The New Words of Larousse and le Petit Robert: What is the Circulation Among the Younger Generation?

Abstract

Our aim is to describe the circulation of neologic expressions among the younger generation. For this study, we have chosen seven lexical units (uberisation, gif, LGBT, captcha, babache, youyouter, matinalier) which entered the Larousse and Le Petit Robert dictionaries in 2018. Our goal is to find out if lexicalized neologisms are now known and used in everyday communication by young native speakers. To answer this question, we distributed a questionnaire to native speakers who were supposed to comment on the use of these particular lexical units.