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 partially replicates and re-explores specific dimensions of a textbook analysis of the presentation and use of specific grammatical elements and sociolinguistic variants in textbooks published in the United States for learners of French. Authenticity is situated as a central construct in the analysis of interrogatives, relative pronouns, and the negative particle ne in selected textbooks and ancillary materials. The findings reveal that little progress has been made over the past twenty years in integrating authentic representations of discourse into French-as-a-foreign-language textbooks.

This study analyzes negative particle variation (i.e., the variable presence or absence of the negative particle ne) in synchronous French chat discourse within a labovian-inspired framework. Selected morphosyntactic, lexical, and phonological constraints are considered. Multivariate analyses performed by GoldVarb 2001 revealed that subject type (i.e., NP, [- overt] subject environment, pronoun) and the phonological environment preceding the position of neregardless of its presence or absenceare determining factors in the variation. In addition, discursive-pragmatic effect was explored in a sub-sample of data. The results indicate that ne is seldom present in verbal negation during explanatory discourse style, yet it is very likely to be retained in ludic, emphatic, and proverbial styles.

This study of the variable use of ne in synchronous electronic French discourse follows the methodological guidelines and the theoretical framework proposed and subsequently elaborated by Labov for analyzing variable features of language. This thesis provides a quantitative variable rule (i.e., VARBRUL) analysis including age as a factor group (i.e., independent variable), thereby making a new contribution to this area of inquiry. The data (50,000 words from the vingtaine 'twentysomething' channel and 50,000 words from the cinquantaine 'fiftysomething' channel) are a subset of 100,000 words from a corpus of one million words collected in 2008 by the thesis director from the public chat server EuropNet. This study aims to answer the following overarching question: To what extent does age-compared to other factors-influence the variable use of ne in verbal negation in synchronous electronic French discourse? In order to answer this question, and possibly others, the VARBRUL analysis will include age, subject (e.g., noun vs. pronoun), type of second negative particle (e.g., pas 'not', jamais 'never', personne 'no one'/'nobody', and so forth), as well as verbal mood/tense.

This thesis is an examination of the printed media in France (1955-1963), as represented by two mainstream newspapers: Le Monde (left-centrist) and Le Figaro (right-centrist). Using these newspapers, as well as Gallup polls recorded at the time, this study explores correlations of what was reported in newspapers and how French public opinion evolved during the course of the war. These two major sources of information are shown to have given contradictory information, thus accounting for some of the paradoxes found in public opinion polls. Specifically, the paradoxes analyzed in the study concern the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) and the Pieds-Noirs (the European population of North Africa).

This study analyzes students' use of the French second-person pronouns tu (T) and vous (V) in small-group (2-3 students) inter-learner online chat sessions. The influence of internal linguistic factors (i.e., turn type and morphosyntactic environment) on learners' appropriate vs. inappropriate use of these pronouns is considered. The study also investigates the influence of Instructional Level on tu-vous use and the extent to which students from different instructional levels provide various types of peer assistance (e.g., lexical, morphosyntactic, and sociolinguistic/pragmatic) . Pronoun use was extremely unstable for learners of all levels, and a Kruskal-Wallis analysis revealed that Instructional Level did not significantly affect appropriate T/V use overall. Instructional Level and Syntax did, however, significantly affect interrogative T/V use, as shown through multivariate analyses. Peer-assisted performance was limited to lexical retrieval. Pedagogical recommendations are presented for teaching and learning second-person pronouns in French.

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.

Many critics consider Mariama Bâ as a feminist writer, but the reader of her two novels might wonder what characterizes her work as such. Therefore, the aim of each chapter, in order of appearance, is to analyze first the genres, then the elements of African tradition and Western modernity, the characters of both works and the themes of the novels, with the intention of defining the author's feminism, which takes its source in dichotomies, paradoxes and contradictions. In order to expose the author's point of view on the condition of women, it appears important to situate the diegesis in its context. Also, the study is supported by references on the Senegalese culture, by genres, narrative and feminist theories and by critiques on the work itself.

This book chapter discusses performance practice and crafting a historically informed interpretation of "Nouvelles Poésies."

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