The ancient Greek address system and some proposed sociolinguistic universals

This article summarizes the results of a longer study of address forms in Ancient Greek, based on 11,891 address tokens from a variety of sources. It argues that the Greek evidence appears to contradict two tendencies, found in address forms in other languages, which have been claimed as possible sociolinguistic universals: the tendency toward T/V distinctions, and the principle that “What is new is polite.” It is suggested that these alleged universals should perhaps be re-examined in light of the Greek evidence, and that ancient languages in general have more to contribute to sociolinguistics than is sometimes realized. (Address, Ancient Greek, T/V distinctions)

The description of stencilling by Gilles Filleau des Billettes: transcription and translation

This article presents the description of stencilling by Gilles Filleau des Billettes. The description sets out a method for stencilling letters, words, and texts, and specifies equipment for doing the work; it forms the basis for a reconstruction of the equipment and method, which is presented in a parallel article in this volume of Typography papers (see E. Kindel, 'A reconstruction of stencilling based on the description by Gilles Filleau des Billettes', Typography papers, 9, pp. 28–65). The original French text, approximately 10,000 words in length, is here transcribed and accompanied by a parallel English translation. Introductory notes on the preparation of both texts are provided; images of stencil letters found among the papers of Sébastien Truchet, Des Billettes’s colleague, are shown in an appendix.

The role of context in forming young learners' attitudes and motivation to learning French

Despite the wealth of valuable information that has been generated by motivation studies to date, there are certain limitations in the common approaches. Quantitative and psychometric approaches to motivation research that have dominated in recent decades provided epiphenomenal descriptions of learner motivation within different contexts. However, these approaches assume homogeneity within a given group and often mask the variation between learners within the same, and different, contexts. Although these studies have provided empirical data to form and validate theoretical constructs, they have failed to recognise learners as individual ‘people’ that interact with their context. Learning context has become increasingly explicit in motivation studies, (see Coleman et al. 2007 and Housen et al. 2011), however it is generally considered as a background variable which is pre-existing and external to the individual. Stemming from the recent ‘social turn’ (Block 2003) in SLA research from a more cognitive-linguistic perspective to a more context-specific view of language learning, there has been an upsurge in demand for a greater focus on the ‘person in context’ in motivation research (Ushioda 2011). This paper reports on the findings of a longitudinal study of young English learners of French as they transition from primary to secondary school. Over 12 months, the study employed a mixed-method approach in order to gain an in-depth understanding of how the learners’ context influenced attitudes to language learning. The questionnaire results show that whilst the learners displayed some consistent and stable motivational traits over the 12 months, there were significant differences for learners within different contexts in terms of their attitudes to the language classroom and their levels of self-confidence. A subsequent examination of the qualitative focus group data provided an insight into how and why these attitudes were formed and emphasised the dynamic and complex interplay between learners and their context.

A Double-threshold GARCH Model for the French Franc/Deutschmark exchange rate

This paper combines and generalizes a number of recent time series models of daily exchange rate series by using a SETAR model which also allows the variance equation of a GARCH specification for the error terms to be drawn from more than one regime. An application of the model to the French Franc/Deutschmark exchange rate demonstrates that out-of-sample forecasts for the exchange rate volatility are also improved when the restriction that the data it is drawn from a single regime is removed. This result highlights the importance of considering both types of regime shift (i.e. thresholds in variance as well as in mean) when analysing financial time series.

Writing in French in secondary schools in England and Germany: are the British really 'bad language learners’?

It is widely assumed that the British are poorer modern foreign language (MFL) learners than their fellow Europeans. Motivation has often been seen as the main cause of this perceived disparity in language learning success. However, there have also been suggestions that curricular and pedagogical factors may play a part. This article reports a research project investigating how German and English 14- to 16-year-old learners of French as a first foreign language compare to one another in their vocabulary knowledge and in the lexical diversity, accuracy and syntactic complexity of their writing. Students from comparable schools in Germany and England were set two writing tasks which were marked by three French native speakers using standardised criteria aligned to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF). Receptive vocabulary size and lexical diversity were established by the X_lex test and a verb types measure respectively. Syntactic complexity and formal accuracy were respectively assessed using the mean length of T-units (MLTU) and words/error metrics. Students' and teachers' questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to provide information and participants' views on classroom practices, while typical textbooks and feedback samples were analysed to establish differences in materials-related input and feedback in the two countries. The German groups were found to be superior in vocabulary size, and in the accuracy, lexical diversity and overall quality – but not the syntactic complexity – of their writing. The differences in performance outcomes are analysed and discussed with regard to variables related to the educational contexts (e.g. curriculum design and methodology).

Missionary children: The French Holy Childhood Association in European context, 1843-c.1914

In the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of children in Europe and beyond were organized into battalions of fundraisers for overseas missions. By the end of the century these juvenile missionary organizations had become a global movement, generating millions of pounds in revenue each year. While the transnational nature of the children’s missions and publications has been well-documented by historians, the focus has tended to be on the connections that were established by encounters between the young western donors, missionaries overseas and the non-western ‘other’ constructed by their work. A full exploration of the European political, social and cultural concerns that produced the juvenile missionaries movement and the trans-European networks that sustained it are currently missing from historical accounts of the phenomenon. This article looks at the largest of these organizations, the Catholic mission for children, the French Holy Childhood Association (L’Œuvre de la sainte enfance), to understand how the principles this mission sought to impose abroad were above all an expression of anxieties at home about the role of religion in the family, childhood and in civil society as western polities were modernizing and secularizing in the nineteenth century.

Analysis of DNA polymorphism in ancient barley herbarium material: validation of the KASP SNP genotyping platform

The availability of crop specimens archived in herbaria and old seed collections represent valuable resources for the analysis of plant genetic diversity and crop domestication. The ability to extract ancient DNA (aDNA) from such samples has recently allowed molecular genetic investigations to be undertaken in ancient materials. While analyses of aDNA initially focused on the use of markers which occur in multiple copies such as the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) within ribosomal DNA and those requiring amplification of short DNA regions of variable length such as simple sequence repeats (SSRs), emphasis is now moving towards the genotyping of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), traditionally undertaken in aDNA by Sanger sequencing. Here, using a panel of barley aDNA samples previously surveyed by Sanger sequencing for putative causative SNPs within the flowering-time gene PPD-H1, we assess the utility of the Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP) genotyping platform for aDNA analysis. We find KASP to out-perform Sanger sequencing in the genotyping of aDNA samples (78% versus 61% success, respectively), as well as being robust to contamination. The small template size (≥46 bp) and one-step, closed-tube amplification/genotyping process make this platform ideally suited to the genotypic analysis of aDNA, a process which is often hampered by template DNA degradation and sample cross-contamination. Such attributes, as well as its flexibility of use and relatively low cost, make KASP particularly relevant to the genetic analysis of aDNA samples. Furthermore, KASP provides a common platform for the genotyping and analysis of corresponding SNPs in ancient, landrace and modern plant materials. The extended haplotype analysis of PPD-H1 undertaken here (allelic variation at which is thought to be important for the spread of domestication and local adaptation) provides further resolution to the previously identified geographic cline of flowering-time allele distribution, illustrating how KASP can be used to aid genetic analyses of aDNA from plant species. We further demonstrate the utility of KASP by genotyping ten additional genetic markers diagnostic for morphological traits in barley, shedding light on the phenotypic traits, alleles and allele combinations present in these unviable ancient specimens, as well as their geographic distributions.

France and the memories of ‘others’: The case of the Harkis

Historical narratives help construct social identities, which are maintained through differentiation between in-groups and "others." In this article, we contend that Fatima Besnaci-Lancou's texts, as well as her reconciliation work—in which she enjoins Beurs and Harkis' offspring to write a new, inclusive, polyphonic narrative of the Algerian War—are an example of the positive use of textually mediated identity (re)construction. Her work suggests the possibility of implementing a moderate politics of empathetic recognition of the (often migration-related) memories of "others" so as to reinforce French national belongingness.