FRANKOFONIJA LIETUVOJE
FRANCOPHONIE IN LITHUANIA

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with a socio-linguistic theme, namely the spreading of francophonie or French language and culture in Lithuania. The term francophonie was coined by a French geographer Onesime Reclus (1837—1916), soon forgotten and included in the dictionaries only in the 1970s. Its meaning develops and changes alongside with the underlying phenomena. Francophonie of today can be interpreted as a scientific area distinguishing two notions — francophonie (lower case) and Francophonie (upper case). As the latter has already been dealt with in earlier V. Vitkauskiene’s publication, this article only reminds that the word Francophonie denotes an international movement and organisation, established by various Frenchspeaking governments and authorities. It is made up of 8 different institutions Vitkauskiene 2009). The objectives of this article are: the description of meanings and definitions of francophonie; and the attempt to review diachronically and synchronically francophonie in Lithuania. The grassroots of francophonie in Lithuania lay not only in the political and cultural relations with France, but also in the teaching of the French language in the Lithuanian education system. The article discloses the current situation concerning the teaching of French in Lithuanian secondary and higher schools. It is written using statistical and descriptive methods and presents a brief overview of scientific research on francophonie in Lithuania.

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