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The thesis supervisor
In a French master's program, the relationship with the directeur or directrice de mémoire is the center of the second year. The supervisor is usually an enseignant-chercheur in the department who agrees to take the student on, sometimes after reading the application, as Mme Delorme did. Meetings are less frequent than many students from elsewhere expect, often once a month or less, and the student is expected to arrive with work, not questions alone. The style can feel severe. French academic culture values rigor and directness, and a first meeting that begins with "your project is far too broad" is ordinary, not hostile. Supervisors are typically addressed as Madame or Monsieur with the surname, and with vous throughout, often for the whole year. Bienveillance, a word that has become central in French education, describes what students hope to find: high demands combined with genuine support. The methodological advice Alex receives is standard in the social sciences. A master's thesis in sociolinguistics usually rests on a modest corpus, often around a dozen semi-structured interviews, and its credibility depends less on statistical representativeness than on a transparent account of how the people were chosen and how the questions were asked. The warning about hypotheses that contain their own answer is one every supervisor gives, and, as Mme Delorme says, one that few students hear the first time.