The Oxford Handbook of the French Language

This volume provides the first comprehensive reference work in English on the French language in all its facets. It offers a wide-ranging approach to the rich, varied, and exciting research across multiple subfields, with seven broad thematic sections covering the structures of French; the history of French; axes of variation; French around the world; French in contact with other languages; second language acquisition; and French in literature, culture, arts, and the media. Each chapter presents the state of the art and directs readers to canonical studies and essential works, while also exploring cutting-edge research and outlining future directions. The Oxford Handbook of the French Language serves both as a reference work for people who are curious to know more about the French language and as a starting point for those carrying out new research on the language and its many varieties. It will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students as well as established scholars, whether they are specialists in French linguistics or researchers in a related field looking to learn more about the language. The diversity of frameworks, approaches, and scholars in the volume demonstrates above all the variety, vitality, and vibrancy of work on the French language today.

Author: Wendy Ayres-Bennett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 10/11/2024
Pages: 1056
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 4.78lbs
Size: 9.82h x 7.04w x 2.30d
ISBN: 9780198865131

About the Author
Wendy Ayres-Bennett, Emerita Professor of French Philology and Linguistics, University of Cambridge, Mairi McLaughlin, Professor, Department of French, University of California, Berkeley

Wendy Ayres-Bennett is Emerita Professor of French Philology and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. She has published widely on the history of French, sociohistorical linguistics, and the history of linguistic thought, and, more recently, on language standardization and language policy and planning. She was Principal Investigator (2016-2021) on the AHRC-funded multi-disciplinary research project, Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies, which promoted the value of languages for key issues of our time and explored the benefits of language learning for individuals and societies. An AHRC-funded follow-on project Promoting Language Policy provided research-based evidence for moving languages higher up the political agenda.

Mairi McLaughlin is Professor in the Department of French and an Affiliated Member of the Departments of Linguistics and Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in French/Romance Linguistics and in Translation Studies. She has published extensively on language contact in French and Romance, on the language of the media, and on journalistic and literary translation. She has held visiting positions at Balliol College, Oxford and at Paris VIII. Her research has been funded by the UC Humanities Research Institute, the France Berkeley Fund, the Hellman Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation.