FEATURED NEOLOGISM:

My favorite neologisms are those resulting from a mistake or a lapse of memory, especially those coined by young children and involving affixes (‘galérant’ instead of ‘galère’ used as an adjective, ‘saignure’ instead of ‘saignement’, ‘bellerie’ formed on ‘parfumerie’ to refer to a shop selling beauty products, etc.). They show the malleability and the potentialities of languages, the natural competition between affixes and their relative randomness. They also show learning in progress and experimentation without the pressure of the norm, of the ‘correct’ language, especially in French, which is not – in France – as malleable as English may be for instance. All these were coined by a 6-year-old native French girl in 2024 and used regularly (since they have not been ‘corrected’).

I am a professional English to French translator and associate Professor in English, specializing in translation and terminology/lexicology. My research focuses on neology and on the influence of English on the French language at the lexical and terminological level. In this respect, I am particularly interested in the terminological cycle, from the appearance to the disappearance of terms, focusing on variation and terminological renewal, with an approach based on extralinguistic factors (generations and connotations in particular).
https://cerla.univ-lyon2.fr/equipe/chercheur-es-titulaires/rebours-marie-alice