Stories of Frenchness: becoming a Francophile

Abstract

This paper reports on life-story accounts used to gain insights into the symbolic value language learners attach to French. The concept of ‘interpretative repertoires’ is used to show how participants situate personal narratives in broader cultural discourses (a ‘Francophile repertoire’) to construct their experience of Frenchness. Data from three life narrative case studies – British adults who have studied French to a high level – illustrate how situated repertoires are circulated and reproduced. This type of analytical approach can extend our understanding of how engagement with ‘prestige’ languages such as French is inscribed in particular forms of cultural capital.

Cet article examine l'analyse des récits autobiographiques pour mettre en relief les valeurs symboliques attachées à l'apprentissage de la langue française. Le concept des «répertoires interprétatifs» a été utilisé afin de montrer la façon dont les récits personnels se situent dans les discours culturels plus répandus (un «répertoire francophile») pour construire l'expérience de la francité. Des récits venant de trois études de cas (adultes d'origine Britannique ayant étudié le français jusqu’à un niveau supérieur) illustrent comment ces répertoires peuvent circuler et se reproduire dans le vécu des individus. Cette approche analytique du discours permet d'approfondir notre conception des rapports que l'on peut avoir avec les langues étrangères, d'autant plus celles comme le français dites de prestige dont la connaissance est associée à des formes de capital culturel.

Keywords:

• intercultural narrative
• narrative accounts
• modern languages
• identity
• language attitudes

Notes

1. In fact, the number of young people who study at least one foreign language at school is much greater in the UK and Ireland than in most other English-speaking countries (DfES, 2007, pp. 39–40). One reason for this relative robustness may be proximity to the main languages we in the UK learn (French, German and Spanish) and the fact that we live within the European Union legislative framework, though we fall far short of its recommendation that all children study at least two foreign languages throughout their secondary school career.

2. Since the study of modern foreign languages in England beyond the age of 14 ceased to be compulsory in 2004, the numbers of students studying languages have declined dramatically. Concern over this decline has been widely reported in the press, e.g.: ‘Colleges hit by languages decline’ (Alexandra Smith) Tuesday November 21, 2006, Education Guardian; ‘Language crisis facing UK schools’ (Anushka Asthana) Sunday 3 December 2006, The Observer; ‘Too hard modern language GCSEs may be made easier’ (James Meikle) Monday 12 March 2007, The Guardian; ‘Employers blamed for drop in modern language uptake’ (Rebecca Smithers) Friday 24 August 2007, The Guardian; ‘Academy concern over decline in language study’ (Anthea Lipsett) Wednesday 21 November 2007, Education Guardian.

3. Other languages have, of course, also lost their traditional role to English, e.g. German as a lingua franca in Eastern Europe.

4. See Coffey and Street (2008) for further discussion of the ethnographic dimension implicit in this type of analysis.

5. Of the remaining three participants all had also studied French at school and French represented their first contact with foreign languages, however, they had later specialised in other modern languages, two German and one Russian, whereas the three participants reported in the study continued to specialise in French.

6. At the time of the interview Lucy was a 30-year-old graphics engineer, Sue a 54-year-old academic working in language education and Gemma, 33, worked for a large university publishing house as an editor of English Language teaching and learning materials. All participants gave freely of their time and consented to their data being published anonymously.

7. This description of the term Bildungsroman follows Bakhtin's (1986) account of the genre as a literary hybrid form synthesising previous images of the romantic hero as found in the travel novel, the novel of ordeal and the biographical novel. The key distinction in the newer genre is that the central character is not represented as an accomplished ‘ready-made hero’ (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 20) but somebody who undergoes transformation throughout the story.