The Typology of Dictionaries

Lexicography as a Branch of Applied Linguistics

Lexicography (from Gk lexikòs – referring to the word and gráphō – write), that is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries, is an important branch of applied linguistics.

Lexicography has a common object of study with lexicology, both describe the vocabulary of a language. The essential difference between the two lies in the degree of systematization and completeness each of them is able to achieve. Lexicology aims at systematization revealing characteristic features of words. It cannot, however, claim any completeness as regards the units themselves, because the number of these units being very great, systematization and completeness could not be achieved simultaneously. The province of lexicography, on the other hand, is the semantic, formal, and functional description of all individual words. Dictionaries aim at a more or less complete description, but in so doing cannot attain systematic treatment, so that every dictionary entry presents, as it were, an independent problem. Lexicologists sort and present their material in a sequencedepending upon their views concerning the vocabulary system, whereas lexicographers have to arrange it most often according to a purelyexternal characteristic, namely alphabetically.

The term ‘dictionary’ is used to denote a book that lists the words of a language in a certain order and gives their meanings or that gives the equivalent words in a different language.

The lexicographic school in this country whose acknowledged founder is academician L.V. Shcherba (1880-1944), proceeds from the assumption that lexicography is a science, but not an art or technique of compiling dictionaries, as many foreign linguists think it to be.

Lexicography as a science has two aspects:

· scientific (theoretical);

· practical (applied).

Scientific lexicography deals with the following general theoretical problems:

· the working out of the typology of dictionaries and dictionaries of new types;

· the working out of the basic principles of dictionary compiling – selection of lexical unites for inclusion; their arrangement; the problem of homonymy etc;

· the working out of the principles of entry setting – the selection and arrangement of word-meanings; the definition of meanings; the contents of the entry; semantic and functional classification of words; illustrative material; supplementary material; the system of notations; the percentage of linguistic and extra linguistic information in the dictionary.

Practical lexicography aims at dictionary compiling proper on the basis of theoretical principles worked out by scientific lexicography, so these aspects of lexicography are closely connected and interrelated, neither of them could develop successfully without the other.

Modern lexicography is based on the following theoretical assumptions:

· the word stock of the language is a system, the dictionary is to reflect the system of the language upon the whole and the semantic structure of the word in particular;

· the meaning of the word can change in the course of its development;

· lexicography is closely connected with grammar and other branches of linguistics.

The Typology of Dictionaries

English lexicography is probably the richest in the world with re­spect to variety and scope of the dictionaries published, every educated person is supposed to consult a dictionary regularly, to develop the so-called ‘dictionary habit’. Dictionaries may be classified under different heads.

1. According to the object of description:

· Encyclopedic dictionaries are scientific reference books dealing with every branch of knowledge, or with one particular branch, usually in alphabetical order, e.g. the Oxford Paperback Encyclopedia, Random House Webster’s Biographical Dictionary.

Encyclopedic dictionaries are thing books, that give information about objects of extra linguistic world, they deal with concepts, their relations to other objects and phenomena; they have special entries for individual people and for places, they include supplementary features giving a wide range of general information like the name of the highest mountains and the famous lakes. The best-known encyclopedias of the English-speaking world are the Encyclopaedia Britannica (24 volumes); the Encyclopedia Americana (30 volumes);

· Linguistic dictionaries are word books that deal with the lexical units of the language and their properties – pronunciation, usage, etymology, meaning, peculiarities of use and other linguistic information.

Linguistic dictionaries can be further subdivided into different categories by different criteria.

2. According to the number of words (volume):

· Big academic dictionaries; E.g. The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; 470, 000 entries;

· Medial-sized dictionaries; E.g. The New English-Russian Dictionary in 2 volumes (I.R. Galperin); 150, 000 entries;

· Small dictionaries (in one volume); E.g. English-Russian Dictionary (V.K. Müller); 53, 000 entries.

3. According to the language of description:

· Monolingual dictionaries – in them the words and the information about them are given in the same language; E.g. Webster’s New World Dictionary in one volume, 160, 000 entries

· Bilingual these dictionaries give equivalent words in two or more

· Polyglot languages, they do not define the words they list.

They may have two principal purposes: reference for translation and guidance for expression. Bilingual and polyglot dictionaries must provide an adequate translation of every item in the target language and expression in the source language.

4. Monolingual dictionaries are further subdivided with regard to the time.

· Diachronic (historical) dictionaries, of which ‘The Oxford English Diction­ary’ is the main example, reflect the development of the English vocabulary by recording the history of form and meaning for every word registered. E.g. J. Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Lnd. 1882-98; H. Kurath, A. M. Kuhn, J. Reidy Middle English Dictionary. Michigan Univ.

· Synchronic (descriptive) dic­tionaries of current English concerned with present-day meaning and usage of words. E.g. the Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English; the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.

The boundary between the two is, however, not very rigid, in many cases the two principles are blended as, for example in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Some synchronic dictionaries are at the same time historical when they represent the state of vocabulary at some stage of its development.

5. According to the scope of their word-list linguistic dictionaries may be:

· general;

· restricted.

General dictionaries represent the vocabulary as a whole with a degree of completeness depending upon the scope and bulk of the book in question. Some general dictionaries may have very specific aims and still be con­sidered general due to their coverage. They include, for instance, fre­quency dictionaries (lists of words, each of which is followed by a record of its frequency of occurrence in one or several sets of reading matter). A rhyming dictionary is also a general dictionary, though ar­ranged in inverse order, and so is a thesaurus in spite of its unusual ar­rangement, e.g. the Collins COBUILD Thesaurus. General dictionaries are contrasted to special dictionaries which cover only a certain specific part of the vocabu­lary.

Restricted dictionaries are further subdivided depending on wheth­er the words are chosen according to the sphere of human activity in which they are used (1), the type of the units them­selves (2) or the relationships exist­ing between them (3).

· The first subgroup is represented by restricted dictionaries of limit­ed scope that register and explain technical terms for various branches of knowledge,art and trade (medical, linguistic, technical, economic terms, etc). E.g. the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Monolingual dictionaries of this type are called glossaries.

The second subgroup deals with specific language units, i.e. with phraseological units, abbreviations, neologisms, borrowings, toponyms, dialectal words, proverbs and sayings:

o Dictionaries of foreign words; Carrol D. The Dictionary of Foreign Terms in the English Language NY Hawthorn, 1973;

o Phraseological dictionaries; the best bilingual phraseological dictionary is English-Russian Dictionary by A.V. Kunin. It is a real masterpiece, a monument to its compiler. The dictionary describes English phraseologisms fromCh. Dickens (1812-1870) up to Modern English. It was first published in 1955 and now we deal already with the IV-th edition containing about 30.000 phraseological units, the material for illustration includes the novels of our contemporaries.

o Dictionaries of quotations; A Dictionary of Humorous Quotations/ ed. by Ned Sherrin. – Oxford University Press, 1995; Instant Quotation Dictionary. – New York: Laurel, 1990; Stevenson B. Book of Quotations, Classical and Modern. Lnd., Cassel (70.000); The Oxford nirtjnnary of Quotations. 3rd ed. Oxford. 1979 (70.000); Bartlett J. Familiar Quotations. Lnd. Macmillan.; Cohen J. M. and M. J. Penguin Dictionary of Quotations; Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations; Tripp R.T. The International Thesaurus of Quotations. N.Y.

o Dictionaries of neologisms; 6000 Words. A Supplement to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Mass. Merriam, 1976; Berg P.S. A Dictionary of New Words in English.; Barnhart C.I. Dictionary of New English;

o Dictionaries of abbreviations and signs; Patridge E.A. Dictionary of Abbreviations. Lnd. Constable; Allen E. Dictionary of Abbreviations and Symbols. Lnd.; Buttress F.A. World List of Abbreviations. 3rd ed. Lnd., Leonard Hill, 1966.

The third subgroup contains:

o Dictionaries of Synonyms; English-Russian Synonymic Dictionary (under the supervision of A.I. Rosenman and academician Yu. Der. Apresiayn); Webster’s New Dictionary of Synonyms. It is a dictionary of explanatory type. A lot of attention is paid to the depth of distinctions between synonyms. The best dictionary-inventory is Laird Ch. Webster’s New World Thesaurus. N.Y., New American Library, 1971. 30000 entries, each of which represents an exhaustive list of synonyms, practically, the dictionary reflects all the active vocabulary of modern English speakers. Very popular in Britain and USA is Soule R. A Dictionary of English Synonyms and Synonymous Expressions / Ed. by A.D. Sheffield. N.Y. Bantam Books.

o Dictionaries of Antonyms – they are very few as synonymic dictionaries give antonyms together with synonyms; e.g. Комиссаров В.И. Словарь антонимов современного английского языка. М., 1964.

6. According to the information they provide all linguistic dictionaries fall into two groups:

· explanatory;

· specialized.

Explanatory dictionaries present a wide range of data, all the properties of the word – grammatical, stylistic, etymological, spelling, pronunciation. E.g. New Oxford Dictionary of English.

Specialized dictionaries deal with lexical units only in relation to some of their characteristics, i.e. only in relation to their etymology, frequency, pronunciation, usage; according to what part of lexical units is described specialized dictionaries fall under the following divisions:

o Orphoepic dictionaries; Jones D. An English Pronouncing Dictionary; for the American variant of English the most popular is Kenyon J.S. and Knoot T.A. Dictionaries.

o Orphographical dictionaries; Lewis N. Dictionary of Correct Spelling NY, 1962; Maxwell C.H. The Pergamon Oxford.

o Dictionaries of frequency; Thorndike E.L., Lorge I. The Teacher’s Word Book of 30, 000 Words. NY, 1941;

o Dictionaries of word formation;

o Rhyming dictionaries.

7. According to the functional variant of the language:

· Social variant (slang); E. Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English 2 vols. Lnd Routledge; H. Wentworth and S.B. Flexner Dictionary of American Slang NY Crowell, 1975;

· Territorial variant; E.g. J. Wright The English Dialect Dictionary. 6 vols Oxford 1898-1905; N. Wentworth American Dialect Dictionary NY, Crowell, 1944; M.A. Mathews Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles. Chicago Univ. 1951; W. S. Avis, Toronto, Gage, 1967, A Dictionary of Canadianism on Historical Principles; S. B. Foreman, The New Zealand Contemporary Dictionary. Christchurch, Whitcombe, 1968;

· Concordances, dictionaries recording the complete vocabulary of some author; A. Schmidt Shakespeare Lexicon 2 vols Lnd 1886; E. Abbot, Concordance to the Works of Alexander Pope. N. Y., 1965.

8. According to the order of units in it:

· Alphabetical;

· Non-alphabetical (thematic, ideographic, thesaurus Latin ‘treasury’ ); Roget P.M. Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition. Lnd., 1852; Laird Ch. Webster’s New World Thesaurus. NY, New American Library, 1971.In the ideographic dictionaries the main body is arranged according to a logical classification of notions expressed. But diction­aries of this type always have an alphabetical index attached.