Re-imagining French Lexicography: The Dictionnaire vivant de la langue française

The Dictionnaire vivant de la langue française (DVLF), developed by The ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago, represents an experimental, interactive, and community-based approach to French lexicography. The DVLF enables broad public access to a wide variety of linguistic tools and resources, with the goal of changing user interaction with dictionaries and providing better descriptions of emergent word use. In this article we describe the history of the DVLF and provide a survey of similar community-oriented electronic dictionaries. We then proceed to a presentation of the dictionary’s many features, including the variety of its definitions and mechanisms for user interaction. The article concludes with a discussion of ARTFL’s plans for the future developement of the DVLF.