On June 11, the Second National Academic Forum for French Majors was jointly held by French Language and Culture Institute of the School of International Studies of Zhejiang University and Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. The forum is a top-level academic event for French undergraduates in China. It attracted 128 students fromwell-known universities in China, including Peking University, Nanjing University, Zhejiang University, Wuhan University, Beijing Foreign Studies University and Shanghai Foreign Studies University. Four students of the year 2018 from the French Department of the Collegewere successfully promoted, and finally won two first prizes and two third prizes for their excellent performance.
Zhang Mingyu’s graduation thesis “‘Roots’Written by Simone Wye and Hannah Arendt” (supervised by Prof. Liu Jiping) won the first prize in the literature sub-forum (No.2) , and Chen Xiaoyu’s graduation thesis “Longitudinal Research on the Influence of Aging on French Vowel Formants” (supervised by Prof. Wang Caixia) won the first prize in the linguistic sub-forum.Both Shi Jingyi’s “African Literature in the French Literary World—Take La Plus Secrète Mémoire des Hommes as an Example” (supervised by Prof. Liu Jiping) and Yang Ling’s “Writing of Marginal Women—TakeChanson Douce as an Example” (supervised by Prof. Liu Jiping) won the third prize in the literature sub-forum.
The review committee of this forum was composed of 20 French professors from famous domestic universities. Undergraduate theses of students from more than 50 universities participated in the selection. 98 theses were shortlisted for the defense session of the forum. Those theses were categorized into six sub-forums, which are, regional and national study (two sub-forums), linguistics, translation, and literature (two sub-forums). Each contestant had 20 minutes for oral defense. In the first 10 minutes students gave their presentations, and in the second 10 minutes, experts asked questions and shared their comments on the contestants’ topic, research methods, and language. Finally, each sub-forum delivered 1 first prize, 3 second prizes and 5 third prizes.
Four students from the French Department of Nankai University participated in the forum. All of them were shortlisted for the oral defense and won national awards. The number of winners and the level of awards were significantly increased compared with last year, which is a new record. This is a full affirmation of the training quality of the French Department, and it will certainly encourage more Nankai students to participate in high-level academic competitions.
