Scriptwriting as a Tool for Learning Stylistic Variation.

Abstract: A film script is a useful tool for allowing students to experiment with language variation. Scripts of love stories comprise a range of language contexts, each triggering a different style on a formal-neutral-informal linguistic continuum: (1) technical cinematographic language in camera directions; (2) narrative language in exposition of scenes, sets, and characters; and (3) quasi-spoken intimate language in dialogue between fictional lovers. The project presented in this article required students in a French writing and translation course to make short films a la Paris, je t'aime (Benbihy & Ossard, 2006) by collaborating on a sequence of tasks: writing a screenplay, shooting a short film, subtitling a peer group's film, and writing reviews. The sequence was designed as an introduction to stylistic variation through reflection and experimentation of pluristylistic (idiomatic) writing. Key words: French, scriptwriting, short filmmaking, stylistic variation, subtitles, translation Introduction A film script is a useful tool for allowing students to experiment with language variation. Scripts comprise shooting directions, narration, and dialogueFa range of language contextsFeach triggering a different style. Style refers to the variation in a person's speech or writing consistent with the situation, the addressee(s), the location, the topic discussed, etc., and therefore reflects degrees of formality (Richards & Schmidt, 2002, p. 522). A screenplay of a love story provides three stylistic varieties, placed on a formal-neutral-informal linguistic continuum: (1) technical cinematographic language in camera directions and film credits; (2) narrative language in exposition of scenes, sets, and characters; and (3) quasi-spoken intimate language in dialogue between fictional lovers. Thus, the activity of scriptwriting enables college and university foreign language students, at the intermediate and advanced levels of writing proficiency, to practice manipulating a repertoire of styles. Yet the value of learning stylistic variation of a nonnative language can legitimately be questioned. Styles involve complex processes and linguistic and extralinguistic correlates (Gadet, 2004), and they generate inventories of structures that no native speaker can fully access; for example, the virtual stylistic repertoire of French interrogatives includes about 20 different structures (Gadet, 1997; Ledegen & Quillard, 2000). Including speech styles in the second language (L2) curriculum may then be a thorny, even a controversial instructional decision. Gadet and Tyne (2007, p. 98) disputed the necessity for learners to produce forms other than standard and formal. While it is evident that the whole first language (L1) stylistic palette cannot be a realistic L2 learning objective, exposure to and manipulation of the basics of stylistic variation appear essential, for stylistic variation no less than defines language(s) (Blanche- Benveniste, 2003; Gadet, 2004)Fall speakers style-switch. The choice of a particular style has social ramifications because styles carry affective connotations, e.g., im/politeness, humor. A noted example of a stylistic social violation is French President Nicolas Sarkozy's offbeat use of vulgar language when addressing a stranger at the 2008 Paris Agricultural Show. The ability to recognize and choose styles is then a beneficial skill to develop, and scriptwriting can provide an effective initiation to that end. The project presented in this article required students in a French writing and translation course to make short films a` la Paris, je t'aime (Benbihy & Ossard, 2006), a collective film that explores the theme of love in 18 arrondissements1 of Paris in as many short films with as many directors. There are 20 arrondissements in the French capital, but the original vignettes representing the 11th and 15th arrondissements were deleted in the montage. To carry out the assignment of replacing one of the deleted films, the students collaborated on a sequence of tasks: examination of an existing professional screenplay, writing a screenplay, shooting a short film, writing English subtitles for a peer group's film, and writing reviews that were used in promoting a screening of the collection of films the class produced. …