QCAA French Extension flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Passé simple

Literary past tense marking completed past actions, used in novels, fairy tales and historical writing but rare in speech, where the passé composé replaces it.

Imparfait

Past tense expressing ongoing, habitual or descriptive background action, often setting the scene against which a passé composé event interrupts.

Connecteur de concession

Word or phrase such as cependant, néanmoins or toutefois that signals the writer is acknowledging and then qualifying a preceding idea.

Pronom y

Pronoun replacing a place or an à + noun complement, as in il y pense or j'y vais; it never refers to people in that function.

Pronom en

Pronoun replacing a quantity or a de + noun complement, as in j'en veux deux or il en parle, and required with expressions of quantity.

Fait divers

Short news item reporting an unusual incident; its first paragraph answers who, what, where and when before adding detail and context.

Éditorial

Newspaper opinion piece stating a clear thesis in the opening lines, building argument with evidence and closing with a call or judgement.

Thèse–antithèse–synthèse

Three-part argumentative plan stating a position, presenting the opposing view, then reconciling both in a synthesis that goes beyond each.

Question oratoire

Rhetorical question posed for effect rather than information, inviting the reader to agree and often introducing the next argument.

Anaphore rhétorique

Repetition of the same word or phrase at the start of successive clauses, creating rhythm and emphasis in persuasive prose.

Si + imparfait

Hypothetical construction pairing si with the imperfect and a conditional present main clause, as in si j'avais le temps, je viendrais.

Conditionnel passé

Form used for unrealised past hypotheses and regret, as in j'aurais préféré, often paired with a plus-que-parfait si-clause.

Modalisation

Use of hedges, modals and evaluative adjectives to signal the writer's degree of certainty and stance toward a claim.

Refutation

Argumentative move that names an opposing claim, concedes its partial merit, then shows its limits with evidence or a counterexample.

Nominalisation

Turning a verb clause into a noun phrase, as la révolte des jeunes from les jeunes se révoltent, which compresses ideas and raises register.

Accord du participe passé

With avoir, the past participle agrees with a preceding direct object; with être and pronominal verbs it usually agrees with the subject.

Formule de politesse

Conventional closing in a formal French letter, such as Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées.

Faux ami réaliser

French réaliser means to accomplish or bring about; the English sense of becoming aware is rendered by se rendre compte.

Progression thème–rhème

Organization in which known information opens each sentence and new information closes it, creating coherence across a paragraph.

Guillemets français

Angled quotation marks « » used for direct speech and titles in French, with a non-breaking space inside each mark.

Laïcité

French principle of state neutrality toward religions, grounded in the 1905 separation law and applied to public schools.

Loi de 1905

French law separating Churches and State, ending official recognition of religions and underpinning the modern principle of laïcité.

DOM-TOM

Overseas départements and territories of France, including La Réunion, la Guadeloupe, la Martinique, la Guyane and la Polynésie française.

Négritude

Literary and political movement asserting Black identity and cultural value, articulated by Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon-Gontran Damas.

Charte de la langue française

Quebec's 1977 Bill 101, making French the official language of the province and regulating its use in education, work and signage.

Baccalauréat

French national school-leaving examination taken at the end of the lycée, required for university admission and graded on a 20-point scale.

Francophonie

Community of French-speaking states and individuals, institutionally coordinated by the OIF with over eighty member and observer states.

Tu et vous

Second-person pronouns encoding social distance: vous for strangers, superiors and formal contexts, tu for peers, family and children.

Conditionnel de politesse

Use of the conditional to soften requests, as in pourriez-vous or je voudrais, which reads as more polite than the present or imperative.

Stéréotype culturel

Fixed, totalising claim about a group that ignores variation; contrast with a hedged generalisation using souvent or en général.

La bise

Customary cheek-kiss greeting among friends and family in France; the number and placement of kisses vary by region.

Ethnocentrisme

Judging another culture by one's own norms and treating difference as deficiency, which intercultural reflection must avoid.

Langues régionales

Languages historically spoken in France such as breton, occitan, corse and basque, recognised as part of national heritage but without official status.