Kinephanos
Bilingual (French/English) open-access journal on media, video games and popular culture, based in Québec.
Documents
The Quadrilingual Vocabulary of French Rap
French rap between 1997 and 1999 represents a sophisticated linguistic synthesis, functioning as a quadrilingual medium that integrates standard French, French slang, American English, and immigrant dialects known as langues de bled.
- French rap between 1997 and 1999 functioned as a quadrilingual medium, synthesizing standard French, French slang, American English, and immigrant 'langues de bled' dialects.
- Analysis of 72 representative tracks from Parisian and Marseillais artists shows that lyrics maintain formal grammatical structures, such as the subjunctive mood and negative particles, alongside informal vernacular.
- Linguistic choices in the genre serve as markers of regional identity, with Parisian artists prioritizing verlan while Marseille-based performers integrate Provençal influences and Arabic-derived slang.
Le plurilinguisme dans les cultures populaires: L'étude du langage mixte du rap montréalais
The Montreal hip-hop scene serves as a critical site for examining the intersection of plurilingualism and popular culture, challenging long-standing academic biases that favor unilingual frameworks.
- Montreal hip-hop functions as a primary site for linguistic hybridity, where artists integrate French, English, and various creoles to define identity rather than merely for aesthetic effect.
- The study analyzed a specific corpus of forty songs and conducted ethnographic interviews to map how artists navigate the sociolinguistic landscape post-Loi 101.
- Linguistic mixing in this scene serves as a deliberate political act that disrupts traditional, homogenous narratives of Quebecois identity.
Entendre une langue, en lire une autre au cinéma
The cinematic experience is fundamentally defined by the tension between heard dialogue and seen text, a duality that challenges the notion of film as a neutral linguistic space.
- Standardized translation practices like uniform subtitling and dubbing often flatten linguistic nuances, compromising the cultural authenticity and narrative depth intended by filmmakers.
- The tension between heard dialogue and seen text creates a non-neutral linguistic space that is frequently obscured by industry-standard localization methods.
- Modern distribution strategies prioritize accessibility through voice-over and standardized subtitles, which often disconnect the viewer from the original aesthetic and visual intent of on-screen elements.
The Consecration of Musical Incoherence
The analysis explores how music compilations, specifically those organized by a single calendar year, function as historiographical projects that assign value to periods of stylistic uncertainty.
- Year-based music compilations, such as 'Meridian 1970,' function as historiographical tools that legitimize periods of stylistic uncertainty rather than tracing clear musical genealogies.
- The lack of aesthetic unity in these collections is a deliberate mechanism that frames historical moments as systems of variation rather than coherent movements.
- Physical compact discs serve as essential boundaries that curate and limit the infinite nature of digital archives, forcing listeners to engage with a fragmented representation of a historical 'cusp'.
Vers un « Nouveau Hollywood »? Considérations sur la métalepse dans le cinéma populaire contemporain
Contemporary popular cinema is undergoing a significant narrative evolution characterized by the frequent use of metalepsis, a technique involving the transgression of boundaries between distinct narrative levels.
- Mainstream Hollywood cinema is increasingly adopting metalepsis—the transgression of boundaries between narrative levels—as a core storytelling device rather than an avant-garde experiment.
- The shift toward structural complexity reflects a strategic industry move to prioritize intellectually demanding, interactive narratives to maintain audience engagement.
- Modern audiences are now expected to move beyond passive consumption, requiring more complex cognitive processing to navigate multi-layered, non-linear cinematic structures.
Tensions, prétentions et galvaudage: Le roman graphique comme stratégie du cheval de Troie
The term graphic novel functions primarily as a strategic Trojan horse within the North American publishing landscape, designed to decouple the medium of comics from its historical associations with juvenile entertainment and low-brow commercialism.
- The term 'graphic novel' was strategically deployed as a marketing tool to decouple comics from juvenile, low-brow associations and facilitate entry into bookstores and academic institutions.
- Landmark works including 'Watchmen', 'The Dark Knight Returns', and 'Maus' acted as the primary catalysts for elevating the medium's status by proving it could support sophisticated, mature thematic depth.
- The widespread adoption of the 'graphic novel' label has created an artificial and divisive hierarchy that unfairly stigmatizes traditional comic books and shorter narrative forms.
« Ils n'en font qu'à leur tête »: Les lycéens français face au cinéma enseigné
The French secondary education system currently faces a significant pedagogical impasse regarding the instruction of cinema.
- The French secondary education system’s cinema curriculum is currently failing because it relies on an outdated, narrow canon rooted in the 'politique des auteurs' and traditionalist values.
- There is a widening disconnect between the state-sanctioned hierarchy of 'good taste' and the eclectic, autonomous viewing habits of contemporary high school students.
- Students actively resist institutional attempts to dictate aesthetic values, preferring to prioritize personal relevance and their own lived experiences over academic prestige.
Cover & Remix: Paradigms of Adaptation in Installation Art
Installation art increasingly relies on the paradigms of the cover and the remix to navigate the complex space between production and reproduction.
- Contemporary installation art increasingly utilizes 'cover' and 'remix' paradigms to treat cultural motifs as raw material, rejecting the traditional hierarchy that prioritizes original works over derivatives.
- Adaptive artistic practices function as creative translations that establish a networked relationship, allowing the source and the adaptation to coexist and mutually legitimize one another.
- Artists employ internal spatiality to transform physical objects and spaces into externalized memories, turning static works into open systems that facilitate ongoing cultural dialogue.