Bernard Quemada

Bernard Quemada (born June 13, 1926 in Donostia-San Sebastián , † June 5, 2018 in Paris ) was a French linguist , romance scholar , lexicographer and dictionary researcher .

life and work

Study and dissertation

Bernard-Jésus-Manuel Quemada (rarely also: Quémada ), who had a Spanish father, visited the Lycée Chaptal in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. He studied at the Sorbonne and graduated in 1949 with the dissertation supervised by Georges Matoré Le "commerce amoureux" dans les romans mondains (1640-1700). Etude sur le vocabulaire de la galanterie au XVIIe siècle. Thèse d'université (unpublished).

Applied Linguistics in Besançon

From 1950 to 1969 he taught at the University of Besançon, first as an assistant, later as a professor of applied linguistics , a discipline that he founded in France and equipped with the most modern means, including a language laboratory from 1962 , and also with early forms of automatic word processing . In addition, his special research interest was in vocabulary and dictionaries. He founded major journals in both fields of research, the Cahiers de Lexicologie in 1959 and the Etudes de Linguistique Appliquée in 1962 , as well as the publication series Matériaux pour l'histoire du vocabulaire français with numerous volumes.

Dictionary research

In 1968 Quemada completed his habilitation at the Sorbonne with the work Les Dictionnaires du français modern 1539–1863 supervised by Robert-Léon Wagner . Etude sur leur histoire, leurs types et leurs méthodes , enriched with a voluminous essai de bibliographie générale des dictionnaires, vocabulaires et glossaires français. Tome II, tables. 1. List chronologique. 2. Index des titres . Besançon 1967. With this research achievement he (together with Jean Dubois , Alain Rey and Josette Rey-Debove ) made a decisive contribution to the establishment of dictionary research as a scientific discipline.

Glossary research

From 1970 to 1981 Quemada taught at the University of Paris III (Sorbonne Nouvelle). He published an extensive bibliography of all the linguistic glosses that appeared in French newspapers from 1950 to 1970 ( Bibliography des chroniques de langage publiées dans la presse française . 2 vols. Paris 1970 and 1972), a genre that was here for the first time taken seriously as an object of linguistic research has been.

Publication of the TLF

In 1977 Quemada succeeded Paul Imbs as director of the Institut National de la Langue Française in Nancy (until 1991) and took over the publication of the large dictionary Trésor de la Langue Française (TLF) from volume 8 , which he continued up to the 16th and last volume ( 1994). He also taught at the École pratique des hautes études from 1975 to 1995 . From 1989 to 1999 Quemada was involved in French language policy as Vice-President (de facto President) of the Conseil supérieur de la langue française . From 1995 he edited (together with his student Jean Pruvost ) several series on lexicography and dictionary research for the Honoré Champion publishing house .

Honors

Quemada was a member of the Accademia della Crusca .

Private life

Quemada was married to the lexicologist Gabrielle Quemada († 2010).

Other works (selection)

• Introduction à l'étude du vocabulaire médical (1600-1710) . Les Belles lettres, Paris 1955 (material-rich methodological and bibliographical study with a foreword by Georges Matoré).
• (with Peter J. Wexler ) Datations et documents lexicographiques . 3 vols. Paris 1959-1965 (Matériaux pour l'Histoire du Vocabulaire français).
• (Ed.) Actes du Colloque international sur la mécanisation des recherches lexicologiques Besançon (Juin 1961) . Didier / Larousse, Paris 1962.
• "Lexicology and lexicography". In: Thomas A. Sebeok (Ed.): Current Trends in Linguistics. Volume 9. Linguistics in Western Europe . Mouton, Paris / Den Haag 1972, pp. 395–475.
• (Ed. With Jean Pruvost) Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie française et la lexicographie institutionalnelle européenne. Actes du colloque international, 17, 18 and 19 November . Honoré Champion, Paris 1998.
• (Ed.) Les Préfaces du dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 1694–1992 . Honoré Champion, Paris 1997.

literature

• "Entretien avec Bernard Quemada (1926-)". In: Chevalier, Jean-Claude; Encrevé, Pierre (eds.), Combats pour la linguistique, de Martinet à Kristeva. Essai de dramaturgie épistémologique . Lyon: École Normale Supérieure éditions, 2006, pp. 203-230.
• Computational Lexicology and Lexicography. Special issue dedicated to Bernard Quemada . 2 vols. Giardini, Pisa 1990–1991 (Festschrift).
• Etudes de linguistique appliquée 85–86, 1992 (Festschrift).
• Meta. Journal des traducteurs 39, 4, 1994 (Festschrift)

Web links

• Obituary by the University of Besançon, with picture
• Literature by and about Bernard Quemada in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Information on Bernard Quemada in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .