COVID-related new words in French dictionaries
A metalexicographic and corpus-based analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lexi.26349Keywords:
neology, monolingual dictionaries, French, COVID-19Abstract
Research at the intersection of neology and lexicography is attracting more and more attention worldwide. Although differences in this respect may be substantial, dictionaries are not always particularly responsive, as far as the inclusion of new words or meanings is concerned. However, major events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the process in lexicography for several major European languages. In a fast-changing world, reactivity appears to be a must. However, this new-found enthusiasm for new words does raise some methodological questions, such as the scope of a general dictionary and the criteria for word additions. This article analyzes French lexicographic neologisms related to COVID-19 in Le Petit Larousse Illustré and Le Petit Robert by focusing on lexical incorporation in macrostructures, word-formation processes, and definitions. It also draws comparisons with Wiktionnaire entries, in order to show how responsive and accurate French dictionaries are in recording and describing COVID-related new words.
References
Adelstein, A., and de los Ángeles Boschiroli, V. (2022). Spanish neologisms during the COVID-19 pandemic: Changing criteria for their inclusion and representation in dictionaries. In A. Klosa-Kückelhaus and I. Kernerman (Eds.), Lexicography of coronavirus-related neologisms (pp. 93–124). Berlin: De Gruyter. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798081-006
Bernal, E., Freixa, J., and Torner, S. (2020). Néologicité et dictionnarisabilité. Deux conditions inverses? Neologica, 14, 47–60.
Bueno Ruiz, P. J. (2020). When neologisms don’t reach the dictionary: Occasionalisms in Spanish. In Z. Gavrilidou, M. Mitsiaki, and A. Fliatouras (Eds.), Lexicography for inclusion: Proceedings of the 19th EURALEX International Congress (vol. 1, pp. 333–342). September 7–9, 2021, Alexandroupolis, Greece. Komotini: Democritus University of Thrace.
Bueno, P., and Freixa, J. (2022). Lexicographic detection and representation of Spanish neologisms in the COVID-19 pandemic. In A. Klosa-Kückelhaus and I. Kernerman (Eds.), Lexicography of coronavirus-related neologisms (pp. 73–92). Berlin: De Gruyter. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798081-005
Cerquiglini, B. (2022). Des mots contre les maux. Comment une pandémie révèle la bonne santé de la langue française. In C. Grimaldi, E. Marzi, P. Puccini, M. T. Zanola, and S. D. Zollo (Eds.), Terminologia e interculturalità. Problematiche e prospettive (pp. 11–20). Bologna: I libri di Emil.
Colin, J.-P. (2003). Le lexique. In M. Yaguello (Ed.), Le grand livre de la langue française (pp. 391–456). Paris: Seuil.
Dal, G., and Namer, F. (2018). Playful nonce-formations in French: Creativity and productivity. In S. Arndt-Lappe, A. Braun, C. Moulin, and E. Winter-Froemel (Eds.), Expanding the lexicon. Linguistic innovation, morphological productivity, and ludicity (pp. 203–228). Berlin: De Gruyter. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110501933-205
Diamond, G. (2015). Making decisions about inclusion and exclusion. In P. Durkin (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of lexicography (pp. 532–545). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199691630.013.38
Freixa, J., and Torner, S. (2020). Beyond frequency: On the dictionarization of new words in Spanish. Dictionaries, 41(1), 131–153. https://doi.org/10.1353/dic.2020.0008
Guilbert, L. (1975). La créativité lexicale. Paris: Larousse.
Jacquet-Pfau, C. (2022). Au fil de la pandémie de COVID-19, entre mots et termes. Estudios Románicos, 31, 203–215. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.6018/ER.510821
Jacquet-Pfau, C., and Kacprzak, A. (2022). De quelques mots-témoins d’une pandémie: Les représentations du Covid-19 en français et en polonais. Repères-Dorif, 25. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://www.dorif.it/reperes/christine-jacquet-pfau-alicja-kacprzak-de-quelques-mots-temoins-dune-pandemie-les-representations-du-covid-19-en-francais-et-en-polonais
Jeandidier, A. (2018). Les buzzwords d’origine anglaise dans la langue française: Simples anglicismes ou véritables néologismes? Neolex, 1. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.35562/elad-silda.303
Kilgarriff, A. (2013). Using corpora as data sources for dictionaries. In H. Jackson (Ed.), The Bloomsbury companion to lexicography (pp. 77–96). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Klosa-Kückelhaus, A. (2022). German corona-related neologisms and their lexicographic representation. In A. Klosa-Kückelhaus and I. Kernerman (Eds.), Lexicography of coronavirus-related neologisms (pp. 27–42). Berlin: De Gruyter. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798081-003
Klosa-Kückelhaus, A., and Kernerman, I. (2020). Global viewpoints on lexicography and neologisms. An introduction. Dictionaries 41(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1353/dic.2020.0001
Klosa-Kückelhaus, A., and Kernerman, I. (2021). Converging lexicography and neology. International Journal of Lexicography, 34(3), 277–281. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijl/ecab018
Klosa-Kückelhaus, A., and Kernerman, I. (2022). Lexicography of coronavirus-related neologisms: An introduction. In A. Klosa-Kückelhaus and I. Kernerman (Eds.), Lexicography of coronavirus-related neologisms (pp. 1–10). Berlin: De Gruyter. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798081-001
Koláríková, D. (2021). Reflet de la pandémie de Covid-19 dans les dictionnaires de la langue française. Studia Romanistica, 21(2), 31–45. https://doi.org/10.15452/SR.2021.21.0008
Li, L. (2021). Words, dictionaries and sociology: The impact of coroneologisms. Lexicography Journal of ASIALEX, 8(1), 80–104. https://doi.org/10.1558/lexi.19959
Martinez, C. (2013). La mise à jour des dictionnaires: Une nécessaire réévaluation du texte lexicographique. Études Romanes de Brno, 34(1), 41–53.
Mortureux, M.-F. (2011 [1997]). La lexicologie entre langue et discours. Malakoff: Armand Colin.
Murano, M. (2019). La néologie dans les dictionnaires collaboratifs. Neologica, 13, 143–162.
Nam, K., Lee, S., Jung, H.-J., and Choi, J. (2016). The life and death of neologisms. On what basis shall we include neologisms in the dictionary? In T. Margalitadze and G. Meladze (Eds.), Proceedings of the XVII EURALEX International Congress: Lexicography and linguistic diversity (pp. 389–393). Tbilisi: Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.
O’Donovan, R., and O’Neill, M. (2008). A systematic approach to the selection of neologisms for inclusion in a large monolingual dictionary. In E. Bernal and J. DeCesaris (Eds.), Proceedings of the XIII EURALEX International Congress (pp. 571–579). July 15–19. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Oliva Sanz, C. (2023). Spreading of neological terms related to pandemics in Spanish and British newspapers: A contrastive analysis. CLINA, 9(1), 13–31. Retrieved May 11, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.14201/clina2023911331
Pruvost, J. (2009). La marque “néol.” dans le dictionnaire. Retour sur un dictionnaire de synonymes et d’analogies de la fin du XXe siècle. Neologica. Revue internationale de néologie, 3, 53–65.
Sablayrolles, J.-F. (2011). Alain Rey, le linguiste et les mots nouveaux. In F. Gaudin (Ed.), Alain Rey, vocabuliste français (pp. 87–98). Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
Sablayrolles, J.-F. (2019). Comprendre la néologie. Conceptions, analyses, emplois. Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
Sajous, F. (2022). Using Wiktionary revision history to uncover lexical innovations related to topical events: Application to Covid-19 neologisms. In A. Klosa-Kückelhaus and I. Kernerman (Eds.), Lexicography of coronavirus-related neologisms (pp. 275–306). Berlin: De Gruyter. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798081-014
Sajous, F., Josselin-Leray, A., and Hathout, N. (2018). The complementarity of crowd-sourced dictionaries and professional dictionaries viewed through the filter of neology. Lexis, 12. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.4000/lexis.2322
Sajous, F., and Humbley, J. (2022). Mesures d’isolement sanitaire dans Wiktionnaire et Wikipédia: Néologie et lexicographie ou néonymie et terminographie? Estudios Románicos, 31, 175–201. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.6018/ER.510631
Sajous, F., and Josselin-Leray, A. (2022). Issues in collaborative and crowdsourced lexicography. In H. Jackson (Ed.), The Bloomsbury handbook of lexicography (pp. 343–358). London: Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350181731.ch-020
Sajous, F., and Martinez, C. (2022). Metalexicographical investigations with the DiCo database. International Journal of Lexicography, 35(1), 75–106. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1093/ijl/ecab017
Salazar, D., and Wild, K. (2022). The Oxford English Dictionary and the language of Covid-19. In A. Klosa-Kückelhaus and I. Kernerman (Eds.), Lexicography of Coronavirus-related Neologisms (pp. 11–26). Berlin: De Gruyter. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798081-002
Schmid, H. J. (2008). New words in the mind: Concept-formation and entrenchment of neologisms. Anglia, 126(1), 1–36. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1515/angl.2008.002
Sommant, M. (2003). Innovation lexicale: Sources des néologismes, normalisation et intégration dans les nomenclatures des dictionnaires de langue française. In J.-F. Sablayrolles (Ed.), L’innovation lexicale (pp. 247–260). Paris: Honoré Champion.
Tallarico, G. (2022). Néologismes expressifs et ludiques dans le vocabulaire de la pandémie. Repères-Dorif, 25. In J. Altmanova, M. Murano, and C. Preite (Eds.), Le lexique de la pandémie et ses variants. Retrieved May 8, 2023, from https://www.dorif.it/reperes/giovanni-tallarico-neologismes-expressifs-et-ludiques-dans-le-vocabulaire-de-la-pandemie
Vincent, N. (2020). Quand l’actualité impose des néologismes, les dictionnaires professionnels peuvent-ils rivaliser avec les dictionnaires collaboratifs? In G. Tallarico, J. Humbley, and C. Jacquet-Pfau (Eds.), Nouveaux horizons pour la néologie en français. Hommage à Jean-François Sablayrolles (pp. 69–85). Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
Waszink, V. (2020). Neologisms in an online portal: The Dutch Neologismenwoordenboek (NW). Dictionaries, 41(1), 27–44. https://doi.org/10.1353/dic.2020.0003
