Main types of dictionaries

There are many different types of English dictionaries. First of all they may all be divided into two groups— encyclopaedic and linguistic.

The two groups of reference books differ essentially in the choice of items included and in the sort of information given about them. Linguistic dic-ries are word-books, their subject matter is lexical units and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation, meaning, peculiarities of use, etc.

The encyclopaedic dic-ries the biggest of which are smtimes called simply encyclopaedias are thing - book that give information about the extra-linguistic world, they deal with concepts (objects and phenomena), their relations to other objects and phenomena, etc. (The Encyclopaedia Britannica (in 24 volumes) and The Encyclopedia Americana (in 30 volumes)

It follows that the encyclopaedic dictionaries will never enter items like father, go, that, be, if, black, but only those of designative character such as names for substances, diseases, plants and animals, institutions, terms of science, some important events in history and geographical аnd biographical entries.

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 former give much more extensive information on these subjects. It is with linguistic dictionaries that lexicology is closely connected.

Linguistic dictionaries may be divided into different categories by different criteria. According to the nature of their word-list we may speak about generаl (contain lexical units in ordinary use with this or that proportion of items from various spheres of life) dictionaries and restricted (terminological, phraseological, dialectalword-books, dictionaries of new words, of foreign words etc).

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

Саге should be taken not to mix up the terms monolingual and explanatory, on the one hand, and bi1inguа1 and trаns1аtiоn dictionaries on the other. The two pairs of terms reflect different dimensions of dictionaries. The terms monolingual and bi1inguа1 pertain to the language in which the information about the words dealt with is couched. The terms explanatory and trаns1аtiоn dictionaries characterize the kind of information itself.

Explanatory dictionaries - Most of these dictionaries deal with the form, usage and meaning of lexical units in Modern Eng, regarding it as а stabilized system and taking no account of its past development. They are synchronic in their presentation of words as distinct from diachronic, those concerned with the development of words occurring within the written history of the language.

Translation dictionaries (=parallel) are word- books containing vocabulary items in one language and their equivalents in another language. (New Engl-Russian Dic-ry edited by Prof Galperin, Engl-Rus by Muller, thr Rus-Eng by Smirnitsky)

Phraseological dictionaries in England and America have accumulated vast collections of idiomatic or сcolloquial phrases, proverbs and other, usually image-bearing word-groups with profuse illustrations. (The Anglo-Rus Phras Dict by Koonin)

New words dict-ries (of neologisms) have as their aim adequate reflection of the continuous growth of the Engl Lang-ge.

Dict-ries of Slang contain elements from areas of substandard speech such as vu1garisms, jargonisms, taboo words, curse-words, colloquialisms, еtc (Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Е. Partridge)

Usage dict-ries make it their business to pass judgement on usage problems of all kinds, on what is right or wrong. Designed for- native speakers-they supply much various information on such usage problems as, е.g., the difference in meaning between words, the proper pronunciation of words like, the plural forms of the nouns, the meaning of such foreign wordsetc. They also explain what is meant by neologisms, archaisms, colloquial and slang words and how one is to handle them, etc. (of Modern English Usage by N. W. Fowler)

Dictionaries of word-frequency inform the user as to the frequency of occurrence of lexical units in speech, to be more exact in the corpus of the reading matter or in the stretch of oral speech on which the word-counts are based, they are constructed to make up lists of the so-called basic vocabulary, for spelling reforming, for an all-round synchronic analysis of modern English, etc.

Reverse dict-ry is a list of words in which the entry words are arranged in alphabetical order starting with their final letters. The original aim of such dictionaries was to indicate words which' form rhymes. Nowadays such dic-ries are also used to 'study the frequency and productivity of certain word-forming elements and other problems of word-formation.

Pronouncing dic-ries record contemporary pronunciation. They indicate variant pronunciations (which are numerous fn some cases), as well as the pronunciation of different grammatical forms. (English Pronouncing Dictionary by Daniel Jones)

Etymological dic-ries trace present-day words to the oldest forms available, establish their primary meanings and give the parent form reconstructed by means of the comparative-historical method. In case of borrowings they point out the immediate source of borrowing, its origin, and parallel forms in cognate languages. (Etymological English Dictionary by W. W. Skeat)

Ideographic dictionaries contain words grouped by the concepts expressed (were designed for Engl-speaking writers, translators) (Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases P.M. Roget)

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