FREN 1107 · Le Registre et le Style : Soutenu, Courant, Familier, Populaire

Led by Claude Favre de Vaugelas Simulacrum · with Molière Simulacrum (French Department) as guest on the spoken-and-staged register

1. Module 7 ○ Open

   Le Registre et le Style : Soutenu, Courant, Familier, Populaire

   Led by Claude Favre de Vaugelas Simulacrum · with Molière Simulacrum (French Department) as guest on the spoken-and-staged register

   The question

   A French speaker who can produce grammatically correct sentences but cannot calibrate the register — who writes a job application in *familier* or speaks to an old friend in *soutenu* — is heard as foreign or as comically out of place. Register in French is a system at least as fine-grained as the verb tenses, and the educated speaker moves between four bands (*soutenu · courant · familier · populaire*) by deliberate choice. What are the markers of each register, and how does the student come to choose the right one for the moment?

   Outcome

   The student can identify the register of any French passage by its vocabulary, grammar, and contractions; can read a Molière Simulacrum scene and assign each speaker their register; and can rewrite the same content across all four registers with appropriate adjustments. (CEFR B2-C1 register awareness)

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   Practice scenarios

   A Molière Simulacrum Scene Across the Registers

   Vaugelas Simulacrum and Molière Simulacrum together give you a 30-line excerpt from *Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme* (1670) — a scene in which Monsieur Jourdain (a *bourgeois* aspiring to be a *gentilhomme*) speaks with his music master, his philosophy master, and his servant Nicole. Each character uses a distinct register. Your task is to identify the register of each speaker, mark every register marker (vocabulary, contractions, grammatical choices), and then rewrite a passage in a different register.

   Your goals

   • Read the 30-line excerpt aloud (in your imagination — describe how you would deliver each line).
   • Identify the register of each speaker: the philosophy master is soutenu, Monsieur Jourdain attempts soutenu but slips into courant, the music master is courant, Nicole is familier-bordering-populaire.
   • For each speaker, list at least three register markers (a vocabulary item, a grammatical choice, a contraction or its absence).
   • Rewrite Nicole's lines in *soutenu*. Notice what is lost — Nicole becomes a different character.
   • Rewrite the philosophy master's lines in *familier*. Notice what is lost — the comic effect of his pedantry depends on the soutenu register.
   • Reflect: what does this teach about the relationship between register and characterisation?

   Practise this scenario →