Le verlan est-il soluble dans l’orthographe française?

Abstract

As an oral lexicogenic process, verlan is not intended to be written down, but the question of its spelling may arise for lexicography, literature, intralinguistic subtitling and advertising. Based on a study of the spellings of verlanised words in a corpus of transcriptions of rap lyrics, our analysis will focus in particular on the singular use of the hyphen used to indicate syllable inversion, and to clarify at various levels the source form of the verlanised word. Through the analysis of a marginal scriptural practice, the aim is to

examine the linguistic challenges raised by verlan in relation to the morpho-syntactic structure of stan- dard French by examining the strategies used, which oscillate between two tendencies: the assimilation of verlan to the French orthographic system on the one hand (standardisation), and on the other the tendency to indicate is not belonging to it (exoticization).