Lecture 

Préparation

Used thoughtfully, figures of speech can enrich and enliven our writing. But when laid on too thick, stretched beyond recognition, bent out of shape, or mixed like a Mai Tai on skid row, figurative language may only confuse--or amuse--our readers.

Source: http://grammar.about.com/b/2008/10/20/block-those-metaphors.htm

For this unit, you are going to read passages from a blog post, The Wanderer (Voyages de rêve). The writing is rich in figurative language but carefully crafted so that the themes sustain and develop the author’s ideas on travel. Two motifs are prominent: traveling (metaphors related to movement) and the savouring of foods, and by extension, experiences.

1. Read through the following expressions and their English translations:
   

2. Can you think of other metaphors or idioms in English that relate to traveling or savouring?

Première lecture

As you read, find and underline the metaphorical language on page 1 about traveling and savouring.

Le texte

Regardez de plus près

Travaillez avec un partenaire. Lisez le blog une deuxième fois et répondez aux questions.

1. ¶1 : « C’est avec les deux que vous y allez » – What two things are being referred to?

2. ¶2 : What pitfalls (écueils) should be avoided?

3. ¶6 : The author asks the following parenthetical question:  (pourquoi pas ? 🙂 

 What do you think is the author’s intended meaning?

4. ¶11 : Quelle est la différence entre gourmet et gourmand?

5. ¶12 : Traduisez en anglais:  “De la cuisine de rue à travers le monde… aux tables de luxe”

Allons plus loin

1. Discutez en groupe:

1. What language and/or imagery stands out for you in the text and why? (Note your answers.)

2. Do you think that you would like to take a trip organized by the blog author?

Why/Why not? Cite evidence from the text and/or images to support your opinions.

3. What are your responses to the three questions posed in the text? :

• Imaginez le voyage de votre vie. A quoi ressemble-t-il ?

• Vous êtes arrivé. Mais où ?

• La prochaine escale, ce sera ?

2. With a partner, check the following Cultura websites for American and French students’ associations with the words: United States and France. Look at the Discussion section on the site to see if this adds any further insight.
   

United States: http://cultura.mit.edu/2009-fall-mituniversite-de-brest-1/

France: http://cultura.mit.edu/2009-fall-mituniversite-de-brest-4/

[Note: If you have difficulty accessing those pages, google Cultura Exchanges MIT. Once on the home page, go to Archived Exchanges, find 2009-Fall-MIT and click on Answers & Discussions. Then, click on United States/Etats-Unis and France/France]

3. Discuss any differences that you see and what this might indicate in terms of differing worldviews.

Écriture

Source: Morguefile (free photo license)

Type de texte

A blog post (un blog)

Votre écrit

Choose a place that you know or a place mentioned in a chapter of your textbook. Your goal is to both inform your reader about the place (e.g. it’s climate, geography, and activities that one can engage in) and to foster the desire in your reader to go there! To help motivate your reader, incorporate a metaphorical motif of movement and include an image or images that would serve as further enticement. At least part of the text must be in paragraph form, one or more. (See techniques for linking ideas below.) Otherwise, you can include bulleted information and sentence fragments (telegraphic style). You may utilize any other formatting that you think would make this blog post attactive.

Préparation

1. Incorporate a metaphorical motif

While the metaphorical language in the blog presented in this unit nicely parallels culturally appropriate metaphors in English, this is often NOT the case. In the early stages of writing, a typical mistake is to translate what one wishes to say in English, directly and literally into French. For example, if you wanted to express in French the idea of  “to go take a look at a selection of books” and you wrote: aller prendre un regard à une sélection de livres, this would be gibberish.

a. To avoid literal translations, three strategies can prove useful:

• Recognize what is idiomatic or metaphorical in English.

• Type in the English idiom/expression in WordReference.com to see if you can find an equivalent in French. If this doesn’t pan out, identify the key word in the expression and look it up for similar nuances in meaning.

• If you cannot find a clear equivalent, drop the idea and change the content of what you wish to communicate.

b. For this assignment, here are the specific steps to follow:

• Look through the vocabulary of the chapter that you are studying related to travel.

Note down all of the words you can find that encode a sense of movement.

• Go to the Word Reference French/English dictionary:

http://www.wordreference.com/fr/

- Look up the word aller. You will find many meanings and uses along with their equivalents in English. (Note: The forum at the bottom of the screen is a useful tool for understanding nuances of words/expressions and possible cultural differences.)

- Note down the French expressions that you wish to use in your text.

• Choose another key word or expression from the chapter vocabulary that you noted above. Look up the word/expression to see if you can find another metaphor to include in your text.

Note: Be careful to attend to the grammar of figurative expressions. If it is a verb structure, for example, are you using the verb as an infinitive or do you need to conjugate it?

2. Link ideas with coordinating conjunctions (conjonctions de coordination)

3. Écrivez un brouillon.

Rédaction en collaboration

1. Avec un partenaire, échangez vos brouillons.

a. Lisez le texte de votre partenaire une première fois. Si vous avez du mal à comprendre quelque chose, clarifiez le sens du mot ou de la signification du passage avec votre partenaire.

b. Lisez le texte une deuxième fois et préparez vos remarques sur les questions suivantes:

• Topic development

Is there any important content information missing, something that you as a reader would need to know in order to have a clear enough understanding of the location and its attraction?

If so, make suggestions for what to add or to clarify. Indicate, too, if there are instances of redundancy of information.

• Incorporating a metaphorical motif to motivate the reader

- Underline all instances of what you think are metaphorical uses of language.

- Confirm your choices with your partner.

- Ask if there are other metaphors that you have missed and if so, what their meanings are.

- Do you find that the figurative language is used effectively?

- If you think that too much metaphorical language is used, make suggestions for editing.

• Techniques for linking ideas  

Underline all of the coordinating conjunctions to connect clauses.

Are there too many conjunctions, bogging down the flow of information? Are there instances where a conjunction is not used but could be in order to produce a greater sense of flow in the writing?

•  Formatting

Look at the format chosen for your partner’s blog post. Does the choice of format work well for the content and purpose of the text? Provide any suggestions that you can for improvement.

• Including persuasive imagery

Look at the imagery included. Does it succeed in helping to “sell” the trip? Would you like to go on this trip? Why/Why not?

2. Révisez donc votre brouillon et préparez votre version finale.

Lecture 

Préparation

The following thoughts on digression, culled from a blog, are in reference to the book, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman or, more briefly, Tristram Shandy, a novel by Laurence Sterne, published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years.  

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Opinions_of_Tristram_Shandy,_Gentleman 

Laurence Sterne was a flaneur* and blogger before either word was uttered. Consider his credo from Tristram Shandy:

‘Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;—they are the life, the soul of reading!—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—he steps forth like a bridegroom,—bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.’

Source: http://blindflaneur.com/2010/08/29/proto_flaneur-laurence-sterne-on-digression/

* flâner, […] loosely means to stroll or to wander aimlessly. One who walks this way is a flaneur. In Paris, such walking evolved into an art form. Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin were two of its great practitioners. In their imaginations, an aimless stroll through the streets of Paris became social transformation, the construction of new and subjective realities out of the pedestrian debris of cultural excess and alienation. Whew! Fortunately, you do not have to be a postmodern theorist to follow the flaneur’s art. It can be as simple as strolling down Rue Mouffetard with a baguette under your arm.

Source: http://blindflaneur.com/2007/12/18/foot-rage-and-the-blind-flaneur/

Digression is a crucial motif in literary narratives. It features as a key characteristic of fictional works from Cervantes and Sterne, to Proust, Joyce and Calvino. Moving away from a linear narrative and following a path of associations reflects how we think and speak. Yet an author's inability to stick to the point has often been seen to detract from a work of literature, somehow weakening it.

Textual Wanderings: The Theory and Practice of Narrative Digression Edited by Rhian Atkin

Source: http://www.mhra.org.uk/cgi-bin/legenda/legenda.pl?catalogue=b9781907747908

    I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Mark Twain, US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

Source: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/23671.html

1. Que pensez-vous des digressions dans un texte?

2. Quand vous écrivez dans votre langue maternelle (ou dans une autre langue que vous maîtrisez bien), utilisez-vous souvent des digressions ? Si oui, dans quels contextes ou à quels moments?

3. You are going to read a blog entry in which digression plays a key role. The entry is entitled Ambiguïtés. It is one woman’s musings on her uncertainties with spelling when editing her writing. Think about your experiences with electronically editing your own writing. What associations come to mind in relationship to this topic ?

Le texte

* Re « responsable, mais pas coupable  » and the tainted blood scandal in France:

“On February 9, 1999, Laurent Fabius, former Prime Minister of France; Georgina Dufoix, minister of social affairs under Fabius; and her subordinate, Edmond Hervé, stood before a tribunal in the Court of Justice of the Republic, where they were charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence. These former high officials of the French government were accused of delaying the introduction of a simple test, available from an American company, that enabled blood banks to detect human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in blood donors. That delay, the prosecutors claim, was meant to give French scientists time to perfect their own test for HIV, which could then compete with the American test. [about 4400 people in France were infected with HIV as a result of transfusion of infected blood during the 1980s, and about 1800 of them have died] Curiously, before her trial, Dufoix made the bizarre confession that she was ‘guilty but not responsible.’”

The New England Journal of Medicine

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Epic-History-Medicine-Commerce/dp/product-description/0688176496 

Regardez de plus près

1. Soulignez tous les passages dans le texte que vous considérez être digressifs. Quel effet l’utilisation de la technique de digression a-t-elle sur vous, en tant que lecteur? Est-ce que cela ajoute « du soleil »  et « de la variété »  (à la Tristram Shandy)? Est-ce que cela vous aide à mieux comprendre la façon dont l’auteur « pense et parle » (Textual Wanderings) ?

Citez des exemples et notez vos réactions.

2. Parallelism // Parallélisme 

a. “Parallelism is the use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the same or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter. Parallelism examples are found in literary works as well as in ordinary conversations.

This method adds balance and rhythm to sentences giving ideas a smoother flow and thus can be persuasive because of the repetition it employs. For example, ‘Alice ran into the room, into the garden, and into our hearts.’ We see the repetition of a phrase that not only gives the sentence a balance but rhythm and flow as well. This repetition can also occur in similar structured clauses e.g. ‘Whenever you need me, wherever you need me, I will be there for you.’”

Source” http://literarydevices.net/parallelism/

Case in point

“Maya Angelou called out the creators of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial for misquoting the civil rights legend and making him sound like ‘an arrogant twit.’

Angelou publicly criticized the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington for a misquotation that read, "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness." The line was abbreviated from a sermon in which King described how he hoped to be remembered at his funeral. In the original speech he said, "Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter." Angelou had worked with King's campaign as a coordinator for his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The quote was later changed.”

 Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/28/maya-angelou-life_n_5405038.html

We tend to think about parallel structures when writing in our own language and wishing to avoid grammatical or syntactical errors. As a rhetorical or literary device, however, parallelism adds much to the meaning of a text as well as to the pleasure of reading or listening to it. It is important, then, to learn to recognize parallel structures in a foreign language as a way of better understanding sentence structures and the conceptual and aesthetic dimensions that the author wishes to convey.

Source: Wikimedia CC-BY-SA Sander van der Wel

There are many kinds of parallel structures. Here is an example of parallelisms made evident by poetic structuring. This is the beginning of a poem by the poet, Jacques Prévert, entitled, « Pour faire le portrait d'un oiseau » . (Paroles) :

Peindre d'abord une cage

avec une porte ouverte

peindre ensuite

quelque chose de joli

quelque chose de simple

quelque chose de beau

quelque chose d'utile

pour l'oiseau

placer ensuite la toile contre un arbre

dans un jardin

dans un bois

Source: http://www.lemonde.fr/revision-du-bac/annales-bac/francais-premiere/parallelisme_fx085.html

There are three embedded parallelisms :

Peindre d'abord une cage

avec une porte ouverte

peindre ensuite

quelque chose de joli

quelque chose de simple

quelque chose de beau

quelque chose d'utile

pour l'oiseau

placer ensuite la toile contre un arbre

dans un jardin

dans un bois

However, it is not always easy to see parallel structures in another language, especially in complex sentences.

b. Regardez cette phrase venant du blog. Identifiez toutes les parallélismes:

Tout d’abord, je voulais donner quelques exemples d’ambiguïté, puis comme j’ai eu un doute sur l’orthographe du mot, je voulais parler de l’utilisation des dictionnaires, puis je me suis surprise à penser aux machines, aux erreurs pour lesquelles « on ne veut pas porter le chapeau » (une expression encore), à la honte que l’on peut ressentir quelquefois dans ce monde où personne ne se sent ni responsable, ni coupable, honte d’être si inadapté, honte d’être si peu courageux pour arriver à faire changer les choses, au clavier qui pourrait rougir parce qu’il chauffe sous mes doigts.

3. French syllables and pronunciation 

a. A French word has as many syllables as there are vowel units of sound, and the dominant pattern to a syllable is consonant-vowel [C-V].

• An initial vowel can constitute a syllable by itself, but after that, whenever possible, a French syllable begins with a consonant.

2 vowel units:  neveu = ne/veu

3 vowel units:  animal  = a/ni/mal                               

4 vowel units:  population = po/pu/la/tion

• Consonant clusters that are not in the initial position are either assigned to the following vowel (if they constitute an acceptable sound group), or they are divided between two syllables:

après = a/près             actrice = ac/trice                            parlons = par/lons                            

exploit = ex/ploit

• Final consonants are generally silent. Main exceptions =  c, r, f, l   (mnemonic = CaReFuL). There are other exceptions, but they are rare.

silent:   héros,  furieux,  objet,  objets,  beaucoup, indiquez,  très, comment, plomb, placard

pronounced:  avec, avoir/bonjour, sportif, mal

The letter “r”, however, is silent in verbs ending –er and in words of more than one syllable ending –ier :

admirer = ad/mi/rer                 premier = pre/mier

décider = dé/ci/der                   dernier = der/nier

anticiper = an/ti/ci/per            étudier = é/tu/dier

• Consonants are always pronounced when followed by a vowel:

petite  vs. petit

parte  / parti  / pâté  vs. part

sportives / ennuyeuse / tresse  vs. sportifs / ennuyeux / très

individu (in/di/vi/du)  vs.  nid

b. These general principles of syllabication help to explain several phenomena related to French pronunciation:

• Contractions are often obligatory, not optional as they are in English:

je aime => j’aime                   le animal => l’animal

• Liaison is mostly obligatory:

ont-ils = on/tils          un homme = un/n(h)omme           

les Américains = lez/za/mé/ri/cains

• Certain verb conjugations are homophones (pronounced the same way, even though they are spelled differently):

admire / admires / admirent

décidais / décidait / décidaient

• Most syllables in French end with a vowel sound, unlike in English, where most syllables end with a consonant sound:

Il est arrivé en retard  = i /le/ta/ri/vé/en/re/tard           vs.  He arrived late.

Nos amis vous attendent = no/za/mi/vu/za/tãd  vs.  Our friends are waiting for you.

c. Following are the holorimes presented in the blog entry. All of the multi-syllable words have been divided into syllables and the liaisons are indicated by underlining. Commas have been omitted so as to allow for the same rhythm.

Practice saying each rhymed pair of sentences slowly outloud :

Par/le bois du gin ou cent tasses de lait froid !

Par le bois du djinn où s’en/tasse de l’e/ffroi.  

La man/da/ri/ne é/plu/chée ça tente Da/mien.

L’amant d’Harry n’est plus chez sa tante d’A/miens.

Allons plus loin

1. Avec un partenaire, comparez vos réponses dans la section Regardez de plus près.

Soyez prêts à défendre vos interprétations.

2. Lisez la citation ci-dessous et avec votre partenaire, comparez vos réactions – Est-ce que vous êtes plutôt d’accord ou non? Est-ce que vous connaissez des exemples de textes littéraires en anglais? :

« La navigation sur internet, aujourd'hui, peut-être conçue très souvent comme une succession de digressions par rapport à l'objet principal de la requête, et nul ne songerait à (no one would dream of) condamner ces divagations qui font la richesse et les surprises d'une déambulation dans le cyberespace. Une certaine forme d'écriture spécifique à ce médium tend à se constituer qui déploie dans toutes ses dimensions une nouvelle sémiologie du texte littéraire. »

Source: http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/langueXIX/saint-gerand/qui-digression-dit.htm

 Écriture

Source: Wikimedia

Type de texte 

Digressive musings

Votre écrit

Topic: An important activity in your life : a hobby, obligation or simple pleasure.

Explain your chosen activity to your reader and why it is important to you.

Incorporate vocabulary and grammar topics from your textbook chapter.

As a way of helping your reader to better understand how you think and speak, include carefully selected digressions that relate to your activity.

For stylistic effect, include at least one example of parallelism.

Préparation

Depending on the content and genre of a text, digression can be used for any number of purposes:

• To bring suspense when telling a story
• To demonstrate intellectual breadth on a topic as a way of establishing credibility in the eyes of the reader
• To provide greater scope for the development of an argument than is conventionally expected in an essay
• To add layers of historical, philosophical, technical, or factual information
• To serve as transition
• To add emotional and psychological depth
• To interject humor
• To establish direct communication and rapport with the reader
• To delight and intrigue the reader

Digressions can be written in parentheses or as footnotes or directly incorporated in the text.

One way to prepare for writing this text could be by choosing your activity and simply letting your mind wander (part en vadrouille). If you need some prompting, here is a more structured approach: Write five questions that you think the reader would like answered about your chosen activity and why it is important to you. Then brainstorm associations that you can make with each topic indicated in the questions. These associations will form the basis for digressions to integrate into your text.

1. Écrivez un brouillon.

Rédaction en collaboration

1. Avec un partenaire, échangez vos brouillons.

a. Lisez le texte de votre partenaire une première fois. Si vous avez du mal à comprendre quelque chose, notez le problème et clarifiez le sens du mot ou la signification du passage avec votre partenaire.

b. Lisez le texte une deuxième fois et préparez des remarques sur les questions suivantes:

• Topic Development

Is the theme effectively developed so as to provide an engaging yet clear depiction of the topic?

• Digression

Underline the passages containing digressions. Are there any instances of digressions that do not help you to better understand the thinking and feelings of the author? Are there digressions that could be edited in order to be more effective? What suggestions can you offer?

• Parallelisms

Circle all of the key words that indicate parallel structures. Are these phrases carefully constructed so as to provide balance and rhythm to sentences or to add persuasiveness because of the repetition they employ? What suggestions can you offer for fine-tuning?

• Avoiding repetitiveness

Make note of any instances of repeated words and check for synonyms with your partner to see what might work as substitution. Here is a link to Reverso, an online dictionary that includes a thesaurus (as well as a conjugator, grammar input, and an encylopedia) :

http://dictionary.reverso.net/french-synonyms

2. Révisez donc votre brouillon et préparez votre version finale.