Regardless of their name (dictionary, glossary, encyclopaedia, or even 'leximat', in the case of a new generation of online, semi-automated lexicographic tools), subject-field, purpose, or medium (paper or cyber), lexicographic reference works should be regarded as functional information tools that are solely designed to cater to the information needs of their users in different usage situations and that consequently help them solve specific communication (reading, writing, translation) or knowledge problems (acquiring new knowledge or verifying existing knowledge, learning a language or a subject field). In this article, we briefly outline the evolution of lexicographic reference works from stand-alone to multifunctional lexicographic tools, and we describe the theoretical principles and innovative functionalities of a new task and problem-oriented lexical database, the Base Lexicale du Franc¸ais. In line with Tarp (2006), a tool that should be truly regarded as a 'leximat'.

The systematic presentation of collocations is increasingly recognized as a very useful addition to specialized reference works. However, few dictionaries or terminological databases actually include this kind of data. More surprisingly still, no method has been designed yet to allow efficient access to and retrieval of specific specialized collocations from electronic reference tools. This article presents two new search paths for accessing and extracting collocations from an English-French specialized lexical database. The paths have been designed according to two specific user-defined situations: (1) translation from L1 to L2; and (2) text production in L2. We exploit a formal semantic encoding of collocations based on Lexical Functions (LFs). LFs allow us to establish an equivalence relationship between collocations that convey the same meaning in different languages without having to link the collocations formally. They also allow us to extract sets of collocations associated with specific meanings.

Résumé Outils de communication d’image et de connaissances spécialisées, les guides touristiques en ligne intègrent une variété de structures lexicographiques : nomenclatures, articles, schémas conceptuels, index et registres, options de recherche à partir de mots-clés, systèmes de renvois internes et externes, etc. Ceci n’est guère surprenant dans la mesure où ce qui est requis est l’accès performant aux données permettant d’extraire l’information, tout comme en lexicographie. La thèse fonctionnelle que nous développons ici est que la lexicographisation est à même de démultiplier les modalités d’accès aux données dans la perspective de l’utilisateur. Prenant les guides œnotouristiques comme cas de figure, nous passerons en revue les situations d’utilisation motivant la recherche de l’information, en particulier la recherche de l’information expérientielle, dans laquelle l’utilisateur consulte le guide en vue d’optimiser les conditions de son expérience œnotouristique. Nous formulerons à la clé des propositions théoriques visant à optimiser l’interaction des fonctions lexicographiques, de la présentation des données et des modalités d’accès.

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