Article
French
ID: <
10.4000/esa.1149>
·
DOI: <
10.4000/esa.1149>
Abstract
Thackeray’s weekly chronicles initially published in Punch centre on the definition of the word snob, to which the author gives a new layer of meaning by adding the moral connotation of meanness. Firstly, the analysis deals with the way Thackeray categorizes the different species of snobs with claimed rigour in order to study these despicable beings, who will do anything to be accepted among their betters. However, satire and humour soon undermine the taxonomic enterprize, with a playful principle of composition based on morphological and syntactical unpredictability. Lastly, the writer tends to free himself from usual denominations to create his own terminology, characterized by neologisms and onomastic inventions.