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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 374-419).

This thesis examines phonetic variation of /s/ in bilingual French and German gay and straight men. Previous studies have shown sibilant variation, specifically the voiceless sibilant /s/, to correlate with constructions of gay identity and 'gay sounding voices' in both production and perception. While most of this work concerns English, researchers have also explored /s/ variation and sexual orientation or non-normative masculinity in Afrikaans, Danish, Hungarian, and Spanish. Importantly, with the exception of only a small number of studies, this body of work has largely left the realm of /s/ variation and sexual orientation in bilingual speakers unexplored, and furthermore there is very little work which examines these voices in the context of French and German. The analyses show that some gay French and German men produce /s/ with a higher centre of gravity (CoG) and more negative skew than the straight speakers of the study, a result which dovetails with previous studies in languages such as English. Unlike English however, French and German listeners do not appear to associate /s/ variation with sexual orientation or (non)normative masculinities. I argue that the gay speakers who produce /s/ with a higher CoG than the other speakers of the study are doing so as a way to distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity. This thesis is structured into three stand-alone journal articles bookended with introductory and conclusion chapters which tie them together in the broader picture of /s/ variation and French/German speakers and listeners. The first of the three articles expands upon the previously established linguistic framework of indexing gayness by exploring /s/ variation in native and non-native speech, examining how the linguistic construction of gay identity interacts between their English production and the constraints of their native language. The data draws on read speech of 19 gay and straight French and German men across their L1 and L2 English to explore the social meaning of /s/. Results show that some gay speakers produce /s/ with a higher centre of gravity (CoG) and more negative skew than the straight speakers. These results are consistent with previous findings, which show sibilant variation to index sexual orientation in monolingual gay men's speech, and provide evidence of this feature correlating with sexual orientation in French and German. Furthermore, the results presented here call for a greater level of inquiry into how the gay speakers who employ this feature construct their gay identities beyond a purely gay/straight dichotomy. The second study reports the results of a cross-linguistic matched guise test examining the role of /s/ variation and pitch in judgements of sexual orientation and non-normative masculinity in English, French, and German listeners. Listeners responded to manipulations of /s/ and pitch in their native language and all other stimuli languages (English, French, German, and Estonian). All listener groups rate higher pitch stimuli as more gay and more effeminate sounding than lower pitch guises. However, only the English listeners hear [s+] guises as sounding more gay and more effeminate than the [s] or [s-] guises. This effect is seen not only in their native language, but across all stimuli languages. French and German listeners, despite previous evidence showing /s/ to vary according to sexual orientation in men's speech, do not hear [s+] guises as more gay or more effeminate in any of the stimuli languages including their native French or German. The final of the three articles takes the findings of the first two papers and attempts to reconcile the production/perception mismatch seen when comparing the results of the first two papers. The first article in this thesis revealed two groups of speakers which form the basis for analysis for this paper. The first group is a heterogeneous group of gay and straight speakers whose average /s/ productions are below 7,000 Hz ([s] speakers) and the second is a homogeneous group of gay speakers producing average /s/ CoG above 7,000 Hz ([s+] speakers). The analysis shows style shifting across task type with both groups of speakers producing higher /s/ CoG productions in L1 read speech contexts than any of the L2 speech contexts. Style shifting across conversation topic reveals that the [s+] speakers are producing higher /s/ CoG when discussing their coming out stories and topics of LGBT involvement. I argue that these [s+] speakers are employing these higher frequency /s/ variants to construct a very specific and identifiable gay persona, that of a counter-hegemonic effeminate gay man. This thesis is among the first to examine phonetic qualities of gay bilingual speakers and the ways in which they may index their sexual orientation. The inclusion of bilingual French and German speakers adds to our growing knowledge of ways in which these individuals navigate and construct their identities within both their L1 and, specifically, within an L2. In this regard, this thesis contributes to the growing body of knowledge concerning socioindexicality in L2 production more generally. This work thus speaks to these gaps within the sociolinguistic literature and provides strong evidence that /s/ variation is a valuable resource for some French and German men in the construction of a certain type of gay identity.

This study examined the beliefs and opinions of U.S university students towards learning foreign languages. Four major areas were explored, including attitudes and motivations towards learning foreign languages, perceptions of foreign languages in the U.S., and favorability of Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Korean, and Spanish. One additional area that investigated participants' opinions in support or against a foreign language requirement in the United States was also examined. The instrument included a survey of 22 items, consisting of 13 quantitative attitude/opinion questions, two qualitative open-ended questions, and seven questions for demographics. The data was analyzed through descriptive, inferential, and content analyses, including Cronbach's Alpha, independent and dependent samples t-tests and one-way ANOVAs. The results of the study showed that participants generally had positive attitudes and high motivations towards learning foreign languages. Their perceptions were slightly critical of Americans' perspectives of foreign languages but indicated the belief that the U.S. education system does provide reasonable opportunities to learn foreign languages. Participants showed high favorability towards learning Spanish, with French also slightly favorable. Participants did not demonstrate positive favorability towards learning Arabic, Chinese, German, or Korean. However, participants commonly referred to Chinese as being particularly useful for business opportunities and consistently indicated low interest or usefulness in Arabic. Few significant differences were observed between genders or foreign language education background. Overall, female participants had slightly more positive views about learning foreign languages, whereas the same was true for participants with higher-level foreign language ability.

The dissertation "France and German unity (1989-1990)" deals with the influence of French politics on German reunification in 1989-1990. The first chapter summarises the prologue to this historical period which were more than forty years of French-German post-war relations. The next chapter examines President Mitterrand's activities in foreign politics related to Germany in 1989-1990. The last part outlines the French public debate over the reunification in 1989-1990.

Ce travail s’intéresse aux rencontres interculturelles franco-allemandes, dans le cadre de l’apprentissage du français langue étrangère du voisin, avec vidéoconférence de groupe. Dans une perspective conversationnaliste (Goffman, Traverso, Cicurel), nous envisageons la conversation comme activité sociale et didactique, en posant l’hypothèse que la conversation ordinaire favorise la rencontre interculturelle en classe de langue. Nous menons une analyse conversationnelle, non verbale et verbale, à partir d’un corpus constitué de l’enregistrement vidéoscopique d’une conversation par vidéoconférence entre une classe de français langue étrangère à l’Université de Hanovre et un groupe d’étudiants de la langue-cible, ne parlant pas allemand, situé dans une université française. Nous partons du schéma de la conversation familière pour conduire une analyse qui nous amène à le remodeler et à proposer un schéma de la rencontre interculturelle franco-allemande en classe de langue. / This research on French-German intercultural encounters, within the framework of learning French as a neighbouring foreign language, has been carried out using group-based videoconference. Using a conversationalist approach (Goffman, Traverso, Cicurel), we consider conversation as both a social and a didactic activity; our hypothesis is that ordinary conversation promotes intercultural encounters in the classroom. We have carried out both a non-verbal and a verbal conversation analysis of a corpus made from a video-recorded conversation during a videoconference. The students were in a French (as a foreign language) class at the University of Hanover, and met a group of students (of the target language) who were in a French university did not speak any German. We based our analysis on the familiar conversation scheme in order to reshape it and to suggest a scheme for French-German intercultural encounters in the classroom.

Le présent travail analyse les relations entre le Togo allemand et le Dahomey français à l'apogée de l'impérialisme européen (1884-1914). La colonie française s’est agrandie et développée plus rapidement que l’allemande, grâce à un soutien politique et financier plus élevé. Le gouvernement allemand s’engage tardivement et avec réticences dans l’acquisition de colonies. Aussi, il souhaite limiter la colonisation à une protection des maisons de commerce allemandes établies outre-mer. Érigé en « colonie modèle », le protectorat togolais était censé se développer par ses propres moyens, sans apport financier majeur. En raison de ce faible soutien, certains fonctionnaires allemands ont développé un sentiment de frustration, voire d’amertume à l’égard de leur gouvernement. Vu du Dahomey, le Togo était un rival plutôt inoffensif, avec lequel les Français espéraient dans les années 1880 nouer une alliance contre l’Angleterre. Dans le golfe du Bénin, les souverains locaux ont cherché à tirer avantage des rivalités franco-allemandes. Si leurs tentatives n’ont que très rarement été couronnées de succès, ils ont néanmoins par leurs efforts gardé une certaine agentivité dans le processus d’allocation frontalière. Ce travail revête de l’importance pour la mémoire de la colonisation allemande. Celle-ci est aujourd’hui valorisée au Togo, et les infrastructures de transport et de télécommunication contribuent largement à cette image plutôt positive du passé allemand. Les analyses de la présente thèse révèlent toutefois que le développement des infrastructures a été, en comparaison avec le Dahomey, nettement plus lent au Togo. / The PhD dissertation analyses the relations between German Togo and French Dahomey during the German colonial period (1884-1914). It defends the thesis according to which French-German relations in the Golf of Benin were characterized by an imbalance. The French colony was enlarged and developed faster, due to higher financial and political support. The German policy was aimed at limiting colonisation to the protection of the German trade establishments that were already implanted overseas. Set up as a model colony, Togo was supposed to sustain itself by its own means, without major financial support. The faint endorsement led some German officials to develop feelings of frustration and bitterness toward the government. The French-German relations in West Africa were characterised by general cordiality, a repeated cooperation and a high-valued solidarity between white men. Nevertheless, the colonial officials on the spot perceived each other as rivals. In Berlin and Paris, preventing a French-German conflict in Africa was, at least before the Moroccan crisis (1905 and 1911) seen as priority, which put a brake on local rivalries. The local rulers tried to take advantage of European rivalries. Their attempts in doing so were rarely successful; nevertheless, it allowed them to maintain a certain agency in the process of border demarcation. In Togo, the perception of the German past is nowadays rather positive, and the transport and telecommunication infrastructure largely contribute to this valorization. The present investigation however reveals that the development of infrastructures was much slower in Togo than in neighbouring French Dahomey.

Par le biais de l'étude des perceptions et de l'analyse du discours, cette thèse se propose de cartographier l'imaginaire lié à l'Allemagne et aux Allemands chez les anciens déportés en France entre 1945 et 1975. Elle entend démontrer que ce ne sont pas l'expérience concentrationnaire et ses séquelles, mais les appartenances de ces survivants à différents groupes sociaux ainsi que les valeurs et orientations de ceux-ci qui ont déterminé leurs représentations des voisins d' outre-Rhin. Ainsi, cette expérience particulière n'aura pas généré chez les rescapés des camps de concentration de représentations inédites de l'Allemagne et des Allemands, ni du nazisme et des nazis. Néanmoins, les transformations sociales et politiques en France et en Allemagne au cours des deux décennies d'après-guerre ainsi que l' évolution des relations entre ces deux nations ont contribué à la création de plusieurs schémas qui leur sont propres. Il s'agit d' un modèle d' interprétation distinguant Allemands et nazis ainsi que de deux topoi mettant en lien la mémoire des crimes nazis et l'attitude vis-à-vis des Allemands. Ainsi cette thèse permet de réfléchir non seulement à l'impact des discours circulant au sein d'un groupe social et de la société, mais aussi au contexte de la création, de la modification et de la disparition d'images d'autrui. En outre, ces interrogation éclaircissent les liens entre l' expérience du passé, la perception du présent et les attentes pour l' avenir. Enfin, ce travail se propose de montrer que l' analyse de perceptions et représentations ne doit pas être une fin en soi, mais qu'elle est indissociable de l' étude des groupes et des individus qui les portent et les expriment. / Using approaches from perception research and discourse analysis, this thesis intends to draw a map of the imaginative world linked to Germany and the Germans among former concentration camp prisoners in France between 1945 and 1975. It seeks to show that it was not the concentration camp experience and its after-effects, but the affiliations of those survivors with different social groups and the values and orientations of the latter which determined their representations of the eastern neighbours. Hence, this particular experie nce neither generated unprecedented visions of Germany and the Germans, nor of Nazism or the Nazis. Nevertheless, social and political transformations in France and in Germany during the two post-war decades as well as the evolution of the relations between these two nations have contributed to the creation of several patterns of thought among them. Those were, on the one hand, an interpretive mode ) distinguishing between Germans and Nazis and, on the other hand, two topoi linking the memory of Nazi crimes and the attitude towards the Germans.Therefore, this thesis will consider not only the impact of discourses circulating within a social group and in society at large, but also the context of the creation, modification and disappearance of representations of others. Furthermore, these inquiries elucidate the links between the experience of the past, the perception of the present and expectations for the future.Finally, this study intends to show that the analysis of perceptions and representations should not be an end in itself, but that it is inseparable from the study of individuals and groups who carry and express them.

La présente recherche interroge l’espace public européen présent dans les télévisions régionales en France et en Allemagne. L’Union européenne est une construction politique complexe, qui fait dans sa communication extérieure elle-même l’amalgame entre « Union européenne » et Europe. Prenant en compte les spécificités culturelles et interdisciplinaires inhérentes à notre cotutelle franco-allemande, nous avons choisi de combiner trois méthodes. En premier lieu, la méthode de Hickethier propose une analyse structurelle des programmes de télévision, bien adaptée à notre contexte bilingue et binational parce qu’elle rend possible la comparaison des données de la même manière au-delà des langues en codant les données en variables. Puis nous avons réalisé une analyse herméneutique mettant en lumière les points communs dans le traitement de l’information européenne. La troisième méthode a consisté en plusieurs entretiens d’experts avec des journalistes et des responsables médiatiques dans les deux régions étudiées. Les télévisions publiques, dans les systèmes allemand et français, ont comme mission l’éducation des citoyens. Ainsi le Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk regroupe l’ensemble de service public médiatique pour les Länder de Saxe, Saxe-Anhalt et Thuringe ; France 3 en revanche est une chaîne nationale dédiée aux régions. Toutes deux situées aux frontières de la France et de l’Allemagne, elles devraient hypothétiquement faire montre d’une certaine volonté et présenter les évènements se produisant dans les pays voisins, en Belgique et au Royaume-Uni pour France 3 et en Pologne et en République Tchèque pour le MDR, ouvrant ainsi des fenêtres sur l’Europe. Nous avons collecté et analysé plus de 43 heures de programmes télévisés dédiés à l’information d’octobre à décembre 2013. De tous les programmes analysés, un cinquième parle en effet de l’Europe ou de l’Union européenne. Néanmoins, la majorité des informations européennes consiste en une simple mention du nom « EU », « Bruxelles » ou même d’un autre pays européen. Contrairement à nos attentes, l’Europe n’apparaît pas essentiellement comme un monstre technocratique et dirigeant présenté d’un point de vue négatif, au contraire : les informations européennes sont présentes essentiellement dans le domaine de la culture et du sport. En outre, de nombreux exemples de reportages de qualité montrant des similitudes sur les deux chaînes ont été trouvés. Par exemple, le traitement des informations concernant l’intégration des Roms sont présents sur les deux chaînes de manière didactique. L’émission « MDR-Aktuell » du 5/12/2013 proposait un reportage dans un village proche de la frontière germano-tchèque alors que France 3 Nord-Pas-de-Calais interviewait en Roumanie une famille Rom ayant vécu trois ans dans la banlieue de Lille. Cette « série spéciale » de France 3 est symptomatique d’un phénomène rencontré à plusieurs reprises sur les deux chaînes analysées : l’information européenne sert de « prétexte informatif » à parler de questions qui concernent en fait le pays du média considéré. Un deuxième phénomène récurrent concerne la tendance de chacun des médias à construire une perspective de l’Autre opposé au « chez soi », dans le contexte européen ou même de l’Etat-nation. Ceci est présent surtout dans les productions des plus petites rédactions (Boulogne-sur-Mer ou Magdebourg), alors que les grandes rédactions comme Lille ou Leipzig parlent plus d’une perspective européenne transcendante. Ceci fut particulièrement visible dans le traitement de l’information concernant la tempête Xaver qui a balayé l’Europe le 5/12/2013. Dans ce cas, on peut parler d’européanisation synchrone de l’information, puisque le même évènement est traité simultanément par différentes télévisions. (...) / My research investigates the European public sphere present in both French and German regional television programmes, with the aim of identifying European elements based on regional content. The French media system is centralized like the French republic, whilst the German media system, a “present of the Allies”, is based in and on each Länder. France 3 is a national TV channel, based in Paris, with regular programming content dedicated to the regions. Analyzed in this thesis are regional productions for Picardy and Nord-Pas-de-Calais, broadcast on France 3 Nord-Pas-de-Calais and France 3 Picardie. The Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, analyzed in this thesis, is the regional TV broadcaster for the Länder of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. Both are situated along the French and German borders and should be willing to present events from the neighboring countries of Belgium and the United Kingdom, Poland and the Czech Republic. This study was undertaken in cooperation between two universities in France and Germany. In order to reconcile these scientific and cultural realities with each other and to cover the needs of both schools of thought, I utilized three methods. First, I used a sociological method after Hickethier that proposes a structural analysis of the television programmes. This method allows a comparison that transcends cultures and languages by coding each relevant element into variables. Second, I used a hermeneutical analysis illuminating the common Europen themes of French and German TV programmes. The third method consists of interviews with experts, journalists and further relevant media personnel in France and Germany. This study shows that in 43 hours of TV programmes, collected between October and December of 2013, from France 3’s and MDR’s information programmes and shows, one-fifth of the programmes make mention of the European Union or of the specific countries themselves. Contrary to our hypothesis, the European Union was not represented as a technological, controlling behemoth, but in a positive or a neutral manner, most often in conjunction with themes of culture and sport. These themes are most often covered in news magazines like “Brisant”, while more serious magazines like “MDR-Aktuell” cover economic and political themes in a more negative manner. This study also found examples of similar qualitative reporting by both French and German television stations. For example, the information concerning the integration of the Roma in both countries is presented in a didactic manner. Broadcast on December 5th, 2013, the programme,“MDR-Aktuell”, included coverage of a village situated 50 km south of the Czech-German border in Bohemia where Roma and Czechs live peacefully together. France 3 Nord-Pas-de-Calais followed a positive path in presenting a segment in Romania in which France 3 journalists interviewed a family who lived in a ghetto in Lille (North France). This “Special Series” illustrates a phenomenon common to all the TV programmes analysed in this study: using Europe as a frame of reference in order to discuss regional or even national problems. A second recurrent phenomenon concerns each television station branch’s tendency to speak from a more narrow perspective and to construct “Othering”. This is revealed through the thematic analysis we performed on each TV branch’s production on the hurricane “Xaver”, which occurred all over Europe on December 5th, 2013. In conclusion, this study has found that regional television in both France and Germany, despite working with several ontological differences due to differing political and media systems, offer European content, some with greater educational value to the EU. Interviews with experts provide an impetus for both France 3 and MDR’s journalists and directors to promote a positive image of its European neighbours and of the EU on regional television.

<p>This dissertation investigates translation strategies and translation principles in technical translation. Five translation students and 5 professional translators from German-speaking Switzerland and 4 translation students and 6 professional translators from Sweden were asked to think aloud while translating a user guide from French into German and from French into Swedish, respectively. The focus of the analysis was on the strategies that could be observed by comparing the translation products with the source text; and on the principles underlying these strategies as revealed by the think-aloud protocols of the translation processes. In order to evaluate the extent to which the translation products complied with the fictitious translation brief given to the participants, 2 reviewers per language pair proofread the translation products. The analysis also included contrastive analyses of certain linguistic features of technical texts in French-German and French-Swedish. The results show that experience of translation does play a role in the choice of translation strategy. It is, however, an even more important factor with respect to knowing and applying translation principles in the translation process. Also, students more often display uncertainty regarding translation principles, and conflict between the principles verbalised and those actually followed. Language-pair specific differences were mostly found in connection with translation strategies. Comments about future directions include the need for clearer definitions and more systematic manipulations of the variables involved in translation, and the potential interest in investigating the principles governing how translations are revised through the use of think-aloud protocols.</p>