Encyclopaedic and Linguistic Dictionaries

There are many different types of English dictionaries. First of all they may all be roughly 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 dictionaries are word-books, their subject matter is lexical units and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation, meaning, peculiarities of use, etc. The encyclopaedic dictionaries, the biggest of which are sometimes called simply encyclopedias are thing- books, that give information about the extra-linguistic world, they deal with concepts (objects and phenomena), their relations to other objects and phenomena, etc.

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 also geographical and 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. For example, the entry influenza in a linguistic dictionary presents the word's spelling and pronunciation, grammar characteristics, synonyms, etc. In an encyclopedia the entry influenza discloses the causes, symptoms, characteristics and varieties of this disease, various treatments of and remedies for it, ways of infection, etc.

Though, strictly speaking, it is with linguistic dictionaries that lexicology is closely connected and in our further consideration we

shall be concerned with this type of reference books only, it may be useful for students of English to know that 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 students and school teachers, Chamber's Encyclopaedia (in 15 vols) which is a family type reference book, and Everyman's Encyclopaedia 12 vols) designed for all-round use.

Besides the general encyclopaedic dictionaries there are reference books that are confined to definite fields of knowledge, such as TheOxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford Companion to Theatre, Cassell's Encyclopaedia of World Literature, etc.

There are also numerous dictionaries presenting information about notable persons (scientists, writers, kings, presidents, etc.) often called Who's Who dictionaries.

As concept and word-meaning are closely bound up the encyclopaedic and linguistic dictionaries often overlap. Encyclopaedias sometimes indicate the origin of the word, which belongs to the domain linguistics. On the other hand, there are elements of encyclopaedic character in many linguistic dictionaries. Some of these are unavoidable.

With terms, for instance, a lexicographic definition of meaning will not differ greatly from a short logical definition of the respective concept encyclopaedic dictionaries. Some dictionary-compilers include in their word-lists such elements of purely encyclopaedic nature as names of famous people together with their birth and death dates or the names major cities and towns, giving not only their correct spelling and pronunciation, but also a brief description of their population, location, etc.

For practical purposes it is important to know that American dictionaries are characterized by encyclopaedic inclusion of scientific, technical, geographical and bibliographical items whereas it is common practice with British lexicographers to exclude from their dictionaries information of this kind to devote maximum space to the linguistic properties of words.

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