Types of Dictionaries

Lexicography, the science, of dictionary-compiling, is closely connected with lexicology, both dealing with the same problems ? the form, meaning, usage and origin of vocabulary units ? and making use of each other?s achievements.

Lexicography studies some basic problems of linguistics such as ? selection of lex.untis for inclusion to a dictionary, arrangement of these lex.units, selection and arrangement and definition of meanings and other. The number of dict.is growing every day, dict.are classified acc.to the foll.criteria ? 1) the nature of the word list; 2) information it contains; 3) language of explanation; and 4) the target user.

Thus we can distinguished the foll.types of dict.?encyclopedic dicts.(which deal with concepts and serve to help in understanding the meaning of this or that concept) and linguistic( which give linguistic inf. ? such as pronunciation, meaning, peculiarities of use, etc )

Although some of the items included in encyclopaedic and linguistic dictionaries coincide, such as the names of some diseases, the information presented in them is altogether different.

The most well-known encyclopaedias in English are The Encyclopaedia Britannica (in 24 volumes) and The Encyclopedia Americana (in 30 volumes). Very popular in Great Britain and the USA are also Collier?s Encyclopedia (in 24 vols) intended for students and school teachers, Chamber?s Encyclopaedia (in 15 vols) which is a family type reference book, and Everyman?s Encyclopaedia (in 12 vols) designed for all-round use.

Linguistic dictionaries may be divided into different categories by different criteria. According to the nature of their word-list we may speak about general dictionaries, on the one hand, and restricted, on the other.

To restricted dictionaries belong terminological, phraseological, dialectal word-books, dictionaries of new words, of foreign words, of abbreviations, synonyms, idioms etc.

Dictionaries of unrestricted word-lists may be quite different in the type of information they contain (explanatory, translating, pronouncing, etymological, ideographic, etc.). Translation dictionaries may be general in their word-list, or terminological, phraseological, etc. Explanatory dicts.or as they are called learners? dicts.are specially compiled to meet the demands of the learners for whom English is not their mother tongue.

All types of dictionaries, save the translation ones, may be m?nolingual or bilingual, i.e. the information about the items entered may be given in the same language or in another one.

Ps special dicts. Mentioned by Uralova ? Ox.dict.of current E. ? the most neutral voc, 45,000 items, many illustrations, historical principle of arrangement of ws. ? 1st meaning ? is the primary meaning.; Longman Lexical dict.of contemp.E. ? 15,000 ws, it?s not alphabetic, the ws.arranged acc.to semantic fields ? 14fields of a pragmatic every-day nature. ? learners?s dict.

Synonyms ? the best by Rodal ? the alphabetic order, easy to find ws., firstly the primary meanings are given, then those with a slight change in meaning., it also gives usage labels, and the style of usage.

A dict.of idioms. Cambridge. Reflects the modern usage, explains the mean.and views about 7,000 idioms (of current Brit., Amer., and Austr.), has illustrations and inf.about the origin.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 430