French dictionary users and word frequency

The first part of thls paper te devoted to the policies that French dlctlonarleshave forenterlngmuh4-wordexpresslons. The frontmatterand the practice of four French dictionaries are compared wlfh the results of an experiment where native speakers of French were asked to Indicate their preference In looking up frequent collocations and Idiomatic phrases. The second part gives an account of a new experiment with nattve speakers ofFrench. The aim of thls experiment was to examine to what extent differences In the frequency of the words composing an expression Influence the search strategies ofFrench dlctk>nary users. In a paper about the comprehension of written texts by learners of foreign languages, Scholfield (1982) gives some advice as to how to benefit maximally from the information that dictionaries provide. One of the difficulties he mentions concerns the case where an unknown element is part of a multi-word expression. He recommends that one look, whenever necessary, under each of the component words, commenting that: 'Trobably many dictionary users give up too soon if they can't find an unknown item, though there is more than one way a dictionary might enter many items, and several hypotheses can be followed up" (Scholfield 1982,187). This statement may provoke two remarks. First, it is noticeable that Scholfield, like any other author in this field, is unable to give better advice than just to search at all places to find the explanation or the translation of a given phrase. Second, the prudent use of the word 'probably 7 underlines the fact that next to nothing is known about how dictionary users, foreign language users or others, go about finding their way in these valuable sources of information. In this article I would like to discuss both points. I will give a concrete example of how French dictionaries enter a series of more or less fixed collocations, and I will briefly comment on the policies that have been outlined. Subsequently, I will report on an experiment where French dictionary users were asked to indicate where they would look up a number of phrases. 1. МиШ-word expressions in French dictionaries In order to get an idea of the guidelines that may have served to determine the place where multi-word expressions are entered, I have consulted the front matter of four French dictionaries: PETlT ROBERT (1986, PR), LEXlS (1975), HACHETTE (1987) and ROBERT & c o u j N S (1987, R&c). Nothing was said about this subject in LEXis or HACHETTE.