GENERAL PROBLEMS OF LEXICOGRAPHY

Lexicography is a science studying the principles of dictionary compiling. It is closely connected with lexicology as both describe the vocabulary of a language, words’ form, meaning, usage and origin.

Types of Dictionaries.

The term dictionary is used to denote a book listing words of a language with their meanings and with data regard in pronunciation, usage and origin. There are many different types of dictionaries. According to the subject of description and the sort of information given about it, dictionaries may be divided into two groups encyclopaedic and linguistic.

Encyclopaedic dictionaries are thing-books that give general information about the extralinguistic world. They deal with factors and concepts. The most well known encyclopaedias are the encyclopaedia «Britanica» in 24 volumes and the encyclopaedia «Americana» in 30 volumes

Linguistic dictionaries are wordbooks dealing with words and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation, spelling, meaning, stylistic colouring, peculiarity of usage, etc.

According to the nature of their words, dictionaries can be general (representing the vocabulary as a whole) and restricted (describing lexical units of a particular type or of a single field - terminological, phraseological, dialect dictionaries, dictionaries of abbreviations, shortenings, etc.)

As to the information dictionaries provide, linguistic dictionaries fall into explanatory (presenting a wide range of data on all aspects of the words - graphical, phonetical, grammar, semantic, stylistic, etymological, etc.) and specialised (those dealing with lexical units only in relations to some of their characteristics - etymological, pronunciation, etc.)

The most famous explanatory dictionaries are Oxford English Dictionary and Webster’s New International Dictionary. Among specialised dictionaries of special interest are ideographic dictionaries of thesaurus, which contain words grouped by a concept (Roget’s Thesaurus Dictionary, for example, lists together words which have similar meanings).

According to the language of explanation dictionaries may be monolingual (in which the words and the definitions belong to the same language) and translation (in Russia the most famous translation dictionaries are The New English -Russian Dictionary by Prof. Galperin and The Russian-English Dictionary by Smirnitskey). It should be said that translation dictionaries are often named general since they contain commonly used words and expressions and their equivalents, but they also may be specialised linguistic dictionaries (translation dictionaries of terms, etc.)

Dictionaries can be considered from the point of view of the prospective user. Explanatory dictionaries are intended primarily for the native speaker. Dictionaries intended primarily for those who study English as a foreign language are called learners’ dictionaries ( Oxford Cobuild Advanced Learners’ Dictionary).

Some of the Main Problems of Lexicography.

The most volume problems of lexicography are:

* the selection of lexical units and their arrangement;

* the setting of vocabulary entries;

* the principles of selection and arrangement of meanings in a polysemantic word;

* the illustrative examples;

* the supplementary material to be studied.

The choice among the possible solutions depends on the type to which the dictionary belongs. The aims the compilers pursue are:

* the prospective user;

* the linguistic conceptions of the dictionary maker, for example, his approach to polysemy and homonymy;

* the criteria of synonymity;

* the organisation of the semantic structure of the words

and others.

The Order of Arrangement of the Entries.

The order of arrangement of the entries is different in different types of dictionaries. Entries may be given in alphabetical order or in nests. Practically most dictionaries are a combination of the two orders of arrangement. The basic units are given as the main entries that appear in alphabetical order while the derivatives and the phrases, which the word enters, are given in sub-entries. Quite peculiar is the order of arrangement of the entries in ideographic dictionaries in which words are arranged according to the principle «from the notion to the word» as distinct from the principle «from the word to the notion» followed in explanatory dictionaries.

The Setting of the Vocabulary Entry.

The setting of the vocabulary entry presents many problems.

The first problem is the arrangement of various meanings of a polysemantic word. There are at least three different ways in which the word meanings are organised:

* in the sequence of their historical development - historical order;

* in conformity of frequency of use that is with the most common meanings first - actual (empirical) order;

* in their logical connection - logical order.

The next problem is the definition of words meanings. Meanings of words may be defined by means of:

* definitions that are characterised in encyclopaedia;

* descriptive definitions or paraphrases;

* cross-reference;

* with the help of synonymous words and expressions.

Illustrative examples.

Illustrative examples are used to place words in a contrast to clarify their meanings and usage.

Structure and Content of the Entry.

Considering the problems any vocabulary represents, we should mind the fact that different types of dictionaries differ in the structure and content of the entry. In the explanatory dictionaries of synchronic type the entry usually presents the following data:

* the head word;

* the description of its characteristics: excepted spelling and pronunciation, grammar characteristics, definitions of meanings with labels for figurative ones;

* illustrative examples showing the proper use and the compatibility of the word.

The entry also include stylistic labels, the information about etymology, derivatives, and sometimes drawings. A typical entry in diachronical explanatory dictionary will have the chronological arrangement of meanings and illustrative quotations to present the historical sense development, the etymology of the word, the data accompanying each word meaning and quotation that indicate the time of its first registration or if the word or one of its meanings is obsolete, the type of its last registration.

When the selection of the dictionary entry is over, the lexicography is to settle on this or that structure of the dictionary. Any dictionary consists of the following parts;

* an introduction and the guide to the use of the dictionary which help the reader to obtain necessary information the dictionary offers in full;

* a key to pronunciation;

* a list of abbreviations;

* the dictionary proper - the main list of words;

* supplementary material which may be of linguistic nature (new meanings of words already entered or non-linguistic information (geographical names, etc.).

Concordances.

It seems self evident that the most frequent words in any language will be the most useful ones for learners of that language, and therefore the best to start off with, in order to give the learner a basic set of tools for communication. But frequency is not as simple a matter as it looks, nor is it likely that any syllabus or coursebook would want slavishly to stick to what frequency lists tell us.

Questions that have to be asked about any frequency list used as a basis for syllabuses or materials include the following:

What size corpus was used to get the frequency count? Millions of words are expended in speech and writing in a language like English each minute of a day, so one may ask whether a corpus of one million words is adequate, or even the twenty million words suggested by Halliday (1966) which the COBILD dictionary project in Birmingham had at its disposal. Interestingly, lexicographers report that after about five million words, no great new gains are made in information about the more common words, and the patterns of frequency established in the first five million words are repeated and reinforced.

Was the corpus written language, spoken, or both? Large corpora tend to be based on written language, because this is easy to gather. Speech is ephemeral but vast in the volume of output at any moment in time. The Birmingham corpus uses speech and writing, but the corpus is still predominantly written language.

Did the corpus cover a wide range of text-types, topics, registers, situations, etc.? A wide range is clearly advantageous if we want a frequency count for general language teaching. But frequency counts exists for special areas too, based on carefully chosen sets of texts.

Did the frequency count bunch word-forms together under single entries, or did it separate them? Separating different word-forms can often reveal interesting features of frequency, for instance, certainly is much more frequent than certain in the Birmingham corpus.

How long ago was the corpus assembled? Word-counts become dated. West’s A General Service List of English words (1953) contains some meanings in English whose frequency has already undoubtfully declined (gay as «jolly, happy»). Furthermore, current everyday words like video, computer, even television do not appear.

Does the count take into consideration very frequent multi-words items? Many lexical lists that form the basis of coursebooks give us only single words and the more obvious phrases, to get at the frequency of multi-word items is to use concordances, that is, lists which show a word and its immediate surrounding contexts.

Does the count tell us about frequency of meaning? Getting at which meanings of a particular word are most frequent is also best done by looking at concordances (the example is a sample from a huge computerised corpora - Birmingham Collection of English Texts of the first six lines for the word penny).

Questions and tasks:

Compare the entries for the word chair in the dictionaries of different types.

Write down some illustrative examples for the word floor in the dictionaries of different types.

Choose any article from a newspaper in a target language and give advice for a freshman on translating it. Base the advice on the knowledge of lexicography.

Look at any entry from ENGLISH-RUSSIAN THESAURUS (Англо-русский идеографический словарь./Т.И. Шаталова, М., Русский язык, 1994 - С.132). Try to compile your own entry entitled «Studies».

Below is an entry from West, with the percentages for each meaning of the word deleted. Can you make approximate guesses as to which meanings of the word will be most frequent? What factors influence your decision?

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