Library Guides: French Studies and Language: Introduction

Introduction

This subject guide highlights some key discipline resources to get you started with study and research.

Refer to the New Students Library Guide for everything you need to know about Library services and resources.
Build your researching, reading and writing skills with the Research Essentials Library Guide.
Streamline your access to online resources with the Library's quick access tools.

Language resources

Dictionaries

Pocket Oxford-Hachette French dictionary: French-English, 4th ed. / edited by Marie-Hélene Corréard.
Publication Date: 2010
Essential vocabulary, clear translations, usage and grammar help in this French-English dictionary.
Pocket Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary: English-French, 4th ed. / edited by Marie-Hélène Corrèard
Publication Date: 2010
Essential vocabulary, clear translations, usage and grammar help in this English-French dictionary.
Le Grand Robert de la Langue Francaise / edited by Paul Robert
Publication Date: 2001
Extensive coverage and comprehensive entries: phonetic transcriptions, evolution of form, etymology and dates, precise definitions, and usage - both usual and unusual - of words in their context (speeches, examples, quotations).

Grammar and workbooks

French Grammar and Usage / by Roger Hawkins; Richard Towell; Marie-Noëlle Lamy
Publication Date: 2010
Long trusted as the most comprehensive, up-to-date and user-friendly grammar available, French Grammar and Usage provides students and teachers with a complete guide to French as it is written and spoken today. It includes clear and concise descriptions of all the main grammatical aspects of the language, illustrated by numerous examples taken from contemporary French.
Practising French Grammar / by Roger Hawkins; Richard Towell; Marie-Noel Lamy
Publication Date: 2010
Practising French Grammar offers a set of varied and accessible exercises for developing a deep practical awareness of French as it is spoken and written today. It can be used alone or as the ideal companion to the new edition of the widely acclaimed French Grammar and Usage by Roger Hawkins and Richard Towell.
The Structure of Modern Standard French / by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen
Publication Date: 2016
This book is an advanced student's grammar of French that integrates traditional grammar with knowledge and insights from modern linguistics. The first part of the book provides an introduction to French sentence structure, before the following parts examine the grammar of verbs, nominals, particles, and clauses and sentences.
French Grammar in Context / by Margaret Jubb and Annie Rouxeville
Publication Date: 2008
French Grammar in Context presents a unique and exciting approach to learning grammar. Authentic texts from a rich variety of sources, literary and journalistic, are used as the starting point for the illustration and explanation of key areas of French grammar. Each point is consolidated with a wide range of written and spoken exercises.
Understanding Core French Grammar / edited by Andrew J. Betts
Publication Date: 2016
This book contains an explanatory treatment of the core areas of difficulty for the English speaking learner of French. It deals with the key issues in tense formation and use and verbal structures and processes such as negation, passives and subjunctives along with a highly exemplified treatment of pronouns and a section dealing with adjectives and other elements of the grammar. Extensive exercises and answers for all topics covered.

Encyclopedias

Cambridge Companions Online
Cambridge Companions Online offers subject or theme based collections of content within a richly functional, fully cross-searchable online environment. This collection of over 500 titles covers literature, philosophy, religion, classics, cultural studies, and music. The content is updated continuously. From September 2016 titles are available via the Cambridge Core platform alongside Cambridge Books, Histories and Journals.

The Cambridge Companion to French Literature / edited by John D. Lyons
Publication Date: 2015
In this authoritative and accessible account of French literature, sixteen essays by leading specialists offer provocative insights into French literary culture, its genres, movements, themes, and historic turning points, including the cultural and linguistic challenges of today's multi-ethnic France.
Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture / edited by Alex Hughes and Keith Reader
Publication Date: 2002
More than 700 alphabetically organized entries by an international team of contributors provide a fascinating survey of French culture post 1945. Essential cultural context for students of French, Modern History, Comparative European Studies and Cultural Studies.
Encyclopedia of Modern French Thought / edited by Christopher John Murray
Publication Date: 2004
In this wide-ranging guide to twentieth-century French thought, leading scholars offer an authoritative multi-disciplinary analysis of one of the most distinctive and influential traditions in modern thought. Covers philosophy, literary theory, sociology, linguistics, political thought, theology, and more.
The French Cinema Book / edited by Michael Temple and Michael Witt
Publication Date: 2018
An innovative and accessible account of the richness and diversity of French film history from the 1890s to the 2010s. Ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses devoted to topics such as film history, film technology, silent cinema, film theory, and European and French cinema.

Databases and journals

Use databases to search across many academic resources (including peer-reviewed journals) at the same time.

Refer to the A-Z Ejournals and Databases page for a comprehensive list of available resources.

Core Arts and Humanities databases:

The selection of multidisciplinary databases below will retrieve results from different subject areas.

Discovery (EBSCO)
Use Discovery to look for books, ebooks, journal articles and more. It's a great place to start your search but does not give you everything the Library has.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is one of the most popular ways to find academic sources for study and research. Did you know you can use it to search for journal articles that the University of Melbourne has access to? You can do this through the link above or set up your Google Scholar preferences to include Library content.
JSTOR
JSTOR is one of the largest databases the Library has access to. It is a multidisciplinary database so it looks in thousands of journals in over a hundred subjects - many of them related to arts and humanities. Highly recommended as your first or second place to search.
ProQuest Central
Covering more than 160 subjects areas, ProQuest Central is the largest aggregated database of periodical content. This award-winning online reference resource features a highly-respected, diversified mix of content including scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, books, newspapers, reports and videos.
Scopus (Elsevier)
Scopus is another large, multidisciplinary database. It looks through journals, books, and conference papers. It has some advanced tools that can help you discover new research quickly - the 'times cited' and 'related articles' links are great time-savers. While it doesn't always have full-text PDFs it is still an excellent place to look for your research.
Web of Science
Web of Science is a massive, multidisciplinary database which includes a large amount of humanities and social sciences material from as far back as 1900. Like Scopus it has some advanced features that allows you to quickly link to related research.

French Studies-specific databases

For more focused results try searching in one of these subject-specific databases.

Cairn Open Access Journals
Cairn.info is a French-language social sciences and humanities portal. Anyone can view the abstracts and plans of the publications free of charge, as well as, in some cases, their full text.
Erudit Open Access Journals
Érudit is the leading provider of Francophone and Canadian peer reviewed journals in North America. The platform gathers in one point nearly 150 Canadian scholarly and cultural publishers, including the most prestigious French-language Canadian university presses. Free full text - managed by publisher, holdings subject to change.

Factiva
Factiva is a key database providing newspaper access from around the world, including France. Some titles include: Le Figaro, Les Echos, Agence France Presse, Le Telegramme and many more.

Persee
The main goal of the Persée project is to widely disseminate the scientific output of French language specialists in the humanities on the internet. Considered part of France’s heritage, the collections are at the disposal of all, without charge, in an optic of free and non exclusive access and dissemination.
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts : LLBA (Proquest)
This database abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. The database covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Documents indexed include journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations and working papers.
MLA International Bibliography (EBSCOhost)
Produced by the Modern Language Association the International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present. It includes citations to content published in journals, books, series, translations, scholarly editions, websites and dissertations. The database also includes the Directory of Periodicals and the Thesaurus.
Literature Online (LION) (ProQuest)
Literature Online is the leading online resource for the study and teaching of literature in English. The collection contains more than 350,000 works of poetry, drama and prose, over 350 full-text literature journals, and key bibliographies, biographies, reference works and student guides.
Literature Online also contains the following bibliographic database: ABELL, with records covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays and doctoral dissertations published anywhere in the world. ABELL is compiled under the auspices of the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA)
Project Muse Journal Collection
Project MUSE offers full-text current and archival articles from 500+ scholarly journals from major university presses covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more. Updated continually.

Books

You can access print and eBooks via the Library Catalogue. To find books on a particular subject, try a keyword search:

To improve your searching skills, see the Research Essentials Library Guide. Note that you can search the catalogue in non-Latin scripts (including Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean).

For information on access and loans, including material from other libraries, see the borrowing from the library page. The eBook Guide provides information on eBook access.

Theses

Visit the Finding Theses guide

Video resources

Alexander Street Video
Alexander Street Press offers video, audio and text-based resources covering an extensive range of subjects. This site allows users to cross-search the content purchased by the University of Melbourne Library. It features a single, fully integrated platform, offering access to thousands of full-length streaming video titles and audio recordings. Almost every video in the collection is fully transcribed in addition to being indexed for subjects, people, places, release date, language, publisher, and video type. Users can also select to view a single subject collection by using the dropdown menu at the top of the homepage.
EduTV
EduTV is a Video Streaming service of over 50,000+ broadcast programs from free-to-air and pay TV channels in Australia. Coverage commences with 2006 and includes content across a wide range of learning areas. Free to air content is recorded from the ABC, SBS, NITV, 9, 7, 10, etc. channels. EduTV also includes several programs broadcast on Pay TV such as The History Channel, National Geographic, BBC Knowledge and Discovery channels.
Kanopy (Kanopy)
The Kanopy Streaming Service is the leading supplier of streamed videos to global academic institutions. The service utilises sophisticated platform and delivery technology to offer a new world of online engagement that empowers University of Melbourne Library to stream on demand video at optimal quality to their registered staff and students.

Explore the catalogue of over 20,000 videos from the world’s most prominent filmmakers and production houses. Specially curated collections cover a wide range educational disciplines including literacy, mathematics, history and issues in society. Kanopy also offers a hosting service allowing for DVDs to be uploaded and streamed online provided digital rights is obtained. Kanopy offers a large range of Australian content and videos can be searched using the library catalogue.
TVNews (Informit)
TVNews indexes Australian television news, current affairs and selected documentaries from the free-to-air networks with links to the digitised video content in a compressed format. All individual stories from a particular broadcast are indexed with a detailed synopsis. TVNews is updated daily, with stories appearing on an evening news broadcast generally being available for access the next morning. Key titles include: Australian Story, Catalyst, Current Affair, Dateline, Foreign Correspondent, Four Corners, Insiders, Insight, Landline, Lateline, Meet the Press, Q and A, Today Tonight, World News Australia, and many more. Coverage commences with September 2007 and is updated daily.

Websites

You can find relevant information and resources for your research on the websites of professional organisations and bodies, institutes, NGOs, government departments, etc.

This guide gives a few suggestions to get you started and to give you an idea what to look for. It is by no means comprehensive. If you are a coursework student, check your LMS to see if your lecturer has provided website recommendations.

Tip: if you want to limit your Google search results to organisational, governmental, or educational websites, use Google's advanced search option to limit the site or domains to .org, .gov, .edu.

Some website suggestions to get you started:

Australian Society for French Studies
The Bibliothèque nationale de France Catalogue Général
Fabula
Includes information in the field of literary theory and criticism, and also the debates in the academic world.
Job offers and scholarships offered by universities worldwide. Literary Theory Workshop, magazines Acta Fabula and LHT.
The European Library
Project Gutenberg
Free access to French e-books.

News

Visit the News and Newspapers guide

Referencing and citation

Visit the Re:cite guide to referencing

Learn to reference in styles commonly used at the university.
Download reference management software or find a citation generator.
Access training, guides and webinars.

Contact us

Ask a question on Library Chat

You can chat to a librarian via the Library's website.

Visit a Library Service Desk

We're here to help! Visit our libraries to talk to a library staff member for the help that you need.

Research Consultations

University of Melbourne academic staff and postgraduate students can book an individual research consultation or email the Arts liaison librarians.