<p>The purpose of this paper will he to analyze Molière's theatre in terms of the dramatic traditions that the author knew. The dramatic structure of select plays from the beginning, the middle, and the latter part of Molière's career will be examined. The analysis will reveal that the creation of the plays was partially inspired by the traditions that Molière, the actor knew, namely, French and Italian farce, and that the development from simple farces to a new kind of comic entertainment was the result of a complex inter-relation between various approaches and techniques of dramaturgy.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Master of Arts (MA)

La thèse se concentre sur deux articles qui traitent de sujets de la culture. Les auteurs de ces articles sont des intellectuels célèbres inscrits dans l'académie et dans le monde en tant que critiques sans frontières. Edward Said et son « Embargoed Literature », Bell Hooks et son « this is the oppressor's language/ yet I need it to speak to you », se trouvent tous les deux au centre de ma recherche. La théorie utilisée pour rassembler les informations est celle des métaphores conceptuelles de Lakoff. Ce dernier propose que nos vies quotidiennes sont métaphoriquement conçues. Les deux articles ont été respectivement traduits dans le simple but de comparer les métaphores conceptuelles des textes originaux avec celles des textes cibles. Cette comparaison m'a donné l'occasion de percevoir l'universalité et la variation de métaphores conceptuelles des cultures angalise et française, et a montré le rôle que ces dernières jouent dans la clarification et la simpiification de l'auteur qui a écrit l'article en question. Les métaphores conceptuelles ont fait connaître la manière dont les auteurs ont classé par catégories leurs connaisances et aussi leur vie. Les biographies représentaient la clé de la compréhension de l'auteur. Il n'y a pas de plus riche ressource pour les métaphores conceptuelles que les textes de réflexion sur soi, son histoire et son enfance. Le rassemblement des métaphores conceptuelles de biographies, m'a fourni la base pour le travail de comparaison. Avec cette base, l'essentiel de chaque auteur et de chaque article m'a permis le rassemblement de métaphores conceptuelles qui, avec les métaphores des textes cibles, ont été comparées à celles qui se trouvent dans le texte original. Finalement, le résultat de cette analyse m'a donné une idée de la façon dont ces deux auteurs sont représentés dans les langues française et anglaise. This thesis focuses on two articles that come from the cultural studies sphere. Authors of these two texts are not only world famous intellectuals, but also world renowned critics whose worldly knowledge transcends all frontiers. <em>Embargoed Literature</em> by Edward Said and <em>this is the oppressor' s language/ yet I need it to speak to you</em> by Bell Rooks, are the two founding texts of my research. To collect and analyze the information George Lakoff's theory of conceptual metaphor was employed. The theory suggests that our daily lives are metaphorically conceived. The texts by Said and Rooks were translated from English to French in order to distinguish and compare conceptual metaphors of the source and target text. This comparison has offered an opportunity to perceive both universality and variation of conceptual metaphors of both English and French cultures. This work has41 also demonstrated the role of conceptual metaphors in clarification and simplification of the author who has written a particular article. The theory has helped discover and understand author' s beliefs and life's influences. There isn't a richer source of conceptual metaphors than a text that is a reflextion of the self, of ones personal history and childhood. By gathering the conceptual metaphors from the biography, a base was formed for the comparison work when it came to working on a particular text. Raving conceptual metaphors of biographies as a base, the essential parts of each author and article, enabled gathering of those metaphors, together with the conceptual metaphors of target text to finally compare them to those found in the original text. The result of this analysis produced an idea of how each of these two authors is represented in both English and French language and how their ideas have crossed linguistic frontiers. / Master of Arts (MA)

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The aim of our study is to analyze the swearword in the works of two French-Canadian authors. By analyzing its origin, linguistic aspects and historical and religious causes, we hope to show it reflects the French-Canadian mentality. Le but de notre dissertation est d'étudier le "sacre" dans les oeuvres de deux auteurs québécois. En analysant l'origine, les aspects linguistiques, et les causes historiques et religieuses du "sacre", nous espérons montrer comment il reflète la mentalité québécoise. / Master of Arts (MA)

[missing page 1] / In La Curée, Nana, and Au Bonheur des Dames, from Émile ZoIa's Rougon MacQuart series, dress and undress are essential to the narrative. We will show that descriptions of clothing serve not only an ornemental but also a functional role. The descriptions, through symbolism and metaphor, repeatedly underline the central themes of the novel. The staging of a grand spectacle is the link between the novels and the consequent notions of illusion and reality are expressed through descriptions of clothing. In La Curée a man's status and power is reflected by the beauty of his wife's shoulders and the depth ofher plunging neckline. We witness the downfaU of Renée, the Parisian doll, whose glorious and extravagant gowns are seen as a false reflection of her husband's success. Externally, Nana is the personnification of sex, and internally she is filth which oozes to the surface, symbolically staining her gowns in a fitting metaphor for the Second Empire. Fabric and clothing permeate aIl aspects of the grand department store, the Bonheur des Dames, where clothing reveals the feelings and exposes the strengths and weaknessess of the characters just as the merchandise, from coats to corsets, is displayed for all to see. AlI is laid bare in a frenzy of dress and undress and clothing in these novels symbolizes, above all, the excess of the Second Empire. / Master of Arts (MA)

Patterns of language loss were analyzed in twenty-five returned French-speaking missionaries who had spent from one-and-a-half to two years in a French-speaking environment and who had returned to the United States from four months to five years ago. The subjects were given a written vocabulary test and an oral interview to determine their proficiency in the language. The results of this study showed that the patterns or change in particular language forms varied according to each language form. Some categories showed an obvious pattern of loss while some varied from year to year, with no pattern of any kind in evidence. There was a definite pattern of loss found in vocabulary. There was more loss in the productive portion of vocabulary than in the recognition portion. There was also a decrease in overall proficiency in the language.

This dissertation delves into the complexities and nuances of the contemporary French author J.M.G. Le Clézio, one of the most respected and prolific writers of his era. Specifically, it investigates the phenomenon of a “privileged moment” or a “moment privilégié” in his works. This literary concept is most often associated with Marcel Proust. In this study, the intricacies as well as the limitations and paradoxes of three distinct types of privileged moments in Le Clézio’s writings are methodically explored. Privileged moments related to nature, musicality, and sexuality are systematically probed during the course of this investigation. The introduction provides an operational definition for the expression “privileged moment,” and briefly outlines some of the main ideas discussed in the various chapters which follow. Although several literary scholars use this term, a precise definition of this word or even a clear explanation of what it encompasses does not seem to exist. Chapter one explores manifestations of privileged moments in the writings of earlier French writers. Specifically, it analyses intense instants of euphoria in Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Sartre’s La Nausée, and Camus’s Noces. Chapter two investigates the undeniable literary transformation that occurs in Le Clézio’s works beginning with the publication of Mondo in 1978. Specifically, this section examines the existentialist nature of some of Le Clézio’s early writings and explores how his powerful experiences with the Embreras and Waunanas in Panama, with the indigenous cultures in Mexico, etc. drastically altered him and his writings. Chapter three investigates the inexplicable instants of euphoria which abound when Le Clézio’s characters commune with nature in Mondo, Désert, Le Chercheur d’Or, and Pawana. Chapter four explores privileged moments related to music in the short story “La Roue d’Eau,” as well as in the novels Etoile Errante, Désert, Le Chercheur d’Or, and Le Poisson d’Or. Chapter five systematically investigates moments of sexual ecstasy shared with an Other in Désert, Le Chercheur d’Or, and La Quarantaine. Whereas the other mysterious moments of euphoria are solitary instants, these erotic encounters constitute a different type of experience, which will also obligate us to reflect upon various ethical issues.

This study examines the semantic import of the French preposition à 'at/to' in argument alternations. In French, some verbs can be followed by a direct object or by an indirect object introduced by the preposition à 'at/to' (e.g., parer/parer à 'to ward off/to guard against', satisfaire/satisfaire à 'to satisfy', toucher/toucher à 'to touch', etc.). Although the preposition à 'at/to' has been characterized in the literature as a meaningless grammatical element, and more specifically so in cases of argument alternations, this study shows that à 'at/to' is meaningful and that it contributes to the semantics of the indirect transitive constructions of the verbs under scrutiny. Couched in the Cognitive Grammar theoretical framework (Langacker 1987b, 1991), this study is based on the assumption that grammar is meaningful and that the meaning of grammatical items is more abstract than the meaning of lexical items. Consequently, two abstract meanings characterizing à 'at/to' are proposed to account for the semantic differences between the direct and indirect transitive constructions of the verbs analyzed in this study: the expression of an abstract goal and the expression of an abstract localization. For some verbs, the indirect transitive construction entails a notion of goal that is not expressed in the direct transitive construction. For other verbs, à 'at/to' expresses an abstract relation (i.e., an abstract localization) between the lexical semantics of the verb and the indirect object, which results in meaning differences between the direct and indirect transitive constructions based on the notion of affectedness. Following Langacker (1987a), I view transitivity as a transfer of energy and propose that the various levels of energy involved in an event correlate with the various levels of affectedness of the object. I argue that à 'at/to' signals a disruption of energy leading to a lower affectedness of the indirect object than that of the direct object (see also Beavers 2011). Finally, I show that, for the verb toucher 'to touch', the semantic import of à 'at/to' varies in relation to the various senses of the indirect transitive construction of the verb. / text

Using the combined approach of Variationist Sociolinguistics and Cognitive Linguistics, this thesis undertakes the classification and analysis of certain prepositions in spoken Quebec French. The study examines 21 interviews that make up part of the Corpus de français parlé au Québec (CFPQ). The aim of this thesis is to examine the use of the variables expressing the concept of ‘possession’, and those equivalent to English before/in front of and after/behind. These three variables are represented as (POSS), (ANTE) and (POST). An initial quantification of the variants is carried out, which establishes the contexts of production, and helps determine the areas of linguistic analysis to be explored. For the (POSS) variable, the data is examined in terms of linguistic factors such as the reference of the possessor, the avoidance of hiatus, and inalienable/alienable possession. Interpersonal variation is also considered, including age and gender in addition to level of education. From the Cognitive Linguistic perspective, we investigate ‘reference point theory’ and how it can shed light on the alternation between the variants. The (ANTE) and (POST) variables are studied in terms of the type of reference (i.e. locative or temporal), the locating noun category, and the age, sex, and level of education of the speakers. The Cognitive Linguistic theory of ‘subjectification’ is also considered for these two variables. For the (POSS) variable, the reference of the possessor and the level of education are seen to be important factors for the use of possessive à. In addition, the ‘reference point theory’ contributes to our understanding of the use of this variant. With the (ANTE) and (POST) variables certain variants are seen to be employed both with and without an overt complement. The variant devant is predominantly found in contexts involving narrative discourse, and the variants en avant and en avant de are preferred for locative reference. Once again, the Cognitive Sociolinguistic approach highlights the possibility that the difference in variant choice is linked to the speakers’ cognitive construal of the situation.