78671 - French Linguistics 1 (LM)

Learning outcomes

The global aim of this course – which includes lectures and language classes - is to provide students with an expert knowledge of a number of aspects of French linguistics, enabling them not only to communicate effectively in French, but also to think critically about and describe the metalinguistic factors at play in language use. This aim will be achieved by providing students with theoretical knowledge related to one or more of the following areas of French linguistics: phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicology, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, stylistics and corpus linguistics. The focus of the course will be on real language use, with authentic texts (written and/ or spoken, belonging to different registers) and electronic language corpora used as examples. At the end of the two years course, the student is able to apply such knowledge by means of the use of suitable tools ; he/she knows how to plan a linguistic search in a correct way. Language classes aim to improve students’ linguistic competence; over the two year period students’ knowledge of French should reach level C2 according to the European framework in all four abilities, which allows students to effectively interpret the partner-linguistic and cultural codes in any subject within a communicative relationship. These classes will work in connection with the lectures to improve students’ writing skills in particular.

Course contents

PRACTICAL LANGUAGE CLASSES (T. Manconi, 1st semester)

The exercises focus on written production in formal contexts.

See the descriptors defined by the Framework for languages (C1/C2).

The teaching activity will be divided into two phases:

- a preliminary verification and enhancement of the students linguistic knowledge and skills in the syntactic, lexical, pragmatic and textual fields (level C1/C2 of the Framework for languages). This enhancement will be carried out through practical writing activities (also collaborative) and feedback to acquire greater autonomy of learning and expression. In addition, the use and consultation of various electronic tools useful for achieving this first objective of the exercises will be integrated;

- an individual writing phase on different types of text (for example: journalistic commentary, essay, descriptive text, narrative text, argumentative text) relating to topics requiring specialist academic/scientific treatment, on the basis of a corpus elaborated by the teacher and made available on the online teaching platform, from the beginning of the exercises.

OFFICIAL COURSE (V. Zotti, 1st semester)

Electronic Lexicography and Corpus Linguistics for writing and translation

The aim of the official course is to supply the student with the theoretical and practical skills necessary in order to carry out linguistic analysis in French language with the help of information technology. Based on an applied approach to the study of French linguistics, this course pays attention to the training of “new” professional abilities demanded in multilingual and multimedia communication (compiler, translator, lexicographer, computational linguist, etc.).

The course will be focused on learning the criteria for the use of electronic dictionaries and databases, in order to be able to write correct texts in French language and to translate different typologies of texts (from French into Italian). Among the resources which will be studied during practical lessons (TD travaux dirigés): Le Petit Robert électronique, Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé ; IATE, GDT Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique, TermiumPlus, BLF Base Lexicale du Français, BDLP Base de Données Lexicales Panfrancophones, QUIT ; Frantext, Fichier Lexical TLFQ, LBC ; HyperMachiavel, SketchEngine ; as well as the Web as Corpus and, in the end, a few programs for machine translation and computer-assisted translation (BabelFish, Google Traduction, DeepL).

A reflection on the new frontiers of artificial intelligence applied to the linguistic field will also be developed.

The last part of this course will be devoted to the analysis of a linguistic corpus by using SketchEngine, the most renowned corpus query system incorporating word sketches, created by the company Lexical Computing.

Readings/Bibliography

PRACTICAL LANGUAGE CLASSES

D. Jennepin, Y. Delatour, M.-P. Caquineau-Gunduz, Fr. Lesage-Langot, Les 500 exercices de grammaire, niveau B2, Hachette, 2007.

M. Grégoire, A. Kostucki, Grammaire du français, perfectionnement, CLE International, 2012.

M. Fayet, J.-D. Commeignes, 12 méthodes de communication écrite et orale, Dunod, 2013.

OFFICIAL COURSE (V. Zotti)

F. Landragin, Comment parle un robot ? Les machines à langage dans la science-fiction, Le Bélial' Editions, 2020 (recommended reading).

R. Loock, Traductologie de corpus, Lille, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2016.

J. Pruvost, Dictionnaires et nouvelles technologies, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2000.

V. Zotti, A. Pano (éds.), Informatica umanistica: risorse e strumenti per lo studio del lessico dei beni culturali, Firenze University Press, 2017 (for consultation only).

Teaching methods

PRACTICAL LANGUAGE CLASSES

The teaching activity will therefore focus on the acquisition of the following skills:

- identification of stylistic, pragmatic and syntactic markers of the type of text in question, also through reconnaissance, feedback and collaborative writing activities;

- drafting of texts of a specialist nature, starting from a corpus elaborated by the teacher;

- integration, in the writing phase, of the practice of consulting various electronic resources useful for the editing in French.

The teaching will be provided in blended mode with attention to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device): students are therefore invited to present themselves to the exercises with their own electronic device.

The students will provide - at intervals that will be announced from the first exercise - a text by type, whose overall assessment will account for 40% of the final assessment.

The progressive assessment of these papers will be illustrated by the teacher during the first lesson.

All texts will be sent to the teacher in electronic format to the following address: teresa.manconi@unibo.it

OFFICIAL COURSE (V. Zotti)

Because of the practical nature of the course, students are strongly invited to attend the classes regularly.

Assessment methods

PRACTICAL LANGUAGE CLASSES

Evaluation

Evaluation of the works delivered during the exercises: 40 % of the total vote.

The final evaluation consists in the drafting of a text that presents the traits of the academic-specialist writing, on one of the topics addressed during the exercises.

The final test will be carried out exclusively in electronic format.

The same procedures apply to students who do not attend, who are invited to inform the teacher by sending a communication to the following address: teresa.manconi@unibo.it

Evaluation criteria

The evaluation criteria will be those already provided for the DALF certifications (C1 / C2), especially in terms of a) compliance with delivery; b) cohesion and consistency of the text; c) richness of the syntactical and lexical repertoire, including the ability to easily reformulate; d) correctness and consistency of the lexical and grammatical spelling; e) relevance of the work from the point of view of morpho-syntactic; f) relevance of the work in relation to the situation of communication. In addition to these, (g) relevant use of electronic tools to complement writing competence.

OFFICIAL COURSE (V. Zotti)

Students will be evaluated during lessons through an interactive on-line test about the course contents.

They will also take an oral exam on the course contents and about the corpus created during the the course.

Details of required texts and documents will be made available at the beginning of the course and on the institutional platform IOL.

Office hours

See the website of Valeria Zotti