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2020/2021

French Phonetics and Phonology

Code: 103359 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2501913 English and French OB 3 1
2502533 French Studies OB 2 1
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact

Name:
Roser Gauchola Gamarra
Email:
Roser.Gauchola@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
(fre)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
No
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Prerequisites

There are not.

Objectives and Contextualisation

Phonetics and phonology of French language is one of the compulsory topics for Grau d’Estudis franceses, Estudis  de francès i català, Estudis de francès i espanyol, Estudis de francès i anglès i Estudis de francès i clàssiques students.

One of its main goals is to help students in their acquisition of the phonic component of French language with different techniques of pronunciation correction. Simultaneously, this subject introduces students to phonetic description of oral productions in French as well as to the analysis methodology used in this discipline.

At the end of the term, the student must be able to:

-       To perceive and to produce a) the sentences prosody, b) the phonetic structure or words, c) phonic unities depending of their context, to achieve intelligible and natural pronunciation

-       To produce and interpret phonological transcriptions of French language;

-       To classify and to describe from the articulatory perspective of French sounds;

-       To analyze and to describe from the acoustic perspective of French sounds

Competences

    English and French
  • Apply the techniques of French oral and written expression corresponding to different levels of competence.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the history and culture of France and French-speaking countries.
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Respect the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students can apply the knowledge to their own work or vocation in a professional manner and have the powers generally demonstrated by preparing and defending arguments and solving problems within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
  • Students must know the methodology and terminology associated to the linguistic analysis of the French language.
    French Studies
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the history and culture of France and French-speaking countries.
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Respect the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students can apply the knowledge to their own work or vocation in a professional manner and have the powers generally demonstrated by preparing and defending arguments and solving problems within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
  • Students must know and apply techniques of oral and written expression in the French language.
  • Students must know the methodology and terminology associated to the linguistic analysis of the French language.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analysing and applying the specific methodologies and terminology of the linguistic analysis of the French language.
  2. Analysing and making linguistic remarks in the several fields of study (phonetics, phonology, morphology, lexicon, semantics) of the French language.
  3. Analysing and using the techniques of oral expression in French language.
  4. Analysing the main linguistic variation phenomena of French (historical, geographical, social and pragmatic variation).
  5. Correctly pronounce in French language.
  6. Correctly pronouncing in French language.
  7. Describing the structure of the French language, and distinguishing its systematic and normative aspects.
  8. Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
  9. Effectively working in teams and respecting different opinions.
  10. Explaining the specific concepts of the French language, linguistics and literature.
  11. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  12. Interpreting the content of different types of oral discourses in French language.
  13. Producing oral discourses in French language that are appropriate to various situations of communication.
  14. Solving problems autonomously.
  15. Summarising acquired knowledge about the origin and transformations experienced in its several fields of study.

Content

This subject is structured in practical activities to improve French pronunciation as well as a theoretical-practical introduction of the basis of phonetic and phonological description of French.

Pronunciation

-       Perception and production of French rhythm, stress and intonation;

-       Perception and production of vocalic and consonant French phonemes and their allophones

Phonetic and phonological description of French language

-       Introduction to phonetics, phonology and transcription in IPA

-       Articulatory phonetics: basis and methodology analysis, description and classification or vowels and consonants in French

-       Acoustic phonetics: basis and methodology analysis, description and classification or vowels and consonants in French

-       Sounds and prosody perception

Methodology

This subject is theoretical and practical. It will be focused on formative activities and students active participation in order to achieve the competences required.

The learning will be directed with these techniques and actions:

-       Phonetic correction

-       Oral practice in reduced groups.

-       Individual and in group exercises of application of the subject contents. Collective discussions.

-       Courses with TIC and collective discussion

-       Test on the competences on the contents, the application of the knowledge to phonetic analysis, written tests in French on the topics of the subject

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Phonetic correction. Theoretical courses and collective discussion. Readings and practical exercises 55 2.2
Type: Supervised      
Collective exercises in the classroom and in reduced groups. Oral in groups of individual presentations. Oral practice in reduced groups in the classroom 15 0.6
Type: Autonomous      
Exercises 65 2.6

Assessment

Assessment will be continous. It will include all the tasks done during the semester (exams, exercises)

Mid-term exams will be corrected in class and students will be able to ask any doubt about assessment. In the final exam, a date of revision will be fixed. 

- If a student has not done any of the mid-term exams, (s)he will not be  assessed.

- Remedial exam will only be avalaible to students who, having done the continuous assessment, have failed. But they will have not right to remedial exam if their average is inferior to 3,5 /10 or if they have not done at least 2/3 of the required tasks. Tasks not done will not be remediated (in this case the assessment will be 0/10) or the activities done in course. If the student has not got an average of pass, he will have to do a final exam including all the topics. 

Plagiarism: Total or partial plagiarism of any exercise will be automatically failed (0) of the plagiarised exercise. TO PLAGIARISE is copying from non identified sources from a text, even if it is one single phrase, which is appropriated by someone who is not the real author (it includes copying phrases or Internet passages and adding them without modification to the text which is presented as one's own). It is a serious offense.

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

Particular  cases: Students whose mother tongue is French will have to achieve the same assessment conditions than the rest of students. Students are the exclusive responsible of monitoring formative and assessment activities.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Oral exam 40% 5 0.2 3, 13, 5, 6
Practical exercises 30% 5 0.2 4, 1, 7, 10, 8, 2, 12, 14, 9
Tests 30% 5 0.2 4, 1, 7, 10, 8, 2, 11, 14, 15

Bibliography

 I. Websites
 II. General works
  • Argod-Dutard, F. (1996). Éléments de phonétique appliquée. Paris : Armand Colin / Masson.
  • Carton, F. (1974). Introduction à la phonétique du français. Paris: Bordas.
  • Crystal, D. (1980). A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. London: Deutsch.
  • Escudier, P. et alii (éds.) La parole : des modèles cognitifs aux machines communicantes. Paris : Hermès.
  • Jakobson, R. (1976). Six leçons sur le son et le sens. Paris: Minuit. [première leçon]
  • Landercy, A.; Renard, R. (1977). Éléments de phonétique. Bruxelles: CIPA/Didier.
  • Léon, P. (1966). La prononciation du français standard. Aide-mémoire d'orthoépie. Paris: Didier.
  • Léon, P. (1992). Phonétisme et prononciations du français. Paris: Nathan.
  • Malmberg, B. (1974). Manuel de phonétique générale. Paris: Picard.
  • Munot, P. et Neve, F. X. (2003). Une introduction à la phonétique. Liège: CEFAL.
  • Quilis,A. (1993). Tratado de fonética y fonología españolas. Madrid: Gredos.
  • Vaissière, J. 2006. La phonétique. Paris: PUF Que sais-je?
  • Walter, H. 1977. La phonologie du français. Paris: PUF.
  • Wioland, F. 1991. Prononcer les mots du français: des sons et des rythmes. Paris: Hachette.
 III. Phonology
  • Delais-Roussarie, E. et Durand, J., éds. (2003). Corpus et variation en phonologie du français : méthodes et analyses. Toulouse : Presse Universitaire du Mirail.
  • Dell, F. (1985, 2e éd.). Les règles et les sons, Introduction à la phonologie générative. Paris : Hermann.
  • Duchet, J.-L. (1998, 5e éd.). La phonologie. Paris : PUF, coll. « Que sais-je ? ».
  • Durand, J., Laks, B., Lyche, C., éds. (2009). Phonologie, variation et accents du français. Paris, Londres : Hermès Sciences, Lavoisier.
  • Durand, J. et Lyche, C. (2000). « La phonologie : des phonèmes à la théorie de l’optimalité », in Escudier, P. et alii. (éds.) La parole : des modèles cognitifs aux machines communicantes. Paris : Hermès.
  • Encrevé, P. (1988). La liaison avec et sans enchaînement. Paris : éd. de Minuit.
  • Goldsmith, J., éd. (1995). The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Cambridge Mass. : Basil Blackwell.
  • Gussenhoven, C. & Jacobs H. (1998). Understanding Phonology. London : Arnold ; New York : Oxford University Press.
  • Troubetzkoy, N.S. 1949. Principes de phonologie. Paris: Klincksieck.
IV. Perception
  • Nguyen, N. (2005). La perception de la parole, in N. Nguyen, S. Wauquier-Gravelines & J. Durand (éds.), Phonologie et phonétique : Forme et substance (pp. 425-447). Paris : Hermès.
  • Pisoni, D. B. et Remez, R. E.(éds.) (2005). The Handbook of Speech Perception. Oxford : Blackwell.

V. Prosody

  • Delattre, P. 1966. "Les dix intonations de base du français", The French Review, 40.
  • Di Cristo, A. (2004). La prosodie au carrefour de la phonétique, de la phonologie et de l'articulation formes-fonctions, Travaux Interdisciplinaires du Laboratoire Parole et Langage, vol.23, p. 67-211.
  • Di Cristo, A. (2016). Les musiques du français parlé. Berlin/Boston : De Gruyter.
  • Heinz, J., Goedemans, R., & van der Hulst, H. (éds.). (2016). Dimensions of Phonological Stress. Cambridge University Press.
  • Lacheret-Dujour, A.; Beaugendre, F. (1999). La prosodie du français. Paris: CNRS Editions.
  • Morel, M.A.; Danon-Boileau, L. (1998). Grammaire de l'intonation. L'exemple du français. Paris: Ophrys.
  • Rossi, M. et alii (1981). L'intonation. De l'acoustique à la sémantique. Paris: Klincksieck.
  • Rossi, M. (1999). L'intonation, le système du français: description et modélisation. Paris: Ophrys.