Dictionaries and their types

4. DICTIONARY CLASSIFICATION PROBLEM
Lexicography, or the science of compiling dictionaries, like any other science, has a number of general and particular problems, among which the problem of classifying dictionaries seems to be fundamental, since it is directly related to the question of choosing a dictionary for specific purposes (Shcherba L.V. "The experience of a general theory lexicography"). Its relevance is also connected with the fact that English-language lexicography at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. enriched by a large genre variety of reference books that go beyond the established classifications and expand the very concept of lexicography to the so-called reference science (for the first time this term was used by the famous English lexicographer T. Mac -Arthur). This trend has led to the classification of existing dictionaries not according to one, but according to a number of features, which makes it possible to comprehensively characterize any reference book ( Swanepoel P. Dictionary Typologies : A.Pragmatic Approach // A Practical Guide to Lexicography // P/ van Sterkenburg /. In the UK, as in many other Western European countries, the traditional opposition of dictionaries according to the object/method of describing input units (linguistic-encyclopedic) is becoming less relevant. In connection with the migration of the population (and as a result, a change in the user profile), an intermediate type of dictionary arises - explanatory-encyclopedic, combining the features of a linguistic and encyclopedic reference book. The dictionary includes cultural realities that are unfamiliar to new members of society and require an explanatory and encyclopedic description (Karpova O.M., Korobeynikova O.V. Dictionaries of the language of writers and quotations in English lexicography).
In accordance with the historically established differential feature in lexicography - language, all the mentioned dictionaries are traditionally divided into monolingual, bilingual and multilingual. However, at the end of the twentieth century. they are joined by a new kind of reference book - a bilingualized dictionary ( bilingualized dictionary ), which is a translation of authoritative English dictionaries into other national languages.
Modern English dictionaries are diverse in genres and types. This diversity is explained by the complexity and multidimensionality of the very object of the lexicographic description, i.e. language. There is practically no way to give in one dictionary all comprehensive information about input units that would equally satisfy all users in general and their individual groups in particular. That is why in all classifications of dictionaries there is such a feature as the size or volume of the dictionary. In accordance with it, the directories mentioned above can be large ( big ), medium ( concised ) and small ( pocket ). In this series, dictionaries of a new format have recently appeared - gem dictionaries , especially popular among students and schoolchildren due to the convenient format and compact presentation of the material (Karpova O.M. "Modern lexicographic picture of Great Britain (on the basis of new dictionaries of the HarperCollins publishing house ), Karpova O.M. Modern lexicographic portfolio of English lexicography (on the basis of the dictionaries of the publishing house Harper Collins ).
According to the lexicographic form, i.e. way of presenting the material, all dictionaries can be concordances (headwords are supplied with citations and their addresses); indices, or frequency dictionaries (different types of frequencies are given: absolute, absolute accumulated, relative and relative accumulated); glossaries (contain interpretations of difficult or incomprehensible words); explanatory dictionaries (they have all the main information categories in the dictionary entry: various kinds of labels, definitions, illustrative examples, etc.) and thesauri, or ideographic dictionaries. The classification of ideographic dictionaries of the English language is presented in the book by Vorontsova I.A. "Historical and typological study of thesauri of the English language"
In this regard, we note that the organization of headwords in a dictionary is an equally important problem for a lexicographer. The alphabetical arrangement of capital words is generally accepted and has a centuries-old tradition. The representation of words by frequency - from the highest to 1 - came to lexicography with the appearance in the twentieth century. statistical lexicography. And, finally, the conceptual arrangement of linguistic material has also been established in the English-language lexicographic tradition from the very beginning of its existence. The classification of frequency dictionaries is described in the book by Kirillov M.A. " Linguistic and statistical analysis of a literary text" (on the material of short stories by F.S. Fitzgerald .
The next feature used in the classification of dictionaries is the completeness/ differentiality of the dictionary, according to which linguistic and encyclopedic dictionaries presented in various lexicographic forms can be complete, or registering, and differential, or selective. It should be noted that in the history of English national lexicography, dictionaries were originally differential and prescriptive; their authors recommended to readers the rate of use, focusing on literary authorities: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton. With the passage of time and the development of corpus lexicography, modern dictionaries have become registering, including both significant and auxiliary words in the dictionary.
Such a feature as the completeness/ differentiality of the lexicographic development of a word makes it possible to divide the existing dictionaries into complete and differential according to the lexicographic development of a word, depending on its lexicographic form. In accordance with this feature, concordances can be complete or differential in citations; glossaries - according to the set of labels (grammatical, etymological, stylistic, chronological, etc.) and types of definitions (synonymous, descriptive, reference); frequency dictionaries - according to the types of statistical labels (absolute, relative, etc.), and explanatory dictionaries - according to the set of labels, verbal and graphic illustrations, interpretations and other elements of the microstructure.
It should be noted that the following problems are inextricably linked with the classification feature of differential / completeness of the lexicographic development of headwords:
criteria for selecting material in the dictionaries of proper names, abbreviations, function words, phrases, etc.;
ways of presenting the headings of dictionary entries, i.e. their varieties: original, derivational, inflectional forms; regular and irregular grammatical forms of words;
the structure of the grammar reference: indications of parts of speech, additional column, appendices;
technical design of the vocabulary megastructure ( style manual of a dictionary ) or means of polygraphic semiotics ( dictionary design ): typographic fonts, symbols, color signals, etc.;
layout technique in a dictionary ) input units of the dictionary.
These problems should remain in the field of view not only of the lexicographer, but also of the direct user of the dictionary. moreover, special attention should be paid to the technical design and format of the dictionary, as evidenced by user surveys that precede work on compiling dictionaries for various countries. Readers primarily prefer the aesthetic design of the reference book and its format, which largely determines the choice of a dictionary (Karpova O.M. "Dictionaries of the new century: searches and solutions")
Continuing to consider the principles of classification of modern English dictionaries, it is necessary to single out one more feature - the coverage of vocabulary in the dictionary, which allows us to subdivide all linguistic, encyclopedic and explanatory-encyclopedic monolingual and bilingual dictionaries into dictionaries for general purpose dictionaries ) and special purposes ( special purpose dictionaries )
Dictionaries for general purposes include, first of all, explanatory academic dictionaries of the English language, based on the norm of use. Among dictionaries for special purposes, the largest group of terminological dictionaries, or dictionaries in various subject areas (business, biology, botany, zoology, computer science, history, social work, sociology, chemistry, physics, finance, economics, etc. ) should be noted. it is they who have priority in modern lexicography, when, with the development and formation of new subject areas, the question arose of creating authoritative and reliable reference books in which the terms of new disciplines and branches of knowledge are registered and processed (Averbukh K.Ya., Karpova O.M. " Bilingual terminography: current trends and their implementation")
The group of special dictionaries, along with terminological ones, also includes other reference books in which certain layers of vocabulary are recorded and processed. These are dictionaries of abbreviations, archaisms, new words, phrases, slang, phraseological units, quotes and proverbs, the language of writers, onomasticons (for example, J. Joyce, D. Milton , J. Chaucer , W. Shakespeare ), etc. (Karpova O.M. "On the role of dictionaries in teaching foreign languages")
And, finally, in modern lexicography in general and English in particular, a new feature of classification stands out - the format for presenting material in a dictionary, according to which linguistic and encyclopedic monolingual and bilingual dictionaries for general and special purposes are divided into printed and electronic ..
Thus, the type of dictionary of the modern English language is characterized by a set of features (see also Dubchinsky V.V. "Theoretical and practical lexicography"), among which the following are distinguished:
input unit description object;
language;
the size/volume of the dictionary;
its lexicographic form;
completeness/ differentiality of the dictionary;
completeness/ differentiality of the lexicographic development of the word;
vocabulary coverage;
format for presenting material in a dictionary.