Bernard Cerquiglini

Bernard Cerquiglini, is a French linguist.
A Graduate of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, having received an agrégé and a doctorate in letters, he was a teacher of linguistics in University of Paris VII, former director of the National Institute for the French language, former vice-president of the Conseil supérieur de la langue française and president of the French National Reading Observatory. In 1995 Bernard Cerquiglini joined the Oulipo. He was in charge of a governmental studies on a French orthography reform and about national languages in France. He received the title Doctor Honoris Causa at ULIM.

Biography

Bernard Cerquiglini is, through his paternal lineage, of Italian heritage from the region of Umbria. He notably served as the director of schooling at the French Ministry of Education, as director of the Institut national de la langue française, as vice president of Conseil supérieur de la langue française, as a member of General Delegation for the French language and the languages of France, as president of Observatoire national de la lecture. He was tasked with reforms of French orthography, then to report on the languages of France by different French Prime Ministers, as well as the feminization of trade names.
Bernard Cequiglini joined Oulipo in 1995 He authored an "utobiographie de l'accent circonflexe", under the title "L'Accent du souvenir", in it he played the role of "gardien de la langue" to defend its evolution and on certain occasions its simplification.
Cerquiglini's Eloge de la variante, marks the beginning of the scholarly paradigm referred to as "the New Medievalism", which was critical of modernist positivist editorial practices for medieval texts. However, his claim that "hilology is a bourgeois, paternalist, and hygienist system of thought about the family; it cherishes filiation, tracks down adulterers, and is afraid of contamination. Its thought is based on what is wrong, and it is the basis for a positive methodology", was criticised by the Indologist Reinhold Grünendahl, who argued that the aim of Cerquiglini's work is not to contribute to a methodological debate but to confirm the premise of critical theory.
After his tenure as director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, he became rector of the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie from 2007 to 2015. Since May 2020, Cerquiglini has been vice president of the Alliance française foundation.
He also presents a weekly short format program on TV5Monde about linguistics called ''Merci professeur !''

Distinctions

Docteur honoris causa from the University of Bucharest, from the University of Budapest, from the Sichuan University of International Studies, from the University of Ouagadougou, and from the University of Assane Seck Ziguinchor
Officer of the Légion d'honneur. He was knighted 31 December 1993.
Commander of the Ordre des Palmes académiques
Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres promoted on 2 August 1993.

Collected works

1984 : Histoire de la littérature française, avec Jacqueline Cerquiglini, Fernand Égéa, Bernard Lecherbonnier, Bernard Lehembre, et Jean-Jacques Mougenot, Nathan, coll. "Beaux livres ", 239 p..
1999 : Femme, j'écris ton nom… : Guide d'aide à la féminisation des noms de métiers, titres, grades et fonctions, préface de Lionel Jospin, en collaboration avec Annie Béquer, Nicole Cholewka, Martine Coutier, Josette Frécher et Marie-Josèphe Mathieu, INALF/CNRS Éditions, La Documentation française, 124 p..
2000 : Histoire de la langue française : 1945–2000, avec Gérald Antoine, CNRS Éditions, 1028 p..
2000 : Tu parles !? Le Français dans tous ses états, avec Jean-Claude Corbeil, Jean-Marie Klinkenberg et Benoît Peeters, Flammarion.

Critical Edition

1981 : Le Roman du Graal, par Robert de Boron, d'après le manuscrit de Modène, 10/18, série " Bibliothèque médiévale ", 307 p..

Translation

1975 : Questions de sémantique, par Noam Chomsky, Seuil, " L'ordre philosophique ", 230 p..

Prefaces

2002 : Le Dictionnaire des mots et expressions de couleur du XXième siècle : le rose, par Annie Mollard-Desfour, CNRS Éditions, " CNRS Dictionnaires ", 287 p..
2010 : Dictionnaire des écrivains francophones classiques : Afrique subsaharienne, Caraïbe, Maghreb, Machrek, océan Indien, par Christiane Chaulet Achour, avec Corinne Blanchaud, avant-propos de Jean-Marc Moura, H. Champion, " Champion les dictionnaires ", 472 p.