Part X: Lexicography

Lexicography, an important branch of applied linguistics, is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. Although lexicography is an applied science, one that is concerned with the practical needs of users, it is still a science because it uses the methods of objective description, generalization, and constant revision. Lexicography is the preparing of dictionaries, and it deals with “the principles that underlie the process of compiling and editing a dictionary” (Jackson, 1988, p. 247). These principles may include a theory of description of vocabulary and its lexemes, organizing and presenting lexical description, and defining lexemes and expressions. These lexicographical principles derive from lexicological theory, e.g. the definition of lexemes, compounds, phraseological units, and others. Such sense relations as homonymy, polysemy, antonomy, and synonymy which are a part of lexicology are important in compiling dictionaries. Lexicography is also influenced by linguistics, e.g, the representation of pronunciation, which is a part of phonology. Traditional grammar plays a great part in compiling dictionaries, e.g., labeling parts of speech. The sphere of usage is a part of stylistics, and language variety is a part of sociolinguistics. We should not forget about the production of dictionaries, either. Simply put, compiling dictionaries require wealth of knowledge in different spheres of language development.

The term dictionary is used to denote a book, which may contain the following information about a word: spelling (graphics), pronunciation (phonology), part of speech (syntax), inflections (morphology), etymology, meaning or meanings (comparative synchronic semantics), older meanings (historical semantics), usage labels (dialectology), derivative words (morphology), synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms. “In a more general sense, the term dictionary is also applied to any alphabetically arranged compendium of special aspects of a language such as abbreviations, slang, or etymology, or in which the special terms of a subject are defined” (Dictionary, 2002).

10.1 Main Types of Dictionaries

Arnold (1986, p. 275) and Ginzburg et al. (1979, p. 210) classify dictionaries as linguistic and non-linguistic. The latter are dictionaries which give information on all branches of knowledge, namely, encyclopaedias. An encyclopedia differs from a dictionary in that “a dictionary is fundamentally devoted to words and an encyclopedia offers information on various subjects, with data on and discussion of each subject identified” (Encyclopedia, 2011).

10.1.1 Non-linguistic Dictionaries: Encyclopaedias

The term ‘encyclopedia’ is derived from Gr. enkyklios paideia, ‘in a circle of instruction.’ Encyclopedias deal not only with words, but with facts and concepts. This concept of encyclopedia gave rise to the idea of “collecting the materials of such instruction into a single work, in which the contents and relations of the various arts and sciences would be expounded systematically” (2002, Encyclopedia). Modern general encyclopedias try to cover all the fields of knowledge. They are published in multivolume sets and are usually illustrated. Different types of encyclopaedias exist such as short-entry encyclopedias, encyclopedias of the dictionary style, and monographic encyclopedias.

The most popular encyclopaedia in English is The Encyclopaedia Britannica (in 30 volumes), which is divided into three parts: “the Propaedia, a 1-volume outline of the whole; the Micropaedia, a 12-volume short-entry set; and the Macropaedia, a 17-volume long-entry set with articles by noted authors and scholars” (Encyclopedia, 2011).

The first remarkable American encyclopedia was The Encyclopedia Americana, edited by Francis Lieber (13 vol., 1829–33), and now it is a 30-volume encyclopedia. Noteworthy American encyclopedias include Collier's Encyclopedia (24 vol., 1949–51) and Encyclopedia International (20 vol., 1963). Notable multivolume juvenile encyclopedias are The Book of Knowledge (1910), World Book Encyclopedia (1917), Britannica Junior (1934), Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia (1922), and Merit Students Encyclopedia (1967) (Encyclopedia, 2011). It should be noted that The Encyclopaedia Britannica is published not only in England but in America as well.

Since the development of the Internet, online encyclopedias became popular, and the most popular among them are Britannica Online, which has three main products: Britannica Online School Edition (K–12), Britannica Online Public Library Edition (preschool to adult), and Britannica Online Academic Edition (college and university). World Book Web offers three products: School and Library Edition, Public Library Edition, and World Book Classroom.

The biggest of the computer age is an Internet-based online encyclopedia, the Wikipedia, which launched in 2001. It is sponsored by a non-profit corporation and written and edited collaboratively by volunteers. Anyone may submit articles, additions and make corrections. By the early 2000s it had about 1.6 million entries in some 100 languages, with about 600,000 entries in English Encyclopedia, 2011). ‘Wiki’ originated from the Hawaiian language, which means ‘fast’ or ‘quick.’ Disagreements exist in terms of reliability, accuracy, quality, breadth of coverage, authority of the content of Wikipedia, especially among academics and information professionals. Students are warned against referencing to Wikipedia as a source for their academic writing. “The most frequent criticisms are vandalism, inconsistency, unequal quality, uncorroborated attitudes, bias of the system, and tendency to adjustment and popularity gained by recommendations” (Polio & Kljajió, 2011). Some even argue that Wikipedia does not fit the term ‘encyclopedia.’ Nevertheless, diversity, free access, regular updating, detailed and numerous multilingual versions have turned Wikipedia into the most frequently-used source of information (Polio & Kljajió, 2011), indeed threatening the future of more traditional print encyclopedias.

In addition to general encyclopedias, there exist specialized encyclopedias. A random search on specialized encyclopedias shows the following results: Encyclopedia of Religion (2005), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (2008), Encyclopedia of Sociology (2001), Encyclopedia of Education (2003), Encyclopedia of Drugs Alcohol and Addictive Behavior (2001), Encyclopedia of Communication and Information (2002), Encyclopedia of Bioethics (2004), St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (2000), Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology (2001), Encyclopedia of Politics (2005), World Press Encyclopedia (2003), Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health (2002), International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers (2000), Encyclopedia of Russian History (2004), and Encyclopedia of Leadership (2004), and others. Some of them have many volumes while others are two volumes.

10.1.2 Linguistic Dictionaries

A linguistic dictionary is a published list of the words of a language, which is “a representation of part of the lexicon of a language for a certain purpose” (Lehman, n.d.). The entries of a dictionary are usually arranged in alphabetical order. Derivatives and compounds are given under the same head-word. Linguistic dictionaries may be divided into general-purpose and specialist dictionaries (some use the term specialized). General-purpose dictionaries are intended to contain all the lexicographic information that users might want to look up while specialist dictionaries contain information not covered or not adequately covered by general- purpose dictionaries (Jackson, 1988, p. 159).

General-purpose Dictionaries

In a general-purpose dictionary, the entries are listed in an alphabetical order, and they provide “a comprehensive coverage of the vocabulary within the limits of its size” (Jackson, 1988, p.159). It is designed within the tradition of regular dictionary compilation that defines the information about lexemes such as definition of a lexeme, pronunciation, irregular inflections, word-class indication, etymology, stylistic and dialectal restrictions, and fields of usage.

General-purpose dictionaries come in different sizes. The largest dictionaries are ‘desk dictionaries’ such as Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, the Collins English Dictionary (CED), the Longman Dictionary of the English Language, and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Next in size are ‘concise’ dictionaries such as the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, the New Collins Concise English Dictionary, and the Longman Concise English Dictionary. Next come the smallest dictionaries; they are usually ‘pocket’ or ‘compact’ dictionaries such as the Pocket Oxford English Dictionary, Webster’s New Pocket Dictionary, the Pocket Oxford American Dictionary, Meriam Webster’s Pocket Dictionary, the Collins Pocket English Dictionary, and the Longman English Compact Dictionary.

General-purpose dictionaries can be monolingual, bilingual and multilingual. For dictionaries in which the words and their definition belong to the same language, the term unilingual or explanatory is used, whereas multilingual, bilingual or translation dictionaries explain words by giving their equivalents in another or other languages (Arnold, 1986, p.272). A bilingual or multilingual dictionary is used by several kinds of people: those who study foreign languages and specialists reading foreign literature. Such dictionaries may have two different principal purposes: reference for translation and guidance for expression. These dictionaries must provide an adequate translation in the target language or languages of every word and expression in the source language. Also, they should contain all the inflectional, derivational, semantic, and syntactic information that the reader may need, and include information on spelling and pronunciation. Data on levels of usage are also considered necessary, including special notification about a word’s style of usage, e.g., poetic, archaic, or slang. The number of general-purpose bilingual dictionaries is increasing.

Specialist Dictionaries

There are also dictionaries that concentrate their attention upon only one of these aspects: pronunciation (phonetical dictionaries), origin (etymological dictionaries), and meaning (dictionaries of idioms, dictionaries of homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms). In addition, dictionaries may give information not only about the words themselves but also about their referents. So, dictionaries may give a word’s referential meaning. They may also give notional meaning when they define a word by synonyms, antonyms, or longer expressions such as phraseological units. Larger dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary give illustrative quotations, which is a way of providing distributional meaning.

One of the types of specialist dictionaries is a learner’s dictionary which is intended for foreign learners. The monolingual learner’s dictionary provides detailed information about the pronunciation, definition, and usage illustrated in examples, which may be covered in bilingual dictionaries, but not in a systematized fashion. The idea of a learner’s dictionary is that a foreign language learner will advance from a bilingual dictionary to a monolingual learner’s dictionary as he or she becomes more proficient in his or her target language. The most popular learners’ dictionaries are the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (3rd edition, 2008), the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary (5th edition, 2006), the Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary (6th edition, 2009), the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD) (7th edition, 2005), and Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (2008)

10.1.3 Non-alphabetical Dictionaries

The concept of semantic fields suggests that there are other approaches to lexicography besides the alphabetical ordering of lexemes. The most successful attempt in this regard was made by Peter Mark Roget to group vocabulary by lexical fields which resulted in compilation of Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. In a thesaurus, lexemes are grouped thematically. Only one form of a word is entered in the alphabetical word list. One will find synonyms of this lexeme; they are the entries printed in small capitals under a listed lexeme. Synonyms are stylistically labeled, e.g. colloq (colloquial), slang, dial (dialect), etc. It also provides corresponding nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The following entry illustrates the arrangement in a thesaurus ((Roget’s College Thesaurus, 1978, p. 235):

IMITATION

Nouns –1, imitation; copying, transcription; REPETITION, DUPLICATION, reduplication, quotation; paraphrase, takeoff, parody, travesty, burlesque; COPY, plagiarism, counterfeiting, forgery (see FALSEHOOD); reflection; REPRODUCTION; mockery, mimicry; simulation, pretense, sham, impersonation, imposture; facsimile, REPRESENTATION; semblance; assimilation.

2,imitator, mimic, echo, cuckoo, parrot, ape, monkey, mockingbird; forger, plagiarist, counterfeiter. Colloq., copycat.

Verbs—imitate, copy, mirror, reflect reproduce, repeat; echo, catch; transcribe; match, parallel; mock, take off, mimic, ape simulate, personate, impersonate; act (see DRAMA); represent (see REPRESENTATION); counterfeit, parody, travesty, caricature, burlesque; feign, dissemble (see FALSEHOOD); follow, pattern after; follow suit; take after, model after; emulate.

Adjectives—imitated, imitating; mock; mimic; modeled after, molded on; quasi, pseudo; paraphrastic; literal, imitative; secondhand; imitable; unoriginal.

Adverbs—imitatively; literally, to the letter, verbatim, literatim; sic; word for word.

Roget explains his aim and method: “The present Work is intended to supply… a collection of the words it contains and of idiomatic combinations peculiar to it, arranged …according to the ideas which they express” (as cited in Crystal, p. 158). One can see that thesaurus has some limitations—there are no definitions, and if he or she does not know the meaning of the lexeme, he or she still needs to look up it in the dictionary.

Summing up, lexicography is an applied science, and it deals with compiling different types of dictionaries and also theorizing about the process of their compilation. Lexicography sets “principles that underlie the process of compiling and editing a dictionary” (Jackson, 1991, p. 247). The underlying theory is lexicological theory; therefore, lexicography is considered a part of lexicology.

There are several approaches to the compilation of dictionaries but the most traditional is arranging headwords in an alphabetical order. Derivatives and compounds are given under the same headword. A dictionary has three parts: front-matter, the main body with an alphabetical list of headwords, and the third part has a number of appendices, where the dictionary editors include the information which they think will help the readers.

In a broad sense, dictionaries are divided into general-purpose and specialist dictionaries. They have their own purpose and audience, but the main purpose is to provide knowledge about the language lexicon. In the computer age, the audience is computer savvy; therefore, the most popular are online dictionaries. Most general-purpose dictionaries have developed online dictionaries, but specialist dictionaries have been slow in converting their format to an online version. Still, the future of dictionaries, like many reference works, will likely see increasing migration to the online environment.

Glossary

AbbreviationA reduced version of a word, phrase, or sentence. Abbreviations are societal slangs.

Absolute universalsTraits, patterns, or characteristics that occur in all languages.

AcronymA word that is created by taking the initial letters of some or all of the words in a phrase or name and pronouncing them as a word; the initial letters of some or all the words in a phrase or title and pronouncing them as a word. This kind of word-formation is common in names of organizations, military, and scientific terminology.

AdjectiveA lexical category that designates a property or attribute of an entity; it can often have comparative and superlative degrees and functions as the head of an adjective phrase

AdverbA lexical category that typically denotes a property of the actions, sensations, and states designated by verbs.

AffixA bound morpheme that attaches to a root morpheme; a morpheme that does not belong to a lexical category and is always bound; bound morpheme, including prefixes, suffixes, and infixes.

AffixationThe formation of words by adding derivational affixes to different types of bases; the process that attaches an affix to a base.

Agglutinating languageA language where words are formed by adding several morphemes one after the other, e.g., (Tatar) bala (child) -- bala+lar (children)—bala+lar+ga (to the children)

Allomorph Avariation of a morpheme; variants of a morpheme ( e. g., [- s], [- z], and [- .z] are allomorphs of the English plural morpheme).

AllophoneA variation of a phoneme; a sound representing a given phoneme in certain contexts; the sounds that make up a phoneme. Allophones are usually in complementary distribution and phonetically similar.

AmbiguityMore than one meaning derivable from an utterance.

AmeliorationThe process in which the meaning of a word becomes more favorable; the shift of a word’s meaning over time from neutral or negative to positive.

AnomalyDeviation from expected meaning.

AntonymsWords or phrases that have opposite meanings.

Aphesis/ aphaeresisLoss of one or more letters at the beginning of a word: story (history), cello (violoncello), and phone (telephone).

ApocopyLoss of one or more letters at the end of a word: ad (advertisement).

Applied linguisticsA discipline that focuses on practical issues involving the learning and teaching of foreign/ second languages.

AssimilationAdjusting in the way a sound is made so that it becomes similar to some other sound or sounds near it. A partial or total conformation to the phonetical, graphical, and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system.

BackformationA word-formation process that creates a new word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word in the language; coining a new word from an older word which is mistakenly taken as its derivative; the dropping of a peripheral part of a word which is wrongly analyzed as a suffix.

BaseThe form to which an affix is added; any form to which affixes are appended in word-formation.

Blend (blending)A word formed by joining together chunks of two pre-existing words; a word-forming process where a new lexeme is produced by combining the shortened forms of two or more words in such a way that their constituent parts are identifiable.

Borrowing (cf.loan word)Adopting of linguistic elements, such as morphemes or words of another language; adopting lexical units or other aspects of one language into another.

Bound morphemeA morpheme that must be attached to another element; a morpheme which is always appended to some other linguistic item because it is incapable of being used on its own as a word, e.g., -ish. –en, etc.

Bound root morphemeA non-affix morpheme that cannot stand alone

BroadeningChange in a word’s meaning over time to more general or inclusive

Calque A concept is borrowed but is rendered using the words of the language doing the borrowing.

Case endingA marker on a noun to indicate its grammatical function in a sentence.

ClippingA process of word-formation which shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting one or more syllables, thus retaining only a part of the stem, e.g., lab (laboratory); word-formation where a long word is shortened to one or two syllables.

CliticA morpheme that is like a word in terms of its meaning and function, but is unable to stand alone as an independent form for phonological reasons.

CliticizationThe process wheremorphemes act like words in terms of their meaning or function, but they are unable to stand alone by themselves: I’m, he’s, etc.

Closed class (Cf.Open class)Category of words that do not accept new members (determiners, auxiliary verbs, and conjunctions, among others)

CognatesWords of different languages which are somehow related in meaning and pronunciation because they come from a common historical source. Words (with the same basic meaning) descended from a common ancestor; two, deux (French), and zwei (German) are cognates (Denham & Lobeck)

Coining(neologism) Creating a word.

Collocationsare frequently occurring sequences of words; the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each other in a corpus.

Comparative methodA method where the systematic comparison of two or more philogenically-related and non-related languages with the aim of finding the similarities and differences between or among them; technique of linguistic analysis that compares lists of related words in a selection of languages to find cognates, or words descended from a common ancestor

Complementary pairTwo antonyms related in such a way that the negation of one is the meaning of the other, e. g., alive means not dead. Cf. gradable pair, relational opposites.

Complex wordA word that contains two or more morphemes.

Componential analysisAnalysis in terms of components; the representation of a word’s intension in terms of smaller semantic components called features.

Compositional semantics The subfield of semantics where the meanings of the whole sentences are determined from the meanings of the words in them by the syntactic structure of the sentence.

CompoundA word composed of two or more words.

Compounding Combining one or more words into a single word; a word-forming process which coins new words not by means of affixation but by combining two or more free morphemes.

Connotative meaning/connotationThe personal aspect of lexical meaning, often emotional associations which a lexeme brings to mind (Crystal, 2005); the set of associations that a word’s use can evoke.

ConstituentA syntactic unit in a phrase structure tree; a natural grouping of words in a sentence; one or more words that make up a syntactic unit; group of words that forms a larger syntactic unit

Content wordsWords with lexical meanings (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs)

Contrastive analysis (CA)The prediction that a contrastive analysis of structural differences between two or more languages will allow individuals to identify areas of contrast and predict where there will be some difficulty and errors on the part of a second-language learner.

Contrastive lexicology A branch of linguistics that studies the relation between etymologically related words and word-combinations in different languages. It deals with the contrastive analysis of the lexicon, lexico-semantic relationships, thesauri of entire vocabularies, classification of lexical hierarchies, and taxonomic structure of specialized terminology

ConversionA word-formation process with zero derivation; a common way to convert one part of speech to another using a form that represents one part of speech in the position of another without changing the form of the word at all.

Corpus linguistics is the creation and analysis of (normally large, computerized) corpora of language composed of actual texts (speech and writing), and their application to problems in descriptive and applied linguistics.

Data miningComplex methods of retrieving and using information from immense and varied sources of data through the use of advanced statistical tools.

Dead metaphorA metaphor that is so common that it goes unnoticed as a metaphor

Deep structureAny phrase structure tree generated by the phrase structure rules of a transformational grammar.

DenominalA word ‘derived from a noun’, e.g. childish (from the noun child) is a

denominal adjective.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 1243