Linguistic Commentary
French 5
It is a linguistic commentary
you write about the linguistic features used in a specific text:
- Lexicon
- Syntax
(word order, interrogation, negation, etc.)
- Morphology
(e.g. use of tenses and moods, pronouns)
- Spelling
and Phonology (specific pronunciation might be indicated by a specific
spelling in the text)
- Discourse
analysis (topic continuity, use of discourse markers, anaphora, use of
tenses, use of reported discourses)
You need to show how these
features relate to the following points.
- Style
and register of the text (standard-non standard, formal-informal,
specialised-non specialised)
- Status
of speech participants and relationships between the participants as
indicated by linguistic features in the text
- Discourse
genre (e.g. literature, press, administrative document, spoken French)
Basically what you are
supposed to do is to identify in the text the essential linguistic elements
that will inform your assessment of the stylistic value of the text. You
need to show how these elements hold together to give the text specific meaning
and style, while linking it to a specific genre (e.g. modern fiction, poetry,
journalism, etc.). What are the strategies in place to convince, attract, entertain the reader?
Unfortunately, there is no
book that will give you exactly what you need for the stylistic commentaries.
Which does not mean of course that you can not check a
few interesting works. Here is a non-exhaustive list (based on what is
available in Oxford libraries).
Ager,
D. E. Styles and registers in contemporary French :
passages for analysis. London : University of
London Press.
Attali, A. 1990. Commentaire
composé :
Bac Français. Paris : Bordas.
Ayres-Bennett, Wendy. The history of French through texts.
(see last part, with examples of modern French).
Breunig L.C. & C. LeRoy C. 1964. Forme et
fond; textes littéraires
pour l'etude de la langue: lectures, exercises, grammaire. New York :
Macmillan.
Cressot,
Marcel. 1963. Le style et ses techniques
: précis d'analyse stylistique.
Paris : Presses universitaires
de France.
Kuentz,
P. (ed.). 1970. La description linguistique des textes littéraires. Paris : Larousse.
Le Hir, Yves. 1960. Commentaires
stylistiques de textes de français moderne : certificats de grammaire et philologie, de grammaire & philologie françaises, CAPES, agrégations.
[Paris] : [Centre de documentation universitaire].
Le Hir, Yves. 1965. Analyses stylistiques.
Paris : Librairie Armand
Colin.
Maingueneau, Dominique. 1990. Éléments
de linguistique pour le texte
littéraire. Paris : Bordas. There are exercises at the end of each chapter and
corrected answers at the end of the book
Sayce,
Richard Anthony. 1958. Style in French prose : a
method of analysis. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
Click here
for an example of linguistic commentary, based on a previous exam paper
(2002).
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This site was last updated on 31
March 2016.