Les expressions verbales avec la gueule dans le corpus French Web 2020 (Sketch Engine)
Verbal expressions with la gueule in the French Web 2020 corpus (Sketch Engine)

Summary/Abstract: This paper focuses on verbal expressions with la gueule as an object. As part of slangology and identity studies, for this comparative linguistic analysis two similarly distributed expressions in the web corpus of current French have been chosen: (se) bourrer la gueule and (se) péter la gueule. To elaborate on the meanings of these expressions, the corpus linguistics method with the help of the Sketch Engine software was used, focusing on both dictionaries and pragmalinguistic meanings. Applying the inverted pyramid principle, three blogs with the most slang verbal expressions were selected as the main research area. Given that blogs are a new form of digital writing, characterised by topicality and a strong anchoring of the linguistic identity of individuals, it was decided to use blogs for the purposes of the research. The research found that the lexemes (se) bourrer la gueule and (se) péter la gueule are not limited to blogs, but can be found within commercial and entertainment sites as well. Moreover, in addition to many semantic variations of these two expressions found in dictionaries, speakers very often associate (se) bourrer la gueule with getting drunk and (se) péter la gueule with hitting/breaking your face. Another meaning for se bourrer la gueule which can be observed in the language of bloggers is to give one's opponents a hard time. The other meanings of (se) péter la gueule are more diverse. Depending on the context, the lexeme can mean also to fall, to have one's head blown off/be killed, to sleep with someone, to cheat, or to slip. The research results could be used further particularly in sociolinguistics as well as in sociolinguistic studies and the analysis of digital discourse.

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