Category: Department of French

By Dr Charlotte Faucher and Dr Clare Siviter, Department of French, School of Modern Languages

2024 marked the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale, a series of pivotal agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and France. In this blog, Dr Charlotte Faucher and Dr Clare Siviter reflect on the contributions made by colleagues in the Department of French to remember this special year, contributions which have also helped to enhance specialist and public knowledge on Franco-British relations.

Dr Charlotte Faucher worked closely with Dr Guillaume Perissol from the Institut français du Royaume-Uni to create When Marianne and Britannia Meet, an exhibition tracing the history of the Entente Cordiale agreements and their global repercussions. Lucy Frazer MP (Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) and the French ambassador Hélène Duchêne opened the exhibition in London on 28 March. It then came to Bristol in June 2024. The formal opening at City Hall by the Lord Mayor of Bristol was followed by talks by Dr Faucher, Professor Martin Hurcombe and Professor Debra Kelly (University of Westminster). Together they discussed Franco-British relations: from the 1904 agreements to the 1908 Franco-British exhibition, which took place in London, to the role of a Bristol professor in strengthening Franco-British friendship during the two world wars. Around 80 people attended the event, and the exhibition was then on display for over 10 days at City Hall.

The exhibition was also presented in the rest of the Alliance Française’s UK network, including in Oxford and Cambridge, and at the Central Libraries in Manchester and Milton Keynes, as well as at the French Diplomatic Archives in Paris. The exhibition has been developed in partnership with the UK’s National Archives and French Diplomatic Archives, with support of Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking and the Friends of the French Institute Trust.

The day kicked off with a ‘petit déjeuner FERN-UK’ – a breakfast lecture hosted by the French Education and Research Network UK, which aims to bring together and support UK-based French and francophone researchers – with Dr Faucher presenting on the history of the Entente Cordiale and responses to her co-curated exhibition.  

Later that day, the British Library hosted two events under the umbrella title, ‘Rendez-Vous à la British Library’, which featured Dr Faucher, Dr Clare Siviter and Ros Schwartz of the Bristol Translates Summer School. Both events were organised by Sophie Defrance (Curator of Romance collections) and her colleagues at the British Library and supported by the French Embassy as celebrations of the Entente Cordiale’s anniversary. Throughout, the sheer scale of cultural exchange between the UK and France became apparent as we learnt that the British Library holds the second largest collection of material in French in the world.

The afternoon symposium brought together academics, students, curators, translators and booksellers working from the 11th century to the present day, all using the British Library’s French Collections. The first panel, ‘France and the United Kingdom, Entente Cordiale’, was moderated by Dr Faucher and brought together the full spectrum of the academic career path, from Aude Moine presenting her PhD work on material culture through to the renowned expert in heraldry Michel Pastoureau on the British origins of the French tricolour flag. The next panel, ‘France and Beyond’, was chaired by Prof. Catriona Seth and featured two papers focusing on theatre by Dr Siviter and Prof Clare Finburgh-Delijani, who both used the British Library’s holdings of material from the French Revolution to think through questions of cultural and political production from 1789 to the present day. The three lightening papers also took us from the 1790s, starting in Saint Domingue with Dr Alex Fairfax-Cholmeley through to the British Library’s francophone African comic book collection with Daniel Lowe and its Endangered Archives Programme with Ruth Hansford.

Three shorter panels followed about translation, artists’ books, and medieval manuscripts before a joint visit to the fantastic ‘Medieval Women: In Their Own Words’ exhibition, which included a letter from Joan of Arc, featuring her first known signature, and which had left France for the first time to come to the British Library.

The evening continued to emphasise the importance and extent of Franco-British exchange with a final event, opened by Sir Roly Keating, the Chief Executive Officer of the British Library, and the French ambassador to the UK, Hélène Duchêne, who both reflected on the strengths of ‘London’s BN’ (shorthand for the British Library’s Parisian counterpart, the Bibliothèque nationale). This final session featured keynotes by the esteemed Professor William Marx of the prestigious Collège de France and the writer Artemis Cooper.

2024 brought an increased awareness of the Entente Cordiale in specialist and public understanding: from the historical participation of the Coldstream Guards in a ceremony at the Elysée on the anniversary of the signing of the agreement, through to the creation of the Entente Littéraire award, whose first award ceremony took place with Her Majesty The Queen and Mme Brigitte Macron. The 1904 meaning of Entente Cordiale has certainly changed over the past 120 years; nonetheless the governments and peoples of both countries overwhelmingly continue to value a close Franco-British bilateral relationship.

To find out more about the Entente Cordiale, Dr Charlotte Faucher explains its historical significance in a new research explainer video. Further details about the When Marianne and Britannia Meet exhibition can be found in the university’s press release. For further enquiries, please contact charlotte.faucher@bristol.ac.uk and c.siviter@bristol.ac.uk.

By Damien McManus, Professor Martin Hurcombe, Dr Charlotte Faucher, Dr Federico Testa, Louisiane Bigot 

August 2024 marks 80 years since the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation in the summer of 1944, a decisive and highly symbolic moment in World War II. In celebration, the School of Modern Languages and Library Services, with support from the University’s Theatre Collection, the French Government’s Mission Libération, and AUPHF+, held an event in June to commemorate the D-Day landings and the importance of objets de mémoire (objects of memory) as powerful reminders of the struggle against oppression.

This event was held to mark the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord, the landings in Normandy which took place in June 1944, and the subsequent liberation of France that year. Supported by the French Government’s Mission Libération, it comprised an exhibition of photographic images and original documents selected from the University Library and the Theatre Collection; and a series of short presentations and discussions around the intellectual and cultural context and legacy of resistance to the Nazi occupation of France 1940-44. Material for the exhibition was chosen from two areas of the collections: the University of Westminster War and Culture Studies Archive which is now housed at the University’s Library Services, and the Irving Family Archive, located in the Theatre Collection, also at Bristol.

A number of themes provided the focus of the exhibition and traced aspects of the French experience of the war. The first of these reflected attempts to bolster morale during the early days of the Occupation and included representations of life for French people in exile in the UK. Others reflected how keenly the French in exile in the UK anticipated Liberation, before the exhibition moved on to the aftermath of the Normandy landings, and the gradual lifting of the Nazi Occupation.

A major source for texts and images around these themes was La France libre [Free France], which was published first in London, then Paris, from November 1940 to December 1946, and which sought to fight against the acceptance of defeat, and advocate resistance and the restoration of freedom to France. Among the writings and images selected were satirical pieces depicting occupying forces as brutal simpletons in contrast to the more erudite French population; and intriguing adverts for a range of products from quintessentially French brands such as Michelin tyres to less well known and possibly more controversial items, to the French at least, such as Marmite. Photographs taken on the day of the liberation of Paris and of celebrating civilians in Normandy and the capital served to remind viewers of the relief felt at the end of the Occupation.

The Irving Family Archive provided some fascinating images of the planning and execution of the landings at Normandy. Laurence Irving, a prominent Hollywood set designer and Intelligence Officer with the Royal Air Force, specialised in the analysis of low-level reconnaissance photographs, some of which were displayed, marked up with vital information about coastal defences. Other images provided impressions of the destructiveness of war and powerful portraits of captured German equipment and vehicles.

Presentations and a panel discussion rounded off the day’s proceedings. Dr Federico Testa provided an account of the tensions between the ideas of pacifism and justice, and in particular the moral and ethical dilemmas facing the French during World War II. Professor Martin Hurcombe spoke about Les Amants d’Avignon (The Lovers of Avignon] written by Elsa Triolet and published clandestinely under the pseudonym of Laurent Daniel, and focused on the roles of women in the Resistance, which have very often been overlooked. Dr Charlotte Faucher framed her talk around a photograph of Résistantes from the BBC Yearbook 1945, taken when the impression among some British people was of well-fed French civilians at a time of rationing in the UK, and outlined her interviews with former female resistance fighters who firmly countered that view. Lastly, Professor Debra Kelly (emerita, University of Westminster, who kindly organised the donation of the War and Culture Studies Archive) discussed the 1946 novel, Siege of London written by (Mrs)Robert Henrey (sic), real name Madeleine Gall, a member of the French community in London.

This was a hugely enjoyable exhibition to organise, and the presentations and discussions were fascinating, enlightening and full of debate. Perhaps the most rewarding aspect was the range of people who came to see the exhibition and to attend the discussions, from members of the public to groups of sixth formers from Bristol and Cardiff who were evidently very engaged with the collections, especially as they were directly connected to their A-Level studies.

With thanks to Damien McManus, Library Services, Professor Martin Hurcombe, Dr Charlotte Faucher and Dr Federico Testa in the Department of French, and PhD candidate Louisiane Bigot in the School of Modern Languages. To find out more about the University of Westminster War and Culture Studies Archive, visit Library Services. To find out more about the Irving Family Archive, visit the Theatre Collection.

As part of our Pride Month celebrations, we caught up with Dr Damien Mooney, Senior Lecturer in French Linguistics and Language Change, to hear about his research into how sexual minorities participate in ongoing sound change, and the importance of inclusion in research and beyond.

Language variation and change

The study of language variation and change attempts to identify the linguistic and social factors that influence the pronunciations and grammatical features that speakers use. Sometimes, for relatively arbitrary reasons, new pronunciations – and other linguistic features such as new words – enter into being and establish themselves in the language. These slowly replace old pronunciations or ways of speaking. The way this happens is very simple: one speaker who already uses the new feature interacts with others and, if the relationship between them is favourable (i.e. if they like each other and seek each other’s approval), they are likely to adopt features of each other’s speech, including new pronunciations.

On a larger scale, these basic interactions between speakers lead to language change, whereby more speakers adopt the new pronunciation or word into their repertoire and then begin using it in their interactions with others. For example, this is how the common English phenomenon of ‘dropping your ts’ – known in linguistics as glottal stopping – spread from Cockney English to almost all varieties of English in the UK. In essence, linguistic changes spread throughout the speech community because we adjust our linguistic behaviour to conform to other people like us. So, what happens when you’re different? When you’re gay or trans or not white? Does the same motivation to conform exist?

Why is this piece of research important?

When a sound change (where an established pronunciation is replaced by a new one) is underway in a given speech community, young female speakers have been repeatedly shown to act as the vanguards of change. They push the change forward and implement the use of the new pronunciation as much as one full generation ahead of male speakers.

Up until now, sociolinguistic studies have implicitly assumed that the male and female speakers in their samples are heterosexual. While some research has considered the role of minority ethnicities in large-scale sound changes, a more nuanced articulation of gender, which takes a male or female speaker’s sexuality into account, has been absent from these studies. A small number of studies have examined the speech of homosexual male and female speakers, usually with the aim of analysing pronunciations that act as a perceptual cue for homosexuality when heard by others. These studies did not, however, focus on how gay men and women engage in sound changes in progress, but on what makes them sound gay. The present study asks the questions that other research did not; in particular, what is the role of sexual minorities in driving language change forward?

What does the research project involve?

The project began in 2022 with a pilot study in Paris, France. I collected speech samples from 22 native French speakers that self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual. All speakers were required to read a short text and a long list of words for which there was a possibility of using a new pronunciation or an older pronunciation. The pilot study focused in particular on the ongoing changes affecting the pronunciation of the Parisian French nasal vowels in words like bain (‘bath’), banc (‘bench’), and bon (‘good’).

I am currently in the process of analysing the data acoustically, using speech analysis software, in order to identify fine-grained differences in pronunciation between speakers and groups, if they exist. The analysis of heterosexual speakers will have the dual aim of documenting the progression of this change, known to be underway in French, and of providing a baseline against which to compare the evidence for these changes in the speech of the gay and lesbian participants.

What impact is this research expected to have?

While there is some research on the role played by African American and Latinx people in predominantly white speech communities, this project will be the first to consider sexual minorities as an integral part of the wider social order.

The data-driven principles advanced by this study will constitute a significant point of reference for future studies of language and sexuality, providing an in-depth empirical analysis of the speech of gay men and lesbians. The project will contribute a more comprehensive examination of sound changes known to be underway in the sociolinguistic literature on French. The research will also provide a framework within which to undertake quantitative linguistic research that is experimental, focusing on language variation and change, but also theoretical, examining the extent to which an individual’s performance of sexual identity influences the extent to which they engage in sound changes set in motion by their heterosexual peers.

The cross-disciplinary methodology will demonstrate the contribution that sociolinguistic theory can make to the central focus of queer studies, namely interrogating heterosexuality by dismissing its claims to naturalness.

What are the next steps?

Once the results of the pilot study are processed, the hope is to establish a set of data-driven principles that can be tested in other contexts and in other languages. The findings of the Paris study will be formalised in a research article which will then form the basis of future studies on a wider variety of sexual identities, gender identities, and sound changes, in both French and English, in Paris and in other large cities such as London, Montreal, and Toronto.

The pilot study is the first step in a research project that will attempt to transform current theories of language change by providing a quantitative account of the way sexual minorities engage in mainstream linguistic change. The project will create an open-access corpus of natural speech – a database of speech audio files and text transcriptions – of both homosexual and heterosexual speakers, making all sound files and transcriptions from this study and from future, larger studies publicly available. The essence of the project, however, is its continued commitment to social justice: it aims to address the continued exclusion of sexual minorities from large-scale social scientific studies, which not only invisibilises queer people, but underlines their behaviour, linguistic or otherwise, as gender-deviant.

Learn more about research in the Faculty of Arts.

Visit the University’s Pride 2022 page to see how the University is celebrating LGBT+ staff and students.

Find out about LGBT+ equality initiatives at the University of Bristol.

Explore the University Library’s Pride Month page, which showcases a range of LGBT+ books, films, archives and other resources.

By Professor Martin Hurcombe, Professor of French Studies, School of Modern Languages

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in May 2020. The sun is glinting off Chew Lake. There is the sound of birds I’m too ignorant to know the names of. And on both sides of the road there is a steady stream of cyclists. Not just the regular MAMILs* like me who you’ll always find out here this time of day, but cyclists of all ages and sizes, many of them on bikes a lot newer than mine. I count them over an hour; there are six cyclists for every motorist.

During those awful first weeks of lockdown, many of us found some respite from the horrors unfolding around us in our ability to cycle, run or just walk away from the homes and the online world to which we were otherwise confined. Bike sales went through the roof as we all realised that, once you take away the bulk of the traffic, roads make pretty good cycle paths and cycling is both an efficient and pleasant way of getting about (particularly when the sun shines).

There was also a lot of serious debate about how the pandemic would transform our working lives. Most of us would probably be working from home for years. Time saved by not commuting could be reinvested in leisure; not the constant consumption of those tiresome pre-pandemic weekends spent trudging around out-of-town retail outlets, but what researchers call active leisure (running, walking, cycling, etc), activities that we could now integrate into our daily lives. Perhaps, despite the dystopia of a health service under constant strain, we could emerge healthier and happier as a nation. ‘A better world is possible’, the slogan painted onto the main road through Long Ashton declared as I cycled towards it on my first trip into Bristol coming out of lockdown.

We caught some of this spirit in Active in Lockdown (AIL), a project that Dr Melanie Chalder (Bristol Medical School) and I ran in collaboration with Knowle West Media Centre. By collecting social media posts, and helping volunteers to capture and reflect upon their experiences of cycling, running, or walking during the three national lockdowns, AIL attempted to record the huge surge in active leisure in Bristol and the surrounding area.

I still see that slogan as I commute through Long Ashton on my bike. It’s beginning to re-emerge after being painted over by the authorities eager perhaps not to raise our hopes. It’s re-emerging because the paint used to cover it is being eroded by the cars that have now returned to our roads. Traffic levels are rapidly approaching pre-pandemic levels and congestion is returning to our city centres. It is hard to remember that, only a year ago, we stood on our doorsteps applauding keyworkers and swearing to protect the NHS. In our headlong rush to get back to our old way of living, though, we seem determined as a society to spend even more time in its care.

So, I’m left asking: Where are all the lovely new bikes of 2020 and the revolution we dared to dream of? We hope that global leaders will emerge from COP26 with the roadmap to a world that looks better than the course we are currently set upon. But is ‘A world not as bad as it could have been’ our only hope? And what is it that towns, employers, and individuals can do to help our roads contribute to our wellbeing rather than to be a major source of global decline? The stories captured by AIL can help here. They tell us about the wellbeing that comes with active leisure, but also the conditions needed to facilitate it: safe, clean, congestion-free spaces available for all.

*Middle-Aged Man in Lycra