Th e Proust Questionnaire is a questionnaire about one's personality. Its name and modern popu- larity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust. At the end of the nineteenth century, when Proust was still in his teens, he answered a question- naire in an English-language confession album belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future French President Félix Faure, entitled "An Album to Record Th oughts, Feelings, etc." At that time, it was popular among English families to answer such a list of questions that revealed the tastes and aspirations of the taker*.
[…]Th e [French] television host Bernard Pivot, seeing an opportunity for a writer to reveal at the same time aspects of his work and his personality, traditionally submitted his guests to the Proust questionnaire at the end of the French broadcast Apostrophes. [Bouillion de culture]
Inspired by Bernard Pivot, James Lipton, the host of the [American] TV program Inside the Ac- tors Studio, gives an adapted version of the Proust Questionnaire to some of his guests.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proust_Questionnaire *Such questionnaires are more generally referred to as Chinese portraits / portraits chinois.
Have you seen James Lipton’s Inside the Actors Studio? If not, you can see his questionnaire in this Wikipedia link (or google separately): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Actors_Studio
Do you think his interview questionnaire is an eff ective way of getting his guests to reveal their tastes and aspira- tions? Why/Why not?
with their respective personal responses. In order to maximize your comprehension of these texts, there are some aspects of French to consider:
• One way to create a yes/no question is by using intonation, adding a rising pitch to the end of a spoken declarative statement or a question mark to the end of a written declarative statement:
Tu joues au tennis? [You play tennis?]
Elle aime la musique classique? [She likes classical music?]
Information questions incorporate the equivalents of words like who, what, when, where and why. The Proust and Pivot questionnaires are composed of information questions, but they use a simpler way of structuring them by turning noun phrases or clauses into questions:
Noun phrase: Mes héros dans la fiction?
[My heros in fiction? vs. What are my heros in fiction?] Noun clause: La qualité que je désire chez un homme?
[The quality that I like in a man? vs. What is the quality that I like in a man?]
• While high frequency generalized adjectives (the equivalents of good, old, pretty, and big), come before the noun in French, just like adjectives in English, most adjectives in French come after the noun:
des charmes féminins [femine charms]
• Certain verbs in these texts are written in the conditional. You can recognize these by their verb endings: je voudrais [I would want…]
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Un portrait chinois
Première lecture
Print the texts of the two questionnaires and accompanying activities on pp. 5-8 Work with a partner, each of you reading one of the texts and completing the corresponding activities.
1. Read your text twice: the fi rst time quickly for gist, the second time with pencil in hand toannotate the text.
"Annotating" means underlining or highlighting key words and phrases—anything that strikes you as surprising or signifi cant, or that raises questions—as well as making notes in the margins. When we respond to a text in this way, we not only force ourselves to pay close attention, but we also begin to think with the author about the evidence.
Patricia Kain, for the Writing Center at Harvard University Source: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/CloseReading.html 1. Along with highlighting any words/phrases that strike you as surprising or signifi ciant and noting your
reactions in the margins, here are some useful decoding strategies for improving interpretation: a. Underline cognates (les mots apparentés) to use as anchors for comprehension.
b. Draw arrows to link keywords or key phrases in each question and answer.
c. If you need to look up a word in a French/English dictionary, a useful online resource is Word Reference: http://www.wordreference.com/
At the early stages of using a French/English dictionary, it will be suffi cient to look at the fi rst section of information, “Principal Translations.” Th is will provide you with the primary meanings of a word. As meanings are always situated in context and represent the writer’s conceptualization of the thing, event, idea, process, etc, pay close attention to the grammar of the word and to the context in the text that you are reading in order to choose what would seem to be an appropriate translation. Once you have chosen a meaning, write the English equivalent in the margin.
Le texte nº 1 – Proust
Source: Wikimedia Version de Proust (sélections) Réponses de Proust vers 1890
1. La qualité que je désire chez un homme ? Des charmes féminins.
2. La qualité que je désire chez une femme ? Des vertus d'homme et la franchise dans la camaraderie.
3. Ce que j'apprécie le plus chez mes amis ? D'être tendre pour moi, si leur personne est assez exquise pour donner un grand prix à leur tendresse.
4. Mon principal défaut ? Ne pas savoir, ne pas pouvoir « vouloir ». 5. Mon occupation préférée ? Aimer.
6. Quel serait mon plus grand malheur ? Ne pas avoir connu ma mère ni ma grand- mère.
7. La couleur que je préfère ? La beauté n'est pas dans les couleurs, mais dans leur harmonie.
8. La fleur que j'aime ? La sienne - et après, toutes. 9. L'oiseau que je préfère ? L'hirondelle.
10. Mes héros dans la fiction ? Hamlet. 11. Mes héroïnes dans l'histoire ? Cléopâtre.
12. Ce que je déteste par-dessus tout ? Ce qu'il y a de mal en moi. 13. Personnages historiques que je méprise le
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Un portrait chinois
Regardez de plus près Pour le texte nº 1:
Read Proust’s answers to the questions a second time. What impressions do you have of Proust based on his answers to the questions?
1. Note key adjectives or descriptors that come to mind in English, and look for and note the French equivalents:
2. Note evidence from the text for formulating your opinions:
3. Conclude with some statements in French about your opinion using the structures: Je pense qu’il est (un peu/assez/ très/vraiment/ plutôt) + adjectif
À mon avis (in my opinion), c’est un + noun/noun phrase
For a better understanding of the differences between Il est/C’est, see : http://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/gr/pro3.html