Specialist fields in general dictionaries The lexicon of computing analyzed by the masses and by professionals… of lexicography

This paper analyzes the lexicographic treatment of a specialized field – computing – by a general dictionary from a professional publishing house (Le Petit Robert) and by free, amateur dictionaries (Wiktionnaire, Urban Dictionary and Le Jargon Français). The study of their macrostructure and of one precise element of their microstructure, the wording of the definitions, reveals that, for the domain under study, amateur dictionaries seriously challenge the ones compiled by professional lexicographers.