Department of French

Paper FrC2

French: Text and Culture

This paper will be offered from 2012/2013.

Aims and Objectives of Paper FrC2

This paper, new with effect from 2012-13, offers the opportunity to engage with advanced use of the foreign language in stimulating and intellectually challenging ways, through the analysis of texts of various types and genres under a prescribed topic as specified by the Faculty Board from time to time.

For Tripos 2013, the topic will be "Identity". Students will be expected to engage critically with relevant texts, placing them in their cultural contexts and analysing their formal features and content through written work in the foreign language.

Structure of the Paper

Under the umbrella topic, as prescribed by the Faculty Board, of "identity", the paper will explore various thematic units in the course of the year. 3 or 4 sub-topics around the central theme will be proposed each year, including themes such as society, art and culture, history, language, philosophy, geography, and politics. A two-hour examination will ask students to engage critically with an unseen text on a topic of cultural interest related to the topics discussed in classes over the course of the year. Candidates will be given a choice of two texts on which to answer in the target language. Each passage will be between 600 and 700 words in length. This paper will be weighted as 70% of a full paper.

Objectives

What are the examiners looking for? Candidates will be asked to produce a written text in the target language related to the exam passage they will have selected. Although the format of the exam might vary slightly across departments, candidates will all be asked to show a very good understanding of the chosen passage. The exam will test their ability to comment on the text (form and content), as well as their ability to react to the text and to formulate a clear argument of their own. Candidates will be expected to show connections between texts and their cultural contexts, as they will have done in the class and supervision. Candidates are expected to produce their answer in a register appropriate for this purpose. Grammatical accuracy, fluency and idiomatic use of the foreign language will be expected at this level.

Teaching

The paper will be taught fortnightly in hour-long faculty classes (up to a total of 10 hours per year). Students may also have up to 4 supervisions on their written work for the paper. Students will be asked to submit up to 6 pieces of written work per year. They may also be asked to prepare an oral presentation on a relevant topic.

Further information about the paper can be found at http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/resources/c2/index.html