French IV: Honours Language I (FREN40005)

This subject is intended primarily to foster students' writing skills, with a particular focus on academic writing. Students will analyse a range of academic texts and learn to identify and use the rhetorical features inherent to French academic discourses. In each text they will identify features of large-scale organisation, stylistic and rhetorical procedures and unfamiliar lexical items. They will also acquire an in-depth understanding of appropriate use of connectors and other rhetorical devices to (1) achieve meaning in a complex argumentative texts and (2) present and develop their own arguments in a clear, coherent and convincing fashion in both oral and written forms. Aspects of French grammar will be explored in context as difficulties occur. Although students undertaking thesis writing in French will find this subject particularly useful, students interested in the advanced mastery of French in both oral and written forms will find this subject rewarding.