Francophonia: Stories from the Professional French Masters Program ed. by Ritt Deitz

Abstract

introduisent quelques courts métrages à analyser, l’histoire de la petite souris blanche pour examiner le modèle actantiel du sémioticien A.J. Greimas à l’aide d’un conte d’Alphonse Daudet, Le secret de Maître Cornille, ainsi que la presse et les tendances des partis politiques lors de la dernière élection présidentielle en France. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania S. Pascale Vergereau-Dewey Deitz, Ritt, ed. Francophonia: Stories from the Professional French Masters Program. Madison, WI: Incidence, 2014. ISBN 978-1-49292-801-0. Pp. 336. $19.95. As a follow-up to Post-Francophile (2010), in which graduates of the Professional French Masters Program (PFMP, University of Wisconsin, Madison) share their perspectives on how they use French in non-academic careers, Francophonia describes PFMP alumni’s life in the French-speaking world. The students share their adventures of self-discovery and transformation as working professionals in the ‘Francophone world,’especially as it relates to today’s interdependent global economy. The collection begins with a delightful preface which, with the editor’s note, makes up the “Entry” section. Here Québécois filmmaker Christian Laurence explains how he discovered the unique intricacies of his own French when, as an adolescent, he was flabbergasted by the woefully inaccurate dubbing of baseball references in American films into French by crews in France.After this awakening, Laurence no longer considered his French to be insufficient and was able to revel in the beauties of the varieties of French from around the world. The collection is then divided into five aptly-named sections: Sights and Sounds; The Culture; An International Education; The Market; Sustainable. Each section has well-written and edited stories. Laura Gross’s “Winning at French, Losing at Scrabble” initially, as a title, brought me back to the first time I played Scrabble as an undergraduate studying in Paris and living in a foyer in the 7e arrondissement with young women from around the world but, as an article, quickly fascinated me as Gross detailed her friendship with Agnès Varda, whose films have challenged my students. Brigit Calder’s insightful self-retrospection in“You Want to Know about French Food? Ask the Boy from Singapore”hits a home run when she asks and answers:“If someone asked you to explain what you meant by ‘the Francophone world,’ what would you say? Would you take the easy way out—replying, simply,‘Francophone means Frenchspeaking ’?... I would have, before” (145). Calder elaborates on how her perspective evolved after she had her first real job in France. Rounding out the collection is“Exit,” comprised of Deitz’s acknowledgments and the contributor biographies. Just reading the biographies is enough to motivate any student to study French and incorporate it into a future career path. As we face the realities of declining French enrollments and how best to adapt our curriculum to meet the changing needs of our students in these tough economic times, these heartfelt stories are sure to brighten anyone’s day, reminding us that what we do as French educators does matter. As Deitz puts it: “Not 294 FRENCH REVIEW 88.2 Reviews 295 only is French one of the most important languages on the planet for the exchange of goods and services, it can also be the primary way young people mature into thoughtful, working professionals in all kinds of fields” (14). Canisius College (NY) Eileen M. Angelini Gabryś-Barker, Danuta, and Joanna Bielska, eds. The Affective Dimension in Second Language Acquisition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2013. ISBN 978-184769 -968-8. Pp. 304. $129.95. This book is divided into four sections dealing with (a) affective variables, (b) motivation, attitudes, and learning experiences, (c) affectivity in language production, and (d) affective dimension in educational contexts. Though a reader might initially believe that the affective dimension refers exclusively to the emotional element commonly experienced in foreign and second language environments and addressed by Krashen in his 1982 Affective Filter Hypothesis, he/she soon discovers that the affective dimension is a considerably broader topic. The authors of these twenty-two articles present the affective dimension through various psychological, neurological, sociological, and educational perspectives. For example, when a learner speaks or...