English Lexicography Historical development of

English Lexicography

• Historical development of Lexicography as a linguistic science • Some debatable problems of lexicography • Types of Dictionaries

Lexicography • is theory and practice of compiling dictionaries • a branch of applied linguistics

Dictionary • a book listing words of a language with their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage and/or origin

Metalanguage • a language used to make statements about other languages. • it can refer to any terminology or language used to discuss language itself - a written grammar, for example, or a discussion about language use.

Historical development of English lexicography • Old English period – glosses of religious books with translation from Latin • the 15 th century – regular bilingual English-Latin dictionaries

Historical development of English lexicography • 1604 – “A Table Alphabeticall, containing and teaching the true writing and understanding of hard usuall English words borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, and French” • first unilingual dictionary explaining 3000 words by English equivalents (Robert Cawdrey)

Historical development of English lexicography • 1721 – “Universal Etymological Dictionary” • first etymological dictionary, explained etymology of words and included pronunciation (Nathaniel Bailey)

Historical development of English lexicography • 1775 – explanatory dictionary by Dr Samuel Johnson • words were illustrated by examples from English literature • pronunciation was not included • helped to preserve the English spelling in its conservative form

Historical development of English lexicography • 1780 – first pronouncing dictionary (Thomas Sheridan) • 1791 – “The Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language” (John Walker)

Historical development of English lexicography • 1858 -1928 – New English Dictionary (NED), 12 volumes, included all words existing in the language • 1933 – Oxford English Dictionary (OED), 13 volumes • includes spellings, pronunciations, detailed etymologies, quotations

Historical development of English lexicography • “A Shorter Oxford Dictionary”, 2 volumes, smaller number of quotations • 1911 – “The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English”, contained only word of current usage, no quotations

Historical development of English lexicography • “English Dialect Dictionary” by Joseph Wright

Historical development of American lexicography • 1798 – “A School Dictionary” (Samuel Johnson Jr. ) • 1828 – “American Dictionary of the English Language” (Noah Webster) • attempts to simplify the spelling and pronunciation • provides definitions, etymology, explanations about things named

Historical development of American lexicography • 1891 - “Century Dictionary” • 1895 – “Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary” • 1967 – “Random House Dictionary of the English Language”

Main Problems of Lexicography • number of dictionary entries • selection of head words • arrangement and contents of the vocabulary entry • definitions in a unilingual dictionary

Number of dictionary entries and selection of head words • phraseological units (e. g. It is the early bird that catches the worm, at length) • homonyms (e. g. to work – work) • occasional or nonce words (e. g. footballer)

Arrangement of the vocabulary entry • sequence of meanings of a polysemantic word

Contents of the vocabulary entries • distribution of a word: part of speech, grammatical peculiarities, syntactical distribution • stylistical reference and emotive colouring

Definitions in a unilingual dictionary • synonyms • linguistic definitions – concerned with words as speech material (lexical data) – British dictionaries • encyclopedic definitions – concerned with things for which the words are names (realia) – American dictionaries • examples (context)

Types of English Dictionaries • Encyclopedic – thing-books dealing with concepts (objects and phenomena, their origin and development, etc. ) • e. g. influenza – causes, symptoms, treatments and remedies, etc.

Types of English Dictionaries • Linguistic – word-books dealing with vocabulary units (semantic structure, usage, etc. ) • e. g. influenza – spelling, pronunciation, grammar characteristics, derivatives, synonyms, etc.

Types of Linguistic Dictionaries linguistic dictionaries general explanatory parallel, or translation specialized synonyms and antonyms collocations phraseological slang

General Dictionaries • present a wide range of data about the vocabulary items in ordinary use • Webster’s New International Dictionary, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Current English

Explanatory (Unilingual) Dictionary • spelling and pronunciation • grammatical characteristics (part of speech, (in)transitivity, irregular forms) • meanings (extended definitions or synonyms) •

Explanatory (Unilingual) Dictionary • illustrative examples (citations from literary sources, sentences invented by compilers) • derivatives (grouped in one entry or in separate) • phraseology, etymology, synonyms and antonyms

Translation (Bilingual) Dictionary • contain vocabulary items in one language and their equivalents in another language • main problem – to ensure adequate translation

Special Dictionaries • cover only a specific part of the vocabulary (synonyms, antonyms, phraseology, neologisms, terms, etc. ) • provide information limited to one particular aspect (collocability, wordfrequency, etymology, pronunciation, etc. )

Dictionaries of Synonyms • A Dictionary of English Synonyms and Synonymous Expressions (R. Soule) • Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms

Phraseological Dictionaries • The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs • Book of English Idioms (V. H. Collins) • An Anglo-Russian Phraseological Dictionary (A. V. Koonin)

Ideological Dictionary • words are arranged not alphabetically • words are grouped according to their semantic fields • designed for English-speaking writes, translators • Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (P. M. Roget)