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International Journal of Lexicography
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IJL - Recently Published (OUP)
Translators, and language professionals in general, have long claimed that dictionaries are deficient, especially regarding access and updating of content. Some authors have also noted that these deficiencies are compounded by the fact that language professionals do not receive (proper) training in dictionary use, and therefore do not fully benefit from them. Electronic dictionaries include new search capabilities, not found in traditional dictionaries, that could meet users’ needs. However, the diversity of search options in electronic dictionaries makes their classification difficult, and consequently hinders training in their use. Systematization of search techniques in electronic dictionaries would favor the teaching and learning process, and could also facilitate the task of lexicographers and terminographers in the creation of new and more standardized electronic dictionaries. In this paper we classify search techniques in electronic dictionaries by focusing on three elements that are common to every search and that, taken together, encompass all the search possibilities we have observed in electronic dictionaries.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it aspires to compare the usefulness of a monolingual English learners’ dictionary in electronic and paper form in receptive and productive tasks. Second, it sets out to assess the role of dictionary form in the retention of meaning and collocations. The investigation concerns the paper and electronic versions of a recent monolingual English learners’ dictionary, COBUILD6 (2008). The study reports on an experiment, in which 64 upper-intermediate and advanced students took part. The test consisted of two tasks: receptive and productive. To complete them, each subject was assigned to work with one version of the dictionary. It turns out that COBUILD online was more useful in both tasks. The results of an unexpected retention test prove it to be a better learning tool as well, since it significantly enhanced the retention of both meaning and collocations.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
Pocket electronic dictionaries (PEDs) are gaining in popularity with an increasing number of EFL learners in Chinese colleges and universities and making an impact on the Chinese dictionary scene which is too great to ignore. This study compares patterns of use and perceptions of PEDs and paper dictionaries (PDs). It also examines the effects of dictionary use on vocabulary acquisition under PED and PD conditions. Some different patterns of use between PEDs and PDs are identified, which seem to result from design features of different types of dictionaries. PEDs and PDs are perceived as with different advantages and disadvantages. It is also found that there are no significant differences between PED and PD use in comprehension, production and retention of vocabulary although the speed of the former is significantly faster than the latter.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
Antoine Furetière’s Dictionnaire universel, published posthumously in 1690, was considered by many to be the most comprehensive French dictionary of the time. Its avowed aim was to include the terms of all the sciences and arts. While Furetière’s lexicographic achievements have been the focus of several studies, little effort has been devoted so far to the study of his style and substance in the realm of science. This article provides a preliminary consideration of his treatment of astronomy and physics, with particular attention to his work with sources and background material. Furetière’s privileged position as a witness to the ‘insurgent century’, a period of transition that announced the scientific revolution, is highlighted.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
Johnson’s method of incorporating illustrative quotations from previous authors into his Dictionary creates a ‘space of pastness,’ in which some decontextualized authors can be used by Johnson to argue or represent views in the present. The illustrations quoted in the Dictionary are de-historicized; indeed the Dictionary itself is not concerned with a history of language or diachronic development. Yet one must be cautious in assessing and using evidence from the quotations. In the case of John Milton, Johnson adjusts and re-places Milton’s ideological symbolic value, quoting him in rhetorically, usually self-reflexive ways, and reads him, in part, through the eyes and works of Alexander Pope. Finally, it has been shown that in the Preface to the Dictionary, Johnson thematizes the elusiveness of the present and its tragic overtones of regret, failure, and death. The Preface is preoccupied with time and time’s passing.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
This study investigates the reasons for Alberti’s uncommon celebrity for over a century, from the first publication of his dictionary (1771–1772) until 1881, when he was still held up as a model by other lexicographers. While compiling his bilingual dictionary, Alberti referred to the monolingual dictionaries of the Académie française (4th edition, 1762) and the Accademici della Crusca (4th edition, 1729–1738), but he also drew from the works of other lexicographers, especially Diderot and d’Alembert, whom he only marginally quotes for political reasons. From a practical lexicographical point of view, Alberti’s innovations were the methodical construction of the microstructure following a very rigorous scheme, the elimination of Latin and etymology, and the extensive use of field labels. From a theoretical point of view, the predominant factors were the introduction of the specific terminology of mechanical arts and crafts, the addition of numerous synonymic equivalents as possible translations, and an emphasis on a choice of language unbounded from the upper classes and nearer to the language of the active population.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
When Guy Miège ventured into dictionary-making in London in 1677, his aim was to stand up against Randle Cotgrave’s celebrated Dictionary of the French and English Tongues. Among other concerns, Miège, a teacher of French, considered Cotgrave’s dictionary useless for pedagogical purposes. The Dictionaire Royal Augmenté, a French-Latin work by Jesuit Father François Pomey, was to become Miège’s guide in reforming Cotgrave. Miège found in Pomey’s dictionary an amalgam of microstructural features developed by an experienced pedagogue of language. Miège proceeded to adapt the features of Pomey’s dictionary to his own working languages, French and English. He borrowed, altered, abridged, and enlarged Pomey’s material, tinted it with his own personal touch, and designed the accurate and reliable pedagogical aid he wanted to produce in his New Dictionary French and English, with another English and French.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
The major bilingual opus by lexicographer Abel Boyer, the Royal Dictionary. In Two Parts. First, French and English. Secondly, English and French, became an immediate success at the beginning of the eighteenth century and remained in use until the end of the nineteenth century. This remarkable lifespan, however, was naturally punctuated by highs and lows, with the latter often taking the form of acrimonious criticism. There were two main ways to remedy shortcomings in a dictionary. The first was to improve the existing work in a new edition. The second, more radical, way was to publish a rival dictionary that was completely independent of the one criticized. Boyer’s dictionary was well served by the first method. Over the years, in a world where piracy was current practice, some people appear to have been serious about improving the original material; this was the case for David Durand, among others. But Boyer’s dictionary also faced competition from ‘new’ dictionaries such as the one published by Lewis Chambaud in 1761. What do we know about this author and the circumstances of his publication of A Dictionary, French and English? The research for this article throws some light on bilingual lexicography between 1729, the year Abel Boyer died, and 1776, the year of Lewis Chambaud’s death.
‘Bonaparte n’étudiait pas beaucoup; il lisait avec attention tous les journaux qu’on lui apportait. Mais on le voyait pendant des heures entières occupé à parcourir page par page le Dictionnaire de Chambaud1.’ (Monkhouse 1822: 357)
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
This paper explores the strategies that should be employed when processing legal terminology in a bilingual legal dictionary. The viability of a bilingual law system depends on the consistent use of standardized Chinese terms in courts and their ease of use by general users. Semantic equivalence of a term, however, is not achieved through a literal translation of an English term, and how a term is defined in both statute law and case law must also be taken into consideration. This paper argues that instead of targeting only legal practitioners, the bilingual system of Hong Kong should also aim at educating the public in the general concepts of law and in the use of Chinese legal terminology. A case study demonstrating how to process a legal expression—‘assault occasioning actual bodily harm’—is presented in this paper.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
This paper discusses words from the argot of the New Zealand male prostitute in relation to environments in which he works. The language form has absorbed into itself elements of prison slang, pig Latin, Polari, gay slang, Maori and localised dialect. The article is divided into six sections, each concerned with a different form of male prostitution. While the public toilets, wharves, prisons, streets, agencies and private brothels are not mutually exclusive environments, a consideration of their nature is helpful in understanding words and the contexts in which they operate.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
Regardless of their name (dictionary, glossary, encyclopaedia, or even ‘leximat’, in the case of a new generation of online, semi-automated lexicographic tools), subject-field, purpose, or medium (paper or cyber), lexicographic reference works should be regarded as functional information tools that are solely designed to cater to the information needs of their users in different usage situations and that consequently help them solve specific communication (reading, writing, translation) or knowledge problems (acquiring new knowledge or verifying existing knowledge, learning a language or a subject field). In this article, we briefly outline the evolution of lexicographic reference works from stand-alone to multifunctional lexicographic tools, and we describe the theoretical principles and innovative functionalities of a new task and problem-oriented lexical database, the Base Lexicale du Français. In line with Tarp (2006), a tool that should be truly regarded as a ‘leximat’.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
Using small sets of adjectival seed antonym pairs, we automatically find patterns where these pairs co-occur in a large corpus of Dutch, and then use these patterns to extract new antonym pairs. Evaluation of extracted pairs by five human judges showed that automatic scores correlate with human evaluation and that pattern-based methods can be used to extract new antonym pairs. The majority of extracted pairs were noun-noun pairs, contrary to expectations based on previous research. Additionally, the method identifies a subgroup of co-hyponyms that frequently function antonymously, and together with more traditional antonyms makes up a wider class of incompatibles, suggesting that antonymy is a diverse relation that includes pairs of different types and categories that are not captured by any single linguistic theory. Comparison with Dutch WordNet and an online Dutch dictionary shows that only a handful of extracted pairs are currently listed in these existing resources, emphasizing the usefulness of the project.
view article | [International Journal of Lexicography - recent issues]
