Media French: A Vocabulary of Contemporary Usage (review)

More than a glossary but less than a dictionary, Media French is not easy to classify as a reference work. As the author explains in his brief introduction, it is intended for ‘the translator and the advanced user of French in today’s world’ and is designed to provide brief translations and especially contextualized examples of ‘specialized vocabulary in fields such as administration, economics, the law, social and political affairs’ (p. vii). This vocabulary handbook was initially published in 1990 under the title of Newspaper French. The changed title of the new edition reflects technological, cultural and linguistic transformations in France. Some of these transformations should be more clearly indicated: the common designation for the Ministère de l’Economie et des Finances is still listed as ‘Rivoli’ (p. xvii), even though it has also been updated to ‘Bercy’ (p. xi). While ‘rue de Grenelle’ (p. xiv) correctly designates the Ministère du Travail, there is no reference to the tripartite negotiations that were held there in the midst of the May 1968 demonstrations, and hence no mention of the generic use of the term, as in ‘Grenelle de l’environne-ment’. Perhaps unavoidably in a book this size, some terms are missing: whereas ‘danger’ is listed (p. 65), the increasingly common ‘dangerosité’ is not. There is no mention of the metaphorical use of ‘voie de garage’ in an educational context, despite the fact that several idioms associated with ‘voie’ are contextualized (p. 259). Media French includes the occasional minor misspelling: ‘Force ouvriére’ (p. xiv). Also, while current usage drops the definite article from ‘Internet’, a service provider is identified as ‘le fournisseur d’accès à l’Internet’ (p. 115). In light of this book’s new title, it is surprising to find relatively few computer-related entries (no ‘logiciel’ or ‘en ligne’, for instance). The author should be commended for the system of cross-referencing that is used throughout this book. Some of its practical applications, however, can be problematic. The entry for ‘vierge’ simply states: ‘see casier’ (p. 258). The entry for ‘casier’, meanwhile, provides only the following example: ‘son casier judiciaire est déjà fourni’ (p. 38). Learners who are not already familiar with the idiom, ‘un casier judiciaire vierge’, may find the link between these two entries less than immediately enlightening. The broader question is: what does this book provide (aside from the brief translations) that is not already found in a good dictionary such as the Petit Robert? It is difficult to come up with a systematic answer. An entry such as ‘délocalisation’ (p. 72) adds almost nothing, since the Robert already includes an example of the word in its contextualized usage. Other entries in Media French, such as ‘laissé-pour-compte’ (p. 146), undoubtedly do offer more examples of the term in its current usage. Another issue related to this book is precisely its status as a book. Since language learners increasingly expect to access reference works directly through their computer, the content of Media French certainly fits into the category that should be accessible on the web.