Shadow

MoDyCo Villejuif - CNRS

Chargé de Recherche office 404-A tel : (33) 1 49 58 38 37 fax : (33) 1 49 58 38 36 email : jpjaffre@vjf.cnrs.fr
Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique from 1987, he was firstly a member of the team Histoire et Structure des Orthographes et des Systèmes d’Écriture created by N. Catach. In 1999, he became a member of the LEAPLE where he was co-responsible with L. Sprenger-Charolles of the team Literacy. He is now a member of the ALMA team ["Activités Langagières, Médiations et Apprentissages"]. Linguist specialized in the study of writing systems, orthographies and their acquisition, he is particularly interested in the genetic linguistics of writing based on a dialog between morphogenetical and ontogenetical aspects of various scripts, with a special focus on their morphographical dimension.  in press. Literacy in France. Has the situation come to a deadlock?, in M. Arapopoulou & D. Koutsogiannis, eds., Literacy education: local perspectives in a globalized word, Athens, 14-15 May 2004. [PDF]    2005. Orthography and literacy in French, in R.Malatesha Joshi & P.G. Aaron, eds., Handbook of Orthography and Literacy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 81-104 [en coll. avec M. Fayol].  2005. Introduction : The orthography of French, L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 5, 3, 353-364.   2003. Hangul and French Orthography: Differences and Similarities, in S.-O. Lee & G.K. Iverson, G.K., Pathways into Korean language and culture. Essays in honor of Young-key Kim-Renaud, Seoul : Pagijong Press, 119-143. [PDF]

Something really interesting in his Literacy in France paper, showing how orthography, literacy is intertwined with culture, and how the culture ensures the transmission of literacy:

The love of dictation – Up to the 60s, dictation was the be-all and end-all in the teaching of French orthography. The crowning glory was the final exam at the end of primary school, which was called the "certificat d’études primaires". The marking system was particularly strict as anybody making as many as 5 mistakes failed the exam. At that time, pupils were over-trained to make sure they succeeded3 and despite all these efforts, from the moment they left school onwards, their competencies never stopped decreasing. These conclusions were based on the results of the tests taken by boys a few years ago when military service was still compulsory.

Most French people confess that they adore doing dictation. The linguist C. Hagège has compared this addiction with conservatism and masochism. Since users can easily stumble by making orthographic mistakes, dictation constitutes a special exercice which is not only a question of applying a set of rules everyone can understand; the particularities, inconsistencies and exceptions which have to be mastered in order not to make mistakes are taken to be proof of people’s superior knowledge and culture. French orthography is therefore an institution, and many French users do dictation tests to express their attachment to tradition4. We have to realize that what is actually at stake here has national, political and social connotations, and these connotations are what makes the problem so complex.

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 10:08 am and is filed under Paperville, Education, Linguistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.