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| A statue of Gutenberg by David d'Angers |
Friday evening, there was a report on TF1 News about the problem of spelling today. You can view it here, about 20 minutes in. Apparently there are universities that are now having to teach French courses to French students at a level similar to that of an introductory French course for non-French speakers. You can see, in the clip, that on the board behind the professor are written conjugations of verbs in the present indicative, like the verb "pouvoir": "je peux, tu peux, il peut..." Some of the mistakes students made in the video were things like making agreement, which makes me feel better about when I make that mistake, if native French speakers do it too. It's something that you can't hear most of the time when it's spoken, but that you can see on paper.
My language professor (Florence) told us that one of her Master's students working on her thesis handed her a draft to read, and that in order to be able to figure out what it said, Florence had to sit in her house reading it out loud phonetically.
It seems to me that these are the kinds of the things that don't matter so much when speaking out loud, but which can be confusing when they're written. And while both the professor in the video and Florence insist that the problem isn't technology, but the lack of discipline students have, I would be curious to hear student perspectives. Like in the United States, I feel that the news in France probably represents the interests of older generations, who make up the majority of the audience.
There is also some discussion of sexism in the news. One of the recent subjects is the title of ministre de la Famille, de l'Enfance, et des Droits des femmes (Minister of Family, Childhood, and the Rights of Women). The question is whether putting the rights of women together with family and childhood is sexist, pushing women back into the domestic sphere and keeping them there, or whether the combination of these things together could be considered progressive and feminist, if the minister works toward feminist ideals through family. There are some example articles here and here.
Seeing these articles on sexism, I began to wonder how much the French acknowledge homophobia and transphobia. I started searching for key words on several different news sites. There were a few stories about racism and homophobia in soccer, but for the most part, it seemed that French news sites were only willing to talk about anything queer if it was happening somewhere else. They seemed eager to point fingers at other countries with headlines about how homophobic they were, or sometimes they praised work being done in the United States, but I couldn't find articles about anything in France. I wasn't sure why this was, so I sent a message to a French person's tumblr asking for information. She linked me to some statistics, showing that yes, there is a lot more legal protection in France, but also to an article (this one in English) which described the backlash of violence and harassment. As for transphobia? I still can't really find anything.
This was perhaps another difference I noticed between French news and American news: French news focuses on what's going on throughout the world more than American news does. It probably is true that a greater percentage of the French are informed in global affairs than Americans, but because I mostly have interacted with people who are used to dealing with international students, I may have a skewed perspective.
I've been looking for blind spots. I learned that the movement of intersectionality is something that is happening primarily in the anglophone world, and that it doesn't quite exist in France right now. I learned that the French frequently just use English words when talking about LGBT things, because sometimes they don't have their own words for certain concepts yet. I've been thinking for years now about how binary the French language is, and wondering if there are any groups making gender neutral pronouns work in French, but I can't find information on that. And I've been seeing both articles describing certain things as racist or xenophobic and articles trying to defend themselves. In one self-congratulatory article, they assert that while the French may be racist, sexist, and homophobic, they're still better than other European countries. This is very similar to the kinds of articles one finds in the United States on this topic. We've all got work to do.
Such an interesting read! While reading your blog post I was able to compare and contrast some things that I have noticed as well in Argentina. It is so interesting how even though we are on different continents we are realizing similar things. I find it interesting that you talk about the news being more worldly in France. That seems to be a common theme through many different posts. Everyday while I am taking the subway to classes there are people reading newspapers with results of the American presidential election. Is there a common theme that you find is covered greatly in France about America? Also, your comments about how the French language doesn't have words for themes in our lives. I find this very intriguing. Do you think that they will have them in the future, or will they just stick to using English words?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to say. Mostly what I was talking about were words which come from intersectional feminism and the queer movement. I've learned since then that third wave feminism is more of an anglophone movement than one that is widely recognized elsewhere. Many of the French don't consider third wave feminism to be its own wave, but rather a continuation of the second wave. While there do exist some intersectional feminists in the country, I'm not sure that it's at all widespread. It seems that in academia, there still exists quite a lot of confusion about what the intersectional movement is even doing. In one article I read, a prominent French academic expressed some confusion about the idea of gender fluidity (which she referred to as "le Gender Fluid"). Her definition of the idea did not match with the definition I knew - she thought that new feminists were trying to completely abolish the idea of gender, rather than the meaning which is simply that there are lots of possible identities. With this idea in particular, I think there is particular difficulty in France perhaps because the language itself is so binary. How can one even talk about other possibilities when every noun is either masculine or feminine, and the other words in the sentence must make agreement? Thus, while I've found some information about trans activism in France, the narrative is almost always that of binary trans people. I've heard some expressions of frustration in posts online from non-binary French people, who feel that they can only identify the way they do in English, and find their own language alienating. I've also found posts from people who speak Romance languages who accept certain binary pronouns as well as non-binary ones, since it is not possible to use non-binary pronouns in their native language. While I have found French adjectives to describe people who don't fit the gender binary (non-binaire, agenré), the problem of a lack of gender neutral language rests. I've searched for French solutions to the problem of gender neutral language, and while I have found some informal suggestions, there seems to be no consensus, no overall solution, for those who do not wish to use the pronouns "il" or "elle", for those who don't want to have to choose between the masculine and the feminine every time they talk about themselves. I wish I could remember some other specific examples of words I've seen borrowed from English, but "le Gender Fluid" was the first one that came to mind! So, I guess I could see a greater push to create ways to speak with gender neutral in France (in addition to the problem posed for those who are non-binary, if one wishes to avoid using the masculine as a default, the phrase must either become unpronounceable by encasing certain letters in parentheses or twice as long as one uses the masculine and feminine of each word). But I don't think such changes would be mainstream because they involve grappling with the fundamentals of the French language. I think the current situation, where non-binary people simply use binary pronouns in their native language but (perhaps) non-binary ones when they speak languages which have gender neutral language, will most likely continue for the foreseeable future. As for other aspects of these movements, sometimes English words are used to distinguish between the anglophone and francophone movements, which may be similar in some of their ideas, but which remain distinct. Thus, they say, "le black féminisme," when talking about the anglophone movement, and "l'afroféminisme" when talking about the francophone movement.
DeleteIt's really interesting to hear that spelling is becoming such a problem now. I had a conversation the other day about how cursive is no longer being taught and how that shows us losing a big part of education, but the loss of spelling is even more worrying. Ironically though, I used to be very bad at spelling, and I have found that by typing many papers online I have actually gotten much better at it, to the point where I am very confident in my spelling. I will say though, I worry a lot about grammar today.
ReplyDeleteYour delve into the LGBT news in France is very interesting. It definitely draws a universal truth between most countries that they're all too willing to point fingers but often startlingly silent when it comes to the same issues on their own soil. It is very harrowing however that there are no French words for many terms involving sexuality. That definitely offers a key insight into what needs to be done, and I agree with you, we all do have a lot of work to do.