La botanique dans les dictionnaires du français classique

Résumé En

The concept of popularisation (vulgarisation in French) was only developed in the nineteenth century. Is it possible then to detect traces of popularisation in the French encyclopædic dictionaries of the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries? It will be argued that various strategies generally recognized as typical of popularisation are indeed used by the lexicographers of this period. Considering from the outset that the choice of French rather than Latin is a first step toward popularisation, specific strategies are identified in the two major encyclopaeaedic dictionaries, in particular different forms of reformulation. These can be language based, including use of metalinguistic markers and metaphor; text based, such as crossrefencing, or concept based, in particular the elaboration of different systems of classification. It will be shown that the intentions of the lexicographers of this period have much in common with what was later to become popularisation.