French 206 : Écrire la langue: The History of French Metalinguistic Writing

This course charts the history of writing about the French language from the medieval period to the current day. We will explore both canonical texts such as treaties, books of remarks and language columns by authors such as Du Bellay, Vaugelas and Rivarol, alongside less well-studied texts which represent a wider range of people, places, and types of text. Studying the history of metalinguistic texts lets us address a series of essential questions about the metalinguistic genre, about language, and about society. What can we learn about the metalinguistic genre itself including how it should be defined, what its internal divisions are, and the text types it includes? How can metalinguistic texts inform our understanding of variation and change in the French language, and vice versa? And how do metalinguistic texts construct and reflect language attitudes and ideologies? At a more general level, we will also have the chance to explore whether there are areas of research outside French linguistics which stand to gain from scholarship on French metalinguistic texts.

Reading knowledge of French is essential since a considerable amount of both the primary and the secondary material will be in French. However, students will be able to write final papers that deal with metalinguistic texts relating to other languages.