Colloque AFLS2015

Voici une copie de mon billet (en anglais) posté sur le blog de l'Association for French Language Studies pour le mois de juin 2015

BLOG: “Hot conference news!” (Henry Tyne)

[updated 2015-06-11T08:52:27+00:00 by Elodie Vialleton]

It’s that time of year! It’s AFLS conference time! This year’s conference is in Caen. Trying to come up with a witty title for the June blog, suggestions of “Yes we Caen !” (been done before) or “French Caen can” (also been done before) didn’t quite do the job. But why go for a title? Since the title isn’t getting us anywhere, here’s an anecdote. A young learner – no, that sounds too good, too scientific, let me start again. A young lad doing his French homework is set a task: find out about “C-a-e-n” (writes the word down). He goes home and announces to his parents that he has been set the task of finding out about a place called (he reads out the word in his best estuary English) “Cayenne”. His mum is on the ball and sings out “pepper”. Laddie takes note, homework done, he writes: “Caen is famous for pepper”. Now, little does he know but Caen does indeed have pepper. As no doubt you are aware, “Pepper” is of course the name of a rock festival in Caen. So, next time in class, teacher, being a knowing sort, googles “Caen pepper” and happens upon all the rock fest info. Well done laddie! An interesting discovery! Inter-disciplinary too! Teacher is impressed. Lad off home remembers to thank his mum. Now I’m sure there should be a moral here; or some profound statement (or warning even). Whatever you think it ought to be, do let me know, because I can’t seem to find the right words. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the conference, which this year is to take place in Cayenne. Ta-da! No, in Caen, of course! See you all there!