Le prénom en cours de français ― exemple du film Entre les murs de Laurent Cantet

Résumé

FIRST NAMES IN A FRENCH CLASS — ANALYSIS OF THE INTERACTIONS IN THE FILM ENTRE LES MURS BY LAURENT CANTET

The paper focuses on the use of first names in the school interactions shown in the French film Entre les murs. We consider these interactions as authentic ones because of the spirit in which the film was made: the screenplay based on the novel by François Bégaudeau who is a co-writer of the screenplay, the actor playing the teacher and a real-life French teacher was conceived as a general frame implying the improvisation of all the interactions by non-professional actors pupils of a high school in Paris. We can assume that the class represented in the film reflects a typical French class, with its ethnic and multicultural origins of the pupils visible in their first names. Furthermore, the screenplay and the novel were also published which made it possible to compare three versions of the same interactions narrated in the novel, outlined in the screenplay and played in the film.
The analysis of the interactions was led according to three approaches designed to highlight the functions of first names in the French class: 1 first name used as a proper name, 2 semantic and cultural values of the first names, 3 first name as an address form.