Revue d’Études Françaises
N^o 28 (2024)
p.53-61
DOI : 10.37587/ref.2024.1.04

Langue, pouvoir et dissonance : pour une didactique critique du français langue étrangère à partir du roman noir

Niv Schvartz

This article examines the noir novel as a critical linguistic and pedagogical resource for the teaching of French as a foreign language (FLE). Far from being a mere subdivision of crime fiction, the noir genre constitutes a heterogeneous discursive space where social, ideological, and linguistic tensions are dramatized. Its specificity lies less in narrative structure than in the conflictual dynamics of language it exposes: the friction between dominant institutional discourses and marginalized idioms, between standardized norms and their subversions. Drawing on sociolinguistic perspectives (Bourdieu) and the theory of dialogism (Bakhtin), the study argues that the noir novel foregrounds the polyphony and power relations inherent in all linguistic practices. As such, it serves as a privileged site for developing critical language awareness in FLE contexts. By engaging learners with linguistic variation, sociolectal diversity, and the symbolic charge of “non-legitimate” forms of speech, the noir novel enables a pedagogy grounded in empowerment (Freire, Cummins) and the negotiation of subjectivity. The article proposes that incorporating noir fiction into FLE shifts language teaching from a normative model toward a critical, relational, and interpretive approach, in which learners explore the language as a space of social struggle, identity formation, and discursive agency. 

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