Les Amis d'en face : petite promenade ironique dans la Base de données lexicographiques panfrancophone

After drawing a brief panorama of previous analysis of irony and having identified its main relevant features, we analyse lexical units which bear the mark « ironique ou plaisant » within the Base de données lexicographiques panfrancophone, starting by interrogating ourselves on the existence of irony on the level of language or of discourse. Our analysis is then carried out on the description of seventeen entries, which are classified according to several criteria: geographical origin (Burundi, Morocco, Quebec, Switzerland), the rhetorical device which is used, the presence or absence of a mocking intention. We thus conclude that lexicalised irony seems to be the mirror of a society’s worries: it is a finger doxa points on the shortcomings that characterise the society it comes from, as well as on its political organization, its functioning rules, its practices. All this seems to be projected by irony against the backcloth of an ideal horizon.