The dictionnaire suisse romande and differential lexicography

Abstract

Differential lexicography is little known outside the French-speaking world. This paper seeks to describe the traits of differential lexicography by examining the Dictionnaire Suisse romande (DSR). In line with considerations by Coseriu, Völker and Glessgen, variation is taken here to be an integral part of the system. In lexicography it is a matter of analysing how (diatopic, diachronic, …) variations are associated with a linguistic level termed “unmarked”. The normalised variant of French, so-called standard French, was essentially elaborated by 17^th-century grammarians such as Vaugelas and Bouhours. In Francophone lexicography, firmly established by the Richelet (1680) and Furetière (1690) dictionaries, standard French continues to be the frame of reference. In many dictionaries, however, standard French is explained in terms of usage in France, despite its supranational status. This is the context in which the methodology of differential lexicography emerges. The notion of what is differential is manifest in the choice of nomenclature. Only lexemes whose usage differs from that described in general dictionaries of French as a frame of reference (but not as a norm) are registered. In brief, the DSR covers a regional norm, or sub-norm, relating to the peculiarities of Swiss French. Other differential works of reference corroborate this observation: French is seen to consist of a standard form and regional norms described by differential lexicography. This contrasts with the situation that holds for the Portuguese language, for which there is an “educated peninsular Portuguese norm” and an “educated Brazilian norm”.