The Quebec of the Quiet Revolution invites a fascinating sociocultural study, and this analysis provides an overview of major changes there during the 1960s and 1970s. The author analyzes how artistic, literary, and musical contributions of the era reflected the public's sentiments toward this metamorphosis. References to political cartoons, plays, poetry, songs, and non-fiction works such as essays and manifestos illustrate attitudes toward the shifting role of the Catholic Church, the arrival of a Liberal government following an ultra-conservative administration, the feminist movement, economic and education reform, and the transformation of Quebec's identity through fierce debates over the status of French and English in the province. Policies enacted by Quebec Prime Ministers, especially Maurice Duplessis, Jean Lesage, and René Lévesque were pivotal to the emerging society. Events such as Vatican II, the publication of the Encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, and the efforts of Catholic Action revealed two concurrent strains of Catholicism present in Quebec and the extent to which the Church had become disconnected from society. This study examines major feminist aims within the historical and literary context and considers how collective efforts were critical to advancing their agenda. Ambitious economic measures enabled Quebec's francophone population to catch up to …

The late seventeenth century was a crucial era in establishing territorial claims on the North American continent. In order to strengthen France's hold on the Quebec colony, Louis XIV sent 770 women across the Atlantic at royal expense in order to populate New France. Since that time, these women known as the filles du roi, have often been reduced to a footnote in history books, or else mistakenly slandered as women of questionable morals. This work seeks to clearly identify the filles du roi through a study of their socioeconomic status, educational background, and various demographic factors, and compare the living conditions they had in France with those that awaited them in Canada. The aim of this undertaking is to better understand these pioneer women and their reasons for leaving France, as well as to identify the lasting contributions they made to French-Canadian culture and society.

This thesis analyzes and demonstrates the similarities and differences between some of the national symbols of France and the United States. This includes the shared and borrowed aspects of each one and the ways in which each culture is reflected through, and built around them. The flags, national anthems, and several national icons such as France's Marianne and Uncle Sam are discussed. This analysis deals with the historical contexts and cultural meanings of the symbols, showing the changes each has undertaken in form and in national and international importance. Through the study of national symbols, this thesis reveals the similarities along with the differences between the two nations, which are often perceived as being highly dissimilar and even opposing in belief systems, cultures, and histories.

One of the most important French grammar rules is the rule of superiority: Masculine subjects always trump feminine subjects when there are multiple subjects. Superiority is closely followed by the acceptance that all nouns have a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. Since 1984, and over the span of forty years, these rules have been challenged on multiple levels of French society. The research conducted over the course of this thesis focuses on the mentality and reactions of the French people towards inclusive language made up of inclusive writing campaigns, the feminization of traditionally masculine names, career positions, and titles, and the introduction of gender-neutral forms of conjugating and neo-pronouns. The studied responses are be categorized into those of the French government, the Académie Française, as well as those from the Canadian government and the Office québécois de la langue française. Research demonstrates the existence of a clear division between "traditionalist" and progressive values at work within the afore-mentioned levels of French societal attitudes. While official government publications and committees seem to reflect a positive attitude towards the adoption of feminized terms, the lack of support for inclusive writing systems by the government contradicts this. This thesis outlines these responses …

After providing an historical overview of the French spelling system and orthographic variation, this study analyzes selected internal (i.e., linguistic) factors and one external (i.e., social) factor that can influence the use of diacritics in online French-language chat sessions. From a corpus of synchronous computer-mediated communication, 3,855 tokens of graphemes capable of bearing diacritics were coded with the following scheme: Letter, Diacritic, Grapheme (i.e., Letter and Diacritic combined), Date of Participation, and Age Group of Participant. A multivariate (VARBRUL) analysis determined that Grapheme exerts the most influence on variation.

This study examines orthographic variation in synchronous computer-mediated French discourse. All nontraditional variations of selected frequently occuring items are quantified in order to provide an etic (i.e., from an external perspective) analysis. The primary variable of interest is age since this study focuses on providing a comparison of chat participants in their twenties versus those in their fifties. The widespread claim is that younger people communicate using more informal and/or nontraditional forms than older people; however, the results of the present study suggest that this is not always the case. The main finding of the present study is that the twentysomethings and the fiftysomethings produce the nontraditional orthography in a similar fashion in 52.2% of the terms, and in a non-similar fashion in 47.8% of the terms. Following the presentation and discussion of the results, directions for future research are provided.