The Master's program prepares students for teaching, research, and a wide range of career possibilities. It comprises a two-year study with a focus on literature, linguistics, or second language acquisition. Students may complement their program with courses in French film, culture, and civilization. The Department also collaborates actively with interdisciplinary programs such as African American Studies, Comparative Literature, Linguistics, Medieval Studies, and Women Studies.
Students are encouraged to participate in the international Conference on Romance Languages, Literature, and Film held on campus each year, as well as in the annual Graduate Studies Symposium that graduate students in the Department organize each year in conjunction with the Program in Comparative Literature.
The community engaged in studying and teaching French at Purdue is dynamic and diverse, typically including persons from the United States, France, North Africa, West Africa, the West Indies, the Middle East, India, and China.
The literature track studies major texts and authors, literary movements and their context, ranging from the Middle Ages to the present. Graduate courses may address a topic (experimental fiction, Québec literature, theatre of the absurd, allegories of love), genres (satire - Renard to Rhinocéros, poetry as genre, Classical Tragedy and Comedy, narrative genres), periods (Renaissance, Age of Reason, Medieval literature) and individual authors (Baudelaire, Fanon, Michaux, Voltaire). Students receive an introduction to research methods and critical approaches.
The linguistics focus includes diachronic and synchronic approaches to the study of the French language. Courses on the structure of French provide a foundation in phonology, morphology, and syntax, while those on the history of the language trace the development of French as a symbolic system and as an institution. Courses examine language in the context of francophone cultures (e.g., sociolinguistics, French creoles), and in comparison with other Romance languages.
The focus on second language acquisition (SLA) addresses issues in learning French and other foreign languages. After introductory work on practical strategies for implementing a communicative methodology in the college classroom, courses are offered on testing, vocabulary acquisition, qualitative ethnographic research design, theoretical frameworks underpinning SLA, and computer-assisted language learning.
Alongside the general focus chosen for the Master’s, students select a related area (2-3 courses). The related area represents a specialization within the chosen field (e.g., a literary genre or period; sociolinguistics or the diachronic approach; methods in testing and evaluation), graduate coursework in another language, or study in a neighboring discipline (history, philosophy, political science, visual and performing arts, etc.).
The Master of Arts in Teaching program stresses acquisition of professional competence in foreign language skill, in French literature and civilization, and in methods of teaching French language and culture in the secondary schools. The M.A.T. may lead to an advanced degree in foreign language education. This program has the combined support of faculty members in many disciplines related to second language learning and teaching. Candidates who have not yet acquired a secondary teacher's license are required to do so.
Students who hold the Master's degree in French may be admitted to the Ph.D. program. This program continues the study of French literature, linguistics, and second language acquisition begun in the M.A. program. The flexible framework allows students to deepen their knowledge of key areas within their chosen field, and to complement their French coursework with graduate study in other languages or disciplines if they wish.
In the semester in which course and seminar work is completed, students normally take written and oral preliminary examinations as a necessary qualification for writing the dissertation. Upon completion of the dissertation, the candidate will defend his/her research in an oral examination conducted by the dissertation committee.
Scholarship
The Juliette S. Benhamou Scholarship will be awarded to an outstanding student with a genuine interest in Francophone Studies who is accepted or enrolled in a graduate program in French within the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Purdue University.
Candidates must demonstrate the character traits exemplified by Juliette Benhamou.
Teaching assistantships are available for outstanding students admitted to graduate study, as are
highly-competitive fellowships and awards.
Teaching assistants serve as sole classroom instructor for their courses, of which they teach three a year. They receive thorough training for their duties, including a one-week orientation session before the fall semester begins, and a one-semester course on college teaching which entails both an intellectual component and practical activities (teaching demonstrations, lesson planning, observations, etc.).
The department offers a number of individualized foreign study opportunities for graduate
teaching assistants in French. Participants spend a semester or
5 weeks abroad where they attend courses in a foreign institution or do research projects
under the direction of Purdue professors. During the foreign tenure, participants remain
registered at Purdue University and continue to receive their monthly graduate teaching
assistantship stipend from the home university. Academic work completed abroad counts
among credits required for the Master's degree. Former participants have studied in Dakar, Louvain, Paris, and Québec.
The department also participates in an exchange program with the Section d'anglais of the University of Grenoble III. Graduate students who are native speakers of English may apply to spend the year abroad as a Lecturer teaching English.
Recent extra-curricular activities sponsored by the Department include poetry readings, screenings of French films, and round-table discussions on everyday life in Francophone cultures.
| Pictures from the University Stendhal, Grenoble III (courtesy of Maureen Cunningham) | |||||||||||
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Request for Information
For an application packet for the Graduate Program in French, please e-mail Betty Lewis:
betty@purdue.edu
Undergraduate Scholarship Application
Graduate Scholarship Application
