Dr. Caroline Lebrec, Assistant Professor of Teaching in French, introduces a pedagogical guide for inclusive and non-binary French developed in collaboration with graduate student Mathilda Poulenay (FHIS), Dr. Hasheem Hakeem (Northwestern University), and Sophie Feng (University of Toronto).
“The Guide provides a step-by-step approach to writing French in a way that is inclusive of all gender identities, which the normative representation of the French language fails at.”
The Guide pédagogique du français inclusif et non binaire (2024) provides a step-by-step approach to writing French in a way that is inclusive of all gender identities, which the normative representation of the French language fails at.
Context
French grammar has adhered to a gender agreement rule since the 17th century (Vaugelas, 1647), stating that “the masculine trumps the feminine” and originally refering to grammatical gender instead of gender identity. Ingrained for centuries, this rule reflects a political bias by designating the masculine form as the neutral one to represent all genders. For example, in the sentence “Julie et Paul sont allés à la piscine hier” (Julie and Paul went to the pool yesterday), the masculine plural allés is used even though Julie is traditionally considered feminine. Few alternatives are possible such as a duplicate (doublon in French) that creates a feminine form and a masculine form (Julie est allée à la piscine hier et Paul y est allé aussi) but it creates a longer sentence that doesn’t put the emphasis on the fact that they may have been to the pool together, a nuance that is present in the original sentence. A holistic alternative would be Julie et Paul sont allé·e·s à la piscine hier, which acknowledges the feminine in Julie’s name, but also avoids assuming gender identity, as Julie might not identify as female, and Paul might not identify as male. “Allé·e·s” is called an inclusive form of writing, as it is inclusive of all gender identities, beyond a binary representation of gender identities and beyond the projection of a gender identity on a person.
The French language is nuanced and beautiful enough to embrace inclusive writing forms. Scholars like Eliane Viennot (among many others) have extensively developed this argument in their works on the history of the French language, showing, for example, how feminine forms of professions were removed from dictionaries during the shift toward a masculinized French language. Today, writing guides like Guide pédagogique du français inclusif et non binaire offers a how-to guide on applying EDID values and principles to the languages we teach at a time when guides or charts are blooming in many Canadian institutions and organizations to offer simple in-house solutions to using a more inclusive, ethical, and holistic French language, as it is now a priority in French as a second language teaching in Canada (Kunnas, 2023; Masson et al., 2022; Masson et al., 2024).
The guide also aligns with the plurilingualism principle outlined in the 2021 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) that is used at FHIS for its language curriculum. The 2021 (and most recent) version of the CEFR advocates for the inclusion of all variations of the French language in educational settings to embrace the value of linguistic and cultural diversity and, by extension, also the gendered and genderable value of words.
About the project
This project was funded by the Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences as part of their Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization (EDID) Action Plan. The Federation’s EDID Initiatives Fund supports projects that promote equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization within its member organizations and partners. Among those organizations is the Association des Professeur·e·s de Français des Universités et Collèges Canadien·ne·s, also known as APFUCC.
The collaborators involved in this project, listed alphabetically, include:
- Sophie Feng (University of Toronto)
- Hasheem Hakeem (Northwestern University)
- Caroline Lebrec (University of British Columbia)
- Mathilda Poulenay (University of British Columbia)
Sophie Feng and Hasheem Hakeem served as APFUCC EDID champions in 2021 and 2023. Caroline Lebrec is the APFUCC EDID representative, and Mathilda Poulenay is an FHIS graduate student researching intersectionality and queer feminism.
Access the guide
The Guide is available as an open-access document on the APFUCC website: https://apfucc.net/guide-de-lecriture-inclusive/
The APFUCC uses the Guide for all written communication, including correspondence with its members and during the pre-, during-, and post-event communications for their annual Congress. We also offered the Guide to the Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences as a thank you gesture for their funding and support with this initiative.
