La production de lames en silex bathonien dans la Plaine de Caen : redécouverte de la minière des Longrais à Soumont-Saint-Quentin (Calvados)

International audienc

« Les occupations médiévale et moderne de l'Ile Tatihou à Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue (Manche). Résultats 1998-99 »

International audienc

“Bon Appétit, Lion City”: The use of French in naming restaurants in Singapore

In multilingual Singapore, French can frequently be found in the names of local food retailers and restaurants. This study attempts to investigate the form and function of French in these business names. By considering which meanings French expresses in the local corporate context, the reasons behind the use of French will be discussed. At the heart of the analysis is a corpus of 47 names found on shop signs in different locations of Singapore. Results suggest a link between form, the type of food retail business, and the food served. Functionally, French expresses cultural and social meanings, while stressing individual and collective identities. We present evidence for the use of French as an emergent commercial register peculiar to Singapore

Frenglish shop signs in Singapore

The presence of French in advertising communication within largely non-French speaking communities has been noted by a few linguists. Haarmann (1984, 1989) found that French is used in Japanese advertisements as ethno-cultural hieroglyphs which connote refinement, poshness, style and tastefulness – stereotypes of France and French culture. The unintelligibility of French to Japanese patrons is perceived as a non-issue, as social or symbolic meanings are deemed to be more vital to attract patrons than denotational meanings. A parallel case was found in British advertisements of food, fashion and beauty businesses where French symbolism or linguistic fetish is seen as attractive to largely non-French, English-speaking patrons (Kelly-Holmes, 2005). Notably, French symbolic meanings are sometimes accompanied by elaborative messages in English. Kelly-Holmes (2005) noted that English is used only where message comprehension is important for explicit communication. Curtin (2009) documented the fact that ‘vogue’ or ‘display’ French shop names favored by high-end restaurants and beauty salons in Taipei occurred concomitantly with vogue English. Vogue English is relatively more ubiquitous across the city's linguistic landscape due to its connotations being exploited in a wide span of applications vis-à-vis the chic prestige of French, which is tied to food, beauty and fashion businesses. The Taipei case shows that non-idiomatic French is employed as a socio-commercial accessory, similar to the case of decorative English used in Japan (Dougill, 1987) and in Milan, Italy (Ross, 1997). However, a more recent study on Tokyo shop signs gleaned linguistic patterns other than vogue English and vogue French (MacGregor, 2003), such as French + Japanese and English + French + Japanese. A recent study by Serwe et al. (in press) found that French and French-like shop names are increasingly in currency, with local shop owners keen to stand out and appeal to the increasingly cosmopolitan and sophisticated clientele in Singapore, who are nevertheless overwhelmingly non-French speaking. They further found that French and French-inspired shop signs of food businesses can be classified into four categories, namely, monolingual French, French + another language, French function words + another language, and coinages, noting that there are idiomatic usages and non-idiomatic usages in the first three categories. In this paper, we throw the spotlight on coinages, which we argue are mostly explicable as French-English code-switched blends. We focus on localized nominal concoctions used by shop owners across food and beauty commercial entities within Singapore. We borrowed the term ‘Frenglish’ from Martin's (2007) study to refer to the French-English blends. However, we noted that Martin's study focused on the use of English in advertising communication in France, where English is the minority language that is largely sidelined by the Toubon Law. Contrastively, English in Singapore is de facto the national language, while French is a foreign language with few speakers.Published versio

Graffiti marins et lecture ethnographique des comportements maritimes aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. L'exemple de "Maltot" à Réville (Manche)

Copied out in Réville, on the coast of Val-de-Saire, thèse boat graffiti are one source for maritime history of Basse-Normandie (Lower Normandy), as well as an account of coastal populations' spécifie rites and attitude facing the sea in XVIIIth et XIXth centuries.Les graffiti de bateaux relevés à Réville, sur le littoral du Val-de-Saire, constituent une source de première importance pour l'histoire maritime de la Basse-Normandie, ainsi qu'un témoignage direct des rites et de l'attitude face à la mer des populations littorales aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles.Carpentier Vincent, Ghesquière Emmanuel, Marcigny Cyril, Dubost Didier, Détrée Jean-François. Graffiti marins et lecture ethnographique des comportements maritimes aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. L'exemple de "Maltot" à Réville (Manche). In: Revue archéologique de l'ouest, tome 18, 2001. pp. 211-217

A direct comparison between the genetic maps of sorghum and rice

A direct comparison of the genetic linkage maps of sorghum and rice is proposed. It is based on the mapping of a common set of 123 RFLP probes scattered on the genomes of both species. For each species a composite map was established by merging two individual maps comprising many common loci. This enabled us to confirm the global correspondence scheme that had previously been established between the chromosomes of sorghum and rice. It also provided a more detailed insight into the conservation of synteny and colinearity: 69% of the loci mapped on a given rice chromosome mapped to the corresponding homoeologous chromosome in sorghum; among them, 84% formed a colinear arrangement between the two species. Local inversions and translocations were detected. (Résumé d'auteur