By the end of their bachelor's degree, students will have acquired:
I. General knowledge and interdisciplinary skills
- Vast general and interdisciplinary knowledge by opening up to other disciplines in the humanities and understanding the connections between them
- A grounding in the fundamentals of the humanities and social sciences (principal theories, vocabulary, methods and challenges)
- The ability to build an interdisciplinary dialogue between the different humanities and social sciences and to problematise their relationship to the literature and linguistics of Romance languages (all general courses, e.g. Philosophie, Histoire des sociétés occidentales, Histoire de l'art, etc.)
- In-depth knowledge in another subject area by choosing a minor subject (e.g. English, Philosophy, History, Infocom, etc.)
- In-depth knowledge of major European authors and literary trends, as well as theoretical tools in the study of literature
- In-depth knowledge of the history of the main European literatures and an understanding of the comparative approach to literature (Littératures européennes comparées)
- Expertise in the main tools of literary theory and an understanding of the challenges and limits of the main approaches to literary analysis (Théorie de la littérature)
II. Specialised knowledge
- In-depth knowledge of the history of French and Belgian literature
- Knowledge of the major movements, authors and works in the history of French literature and the ability to situate them in their historical and socio-cultural context, as well as to trace the evolution of literary genres (Histoire de la littérature française I, II et III)
- Knowledge of the main movements, authors and works in the history of French-language Belgian literature (Littérature belge)
- An understanding of literary history, its methods and issues (Histoire de la littérature française I, II et III; Théorie de la littérature)
- Knowledge of the main techniques for literary analysis and commentary
- The ability to analyse and comment on a work of French-language literature from any period in terms of the author's complete works and the context in which it was written (Analyse de textes littéraires français I, II et III)
- A wide range of knowledge and skills for the analysis of French-language literature (poetry, novels, drama, etc.), from the oldest to the most contemporary works, demonstrating the importance of a personal interpretation; the ability to write a well-constructed and well-argued commentary on a given text (Analyse de textes littéraires français I, II et III)
- The ability to write an in-depth literary analysis based on a personal interpretation (Analyse de textes littéraires français III et séminaire)
- Basic knowledge and competence in philology and the genetic criticism of French literary works (Séminaire de philologie française)
- Expertise in the main linguistic trends and analytical tools and an understanding of the challenges of the discipline in its different aspects
- Comprehensive knowledge of the discipline of linguistics, its fundamental questions and issues, as well as its main theoretical concepts and tools (Linguistique générale)
- The necessary linguistic knowledge and skills be able to undertake the study of Romance languages (Histoire de la langue française, Linguistique romane)
- Theoretical and practical skills in French grammar and linguistics
- The ability to formulate and systematically apply the standard rules of French spelling and prescriptive grammar by acquiring a command of its metalanguage and understanding the norms of grammar on a theoretical level (Linguistique synchronique I)
- The ability to carry out a morphosyntactic and syntactic analysis of contemporary written and spoken French (Linguistique synchronique du français I et II)
- A knowledge of the fundamental principles of corpus linguistics and the ability to produce a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus; an understanding of the specific features of spoken language and the ability to collect and transcribe oral data (Linguistique synchronique du français III et séminaire)
- In-depth knowledge of the history of the French language and its development from Latin
- In-depth knowledge of the historical, political and socio-cultural events which shaped the emergence, spread and development of the French language (Histoire de la langue française)
- In-depth knowledge and competence in the historical phonetics and morpho-syntax of French, as well as the ability to think critically about linguistic variation and the workings of linguistic evolution, including in contemporary French (Linguistique historique du français I et II)
- The ability to understand a medieval literary text in Old or Middle French, translate it into modern French and identify its specific poetic and aesthetic features (Linguistique historique du français I et II, Histoire de la littérature française III)
- Knowledge in comparative linguistics applied to Romance languages and the ability to put into perspective the role and evolution of French and Spanish or Italian within the Roman Empire (Linguistique romane)
- Excellent communication skills and explicit metalinguistic and literary knowledge in a Romance language other than French
- An excellent oral and written command of Spanish and/or Italian (Espagnol I, II et III or Italien I, II et III)
- In-depth knowledge of Spanish and/or Italian linguistics (morphology, syntax, phonology and semantics) (Espagnol I, II et III or Italien I, II et III)
- In-depth knowledge of the history of Spanish and/or Italian literature and culture, and the ability to analyse and comment on a literary text in Spanish and/or Italian (Histoire de la littérature espagnole or Histoire de la littérature italienne)
- Theoretical and practical knowledge of Latin as well as an ability to apply this knowledge to understand the evolution of Romance languages
- A thorough command of the syntax, vocabulary and nominal and verbal morphology of classical Latin (Initiation à la langue latine or Traduction et explication de textes latins)
- The ability to understand and translate a literary text in classical Latin (Initiation à la langue latine or Traduction et explication de textes latins, Auteurs latins)
- The ability to comment on a literary text written in classical Latin (from the grammatical, historical, stylistic, aesthetic and cultural points of view), and knowledge of the history of Latin literature and culture (Auteurs latins)
III. A grounding in the scientific method (‘transferable skills’)
- The skills to undertake personal research on a question in the fields of literature or linguistics
- The ability to use the main reference tools in the various disciplines of linguistics and literature; the ability to construct a research hypothesis and defend it using the appropriate methodology in a personal work; the ability to describe the current scholarly state of investigation in relation to a linguistics issue and produce a bibliography (Méthodologie des études romanes et pratique du français écrit; séminaires d’Analyse de textes littéraires français III et de Linguistique synchronique du français III)
- Critical thinking and scientific reasoning skills
- The ability to undertake scientific inquiry according to the scientific method and critically examine any type of information or document
- The ability to construct a clear and sophisticated reasoned argumentation involving a problem, a hypothesis and its verification
- The ability to summarise and identify the issues in any complex text or line of reasoning (all CUs for the bachelor's degree in French and Romance languages and literature)
- A grounding in scientific communication in keeping with referencing and publication norms
- A thorough understanding of the principles of argumentative writing; the ability to produce a piece of academic work in accordance with the norms and ethics of academic writing (bibliographical references, use of quotations, notes, etc.); sufficient knowledge of how to use the different means of communicating research results (oral presentation, written essay, commentary, review, etc.) (Méthodologie des études romanes et pratique du français écrit; séminaires d’Analyse de textes littéraires français III et de Linguistique synchronique du français III)
IV. A command of the French language ('transferable skills')
- A full command of the French language in all of its written and oral dimensions, and the ability to understand and summarise any type of text written in French
- A full command of the French language both in terms of understanding and being able to produce oral and written texts; the ability to understand and summarise any type of text written in French (all CUs for the bachelor's degree in French and Romance languages and literature)