A course In Modern English Lexicology

§ 2. Classifica-
words in a language, usually listed alpha-
tion of Linguistic Dic-
betically, with definitions, pronunciations, etymologies and other linguistic information or with their equivalents in another language (or other languages).
Linguistic dictionaries may be divided into different categories by different criteria. According to the nature of their word-list we may speak about g e n e r a l d i с t i о n a r i e s , on the one hand, and restriсted, on the other. The terms g e n e r a l and r e s t r i c t e d do not refer to the size of the dictionary or to the number of items listed. What is meant is that the former contain lexical units in ordinary use with this or that proportion of items from various spheres of life, while the latter make their choice only from a certain part of the word-stock, the restriction being based on any principle determined by the compiler. To r e s t r i c t e d d i c t i o n a r i e s belong
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terminological, phraseological, dialectal word-books, dictionaries of new words, of foreign words, of abbreviations, etc.
As to the information they provide all linguistic dictionaries fall into those presenting a wide range of data, especially with regard to the ’semantic aspect of the vocabulary items entered (they are called explanatory) and those dealing with lexical units only in relation to some of their characteristics, e.g. only in relation to their etymology or frequency or pronunciation. These are termed specialised dictionaries.
Dictionaries with the same nature of word-lists may differ widely in the kind of information they afford, and the other way round, dictionaries providing data of similar nature may have a different kind of word-list. For example, dictionaries of u n r e s t r i c t e d word-lists may be quite different in the type of information they contain (explanatory, pronouncing, etymological, ideographic, etc.), terminological dictionaries can also be explanatory, parallel, ideographic, presenting the frequency value of the items entered, etc. On the other hand, translation dictionaries may be general in their word-list, or terminological, phraseological, etc. Frequency dictionaries may have general and terminological word-lists.
All types of dictionaries, save the translation ones, may be m о n o -
l i n g u a l or b i l i n g u a l , i.e. the information about the items entered may be given in the same language or in another one.
Care should be taken not to mix up the terms m o n o l i n g u a l and e x p l a n a t o r y , on the one hand, and b i l i n g u a l and t r a n s l a t i o n dictionaries on the other. The two pairs of terms reflect different dimensions of dictionaries. The terms m o n o l i n g u a l and b i l i n g u a l * pertain to the language in which the information about the words dealt with is couched. The terms e x p l a n a t o r y and t r a n s l a t i o n dictionaries characterise the kind of information itself.
Thus among dictionaries of th3 same type, say phraseological or terminological, we may find both monolingual and bilingual word-books. For example, Kluge’s Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache is bilingual, but it is not its purpose to supply translation of the items entered.
It is important to realise that no dictionary, even the most general one, can be a general-purpose word-book, each one pursues a certain aim, each is designed for a certain set of users. Therefore the selection of material and its presentation, the language in which it is couched depend very much upon the supposed users, i.e. whether the dictionary is planned to serve scholarly users or students or the general public.
Thus to characterise a dictionary one must qualify it at least from the four angles mentioned above: 1) the nature of the word-list, 2) the information supplied, 3) the language of the explanations, 4) the prospective user.
Below we shall give a brief survey of the most important types of English dictionaries, both published in English-speaking countries and at home. We shall first dwell on the dictionaries that are u n r e s t r i с t -
e d in their word-lists and general in the information they contain, —
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on explanatory and translation dictionaries, — presented by the greatest number of word-books, then deal with word-books of restricted word-lists and with specialised dictionaries and after that with a special group of reference books, the so-called learner's dictionaries.
Out of the great abundance of linguistic dic-
§ 3. Explanatory Dictionaries tionaries of the English language a large group is made up of the so-called e x p l a n a t o r y d i c t i o n a r i e s , 1 big and small, compiled in English-speaking countries. These dictionaries provide information on all aspects of the lexical units entered: graphical, phonetical, grammatical, semantic, stylistic, etymological, etc.
Most of these dictionaries deal with the form, usage and meaning of lexical units in Modern English, regarding it as a stabilised system and taking no account of its past development. They are synchronic in their presentation of words as distinct from diachronic, those concerned with the development of words occurring within the written history of the language. For instance, the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles commonly abbreviated in NED and its abridgement The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles (SOD) coyer the history of the English vocabulary from the days of King Alfred down to the present time; they are diachronic, whereas another abridgement of the NED — the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (COD) as well as H. C. Wyld's Universal Dictionary of the English Language are synchronic. Other series of authoritative synchronic explanatory dictionaries are Webster dictionaries, the Funk and Wagnalls (or Standard) dictionaries and the Century dictionaries.
It should be noted that brief remarks of historical and etymological nature inserted in dictionaries like the COD do not make them diachronic.
Moreover, dictionaries of a separate historical period, such as Anglo-Saxon Dictionary by J. Bosworth and T. N. Toller, Stratmann's Middle English Dictionary by H. Bradley, which are sometimes called historical, cannot be strictly speaking referred to diachronic wordbooks. They do not trace the evolution of the language, but study a synchronic c r o s s -
s e c t i o n , i.e. the words of a historical period are regarded from a synchronic angle.
T r a n s l a t i o n
d i c t i o n a r i e s
§ 4. Translation Dictionaries (sometimes also called parallel) are wordbooks containing vocabulary items in one language and their equivalents in another language. Many English-Russian and Russian-English dictionaries have been made in our country to meet the demands of language students and those who use English in their work. The most representative translation dictionaries for English are the New English-Russian Dictionary edited by Prof. I. R. Galperin, the English-Russian Dictionary by Prof. V. K.
Müller and The Russian-English Dictionary under prof. A. I. Smirnitsky's general direction.
1 It is common practice to call such word-books English-English dictionaries. But this label cannot be accepted as a term for it only points out that the English words treated are explained in the same language, which is typical not only of this type of dictionaries (cf.
synonym-books).
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