Lexicography

Lecture 1

Lexicography: is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries it’s

also an important part of applied linguistics.

- [ ] Lexicography is the activity or profession of writing and editing

dictionaries. It's comprises the recording of words of the vocabulary
of the language into a specific format.
Ex: alphabetically

- [ ] Lexicography is the process in which linguistic information is

being written down, processed and compiled in a specific
Lexicography format .
- [ ] The result Lexicography process is usually a word list glossy,
dictionary thesaurus computerized word bank .
- [ ] Lexicography is the part of lexis dealing with the body of
language and properties of word as the man unit of language.

Beginnings of English Lexicography:

The beginning of English Lexicography goes back to old English

period the language of the roman church was Latin in order to
conduct services, and to read the Bible.
As English monks studied these Latin manuscripts, they would
sometimes the English transcription above or below a Latin word in
the text, to help their own learning and as a guide to subsequent
readers, these one-word translation, written between lines of a
manuscript are called” interlinear glosses” they are seen as a
beginning of” bilingual” Lexicography.

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Lecture 2

Lexicographer has two basic components:

- The theoretical component deals with the study or description of

the vocabulary of a particular language and the Meaning that
associates certain words to others in a dictionary.

- The theoretical component consists of:

- 1 - the general principles of the applied science.

- 2 - the theoretical principles that form the basis for the general
usage and expert principles and the practical component which deals
with the applied science of writing compiling and editing
dictionaries.

- Function of practical lexicography are as follows:

1 - educational function purposes teaching language both native and

foreign.
2 - legislative function studies and problems of description and
normalization of language.
3 - communicative function deals with realizing intercultural.
4- scientific function fulfills studying vocabulary of language periods
of practical lexicography.

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Lecture 3

As far as practical lexicography is concerned it has nearly one and the

same history that is divided into 3 periods:
1- pre-dictionary period
2- period of early dictionary
3- period of devolved dictionary

* The main problems in lexicography

The problems of lexicography are connected with the selection of
headwords, the numbers, the structures and connected of the
vocabulary entry “in different types of dictionaries “

* the starting group of lexicography problems deals with selection:

1- in the first place it’s the problem of weather a general descriptive
dictionary, weather unilingual or bilingual, should give the historical
information about a word.
2- for the purpose of a dictionary, which must not be to massive,
selection between scientific and technical terms is also a very
important task.
3- it’s a debatable point whether a unilingual explanatory dictionary
should try to cover all the words of the language, including neologism
nonce words, slang .....

* the second group of problems deals with the structure and content
of a dictionary entry in different types of dictionaries.
* A descriptive dictionary dealing with the current usage has to face
its own specific problems it has to give precedence to the most
important meaning.

* A synchronic dictionary should also show the distribution of every

word. It has been traditionally done by labeling words as belonging
to a certain part of speech, and by noting same special case of
grammatical or lexically bound meaning.
* Historical dictionary is primarily concerned with the development
of the English vocabulary. It arranges various senses chronologically,
first come the etymology, then the earliest meaning marked by label
obs . (obsolete)

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Lecture 4

Lexicography & lexicology

Lexicology is derived from the Greek work lexical (adjective from

lexis meaning “speech or “way of speaking “or word.

In other words, the vocabulary of language is not a chaos of

diversified phenomenon but consists of elements which, though
independent, are related in some way.

The differences between lexicography & lexicology.

Lexicography
Lexicology:

-Is a branch of lexicology.

-Is a branch of linguistics.

-Deals with the application of theoretical basis.

-Provides the theoretical basis of lexicography.

-Is more concerned with concrete application.

-Is more theory oriented.

-Deals with the individual of each lexical unit.

-s concentrates on the general priorities of words.

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Lecture 5

Historical development of British lexicography.

The history of lexicography of English language goes as far as back

the old English period where it is first trace R found in the form of
glosses of the religious books with interlinear translation from Latin.

* The first unilingual English dictionary explaining words appeared

in 1604. Its aim was to explain difficult words. It's title was” a table
alphabetical” containing and teaching the true writing and
understanding of hard usual English words borrowed from the row,
Greece, Latin, English.

* The first big explanatory dictionary” A dictionary of English

language” which the words are deduced from their original and
illustrated in their general signification by examples from the best
writers in 2 vol. was compiled by Dr. Samuel Johnson and published
in 1755.

* Pronunciation was not marked because S. Johnson was very touch

sure of the wide variety of the English pronunciation and thought it
impossible to set up a standard there, he paid attention only to those
aspects of vocabulary where he believed he could improve linguistics
usage.

The golden age of English lexicography

* The golden age of English lexicography began in the last quarter of

the 19th century when the English philological society started work
on compiling the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which was
originally named new English dictionary (NED) it's still referred to as
either OED, NED. The objective of this work was and still is to trace
The development of English words from their form in old English.

* The English of Chaucer of the Bible and of W. Shakespeare is given

as much attention as that of the most modern authors.
* The dictionary includes spelling, pronunciation and detailed
etymologies. The completion of the work required more than 75
years.
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Lecture 6

The history of American lexicography

* The first American dictionary of the English language was compiled

by a man whose name was also Samuel Johnson.

* Samuel Johnson was a schoolmaster published a small book

entitled” a school dictionary” in 1978, and followed by another
dictionary by the same author in 1800.

* Noah Webster, universally considered to be the father of American

lexicography. His great work is” the American dictionary of the
English language” appeared in two volumes in 1828 and later
sustained numerous revised and enlarged edition.

* Noah Webster attempted to simplify the spelling and pronunciation

that were current in the USA of the period.

* Noah Webster realized the importance of language for the

development of a nation and devoted his energy to giving the
American English the status of an independent language, distinct
from British English.

* After Noah Webster's death, two publishers and booksellers

acquired the rights of his dictionary from his family and started the
publication of revised single volume edition under the name Merriam
- Webster (1864, 1890, 1909, 1934) the staff working for the modern
editions is a big institution numbering hundreds of specialists in
different branches human activities.

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Lecture 7

What is a dictionary?

* The word dictionary comes from the” Latin” dicito” the art of
speaking according to the Encyclopedia Britannica definition.

* Dictionary: is used to denote book listing words of a language with

their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage
and or origin.

* The history of dictionary making for the English language goes as

far back as the old English period.

* The first bilingual glossary to find its way into print was a French -
English vocabulary for the use of travelers, printed in England by
William Caxton in 1480.
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Lecture 8

Terminology

* Terminology: according to (Sager 1990) says that terminology is

concerned with the study and use of the system of symbols and
linguistics signs employed for human communication in a specialized
area of knowledge and activities.

* According to an international association of terminology 1982”

terminology is closely linked to the subject fields of which it
describes the vocabulary and for which it seeks to provide assistance
in the ordering and use of designations.

* Terminology or” technical vocabulary” is a collection of terms

which has a certain coherence be the terms belong to a single subject
area.

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Lecture 9

*Similarities between lexicography and terminography:

*There is no crucial difference between common language and

specialized (technical) Language-He is merely a continuum of
registers where words gradually become more specific.

* Lexicography and terminography are methodological facets of the

profession with its first objective the systematic description and
documentation of the usage of words or terms of specific language
community with its discernible culture and subculture.

*The typology of the products shows that both profession compile

monolingual, bilingual and multilingual dictionaries.

*Documents the word /terms of language According to the spelling

and orthography rules of the given language.

*The same basic method is being used to describe the concept

designated by the basic word or term.

*Therefore the process of lexicography and terminography can be

placed on a continuous scale.

*Instead of dividing language in different registers, it could reflect a

scale on which language function
-from informal (slang, vulgar) to the highly formal registers (science,
technology) with various shades between.

*the different shade implicates different grades of standardization

(i.e. some registers in terminology where standardization is difficult)
and general language where it is difficult regulate (e.g. emotive
connotation)

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*The differences between Lexicography and terminography

Lexicography:

-Documents the words of a language

-The aim is to document, describe and preserve the vocabulary and

its derivations within general language usage.

-Records all the words of a given language (common, jargon, dialect,

literature, specialized) etc.

Terminography:

-Documents the terminology of subject fields, domains, disciplines. -

The aim is to concentrate on a representation of the terminology of
language for special purposes

-Record terms of different subject fields, domains and discipline.

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Lecture 10

Dictionary and its structure

* Dictionaries at a more or less complete description, but in so doing

cannot attain systematically treatment so that every dictionary entry
presents, as it were an independent problem.

* Theoretical lexicography aim at:

1- codification of any modern language lexicon carried out in various

tubes of dictionaries based on historical learning.
2- systemization of characteristics features of words.
3- dictionary making providing the foundation for fundamental

research of dictionary development and their types.

* Theoretical lexicography studies the following problems:

* General typology developing of dictionaries and dictionaries of new

types.
* Development of dictionary macrostructure.
* Development of dictionary microstructure.

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Lecture 11

Dictionary structure

* Dictionaries have always been shaped by the needs of their users,

or at least by what lexicography knew, or imagined, of those needs,
and by what lexicography knew about language in general and about
words particular not only by what the users wanted but also by what
the lexicography could offer.

* To present the structure of a dictionary in metalexicography, there

are three terms which are commonly used, these are megastructure,
macrostructure and microstructure.

* Megastructure consists of front body, main body, and back body,

the main body consists of macrostructure and microstructure.

* The megastructure of a dictionary has two sections:

* 1-the main body of a dictionary.
* 2- outside matter.

* Some dictionaries do without back matter, but most of the

dictionaries have front matter.
* Front matter or body: the front matter of dictionaries is fair enough
indication of what their authors are trying to achieve.

* Front matter of a dictionary may include some or all of the

following things:
-Selection of cover design
-Tables of contend
-Introduction or preface
-Introduction to dictionary outlining
-General information about the language.

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* Back matter: back matter of a dictionary might contain both
linguistic as well as an encyclopedia information depending on the
size and scope of a dictionary the back matter may include some or
all of the following things:
* Tables of numbers, days of the week, months of the year.
* List of prefixes and suffixes
* The system of weights and measures
* Special appendixes for special sets of words.
* Frequent proverbs and quotation.
* Should contain the bibliography

* Main body: the middle part which is the main body text of a
dictionary, has two structures that are macrostructure and
microstructure.
* The structuring of material must be indicated to help the users by
means of instructions provided in the front matter.
* The instruction should include an explanatory description of the
microstructure and macrostructure of the dictionary.
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Lecture 12

Macrostructure: refers to the list and organization of the lexical items

entered in the dictionary and the headwords. Macrostructure is an
overall word list structure that allows the compiler to locate
information then in dictionary.

* The macrostructure is the flexible structure because it's always

possible to add or subtract an entry word without destroying the
quality of the word list.

Microstructure: The Internet structure of a dictionary entry often

called as the microstructure of the dictionary.
It refers to the arrangement of the information with the Lexical
entry.

* The microstructure involves not only the order of appearance of

various information categories but also their typographical for such
as type face and type size punctuation and lexicographical symbol
etc.

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Lecture 13

What are the problems of a dictionary selection?

Three main factors should be taken into consideration such as:

1- date of publication.
2- dedication.
3- editorial team.

* Date of publication: is a quality essential and important factor for

the given dictionary.
* It's important to differentiate between the new edition and new
reprinting.
* New edition: is a version which has been revised and improved.
* New reprinting: presupposes that it has been only reprinted
without revision of the dictionary.
* Dedication: is meant for whom it is prepared it must be explained
explicitly in.

* The forward part gave dictionary for whom it is designed.

* Ex: Oxford students’ dictionary of current English has been specially
prepared for those learning English up to the intermediate level: for
teachers of English, student’ s senior pupils.

* Editorial team: is no less important when a selective dictionary it

means that the author’s group which has contributed to the making
of the dictionary is very important especially names of prominent
science linguist are mentioned

* Social functions of the dictionary:

Modern lithography outlines the important social functions of

dictionaries:

1- informative one reflects the shortest way that is through notions

to acquire knowledge.
2- communicative one gives readers the necessary words of native
and foreign languages.
3- nominative one originating long ago is used to nominate objects.

= dictionaries acquire a greater and greater role in storing and

transforming information.

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Lecture 14

Different types of dictionaries:

* There are as many dictionaries in the market as there are subjects

of study at university.

* Generally, dictionaries are categorized into two general types of

printed and electronic ones.

Electronic and paper dictionaries:

* Students should be familiarized with different kinds of dictionaries

in the market as well as their advantages and disadvantages.

Disadvantages of paper dictionaries:

- Weight makes it difficult to handle
- Difficult to make them more than bilingual
- Users must know the exact spelling to refer to.

advantages of paper dictionaries:

- They are easy to buy
- They are easy to browse
- You can touch them, write on them and...

Advantages and of electronic dictionaries:

- Storage and retrieval become quick and easy.
- They are light compact and faster than paper dictionaries.
- They provide users with automatic recorder voice facilities for
better pronunciation.

disadvantages of electronic dictionaries:

- They decrease students’ ability in pronunciation and spelling
because the machine does this for them.
- Both the web addressed and the page contents are constantly
changing.
- Using Internet dictionaries are too costly.

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Lecture 15

The differences between monolingual and bilingual dictionaries

* monolingual dictionary:
* A monolingual dictionary is type of reference work in which the
words of a language are explained by means of the same language.

* a monolingual dictionary is necessary tool for all advanced learners

of English language as a source of important information concerning
grammar information, collocations, spelling, pronunciation, context
and etymology of words.

* the main advantage of the current monolingual dictionaries is that

they are based on large corpora the corpora consist of huge
collections of written and spoken English which are analyzed and the
information from this analysis can be used for creating tables of
words frequency, collocations and idiomatic expressions.

* bilingual dictionary:

* lexicographer define a bilingual dictionary as “a type of dictionary

which relates the vocabularies of two languages together by means of
translation equivalent.

* a bilingual dictionary can never be adequate description of meaning

entities because the entities are language specific and the second
language equivalent which related to different entities than first
language items.

* = hunt states that bilingual dictionary is a necessary but limited

tool

* Bater support of using a monolingual dictionary where as a

bilingual dictionary tends to encourage the employment of a single
lexical item the monolingual dictionary demonstrates that definition
is an alternative.

* the problems of bilingual dictionary:

- word list
- Word choice
- Alphabetic arrangement of material.

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Lecture 16
Lexicography | week 11
_ Monday

What is the aim of thesaurus?

What is the difference between a dictionary and a thesaurus?

Thesaurus is the opposite of a dictionary you turn it when you have

already a meaning you don’t yet have the word

Thesaurus is of Greek origin meaning “treasure “treasure of words

In English a thesaurus is a treasure or store house, especially of

words as a repository “store of knowledge “, the opposite to a
dictionary.

The aims of the thesaurus:

1- to enrich individual lexicon of a user
2- to unify and replace lexical units in a text by standard words and
experience

Thesaurus: from idea to word or phrase.

Dictionary: from word to idea.

There are some modern versions of thesaurus:

1- Roget’s pocket.
2-Roget’s international thesaurus.
3-Collins paperback thesaurus.
4-Webster’s new explorer thesaurus.

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Lecture 17
Lexicography | week 11
_Tuesday

Encyclopedia dictionaries:
* Encyclopedia is a reference work in one or more volumes which
presents extensive information in all branches of knowledge.

* The word “encyclopedia” is a modern coinage derived from a Greek

phrase “enkuklion paidtia” which means literally “education within a
circle”.

* “encyclopedia” work which presents all the various branches

knowledge”.

* The first alphabetical encyclopedia in English was “the lexicon

technicum” or “A Universal English Dictionary of Arts and sciences
(1704) by John Harries.

* American Encyclopedia:

1- The world book Encyclopedia in 26 vv.

2- Collier’s Encyclopedia in 20 vv published for students and school
teachers.
3- American People’s Encyclopedia in 20 vv.
4- Encyclopedia international in 20 vv.

* British Encyclopedias:

1. Britannica junior in 15 vv.

2. Britannica for Children in 20 vv.
3. Chamber’s Encyclopedia in 15 vv.
4. Everyman’s Encyclopedia in 12 vv.

* The main differences between a dictionary and encyclopedia are

that a dictionary makes definitions of words available for us, which
are arranged alphabetically, gives information on how to pronounce
the word, lexicon. whereas an encyclopedia is a set of books that
contain articles on different subjects in alphabetical order.

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Lecture 18

Lexicography and other branches of linguistics.

* Linguistics has a diversity of branches that encompasses specific

studies of language. Some branches study communication or written
language and other oral.

* Phonology is branch that deals with the systematic organization of

sounds in languages. Phonology is responsible for the abstract and
grammatical characterization of sound system or signs.

Traditionally, it has focused on the study of phoneme systems in

particular languages, but it can also encompass any linguistics
analysis, either below the word ((syllable or others)) or at all levels
of language where sound is considered structured to convey
Linguistics meaning.

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Lecture 19

lexicography and other branches of linguistics:

* Morphology: is the study of words, how they are formed and their
relationship with other words in same language, also morphology
analyzed the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems,
roots, prefix and suffix.

* Morphology also examines parts of speech intonations and stress

and ways in which context can change the pronunciation and
meaning of a word.

* Semantics: the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with

matters such as sense and reference and presuppositions and
implication and lexical semantics, concerned with the analysis of
word meaning and relation between them.

* Semantics is the linguistic philosophical study of meaning in

language, programming languages, formal logic and semantics.
* It deals with the relationship between signifiers such as words
phrases, signs and symbols, study what they represent their
denotation.

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