Pour en finir avec la langue de Shakespeare par Jean-Luc Jeener, and: La langue française: chef-d’œuvre en péril par Paul-André Maur

Abstract

Reviews 217 in discursive structures that are beyond the sentential pragma-syntactic level.Another chapter,by Maria Polinksy and Eric Potsdam,contains a universal hierarchical structure study of a Russian syntactic minimal pair, which contrasts with Lambrecht’s theoretical perspective on sentence focus (1994). Incorporating Lambrecht’s perspective on sentence focus, Cinzia Russi’s chapter analyzes subject-verb inversion and genericity to explain the status of two Italian unaccusatives. The second section of the book deals with several topics in French syntax, the area of Lambrecht’s expertise. The chapters analyze topics such as the connection between information structure and prosody (Caroline Féry), the various discourse paradigms of the lexeme pourquoi and the structures to which this lexeme is connected (Lindy Myers and Stéphanie Pellet), the role of information structure in second language processing (Robert Reichle), and the influence of prosody and typological factors on the well-formedness of two constructions in French and English: it-clefts and c’est-clefts (Stacey Katz Bourns). The final chapter, by Betsy Kerr, discusses the complementary nature of Information Structure and Interactional Linguistics with regard to the phenomenon of left dislocation in spoken French. With its diverse topics and approaches, this tribute to Lambrecht will be of great interest to linguists who study the interconnected phenomena of pragmatics, syntax,and discourse.Continuing a line of research that uses and enriches the Information Structure framework and containing a section that deals exclusively with French constructions, this volume could be a valuable addition to the reading lists of graduate students in French linguistics. With their novel theoretical and applied insights, these papers take the contribution of the Construction Grammar framework for linguistic analysis in a new and interesting direction. University of Delaware Ali Alalou Jeener, Jean-Luc. Pour en finir avec la langue de Shakespeare. Neuilly: Atlande, 2014. ISBN 978-2-35030-261-4. Pp. 160. 15 a. Maur, Paul-André. La langue française: chef-d’œuvre en péril.Versailles:Via Romana, 2014. ISBN 979-10-90029-74-3. Pp. 150. 16 a. These two volumes represent the most recent instantiations of the prescriptive impulse that has informed French language usage over the centuries.Voiture’s defense of the conjunction car (1637) may be considered among the earliest exemplars of this linguistic dirigisme. The legitimization of this three-letter word is but a skirmish in the full-fledged offensive against barbarismes and lexical borrowings from English, a battle waged primarily by French intellectuals, with tepid support from linguists. Both works echo Étiemble’s Parlez-vous franglais? (1964); despite his fulminations against the invasion of le sabir atlantique, its usage has become more widespread, this due to technological advances and the embrace of a global English (globish), whose usage signifies nothing less than American cultural imperialism. Jeener, a prominent figure in French theater and a reviewer for Le Figaro,is particularly outraged by the Loi Fiaroso (2013), which authorized the use of English in certain French university settings. Jeener’s histrionic scenario evokes centuries-old events to support his enmity toward the Anglo-American language. Is not the perfidy of English speakers illustrated by the burning of Jeanne d’Arc and the exile of Napoleon? Did not the intervention of the French military in the American Revolution ruin the treasury of Louis XVI and precipitate the French uprising and the end of the monarchy? Jeener slips easily from attacks on the English language to condemnations of radical Islam and Nazism.Granted, his screed may be contextualized as part of the series“Coup de gueule et engagement,” a favored site for outspoken opinion. However, I cannot resist savoring the irony that his tract was published by a press that boasts of being le leader in its category. His strategy for defending the French language is sadly unoriginal and inefficacious: it relies on the abstract notion of francophonie. Presumably a current of purist linguistic usage present in the former French colonies and those countries where French is (was?) the prestige language will reinforce the cultural particularism and support the integrity of this language under attack. In fact, the linguistic variation found in these countries hardly supports the advancement of a monolithic“classical”French. It...