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<i>Dictionaries, Lexicography and Language Learning</i> (review)

1985; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/dic.1985.0018

2160-5076

David L. Gold,

Lexicography and Language Studies

REVIEWS 288Reviews Dictionaries, Lexicography and Language Learning. Robert Ilson, ed. Oxford: Pergamon Press in association with the British Council, 1985. The increasing professionalization of the science, art, and craft of lexicography is leading not only to better dictionaries but also to more publications about the field. And the research literature is becoming more specialized—years ago a title like 'An Introduction to Lexicography' might have been the only one in many languages. Although we will probably never see a work entitled 'Proceedings of the Conference on Problems in the Compilation of a Belorussian-Afrikaans Legal Dictionary,' several quite specific titles are now available, like the volume under review, which will be most useful to dictionary-compilers, teachers, and graduate students. Lexicography is being professionalized by people who are closing the gap between the old-fashioned data-oriented compiler of dictionaries—oblivious to advances in linguistics —and the just as old-fashioned theory-oriented "pure" linguist, who, as Bloomfield decreed, saw the lexicon "merely" as a "list" of "irregularities" that is "appended" to a grammar. Indeed, since the Chomskian Revolution, which has made semantics the cynosure of every transformational grammarian's eye, the dictionary (though not yet so much dictionaries) is no longer on the periphery (at best) of "pure" linguistics, nor do the best practitioners overlook theoretical advances (though the alliance is far from complete— lexicographical amateurishness still abounds). A minor, but telling, indication that the gap is slowly being bridged is the fact that a reviewer of one of the volumes of the new supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, writing in The Times Literary Supplement, faulted it for not showing the structure of English vocabulary. Years ago, the Times would probably have asked a professor of Old English to review the OED, and he might have pointed out that some Old Norse etymology or the definition of a certain feudal term needed emendation, but today the volume was given to a "theoretical" linguist. Far be it from me to demean one kind of reviewer in favor of another. On the contrary, orientation towards data and orientation towards theory both have their rightful places, as long as each pursuit recognizes the legitimacy of the other Reviews289 and each meets the just standards of the other: compilers of dictionaries need the theorists' rigorous methods of analysis, and theoretical linguists cannot spin theories that fly in the face of data. Lexicographical method and lexicographical theory have come a long way since the Bloomington conference of the early 1960s, whose proceedings are embodied in Householder and Saporta 1967. The two "sides" there stood out like the Blue and the Gray, whereas most of the contributors to the volume under review mesh the best of both. Dictionary-compilers should also cooperate more with one another. For example, although they need not agree on which pronunciations to show (and in what order or with what, if any, accompanying labels), they should agree on a single transcription scheme for each kind of dictionary (e.g., children's dictionary, desk dictionary, scholarly dictionary). Cooperation is also possible with respect to citation files: it is a waste of time, money, and energy to have four (if not more) people—one in Oxford, one in Springfield, one in Bronxville, and one in Cleveland—excerpt the same issues of The New Yorker or The Manchester Guardian. A single, computerized file, accessible to all contributing to it, should be feasible, despite the sticky business problems that would have to be addressed beforehand. The present review will comment on only a few points in the fine contributions to this volume. Marie-Noëlle Lamy notes these innovations in French dictionaries: a downward arrow marks synonyms having a weaker meaning than the headword (an upward arrow marks synonyms having a stronger meaning); a right-facing arrow marks direct (i.e., alphabetical) derivation (like English Truk —* Trukese) and a left-facing one marks nondirect (i.e., nonalphabetical) derivation (like Eng. prison «— imprison); a symbol designates nonspecialist use of a specialized term (e.g., divorce in a nonlegal sense; here I suggest a subdivision into nonspecialist uses that are generally accepted, like divorce 'any complete separation or disunion', and those which specialists frown on...