Synonymie et vulgarisation scientifique: l'«Explication des mots plus difficiles » dans les « Discours admirables » de Bernard Palissy (1580)

[Autom. eng. transl.] Synonymy could be considered a rhetorical figure inappropriate to scientific expression and whose use should be limited. The lexicographic description and its terminographic applications have often shown that the scientific lexicon is composed mainly of units of monoreferential meaning, and that the synonyms do not necessarily constitute an aid to an unambiguous classification. But the observation of the textual varieties of the languages of the sciences highlights other traits: the dictionaries and glossaries describe the heading to list the semantic values of the unit, and therefore its synonyms, while the function of the synonymy in scientific texts is motivated rather by the needs of description and argumentation and by the rhetorical necessities of the texts themselves. In this article, the modalities of the use of synonymy in the scientific language are analyzed in the "Explanation of the most difficult words", a glossary annexed to the "admirable speeches" (1580) by Bernard Palissy.