Josette Rey-Debove

Josette Rey-Debove (born November 16, 1929 in Calais ; † February 22, 2005 in Senegal ) was a French Romance studies and lexicographer .

life and work

Lexicography with Paul Robert

Josette Debove was a brief secondary school teacher in Paris from 1952, then in April 1953 she accepted an invitation from Paul Robert to Casablanca to work there on the large project of a "Nouveau Littré", from which the dictionary Grand Robert de la langue française in 6 volumes ( 1953–1964, Supplementary Volume 1971) emerged. In 1954 she married her project colleague Alain Rey , with whom she was to form the most important lexicographer couple of all time. After completion of the Grand Robert she was with Alain Rey and Henri Cottez author of Le Petit Robert . Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française (Paris 1967, since then numerous editions), then by Micro Robert (Paris 1971, since then numerous editions).

science

Josette Rey-Debove poured the lexicographical experience she gathered into a thèse de doctorat de 3e cycle, Problèmes de description de la langue dans les dictionnaires français contemporains. Etude linguistique et sémiotique , which she wrote under the direction of Jean Dubois at the University of Paris-Nanterre , defended in December 1968 and which was published under the title Etude linguistique et sémiotique des dictionnaires français contemporains (The Hague 1971). Then she worked under the direction of Henri Mitterand on a Thèse de Doctorat d'Etat, which she defended in 1976 at the University of Paris VIII and entitled Le métalangage. Etude linguistique du discours sur le langage published (1978, 1986, 1997). She taught lexicology and semiology at the University of Paris III , at the University of Paris VII and from 2002 at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales .

Own dictionary design

Josette Rey-Debove was involved in almost all of Robert's lexicographical projects, also trained the young lexicographers at the publishing house and was responsible for five innovative dictionaries with which her name is associated in a special way:

• with Gilberte Gagnon: Dictionnaire des anglicismes. Paris 1980, 1984, 1986.
• Le Robert méthodique. Paris 1982, 1989, 1994; under the title Le nouveau Robert méthodique. 2003; Le Robert brio. 2004 (definition dictionary with 34,000 entries + analogy + word formation structures).
• Le Petit Robert des enfants. Paris 1988; under the title Le Robert des jeunes. 1991 (definition dictionary with 16,000 entries + exemplification + permanent staff in the example sentences that can be put together like a puzzle to form a story).
• Le Robert quotidien. Paris 1996 (definition dictionary with 50,000 entries + 6,000 anti-puristic word comments).
• Dictionnaire du français. Référence. Apprentissage. Paris 1999 (dictionary of definitions for foreign speakers with 20,000 entries + legibility of definitions + rich exemplification).

More fonts

• Ed .: La lexicographie. in: Langages. 19, 1970.
• with Alain Rey (Ed.): Dictionnaire universel des noms propres. Alphabétique et analogique. 4 volumes. Paris 1974.
• Lexique. Sémiotique. Paris 1979.
• La linguistique du signe. Une approche sémiotique du langage. Paris 1998.

literature

• Paul Robert : Au fil des ans et des mots. 2 volumes. Paris 1980.
• Monique C. Cormier, Aline Francoeur, Jean-Claude Boulanger (eds.): Les dictionnaires Le Robert. Genèse et evolution. Montreal 2003.
• Franz Josef Hausmann , [Obituary in French] in: International Journal of Lexicography. 18, 2005, pp. 397-400.
• Alain Rey: Dictionnaire des amoureux du dictionnaire. Paris 2011, pp. 823-827.

Web links

• Literature by and about Josette Rey-Debove in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Josette Rey-Debove in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)