Mary LeMaître is an instructor in the University of Winnipeg’s French department. While she clearly has a passion for language, she’s interested in so much more.

This is evident in her books. So far, the only one published is The Secret Life of French Verbs and Other Sentence Parts. She describes it as a fun grammar book that explains French verbs as though they are people.

Three more books are on the way.

Perfect Your French is a compilation of common vocabulary errors she has noticed in exams over her last five of nine years teaching at the university. This one is in the editing stages and closer to being available to help her students improve their grades than the others.

Straying from French books, the tentatively titled Inheritors of Colonialism takes a look at the root of stereotypes about indigenous Canadians, including what the stereotypes are, where they came from and how they can be changed.

She says the third will be about business French and she’s on leave from teaching to finish producing it.

“I’m really keen on language and I’m keen on social discourse,” LeMaître says.

LeMaître predictably has a PhD in French, but also in Catholic studies, and is involved in religious social justice groups.

She’s the communications person for KARIOS, a coalition of churches working together on social justice issues, particularly indigenous rights issues in Canada. She got involved after learning more about the group through her past position as the chair of Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

While her work is serious, she has a sense of humour and found The Uniter’s questions to be quite funny.

 

AGE:  You gotta put a ring on my finger if you want to know my age!

AREA OF RESEARCH:  Analysis of social discourse

NUMBER OF PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES PUBLISHED:  I don’t do a lot of article writing, I do mostly book writing.

LOWEST GRADE IN UNIVERSITY: C in philosophy. I kept trying to prove an argument as opposed to discussing what the different arguments are.

FAVOURITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF: I love life and I love people.

WHAT’S YOUR SUPERPOWER: I’m pretty happy the way I am.

Published in Volume 70, Number 2 of The Uniter (September 17, 2015)