Mythologisation, magnification, et modification : La Culture de la langue française

Across three chapters, this thesis examines how the French language plays a vital role not only as a vehicle for communication but as an incarnation of culture, and how France makes sense of linguistic and cultural changes today through the lens of its long history. An analysis of historical documents from key moments in this history illuminates French’s central role as an instrument of power reliant on a prioritization of elegance and beauty, an equivalency between language and people based in a grand history, and a global influence. It shows how this history constructed the language as a political tool, capable of bolstering France’s global importance through “soft power.” This created not only the conditions for the imposition of French to combat fears of decline in military and political domains, but also a simultaneous conflict between the language as an expression of elegance and as a tool to be spread widely to assert the country’s dominance, particularly during the colonial period. Close examination of this long and intricate history illuminates our understanding of how France currently works to reconcile its history with its present in a world where the French language is far more widely spoken than at any other period but is no longer the primary possession of France itself.