition of Candide, you can look across the screen to discover a 1758 manuscript of the work. By looking at the handwriting, you can almost hear Voltaire’s voice dictating the tale to his secretary, Wagnière. Sometimes you can even glimpse moments when Voltaire himself intervenes with the draft – adding to, crossing out, and correcting his secretary’s writing. In Chapter 1, Voltaire introduces the character Pangloss, as a teacher of “la métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie”. In the manuscript, we can see that Voltaire changed his mind, having first tried “métaphisico-theolo-cosmolo-méologie”, then altering the last word to “mattologie”. You can actually catch Voltaire in the process of inventing a new word. It is as if we can spy on Voltaire as he writes.

 

Not only can you read Candide for yourself, you can now listen to actor Denis Podalydès’ lively telling of the tale. Thanks to his reading we enjoy moments of Voltaire’s characteristic humour and irony, that can be missed when reading alone.

If you ever get lost in the story (it is a bit of a whirlwind adventure!) or want to explore aspects more deeply, with just a click you can look up characters, places, concepts, and historical facts. The section of the app called ‘Le Monde’ enables you to track the characters’ routes across the world as you read. You can zoom in on locations to discover more about life in, say, Buenos Aires and Venice in the 18th century. A much more exciting and enlightening version of Google Maps!

 

Another section of the app is ‘Le Jardin’, where you give your take on Voltaire’s work. You can create your own workbook of information and interpretations in the form of a ‘tree’ and look at those of others. This is really handy if you want to study Candide with your class as you can all contribute and share ideas in the ‘garden’. All this might sound a bit out-there, but take a look at the app and you’ll understand!

 

The app is really worth a download. Voltaire’s tale comes into its own in digitised form. With the Candide app, you can accompany Candide on his adventure across the globe at whatever speed you like.

Capture d’écran iPad 4

 

French language

Bons mots: from ‘trouvaille’ to ‘mise en abyme’

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posted by Simon Kemp

We all know that the listicle is the lowest form of internet journalism, but I came across one the other day that I thought you might like to see. Slate.fr, the French sister-publication of the American online magazine links approvingly to a list in Business Insider, of all places, of ‘wonderful French expressions’ that have no simple translation into English. Here, for your edification, and so you can casually drop them into conversation and then declare vaguely that ‘non-French-speakers can’t really grasp the concept’, are the words and expressions in question, as compiled by Rob Wile:

 

Trouvaille

Something awesome that was discovered by chance or stumbled upon.

Laïcité

France’s aggressive form of separation between church and state. The country would never allow a voting booth to be placed in a church, for instance, even if it would be the most expedient means of holding an election in a small town.

Saloperie

The act of a jack-ass.

Décomplexé

Pure, sure of oneself, lacking neurotic hangups or socio-cultural pressures.

Droit a l’oubli

“Right to oblivion.” There are now guidelines, signed in 2010, applying to search engines that automatically cache pages on social media — basically, they’re not really allowed to. “We don’t hate what the Internet stands for — there’s a lot of material online that should be kept. But in certain cases, we’d prefer to have the ability to erase them,” Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who put together the guidelines (and who just lost the race for mayor in Paris), said upon signing the guidelines.

Diaboliser

To impugn with bad intentions — to suggest that someone or something is inherently bad. Often used in discussing politics.

Dépaysé

Feeling displaced from one’s native land or familiar routine.

Déontologie

An informal but widely set of rules for a profession. Also a philosophical concept denoting a set of actions taken out of duty, rather than consequence.

Mise en abyme

This is the word for when you’re standing between two mirrors and you see an infinite regression of yourself. It’s also commonly used to describe self-referential works in a novel or play.

Why study French?

100 Good Reasons to Study Modern Languages at University: Reason 98

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posted by Simon Kemp

Maybe not the most urgent reason, but it’s one you’ll thank me for later. Learning a second language, it turns out, keeps your brain going for longer. The Annals of Neurology publish a scientific paper today showing the evidence that learning a second language can help keep your mind sharp into old age, and that it can in fact stave off dementia for an average of four years. In case you don’t fancy tackling the research paper itself at the above link, here’s The Independent’s take on the story:

The case for improving the national uptake of foreign languages is usually phrased in economic terms. British people are notoriously leery of extending their linguistic repertoire. Lulled into a sense of security by the omnipresence of English, we sit at or near the bottom of European tables in terms of bilingual proficiency. Organisations from the British Council to the British Academy have warned that such stubborn Anglocentrism risks the nation’s future competitiveness in an increasingly transnational economy, as workers from abroad who can speak one or two other languages elbow tongue-tied Brits out of the way. These reasons are compelling enough on their own, but they do not offer the full picture.

A new study clarifies the beneficial effects that learning a foreign language can have on the brain. Even if the lessons start late in adult life, as brain function naturally decreases, they can help ward off dementia. This builds on existing research that shows, for bilingual adults, Alzheimer’s setting in an average of four years later – at 75 instead of 71. The data is strong enough to suggest that the NHS ought to consider encouraging patients, especially the elderly, to try their hand at a new language.

Besides the travel opportunities, the sense of achievement that comes with such study might appeal. As the number of people suffering from dementia is expected to rise to over a million by 2021, prevention needs to take its place near the top of the health service’s agenda – and language-learning should now be packaged up with exercise, the other preventative tool backed up by a number of neurological investigations. It is a sad fact that the best time to treat the disease is before it’s even begun. In this case, drugs can only smooth the descent.

We have yet to fully turn the corner in embracing foreign languages, though there are positive signs in the education system. After decades of decline, the number of students choosing to study French, German and Spanish increased last year – and from this year all will be required to study one foreign language between the ages of seven and 14. Now we know that the benefits of language-learning are not limited to the young, there is all the more reason for parents to join in.

Events and Competitions, Film

Film Competition Results!

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posted by Kate Rees and Will McKenzie

This year, the University of Oxford’s third French film essay competition was also opened up to younger students (from year 7 onwards) and even offered entrants the chance to write, direct and submit their own mini-film via YouTube. An amazing total of 222 entries were received, from across 42 schools.

The judges were deeply impressed by the range and richness of responses to the two set films: Le Hérisson (years 7-11) and L’Auberge Espagnole. Entrants re-wrote the closing chapter, picking up narrative threads left hanging by each film’s ambiguous ending. So rich were the responses that, in addition to the winner and runner-up in each category, a selection of further entries were offered special commendation.

The winners in each age group were India Gaer, Marlborough College (Years 7-11) and Eleanor Palmer, St George’s Weybridge (Years 12-13).

The rewritings of the ending of Le Hérisson often proved dramatic, in keeping with the shock ending of the film itself: fire destroyed the apartment block in a number of entries. In many cases, Paloma went on to fulfil her plan to commit suicide while Renée and Kakuro were left to grieve; some saw her taking the pills but waking up in hospital reunited with her family. Others saw her opting instead to find her way out of her goldfish bowl by destroying her parents and sister in various imaginative ways. In certain versions, Kakuro Ozu was seen as a potential murderer whose relationship with Renée was more threatening to her than any laundry truck. Those who preferred a happier ending often chose to install Paloma as the adopted daughter of Renée and Kakuro, in some cases sending the trio to Japan to enjoy their future together.  Entrants also opted to recount events through the eyes of different characters, sometimes switching between the perspectives of Paloma and Renée, or opting for the viewpoint of a more minor character such as Paloma’s sister Colombe. Several entries incorporated creative references to Tolstoy, in keeping with the film’s references to the epigraph to Anna Karenina; a number picked up on the metaphor of the goldfish bowl.

Dramatic endings were also dealt out to characters in Barcelona in L’Auberge espagnole, with Xavier rushed to hospital following a car accident in several scripts, perhaps to be met by Jean-Michel refusing to treat him. Entrants variously decided to send Xavier back to Paris, and reunite him with Martine; or have him settle down with Anne-Sophie in Spain. Others focused on recreating dialogue between the flatmates; the character of Will proved popular, with a number of entrants choosing to incorporate him in a series of lively exchanges. Certain motifs of the film, such as the overflowing shared fridge or the shots of the aeroplane featuring Xavier’s voiceover were picked up and explored further. Some enjoyed reflecting the mix of languages reflected in the film; others proved creative in the attention given to music and visuals in their rewritten endings.

The judges and co-organisers of the competition are very grateful for the support and assistance of Routes into Languages and the Robert Taylor Society, and look forward to an equally creative response to the films next year.

French life, Student life, Year Abroad

Year Abroad Glossary

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Posted By Rowan Lyster, in her third year at Somerville College reading French and Linguistics, and currently on her year abroad on a university exchange in Montpellier, France. This is an extract from rowanlyster.blogspot.fr

This is a brief guide to some new concepts and words I’ve been introduced to during my year abroad in France. I can’t guarantee the accuracy of my definitions; Google translate may be useful if you want to actually learn new words…

 

La grève: A spontaneous gathering where hundreds of students come together in peace and harmony to make avant-garde sound art using klaxons, megaphones and fire alarms. And occasionally bongos. Sometimes culminates in a fun-filled parade along the tramway, encouraging the bemused citizens of Montpellier to take life at a slower pace by stopping the entire transport system.

 

Erasmus: A magic word which gets you into classes you shouldn’t be going to, and out of work you should be doing. To be applied freely in all circumstances, especially in conjunction with a look of confusion and sadness.

 

Dessin d’Observation: An ‘art’ class I attend which, going by the lessons so far, consists of tracing and colouring. Lessons incorporate an element of orienteering, due to the fact that the classroom changes most weeks.

 

Emploi du Temps (Timetable): An elusive, possibly mythical creature; sometimes you think you’ve got it pinned down but it inevitably uses the power of shapeshifting to escape your clutches. Not to be trusted under any circumstances.

 

8h30: A time with which I was not previously familiar, but at which I now have two 3-hour classes. Boo.

 
Certificat Médical: A document which is inexplicably required if you want to do any form of organised sport, up to and including ‘relaxing stretches’. I mean, seriously? Each sport must be individually specified on the certificate in order for it to be valid. At my doctor’s appointment to get this, I was asked about my entire medical history (including frankly VERY personal information), told I should have had every vaccination under the sun, and warned about the dangers of going out late at night. I was also asked to do 30 squats with my arms stuck out, before having literally every inch of my torso listened to with a stethoscope.

 

La Météo: A wildly inaccurate source of information about the weather. The only guarantee is that it will in no way correspond to what you can see out of the window. Fortunately it is usually pessimistic; last weekend’s “storms” were actually a few minutes of light drizzle. Speaking of which…

 
La Pluie: A distant memory.

 
L’Hiver: The time of year where you occasionally have to wear jeans and maybe even a jacket. Extremely distressing for those who grew up in the south of French.

 
Being ‘Englished’: When you speak to someone in your best French and they insist on replying in English, despite your obvious exasperation and refusal to go along with it. Happens less and less as time goes on, which is gratifying.

 
Cousine/Cuisine: Two words I can’t seem to distinguish in French. This is a surprisingly big problem as my cousin is also here; often results in people wondering why I spend so much time with my kitchen.

 

Email: Apparently not really a thing in France, given the number of replies I have received to the hundreds of emails I’ve sent. May try carrier pigeon if this continues.

 
Dimanche: A weekly precursor of the apocalypse, during which everything closes and the streets become eerily empty. The only sound is the slamming of shutters and the rumbling of my tummy as I realise that I have, once again, forgotten to buy any food.

 

 

Apologies for the lack of pictures in this post, I’m feeling lazy . Here is an autumnal tree from the Botanical Gardens (or ‘Garden of Plants’ as they call it here) to make up for it.

 (Rowan’s previous post on Montpellier student life is here.)

 

 

Translation

Lord Voldemort’s Middle Name

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lordvoldemort

posted by Simon Kemp

I know from my students that for many people wanting to have a first go at reading a book in a foreign language, translations of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels are the gateway to reading books in French. They’re a good place to start: if you’re familiar with the stories already from the books or films in English, then you’ll always have a rough idea what’s going on if the language gets tricky, plus it’s always entertaining to find out how a Crumple-Horned Snorkack or a Dirigible Plum comes out in a foreign language. (It would be good if Harry Potter were your first step towards trying a book by an actual French person, rather than your final destination, though, as I sometimes feel when I see it as the sole text cited on a personal statement as evidence of someone’s burning desire to study French culture…) Anyway, because you know the story already, and because it’s one of the trickiest and most interesting pieces of English-to-French translation of recent years, let’s head back to the École des sorciers in Jean-François Ménard’s translation for a second look.

Voldemort’s real name, as revealed in the climax of The Chamber of Secrets, is Tom Riddle, which, with the aid of his middle name, Marvolo, can be dramatically anagrammatized from

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

into the sentence

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

I remember thinking at the time that this was a lucky break for him. Only a couple of letters short and he’d have had to make do with

ORVILLE DOORMAT

as his evil alter-ego, which would have made the task of assembling a power-hungry army of ruthless dark wizards that bit more difficult.

If only, though, J. K. Rowling had invented an anagram that smoothly converted one name into the other. That ‘I AM’ at the beginning makes the big reveal into an English sentence, and an English sentence that can’t be translated into a foreign language without the whole puzzle falling apart. What is the poor translator to do?

One option is to do nothing. The Croatian, Portuguese and Polish translations of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets give Voldemort’s name as Tom Marvolo Riddle, and then do the anagram sentence in English, as ‘I am Lord Voldemort’, with an explanation for their readers. The  Korean and Japanese versions  transliterate ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’ into their own alphabets (톰 마볼로 리들 and トム・マーボロ・リドル), making it impossible to perform a new anagram in their own language or demonstrate the original one in English. Even if you’ve never seen the Korean alphabet before in your life, you can tell that 나는 볼드모트 경이다 (‘I am Lord Voldemort’, as it appears at the end of the Korean translation) is not an anagram of 톰 마볼로 리들.

Many translations, though, go for the more challenging option of changing the name to create an anagram that works in their language. So, in Italian, Tom Riddle is Tom Orvoloson Riddle (an anagram of “Son Io Lord Voldemort“), in Spanish he is Tom Sorvolo Ryddle (anagram of “Soy Lord Voldemort“), and in Icelandic, he is Trevor Delgome (anagram of “Eg er Voldemort”). (Incidentally, if you’re wondering where I got all these from, they’re all here, along with translations into thirty-seven languages of the names of all the major characters.)

So what does Ménard do in his Harry Potter et la chambre des secrets? Well, he takes the more ambitious option and goes for an anagram that will work in French. The sentence he wants to reveal at the climax of the story is

JE SUIS VOLDEMORT

and so the name that replaces Tom Marvolo Riddle in the story is, wait for it…

TOM ELVIS JEDUSOR.

That’s right, Voldemort’s middle name, if you’re a French reader, is Elvis.

It’s actually cleverer than it may look. Ménard has managed to give Tom a real name for his middle name, unlike Rowling’s ‘Marvolo’, which looks suspiciously cobbled-together from the left-over letters she had after she’d come up with ‘Tom’ and ‘Riddle’. And ‘Jedusor’ is a phonetic spelling of ‘jeu du sort’, a phrase that means somewhere between ‘twist of fate’ and ‘game of chance’, and which perhaps also has undertones of the phrase ‘jeter un sort’, to cast a spell. Ménard weaves the meaning of the name into his story, making the Riddle House into La Maison des Jeux du Sort, and also has Voldemort himself tell Harry: ‘Tu crois donc que j’allais accepter le “jeu du sort” qui m’avait donné ce nom immonde de “Jedusor”, légué par mon Moldu de père?’.[‘Did you think I would accept the twist of fate that gave me the foul name Jedusor, bequeathed to me by my Muggle father?’] – a slight variation of Rowling’s original that helps to anchor Ménard’s new wordplay into the story.

And yet… and yet… Elvis? It has to be said that the name injects a rather incongruous element of rhinestone jumpsuits and Las Vegas glamour into Voldemort’s character. It also rather hilariously illustrates the perils of translating a story before the author has finished writing it. As you may remember, in Rowling’s English-language original, the name Marvolo turns up again in the sixth volume. Voldemort has in fact been named after his grandfather, the vile, abusive, squalid and half-insane dark wizard, obsessed with his aristocratic descent from Salazar Slytherin, who goes by the name of Marvolo Gaunt. And yes, in Harry Potter et le Prince de sang mêlé, penultimate volume of the French saga, we meet a vile, abusive, squalid and half-insane dark wizard, obsessed with his aristocratic descent from Salazar Serpentard, who does indeed go by the name of Elvis.

Applying to study modern languages, Recommended Reading, Student life

From Sixth Form to Second Year

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posted by Jessica Allen, second-year student of French and German at Jesus College

The Oxford modern languages degree places considerable emphasis on the study of literature. With most schools teaching very little or even no literature as part of their modern languages curriculum, it can be very difficult to know where to start. Here I’m going to share my own literary journey thus far to hopefully inspire those who are still at school to develop their interests and to not be intimidated by the really quite challenging task of tackling their first foreign novel.

This story actually begins with my discovery of German literature. I was fifteen years old and inspired by the fleeting reference to Kafka in Bridget Jones’ Diary to read some of his work in the original German. My German teacher told me that this would be impossible for someone who hadn’t even done her GCSEs, so, determined to prove her wrong, I spent three months teaching myself advanced German grammar and reading children’s books. Then suddenly I was reading Kafka’s works and understanding them in German. I felt a great sense of achievement and knew then that what I wanted to study was German literature.

I was also curious about French, the other language I was studying. I wanted to do the same thing, although I had no natural starting point to lead me into the literature. So one lunchtime I went into the school library and headed over to the solitary shelf of French literature. I picked up Diderot’s Supplément au voyage de Bougainville, mainly because it was the shortest. It was also the best introduction to French literature I could have had at the age of sixteen. From next year, this will be a prescribed text for first years at Oxford, therefore it’s an ideal book for those who are just starting their literary studies. It’s written in dialogue form and when I read it for the first time I had never seen anything like it, which instantly made it more interesting. It also means that it’s easier to understand it, for the two opposing points of view are always clearly represented by the dialogue participants, and it’s certainly easier to get through than a six hundred page novel. When I first read it I was ignorant of the context in which it was written and applied the book’s lesson about universal values and a return to nature to my own teenage existence. It all began to truly make sense as I found out about the original context of the text: it was written in the eighteenth century in order to criticise the social and political structures in France prior to the Revolution by comparing them to the basic moral codes based upon nature which governed Tahiti. I began to actively consider the concept of universal values and luckily my google searches led me to more eighteenth century texts which explore similar themes in the same context: Voltaire’s Candide, Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes and Rousseau’s Le Contrat social. I devoured them and eventually made them the subject of my EPQ (Extended Project Qualification). I had fallen in love and I knew that wherever I went to university, there had to be lots of eighteenth century French literature. So if you’re in sixth form, I would definitely recommend these texts as a way into French literature. Eighteenth century French is often easier to understand than that of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, plus the idea of challenging a long-established regime and system of values as expressed in these texts certainly appeals to frustrated teenagers.

 

So where did I go from there? Well I spent the rest of sixth form reading any French and German literature I could find. This was helpful not just in terms of my Oxford application, because it gave me plenty of ways to show that I was interested in taking languages further, but also because when I arrived here for first year I wasn’t daunted by the reading list or by the task of tackling foreign texts because I’d already been doing it for a couple of years. Okay, as a second year I now look back and laugh at the naïve and simplistic views of these texts that I often expressed whilst still at school, but even as you progress through Oxford your thought process is always changing and it’s often fun to contrast your current interpretation with your previous. Above all, I genuinely enjoyed discovering the wonders of French literature and it is certainly the best way to practice your language skills outside of the classroom, as teachers always encourage you to do. So my advice to sixth formers is to read any French texts which take your fancy and hopefully find some that really interest you. Don’t worry if you don’t understand certain phrases or references and try to work on grammar and vocabulary before you do it, however tedious it might seem, because it all really helps in the long run!

Events and Competitions

Open Days

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posted by Simon Kemp

It was lovely to meet those blog readers who came along to the Modern Languages Faculty Open Day on Saturday, which we held in the university’s swish new Radcliffe Observatory Quarter. The day was fully booked, and everyone seemed to have come armed with all kinds of challenging questions to test my detailed knowledge of how the university’s courses and admissions process work. I think it went very well, at least after someone pointed out to me that I was trying to talk into the reading light on the lectern in the brand-new lecture theatre rather than the microphone, and I hope those who were there found it a useful experience. Our brilliant undergraduate volunteers were also there to help, and obviously did a much better than people like me at telling prospective applicants what it’s Really Like to apply here, go through the interview process, and study on the course. One of those volunteers, Jessica Allen, will be offering her further thoughts on the transition from sixth-former to undergraduate in next week’s post.

The Modern Languages Faculty at Oxford runs three more open days this summer, on 2nd and 3rd July, and 19th September. Do think about coming to see us, if you’re at all interested in applying to study here in the future. You can book your place for the modern languages events here. Plus, the colleges and other sites of the university will be open for visitors (for which you won’t need to book). I hope to see some of you there.

Why study French?

One Hundred Good Reasons to Study Modern Languages at University

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posted by Simon Kemp

There are lots more than a hundred good reasons to study modern languages, but if I’m going to drip-feed them to you at one reason per post, and no more than a couple of posts per month on this topic, then a hundred will keep us going nicely for a while. Many of these reasons are about the pleasures of discovering a foreign culture, exploring its history, literature and film. Others are about learning to handle another language confidently, discovering how languages work, how they develop, and how your own language connects with or differs from the language you’re learning. Still others will be about the experience of meeting new people on your year abroad, getting by in an exciting, unfamiliar environment and broadening your horizons. But of course, in the age of tuition fees and economic austerity, we also need some hard, cold facts about your prospects for employment and earnings at the end of your degree. Luckily, as well as being one of the most stimulating, adventurous and intellectually fulfilling choices of university course, a modern languages degree aces the career statistics too. So let’s start there.

Counting down, then, we’ll begin with Good Reason to Study Modern Languages at University, Number 100…

The Destination of Leavers from Higher Education survey asks recent UK university graduates what they are doing six months after graduation. The most recent data is from graduates in 2012, which found that only 9% of modern languages graduates were unemployed six months after graduating. That compares with 10% unemployment rates for business studies, engineering, architecture and physical sciences, 11% in creative arts and design, 12% in media studies and 14% unemployment for computer science graduates. In fact, only teaching, law and medical/biological sciences have lower unemployment rates than modern languages for their graduates.

So modern linguists go on to many different things after graduation, but the dole queue is not one of them. We’ll delve further into these Destination of Leavers statistics later on to find out more about what these graduates are actually doing, but I thought this might be the most important place to start.

A blog for students and teachers of Years 11 to 13, and anyone else with an interest in Modern Foreign Languages and Cultures, written by the staff and students of Oxford University. Updated every Wednesday!