Program Overview

Program Overview

The Faculty of Modern Languages offers a Bachelor's degree program in French/Romance Studies, with a focus on languages, literature, and cultures in the French-speaking world.

Facts and Formalities

• Degree: Bachelor of Arts
• Type of program: Undergraduate
• Start of program: Winter and summer semester
• Standard period of study: 6 semesters
• Language(s) of instruction: German and French
• Fees and contributions: 161.10 € / Semester
• Application procedure: Subjects with no admission restrictions
• Application deadlines: Information about deadlines can be obtained after you have put together a degree program.
• International degree program: Yes
• Language certificates: French B2 by the end of the second semester and basic Latin by the end of the fourth semester.

Course Content

The Bachelor’s degree program in French with a weighting of 25% encompasses the following areas:

Literary Studies

French literary studies consider French and francophone literature, theatre, and film. Texts of all genres, and from various periods; from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, along with theatre productions and film adaptations of literary works, are considered. There is a particular focus on:

• literature and cultural history
• literary theory and poetry
• literary genres (i.e., the three major genres; the epic, drama, and poetry)

Linguistics

• the transition from Latin to a Romance language and the development of French
• the history and spread of the French language
• French language contact and French in francophone countries
• analysis of the French language system (morphology, lexic, grammar, phonetics/phonology)
• language and society, language variation, and varieties of French
• contemporary French
• media and discourse analysis
• language standardisation, language policy, and language criticism
• linguistic theories and methods

Cultural Studies

• analysis of cultural phenomena in the French-speaking world; from artistic expression (e.g., film) to popular culture (e.g., fashion), both in the past and in the present day
• analysis of public discourses and their presentation in the media
• analysis of the relationships between culture and power (e.g., cultural inheritance, mass media)
• theories and methods of cultural analysis (e.g., performance, construction of space) and comparative cultural analysis (e.g., intercultural and transcultural approaches)
• interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches
• postcolonial theories

Language Practice

French language courses are designed to enable students to:

• speak and write correctly and fluently
• understand complex contemporary texts (novels, newspapers, academic texts, etc.), films, radio, and television programs, song lyrics, etc.
• reflect on and discuss, both orally and in written form, aspects of French society, literary works, and linguistic phenomena
• master and make accurate and differentiated use of grammatical structures, in particular in the area of French syntax
• recognize and distinguish between different registers (formal, informal, official French)
• translate texts of all types into French (i.e., literary, academic, journalistic texts)

Course Structure

A description of the period of study can be found in the module handbook for the degree program.

Additional Degrees

• Bachelor 33%
• Bachelor 50%
• Master of Education (M.Ed.)
• Master of Education Extension Subject
• Vocational Teaching Programme Component