Parole au futur antérieur

N° 114 juillet-août 2013, Production CAC Brétigny

Parole in the future perfect

Each month, the inhabitants of Brétigny receive Parole, ‘the magazine on Brétigny for the people who live there’. Published by the municipality, it informs the inhabitants of Brétigny-sur-Orge on municipality news, important dates, articles on everyday life, the policies implemented by the elected officials, the opposition opinion column, work underway and practical information. In the summer edition (July-August 2013), the magazine was duplicated in a facsimile which was conjugated in the future perfect. This change in tense created an incongruity with the news by disturbing the temporality in which a monthly is usually written. The future perfect is an unusual tense in French in as much as it combines both the future and the past: that which hasn’t yet taken place with that which has already happened. By introducing this slight linguistic disruption, Parole in the future perfect brings readers to question themselves about their relationship with the publication and the political, cultural and social goings-on in the town in which they live.

Version PDF disponible ici.