Neology and lexical appropriation in the francophone area: case of lexical particularities of spoken French in Burkina Faso

Forty years ago, the IFA Team published The Inventory of the Lexical Particularities of French in Black Africa ?L?Inventaire des particularit?s lexicales du fran?ais en Afrique noire? (?quipe IFA, 1983). Since then, the lexical particularities of French in Africa have sparked renewed interest in lexicological research, lexicographical practices and even vocabulary teaching. As the language evolves through its enrichment through the creation of neologisms, we see new lexical forms emerging nowadays in the different varieties of French in Africa. If the emergence of a regional lexicon is not without consequences on the lexical system of the language, it goes without saying that these lexical particularities, which are mainly the result of new lexicogenetic processes, considerably impact the lexical system of French. Such an observation is legitimized by the specific case of French spoken in Burkina Faso where new lexical particularities are legion offering new avenues for reflection. These lexical particularities are flowing more and more into formal or standard French, since it is not uncommon to encounter them in language dictionaries, in teaching and in media, political, administrative and scientific discourse. They therefore constitute a reserve of words, even a potential lexicon, for the French language. The present study is interested in these lexical particularities, in order to determine, on the one hand, the lexico genetic mechanisms that they induce in the overall functioning of French and, on the other hand, the reasons for their existence in that language.