Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools
show that sentence-making is fashioned by what one wishes to convey, and how the dialogue between the author and the reader is established. Does one want to win agreement gradually or does one want to shock and to jolt? Can one jolt with long sentences? Can one win agreement by making short statements? Can one give descriptions equally well using either long or short sentences, or does one need a blend of the two to do it adequately? To maintain the reader’s interest, does it matter whether one writes long or short sentences? What sort of interest does one wish to arouse? Can one be subjective and write short sentences, or is it necessary to use winding ones full of incidental clauses? Conversely, can one be objective with a similar style? Is style a function of the structure of the language? (Students who only know two languages may not be able to decide on this matter through direct experience for a long time.) Can one find examples of all styles in all languages? If the answer is in the affirmative, then the previous question is also answered: if it is in the negative, it is not necessarily an answer to the previous question — investigation is still required. The first anthology (one for each language for which we have published materials) is therefore a succession of texts to display styles. Our Second Anthology is also made of short passages (about 500 words), but this time there are a certain number by the same author, so as to examine whether “style is the man” (Buffon), or whether authors, like actors who play differently when acting vastly different parts, have as many styles as they have fields of writing.
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