{"id":361,"date":"2016-06-20T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/?p=361"},"modified":"2016-06-18T02:44:03","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T02:44:03","slug":"kushinka-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/2016\/06\/20\/kushinka-1\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c0 Propos: Synonyms in French"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ata-fld-newsletter-logo\"<\/a> French is a language that makes liberal use of synonyms. Et pour cause<\/em>. Synonyms add variety to writing.<\/p>\n

But the French don\u2019t seem to be content with simply using the occasional word having the same (or nearly the same) meaning as another in the language. They use these \u201clexical stand-ins\u201d at every possible turn.<\/p>\n

More accurately, many of these lexical substitutes are metonyms. A metonym<\/strong> is a figure of speech in which a person or thing is called by another name rather than its own. (Think about how many times you\u2019ve seen l\u2019Elys\u00e9e used to refer to the French government.)<\/p>\n

Consider a recent article I read about a French soccer player. In the span of 79 words, the writer referred to Charles N\u2019Zogbia as Charles N\u2019Zogbia, le gaucher<\/em>, and l\u2019ancien Havrais<\/em>. (He used to play for Le Havre AC.)<\/p>\n

In fact, instead of using only [player\u2019s name] and a pronoun [il<\/em>, elle<\/em>] for variety, French writers invariably name the player by other means. These include the use of demonyms (le Francilien<\/em>, la Bulgare<\/em>) as well as position or ranking (l\u2019ailier<\/em>, la 2e mondiale<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Of course, we see this in English sports journalism, too\u2014\u201cthe power forward,\u201d \u201cthe LSU alum\u201d\u2014but my suspicion is that it\u2019s a writing technique not used to the same degree as in French.<\/p>\n

Politics is another realm in which synonyms are widely used. As you would expect, you see titles and positions used (both to provide information and to avoid the repetition of the person\u2019s name), as in pr\u00e9sident le la CMP<\/em> and le d\u00e9put\u00e9 du Nord<\/em>. But you also see sentences like the following:<\/p>\n

Aucune majorit\u00e9 n\u2019\u00e9tant d\u00e9gag\u00e9e sur ce point, l\u2019\u00e9lu<\/strong> a jug\u00e9 vain de poursuivre<\/em> plus avant la s\u00e9ance.<\/em><\/p>\n

Can you think of a single English article in which you\u2019ve seen the term \u201cthe elected [one]\u201d used to refer to a politician?<\/p>\n

Synonyms abound in financial writing\u2014especially, it seems, in articles about the stock market. Take the English word \u201cincrease,\u201d for example. You might see it used in an article about a stock index of a particular country. Read a French article about the same topic and you\u2019re likely to see not only augmenter<\/em>, but s\u2019\u00e9lever<\/em>, en hausse<\/em>, monter en fl\u00e8che<\/em>, prendre son essor<\/em>, and perhaps s’intensifier<\/em>, s’amplifier<\/em>, se d\u00e9velopper<\/em>, and se multiplier. <\/em><\/p>\n

Mais le comble ?<\/em> In an article in Science & Vie<\/em> magazine by French science writer Lise Barn\u00e9oud titled \u201cVers la fin des grands arbres,\u201d les grands arbres<\/em> are referred to in almost twenty different ways: as doyens de la nature<\/em>, ma\u00eetres de l\u2019espace et du temps<\/em>, rois des for\u00eats<\/em>, and titans ligneux<\/em>, to name a few. (You can read my post \u201c18 Ways to Say \u2018Large Trees\u2019 in French\u201d<\/a> for the other phrasal synonyms that she uses.)<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I don\u2019t have any data on \u201csynonym density\u201d between French and English. (Corpus linguists, consider that an idea for your next academic paper!) But I suspect that the French use synonyms, metonyms, and other lexical stand-ins more frequently than Americans.<\/p>\n

Matthew Kushinka<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew Kushinka<\/em> is a French-to-English translator and the owner of RedLine Language Services LLC, a company that offers translation, copyediting, and formatting services to commercial clients<\/em><\/p>\n

If you have comments or links to other articles about this topic, please write me at matthew@redlinels.com<\/a>. I\u2019d love to see some numbers on the subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

French is a language that makes liberal use of synonyms. Et pour cause. Synonyms add variety to writing. But the French don\u2019t seem to be content with simply using the occasional word having the same (or nearly the same) meaning as another in the language. They use these \u201clexical stand-ins\u201d at every possible turn. More … Continue reading \u00c0 Propos: Synonyms in French<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}