Vers une pédagogie critique du roman noir : polyphonie, subversion et enjeux didactiques en français langue étrangère

This article explores noir fiction as a critical and pedagogical framework for the teaching of French as a foreign language, proposing that this genre transcends its conventional association with crime and marginality to serve as a dynamic discursive laboratory. Within this space, linguistic, aesthetic, and ideological norms are incessantly contested, subverted, and reimagined. Situated at the nexus of literary studies, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, we contend that noir functions as a heteroglossic arena where language ceases to be a transparent conduit of communication and instead emerges as a contested terrain shaped by multiple voices and shifting registers. Drawing upon the theoretical insights of Barthes, Bakhtin, Bourdieu, and post-structuralist discourse, this study elucidates how noir literature foregrounds linguistic hybridity and polyphony as strategies to destabilize dominant discourses. By interweaving sociolects, argot, bureaucratic registers, and poetic distortions, the noir narrative disrupts hierarchies of linguistic legitimacy, thereby creating a critical space for engaging language as a locus of power, identity, and symbolic transformation. From a pedagogical standpoint, we advocate for a “pedagogy of uncertainty” – an approach that valorizes ambiguity, contestation, and interpretive openness. This is operationalized through diverse classroom methodologies including reverse analysis workshops, rewriting exercises in marginalized vernaculars, performative debates, and reflective writing on linguistic exclusion. Ultimately, noir fiction invites educators and learners alike to reconceptualize language education as a space of epistemic dissonance and semiotic emancipation – a horizon where meaning is co-constructed rather than imposed, and where learning becomes an aesthetic and critical encounter with alterity.