Abstract EN:

Bescherelle's "Dictionnaire National" (1846) provides an excellent means of studying the evolution of the dictionary towards a wide scale linguistic instrument for the teaching of French : a complex work, both encyclopaedic and linguistic, comprising also didactic and grammatical perspectives. In view of the fact that the dictionary is a basically heterogeneous work, its analysis here derives from a dual approach in which the relationships between lexicographic devices and discourse are contrasted. The work is to be seen in a double context : Bescherelle's own life work and the series of monolingual dictionaries in the century. The lexicological study of the terminology of denomination sheds light on the work's internal representation. The appraisal and classification of published works reveal clues of sub-periods involved. This dual perspective, typological and technological, leads to an examination of interaction between governing the whole of the dictionary and micro-structural elements. The architectonic components - macro-structure, "opening", "framework" (lists of devices) - are keys to the informational programme which enters into the micro-structure. The comparison of the "Dictionnaire National" with other great dictionaries, including the "Dictionnaire de l'Académie", reveals the effects of standardisation in progress : the organisational system become fixed, a cultural model is elaborated and the semantic representation is partioned. The make up of the micro-structure and the discourse of the dictionary show the tensions manifest in the way word meaning is treated, between an enyclopaedic and a linguistic approach, or between homonymic lines of division and polysemy. Following the classical rhetorical model, meaning is constructed out of labelling, exemplification and the internal organisation of the article, and the order required for the unity of the national language is inscribed in the linguistic norm.