Alain Rey: bibliographie complète et lexique thématique by Giovanni Dotoli (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Alain Rey: bibliographie complète et lexique thématique by Giovanni Dotoli H. Jay Siskin Dotoli, Giovanni. Alain Rey: bibliographie complète et lexique thématique. L’Harmattan, 2021. ISBN 978 234325301. Pp. 282. In 2012, Galisson noted in his introduction to the digital reissuing of Charles Puren’s Histoire des méthodologies de l’enseignement des langues that when a discipline loses its past, it also loses its future (8). It is in this spirit that I approached Dotoli’s tribute to Alain Rey, who died in 2020. The two were close colleagues and friends. I had only read Rey’s work segmentally, that is by periodically consulting the Robert, the ne plus ultra of French lexicography. These random visits did little to reveal the stunning architecture of these opera. It is a happy coincidence that the plural of opus can likewise refer to a musical product. Throughout this work, Dotoli compares Rey to a musician and artist. I will return to this characterization below. But first, I will describe the composition of the volume. To begin my overview of the thematic rubrics, I have chosen La lexicographie (78–81). Rey rejects prescriptivism and admits oral usage: “Ainsi le Petit Robert est-il le premier dictionnaire à admettre l’oral!” (79). And in an innovative modern move, regionalisms and tokens of la Francophonie are embraced. The second rubric that engaged me was Vision (145–149), exposing Rey’s remarks on what should be admissible in usage and supported by dictionaries. A final theme that I appreciated as a “classically trained” philologist was Méthode (94–97). The notions of origins and history link the past to the present: “Ils rétablissent l’unité du socle français” (96). Rey foregrounds a philological approach that relies upon rigorous etymological analysis. This analysis may become a bit messy through analogy and borrowings, for example. Nonetheless, these complications allow the reader to appreciate the mechanisms of language change: “La langue bouge, s’ouvre sur le monde, dialogue avec les autres langues [...] Un dictionnaire n’est pas un manuel de catéchisme” (145, 147). That Alain Rey was an extraordinary scholar and colleague is amply documented through the thematic lexicon as well as the bibliography of his works, which form the second part of the book. The entries consist of a variety of genres: books, articles, reviews, radio and television interviews, and links to the Francophone press. Initially, I was put off by the fawning praise of his students and colleagues who declared: “Alain Rey est l’auteur directeur d’orchestre de la symphonie du dictionnaire” (28); “Alain Rey est sublime” (116); “Alain Rey est simultanément le poète-sculpteur/peintre du mot. Et aussi le metteur en scène [d’un film sonore] dont la musique est de Wolfgang Mozart, Gioacchino Rossini […] ou Igor Stravinsky” (97). I have since reframed these remarks as a lengthy eulogy, rather than a conventional book that seeks to validate the author and mute his/her critics. Barely disguised in this exposé of Rey’s work lies an elegiacal discourse that praises the deceased and laments his great loss to humanity. Despite the academic baggage, this is a funerary monument erected by his colleagues and friends to celebrate his immortality. [End Page 259] H. Jay Siskin University of California, Santa Cruz Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French