The well-known lexicographer Alain Rey (1928-2020) died in Paris on October 28, 2020 at the age of 92. He devoted his whole life to words, since he joined Robert Publishing House in 1952. His name will always be associated with Le Petit Robert, the most popular dictionary of the French language, and with the rest of the lexicographical projects of this publishing house.

Although his role as a world-class lexicographer may have overshadowed other contributions to theoretical and applied linguistics, it should be remembered that he was also the author of Le lexique : images et modèles du dictionnaire à la lexicologie (1977), La Terminologie : noms et notions (1979), Essays on Terminology (1995) or De l’artisanat du dictionnaire à une science du mot (2008).

Alain Rey worked with the IULA on several occasions. The first one was during the 97-98 course of the PhD program, where he gave the lecture “Unité et diversité de la langue française : problèmes théoriques et pratiques”, published in the volume Cabré, M. Teresa; Gelpí, Cristina (ed.). Cicle de conferències i seminaris 97-98. Lèxic, corpus i diccionaris (2000). Later, in January 1999, he participated, with the work “La terminologie : entre langage et réalité” in the international seminar of Theoretical Terminology, organized by M. Teresa Cabré and Juan Carlos Sager at the IULA, the results of which were published in the journal Terminology (Vol 5:1). Alain Rey also contributed to the homage book that the IULATERM group dedicated to M. Teresa Cabré on her 60th birthday (Estudis de lingüística i de lingüística aplicada. Vol. I, 2007), with the chapter “La notion de dictionnaire culturel et ses applications”.

We, the members of IULA, would like to convey our condolences to his family and friends, and to all his colleagues who are researchers in lexicon and lexicography.

Related links:

Pàgina d’homenatge a la web de Le Robert

Entrevista de M. Teresa Cabré a Alain Rey (Caplletra, 17, 1994)