Professor Christophe Gagne

Christophe’s research interests lie in the fields of language use, contrastive pragmatics, translation, politeness theory and discourse analysis. His PhD thesis (Université Lumière Lyon II) was a contrastive analysis of French and British service encounters. He has an interest in intercultural communication and has given talks on the alleged rudeness of the French (Trinity French Society, Prince’s Teaching Institute, Cambridge Festival of Ideas). He has worked on interruptions in parliamentary debates with researchers from the University of Helsinki and the University of Lyon (see publications). He has recently worked on gender-inclusive language in French (écriture inclusive).  

Christophe is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of French Language Studies and of the Cambridge Journal of Literary Translation.

Prior to working at Cambridge University Christophe worked as a translator for a private company. He has translated poetry by the novelist John Fowles (Poèmes grecs, The Greek Poems, Editions NG, 2001). He recently translated an anthology of poems on exile "Contre vents et marées" (CivicLeicester, 2025).  He has co-authored with Emilia Wilton Godberfforde a textbook on translating from English into French, published by Routledge in 2020.

Christophe is regularly involved in outreach events. He has taken parts in events organized by MEITS, the Sutton Trust and the Think like a linguist programme. He has in the last few years coordinated the French section’s participation to the Choix Goncourt, organised by the Institut français. Christophe was a first-generation student and did his undergraduate studies in France thanks to a low-income scholarship.