<p>The creation of Emma Bovary, the major character in Madame Bovary written by Gustave Flaubert, must have been one of the most reckless literaray enterprises of its time. There is no doubt that its inventor, Flaubert, aimed to promote a feminist viewpoint. In this masterwork, Flaubert fully depicts the different options, offered to women in the Napoleon era.</p><p>However, somehow Flaubert’s novel is concerned less with the differences between men and women, as they are pre-given, than with what differentiates men from other men. Therefore, I have in this essay also payed particular attention to the codified social roles and rights for men within the legal framework of the Code Napoléon, leading to a reformulation of ‘masculinity’ and ‘manhood’ in nineteenth-century France. These codified roles and rights reveal a number of negative power-and social relationships with men, as well as with women. Not all men are equal or unaffected by the laws of Patriarchy. In Madame Bovary shifts in gender value, shifts in the codification of what is ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ are present throughout the entire novel, thus creating a real gender trangression or a new woman and a new man.</p>

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<p>This dissertation is a study of the work of Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus). Born in Provence, France in 1503, this true "Renaissance man” (astrologer, doctor of medicine and translator) achieved fame with the publication of his Centuries or “Prophecies”. This work presents 10 centuries of quatrains – almost a thousand short poems of only four rhymed lines each. The first third was published in 1555, another third in 1557 and finally the ten Centuries all together, posthumously, in 1568. The present study concentrates on the first edition, consisting of the first 353 quatrains.</p><p>The main purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyse the language, the style and the genre of the Centuries, aspects rather neglected by the critics hitherto. The large number of quatrains analysed in detail provides a solid basis for accurately characterizing the distinctive features of the text. The methods applied are mainly quantitative and comparative.</p><p>Initially, a short presentation of Nostradamus’ life and work sketches in the background for the creation of the Centuries. The analysis of the poetic form illustrates the stylistic as well as linguistic consequences of the use of the quatrain: it is argued that the poetical structure of the text influences its language as well as its oracular genre. The language of the Centuries is quantitatively examined, first at the sentence level and then at the phrase level. In order to define its specific nature, comparisons are made with the language of other texts from the same period, i.e. the Délie by Maurice Scève and the Pantagrueline Pronostication by François Rabelais. The results demonstrate that the most prominent differences concern what may be referred to as Nostradamus’ strategy of omission, where the restrictive metrical form of the quatrain demands that he be sparing of words.</p><p>Thereafter, the dissertation concludes that the number of textual themes and motives of the Centuries is quite limited (war, catastrophe, government), the prodigy being identified as the general poetic topic that contributes to the coherence of the text. A subsequent section thoroughly investigates stylistic elements such as enumeration, repetition and onomastics. The objective of the final section is to define the genre of the Centuries. The close connection between the concepts of poetry and prophecy during the French Renaissance is well documented. It is thus suggested that the enigmatic, dark oeuvre of Nostradamus inspired several of the Pléiade poets, whose group that in many ways explored the oracular genre in the 1550s and 1560s. It is furthermore demonstrated that the concept of oracular poetry is appropriate for defining the style and the genre of the Centuries.</p><p>Together, the different results of our survey lead to a discussion of the poetic qualities of the Centuries. The present study promotes the conclusion that Nostradamus is to be considered much less a prophet than an author of oracular poetry.</p>

This dissertation is a study of the work of Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus). Born in Provence, France in 1503, this true "Renaissance man” (astrologer, doctor of medicine and translator) achieved fame with the publication of his Centuries or “Prophecies”. This work presents 10 centuries of quatrains – almost a thousand short poems of only four rhymed lines each. The first third was published in 1555, another third in 1557 and finally the ten Centuries all together, posthumously, in 1568. The present study concentrates on the first edition, consisting of the first 353 quatrains. The main purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyse the language, the style and the genre of the Centuries, aspects rather neglected by the critics hitherto. The large number of quatrains analysed in detail provides a solid basis for accurately characterizing the distinctive features of the text. The methods applied are mainly quantitative and comparative. Initially, a short presentation of Nostradamus’ life and work sketches in the background for the creation of the Centuries. The analysis of the poetic form illustrates the stylistic as well as linguistic consequences of the use of the quatrain: it is argued that the poetical structure of the text influences its language as well as its oracular genre. The language of the Centuries is quantitatively examined, first at the sentence level and then at the phrase level. In order to define its specific nature, comparisons are made with the language of other texts from the same period, i.e. the Délie by Maurice Scève and the Pantagrueline Pronostication by François Rabelais. The results demonstrate that the most prominent differences concern what may be referred to as Nostradamus’ strategy of omission, where the restrictive metrical form of the quatrain demands that he be sparing of words. Thereafter, the dissertation concludes that the number of textual themes and motives of the Centuries is quite limited (war, catastrophe, government), the prodigy being identified as the general poetic topic that contributes to the coherence of the text. A subsequent section thoroughly investigates stylistic elements such as enumeration, repetition and onomastics. The objective of the final section is to define the genre of the Centuries. The close connection between the concepts of poetry and prophecy during the French Renaissance is well documented. It is thus suggested that the enigmatic, dark oeuvre of Nostradamus inspired several of the Pléiade poets, whose group that in many ways explored the oracular genre in the 1550s and 1560s. It is furthermore demonstrated that the concept of oracular poetry is appropriate for defining the style and the genre of the Centuries. Together, the different results of our survey lead to a discussion of the poetic qualities of the Centuries. The present study promotes the conclusion that Nostradamus is to be considered much less a prophet than an author of oracular poetry.

The intention of this study is to give a qualitative and quantitative description of the usage of connectors, especially mais, parce que and donc, and of some epistemic modifiers in the spoken French of Swedish advanced learners. The study includes eight advanced learners, six highly advanced learners and eight native speakers from the French learner corpus InterFra, all interviewed by the same native speaker. In total, 22 interviews of learners (39,000 words) and eight interviews of native speakers (23,000 words) were examined. One of the goals was to find typical advanced learner features (interlanguage features) in connector and modifier usage, and also to describe individual variation in the group. We highlight the importance of comparative studies and of taking into account recent studies of spoken French to establish advanced interlanguage features, as normative French grammar fails to account for some spoken usage of connectors. The aim in studying interlanguage features that involve connectors and modifiers is twofold: first, we try to understand the function of certain connectors/modifiers at the semantic, discourse organizing, interactional and speech act levels. Second, we look at the syntactic dependence and integration of discourse sequences introduced by parce que and modifiers like je crois (que). The study of mais (chapters 2 and 3) showed that learners used turn-introducing mais more often than native speakers. Mais was also found to be an important reformulation marker in the learner group. In the study of parce que (chapter 4), we found that the macro-syntactic (paratactic) parce que was frequent in both speaker groupes, but that a function like introducing ”specifications” was more frequent in the learner group, while parce que introducing parenthetic remarks (incises) – commonly used by native speakers of French – was found in only a few cases in the learner corpus. We suggest that this latter usage is a property of the highly advanced user. The study of epistemic phrases like je crois/ je pense/ je trouve (que) (chapter 5) revealed a small quantitative difference in syntactic dependence between the two groupes of speakers: the learners more frequently used independent expressions. From a qualitative point of view, the difference was partly due to the high number of isolated phrases (like je crois oui) and post-positioned phrases in the learner material. Both groups of speakers used modifiers as discourse-structuring devices and as fillers, but their use as fillers was more frequent in the learner group. Finally (chapter 6), by carrying out a prosodic analysis (variation in fundamental frequency) coupled with an analysis of the information structure, we segmented the speech into functional discourse units (les paragraphes oraux). This analysis suggested some characteristics of highly advanced learner usage for the position of the connector donc. One such feature was the incorporation of donc in a constituent of the discourse unit, both from a syntactic and prosodic point of view.

This dissertation is a comparative investigation of the work of two subtitlers of Swedish films translated into French in the last decade of 20th century. It is a look at how they try to render the illusion of spoken language in the written line that is a subtitle. This effect has to be created despite the constraints of time, synchronisation, readability, and the limited number of characters available to work with. We have shown that the subtitles examined in this work include many of the characteristics typical of spoken French. These characteristics can be classified as belonging to the Phonetic, the Lexical or the Syntactic level. At the lexical level we can see that the translators use expressions with a lower style-level than the originals but manage to avoid being too shocking, innovative or destabilizing for the audience. We have also shown diastratic language differences in translation: our subtitlers strengthen characters of social differences by using a different language style depending on the status that the person in question has. Because of the polysemiotic nature of film it is not the primary purpose of a subtitler to translate everything. Typically verbal speech characteristics such as repetition, hesitation, incomplete phrases and non-informational expressions that are often seen as less acceptable in the written word are normally sacrificed in subtitles. On the other hand, we could not show that the original language (Swedish) had a sizable impact on the style and construction of the subtitles. We also looked at possible stylistic differences between the two subtitlers translations and tried to find out if the “voice” of the subtitler shone through. If so, we were interested in attempting to see if a difference could be caused by the fact that one of the subtitlers has French as her native language while the other translates from his second language. We were not able to relate the cause of the difference of style we observed to anything other than the original dialogue’s changing style-levels. In which direction the verbal content in subtitles will develop is an interesting and relevant question. In this work we have identified a development of style that has taken place during recent years in French subtitles to Swedish films. This development goes from a previous situation where the style of the spoken word was practically unused compared to today’s more frequent and systematic use.

<p>Dans la mondialisation d’aujourd’hui et dans un monde plus démocratique et ouvert, la diplomatie publique est devenue un sujet qui suscite de plus en plus d’intérêt. Selon Anholt, un analyste de société anglais, tous les gouvernements doivent, pour le compte du peuple, des institutions et des entreprises, développer une stratégie pour améliorer et fortifier la perception du pays. La théorie utilisée est celle d’Anholt appelée <em>Nation branding</em> où il applique une théorie commerciale dans le monde des sciences politiques et sociales en comparant les pays aux marques commerciales. Dans ce mémoire, en utilisant les méthodes de l’étude du corpus et l’entretien, je compare les stratégies et les objectifs de la diplomatie publique de la France et de la Suède. Après avoir fait un inventaire des cinq grandes voies de promouvoir un pays à l’extérieur et après avoir regardé les stratégies actuelles des deux pays, on trouve de nombreuses similarités, surtout dans les stratégies des cinq voies de promouvoir un pays. Les différences se trouvent ailleurs. Par exemple la Suède n’hésite pas à comparer l’image du pays avec une marque commerciale selon la théorie de <em>Nation branding</em> tandis que la France est plus hésitante, mais le nouveau ministre des Affaires étrangères et européennes en France est favorable à la notion. D’autre part, j’ai pu constater que l’optique suédoise de la diplomatie publique correspond plutôt à une volonté de placer la Suède sur la scène mondiale et d’instaurer un sentiment de <em>good will</em> tandis que la France souhaite avant tout sauvegarder son rang de puissance mondiale et considère la position forte de sa langue comme une condition nécessaire pour ce faire. L’action culturelle extérieure suédoise s’organise surtout depuis la Suède, parce que la Suède n’a pas de réseau culturel comparable à celui de la France. La mise en place du Conseil de la promotion de l’image de la Suède dans le monde permet partiellement de contrer la grandeur de la France.</p> / <p>In the globalization of today, in a more democratic and open world, public diplomacy has become a subject that gets more and more attention. According to Anholt, a British social analyst, all governments should, on behalf of the people, the institutions and the companies, develop a strategy to improve and strengthen the perception of the country. The theory applied is Anholt’s <em>Nation Branding</em> where he uses the ideas of branding for the public diplomacy of a country. He likes to compare countries to commercial brands. The aim of this minor thesis is to compare the strategies and objectives of the public diplomacy of today in France and Sweden. To reach my conclusions I have collected information from Anholt’s books of <em>Nation branding</em> and from the official websites of the different national administrations. I also made interviews with people involved in the matter. There are five ways to communicate the image of a country abroad. France and Sweden have similar strategies within these fields. The differences are to be found, foremost in the way of talking about the country as a brand and the value of <em>Nation Branding</em>. It’s a part of the Swedish strategy while the French are more reluctant. At the same time, the French minister of foreign and European affairs, Kouchner, seems to be influenced by the ideas behind <em>Nation Branding</em>. I have also come to the conclusion that the aim of the Swedish public diplomacy regards primary to place Sweden on the world map and to create a sense of good will while the main priority of France is to stay a leading world nation and considers the language aspect very important to do so. The Swedish cultural diplomacy is organized at the head office in Stockholm while the French have an immense network of cultural institutes. As Sweden is not represented worldwide, the Swedish solution is a national council of international representations that work together to form a strategy to promote Sweden.</p>

This thesis investigates learners’ reading practices and especially the processing of cross-linguistic similarities at the lexical level. The aim is to determine how learners proceed in order to understand text in French (L3). Data were collected using various reading comprehension tasks in combination with the think-aloud method. Reading comprehension was mainly assessed through a translation task while the reading practices were observed in think-aloud protocols. According to a reading comprehension score, 20 learners were divided into high level and low level groups. The majority of participants were Swedish learners who are also proficient in English L2. Another group of 10 Swedish learners and 10 French native speakers participated in a cross-linguistic word association task. Reading practices were defined as including skills, strategies and readers’ reactions to the text, the tasks and their own capacities. A typology of twelve reading practices was established including three categories based on intralingual and interlingual similarities. Results from the translation task and the think-aloud protocols show that interlingual processing is more important when learners have difficulties in understanding text content. The more learners in the low level groups relied on intralingual and especially interlingual similarities the less they understood the text content. The high level groups on the other hand used reading practices such as reformulation or translation procedures. The think-aloud protocols also show that learners believe that they compare words in the French text (L3) with English similar words (L2) although their interlingual processing during translation actually confirms the dominance of Swedish (L1). Moreover, results from a cross-linguistic word association task suggest that French Swedish/English cognates and false friends activate this type of words more often than French control words. Cross-linguistic stimuli actually triggered patterns of potential interlingual similarities, for example sacrifice (stimulus) – religion (response), even more than words that are similar to the stimulus diplomate – diplom ‘diploma’.