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Copyright of Synergies France is the property of GERFLINT (Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches pour le Francais Langue Internationale) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As the second part of a general study about semantic determinism, this article continues to analyze the topographic lexicon of Gallo-Romance dialects. The new concepts ('river', 'brook', 'valley', 'cave') that I examine in this paper complete my previous survey about the designations of hills and mountains. Most of all, the new set of data allows me to go beyond isolated concepts and to present for the first time the motivational synthesis of a whole theme. The result is that, whatever the concept, words referring to topography are generally created according to four matrices of designation: such words originally allude to (1) level; (2) concavity/convexity; (3) physical composition; or stem from a (4) conceptual confusion due to adjacency. The method that reduces hundreds of lexical forms to a handful of creative patterns leads to a direct perception of how the lexicon is structured and has a strong heuristic potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studii de Ştiintă şi Cultură is the property of Studii de Stiinta si Cultura and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Partly due to a history of official purism in France, the use of Anglicisms in various contexts has been of interest to linguists and non-linguists alike. This study takes a systematic approach to characterize the frequency and scope of Anglicisms appearing in four French journals, published between 2010 and 2015. A total of 15,222 (Paris Match), 98,017 (La Croix), 134,996 (Le Figaro Quotidien) and 16,422 (Les Inrocks) words were reviewed and analyzed. About ~3 Anglicisms per page were observed, with the high prevalence in the cultural magazine Les Inrocks (~5 words per page); but there were no observed trends over time within the six-year period. Nouns represented 95% of the Anglicisms identified. Results also showed the increased occurrence of compounds possibly modeled after the high-yield English compounding structure wherein two nouns are simply juxtaposed, N + N, which is at variance with the more traditional French compounding structure requiring a relational particle between the nouns (e.g. N de N). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the experiment was to examine the relevance of a new French web-based assessment, Tinfolec (Test INFOrmatisé d’évaluation de la LECture), the aim of which is to evaluate the reading abilities of children in primary grades. The participants were 1,016 children from Grades 2 to 5. They completed the five tasks of Tinfolec designed to assess the efficiency of the two procedures used to identify written words (the nonlexical route and the lexical orthographic route). We tested the reliability and validity of the new tool in a subsection of this sample. Correlational analyses provided evidence of the reliability and validity of Tinfolec. The results are consistent with the conventionally observed effect of lexical factors (length, consistency, and frequency) on written word processing. The results confirm the relevance of the proposed tasks. The study produced promising results and would allow practitioners to perform online assessments of reading skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a new dictionary for the automated analysis of the tone of French media. We named it the French Lexicoder Sentiment Dictionary (LSDFr) in reference to the English lexicon developed by Young and Soroka (2012), the Lexicoder Sentiment Dictionary (LSD), from which the LSDFr was built. We compare the LSDFr to the only other French sentiment lexicon, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). First, we detail the construction of the dictionary. We then test the internal validity of the LSDFr comparing it with a corpus of manually coded texts. Finally, we test the external validity of LSDFr by measuring how the media tone, calculated using our dictionary, predicts voting intentions in the last four Quebec elections. Our goal is to enable other researchers to conduct media analyses with a comparable corpus of texts in French. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Highlights: [•] Benefits of CI in prosody, lexicon and grammar. [•] Delay pattern in lexicon and grammar in CI children. [•] Contribution of environmental factors for grammatical development in CI children. [•] Interactionist view of language development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article, which forms the context for a study of neologism in Balzac's Comédie humaine (forthcoming in MLR), examines the fascination with neologism exhibited in early nineteenth-century France by linguists, dictionary makers, and a number of creative writers, most notably Charles Nodier, whose recurrent interest in the subject is traced across writings spanning his entire career. If neologism retained its status as a subject of controversy, with Nodier, notwithstanding his overt admiration for Rabelais, displaying notable ambivalence towards its various manifestations, its exploitation was central to attempts to give expression to a world obsessed with fashion and change. Other writers discussed include Sébastien Mercier and Brillat-Savarin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Langage & Societe is the property of Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the early lexicon development of 548 monolingual French-speaking infants aged 8;0-16;0. Vocabulary acquisition was followed using the French adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development: Words and Gestures (Fenson et al., 1993). The results generally concur with those reported for other languages. There were striking individual variations in both terms of onset and rate of lexical growth. However, the total vocabulary scores increased steadily in all sections with chronological age. Girls showed superior scores in terms of labelling behaviours and lexical production. Nouns were predominant in both production and comprehension from 8 to 16 months regardless of the lexicon size. Predicates were the second most represented category, followed by function words. Both these categories increased with lexicon size. In the small lexicon, the most represented semantic categories were the same for comprehension and production: 'games and routines', 'people', 'sound effects and animal sounds'. In the lexicon of more than 50 items, the percentages of `action words' became higher. A particularly strong association was found between total gestures and vocabulary corn prehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the lexicons and icons associated with riots the occurred in the France in 2005. The author describes the riots as a highly visible battlefield that resulted from trivial and silent skirmishes and long-lasting intimate, albeit tumultuous riots in which anger and despair were central figures. Tassadit Imache's novel "Presque un frère" was also mentioned.

Using a prototype approach to emotion concepts, two studies were conducted in the Basque Country, where an ancient non-Indo-European language is still spoken, to identify the mental state words that Basque speakers are most certain name emotions ( emozioak ) and to map the hierarchical and family resemblance structure of the most prototypical 124 emotion concepts. Cluster analysis of sorting data collected in the Basque Country revealed five basic level emotion categories similar to those found in American English and Indonesian (love, happiness, anger, sadness, and fear) as well as five other small positive emotion categories. All major categories found at the basic level contained several terms that are not traceable to Romance languages. Also in line with the American and Indonesian results, the basic level categories in Basque fell within two large superordinate categories: positive and negative emotions. Each of the five large basic level categories contained several subordinate level categories. The results suggest that the emotion lexicons, and corresponding conceptualisations of the emotion domain, in the Basque Country, Indonesia, and the US are similar, although there are some important differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: General lexicons have been developed to describe the flavor of cheese; however, no terminology was found that describes specifically the flavor of French cheese. The objective of this study was to determine a general lexicon for French cheese. Five highly trained descriptive sensory panelists characterized the flavors of a wide variety (n =43) of natural French cheeses. Cheeses selected for testing varied in milk source, regional origin, processing method, and maturation time. After reviewing previously published terminology for cheese, the panelists established terminology for aroma and flavor attributes. The 31 attributes that were needed to completely describe the 43 cheeses can be classified into seven categories: fundamental tastes, dairy aromatics, fatty acid/animal, musty/fungal, aged/fermented, mouthfeelings, and other aromatics. Many of these terms were found in published general cheese lexicons, but some are new attributes specific to French cheese. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Langage & Societe is the property of Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: For communities of people living with hemophilia and other genetic conditions, gene therapy could represent a paradigm shift in treatment strategies. As investigational therapeutic modalities such as gene therapy become more widely used and discussed, there is a critical need for all stakeholders to communicate using a lexicon that is intelligible, accurate, consistent, and representative of novel treatments. In doing so, expectations can be more carefully managed and potential risks, benefits, and limitations better understood. In recognition of this need, a first-ever study of gene therapy lexicon was conducted using established methods of market research and linguistic analysis., Methods: Ninety-four participants representing hematologists, nurses, caregivers, and people with hemophilia A, in six countries (US, UK, Spain, Germany, France, Italy) took part in a series of in-depth interviews, face-to-face focus groups, an advisory board meeting, and online group interviews to develop, refine, and test verbal, written, and pictorial language concepts through a three-phase iterative process. Sessions were conducted in local languages using detailed discussion guides. Feedback from participants was captured using real-time instant-response dial testing to measure moment-by-moment emotional responses to language stimuli. Semiquantitative analysis of the responses informed selection of preferred language concepts for final testing, and qualitative discussion explored preference rationale. Participants also completed polling and forced rank and choice written exercises., Results: Study feedback showed that the hemophilia community has preferences around consistent lexicon to describe hemophilia and its management. Expert linguistic analysis of feedback from the three phases enabled agreement of a consensus lexicon of vocabulary and an optimized summary narrative for talking about gene therapy amongst people affected by hemophilia A. Preferences were largely consistent across audiences and countries, although some country-specific recommendations were made. A representative summary phrase was agreed: "Gene therapy is being studied in clinical trials with the aim to allow the body to produce factor VIII protein on its own"., Conclusions: The use of preferred language across different stakeholders increases understanding and comfort during discussions of novel and complex therapeutic modalities such as gene therapy. Consistent use of community-informed lexicon minimizes miscommunication and facilitates informed decision-making regarding potential future treatment opportunities.