Dictionaries

Text 8

Express your opinion of the content and expression-plane of the text.

Discuss the text in class.

Present a summary of the text

Summarize each paragraph from the text in one or two sentences.

Use the vocabulary practiced in tasks 1 and 2 to make up situations of your own.

Explain the meaning of the following words and word-combinations. Pay special attention to the etymological characteristics of some of them.

Tasks

1. Find the Russian equivalents for the following words and word-combinations:

presumably; to keep up with; the knowledge explosion of the seventeenth century; to make gradual improvements in one’s work; precursor; the practice of illustrating his definitions with short quotations from English writers; to show how the words were actually used; the only significant advance in lexicog­raphy; to indicate the pronunciation of words; artificially formal; to make notable contributions; the combined efforts of many; an immense amount of work; to list a word; to trace the history of each word from its first recorded appearance to the time of the dictionary's compilation; to describe all changes in spelling, use, and meaning; a source for information;; a highly reliable book in most respects; to serve special purposes; to serve the needs of the college student or the general user; for more detailed reference; generations of harmless drudges.

Bilingual; synonym; some little crib book; to plagiarize; public speaking; natural pronunciations of conversation; the art of lexicography; without peer; reviewer; slang; occupational jargons; abbreviations; place names; etymologies; regional forms.

3. Make your own list of key–units and topical vocabulary

A typical dictionary, say the desk dictionary that you probably own, reports a great many facts about English words. Indeed, it gives more information than most dictionary-users are aware of. Suppose you test yourself before reading any further. Without looking at the following paragraphs, jot down as many different kinds of information about words as you might expect to find in a dictionary. Then read on to see whether you are fully aware of that book's potential usefulness.

Although desk dictionaries differ in what information they give about any particular word and in the order in which they give it, you can expect to find some things in all of them.

The main entry of the word will, of course, give you its spelling. This bit of information is probably what dictionaries are most often consulted for, but it can be a complex matter. Compound terms, like mailbag, man-hour, and market value, may be spelled solid, hyphenated, or spaced. There is much variation in the spelling of such compounds; a dictionary will indicate one common variety, although there may be others. Some words like judgment or judgement have more than one standard spelling; a good dictionary will record the variation. The main entry will usually show by raised dots or some other device where the written word can be divided at the end of a line. Thus, in the'sawrus the break would usually be before, rather than after, the r. Homographs, different words that are spelled alike, will usually be marked by raised numbers, as gum¹ of a tree and gum² of the teeth.

Immediately after the entry form, the dictionary will give the pronunciation of the word, using sound symbols that will vary from one dictionary to another. For example, merchandise may have its pronunciation indicated something like this: (mûr'chan ∙ dīz). To interpret the pronunciation symbols correctly, you will have to familiarize yourself with their explanation in the front part of the dictionary.

The pronunciations listed in any dictionary need to be treated with caution because as we have seen many words can be said in more than one way. Thus the noun merchandise may end in /s/ as well as in /z/, and most dictionaries will show that variation. But no dictionary can record all the pronunciations of a word. For example, height has three pronunciations, /halt/, /haitθ/, and /haiθ/, although most dictionaries will list only one or two of them. The omission of a pronunciation does not mean that the dictionary-makers thought it nonexistent or wrong, only that they chose to omit that piece of information because they did not have room for everything. In interpreting a dictionary, you cannot rely on negative evidence; what is not in the dic­tionary may be just as real and just as "correct" as what is there. An educated person has to use his ears to supplement the dictionary.

Moreover, the order in which variant pronunciations are listed is not especially significant. It may indicate the pronunciation that the editors believe to be most common, but it is not an expression of preference. First does not mean best; it very likely means nothing at all.

In addition to the consonants and vowels of the word, the pronunciation will show the stress and the syllable division, which often differs from the spelling division used in breaking a word at the end of a line. Although the-sau-rus would usually have that spelling division, in speech the /r/ goes with the preceding syllable: (tha-sor'as), as a dictionary might show it.

The grammatical information given by diction­aries is limited to the part of speech for a word and the labels prefix, suffix, or combining form for bound forms like pre-, -er, or tele-. Following the label, the inflected forms of a noun, verb, or adjective are listed if they are in any

way irregular or doubtful. The inflected forms commonly listed are the plural of nouns, the past tense and the participles of verbs, and the comparative and superlative of adjectives.

The heart of a dictionary entry is the definition or, more often, definitions. Since most words have more than one meaning, the definitions are usually grouped together in some logical order, which may be historical, with the oldest meanings first; or one of frequency, with the most common meanings first; or purely logical, beginning with the most general meaning and ending with the most specific. The introductory matter to each dictionary will tell what arrangement its editors have tried to follow—perhaps some convenient compromise. Since most dictionary-users do not bother to read the front matter, they are unaware that there is any order, and therefore the arrangement of definitions is hardly more than a game the lexicographer plays with himself. The most important thing to remember is that the order of definitions, like that of pronunciations, implies no evaluation of "correct­ness." Dictionary-users, even otherwise highly intelligent ones, often act as though every list were a statement of preference. Things must come in some order, but in a dictionary the first is not better than the last.

To supplement the formal definitions, a dictionary may use citations or brief phrases containing the word in question. These illustrations are often invaluable. We can frequently get a better idea of the meaning of a word from seeing it in actual use than we can from reading a technical definition.

Usage labels are often found among the definitions. They indicate that a word's use is restricted in certain ways, particularly with respect to level and style, but also with respect to currency, locality, and field. The two basic levels are the standard, which is generally acceptable in educated use, and the nonstandard, every­thing else. These two levels are not clearly demarcated, and they are in fact really two directions on a scale that can be still more finely divided, as when we distinguish between U and non-U within the standard level. Dictionaries regularly leave standard forms unmarked and may use terms like substandard or illiterate in place of nonstandard.

Style is often confused with level but is in fact something quite different. It is also called "functional variety" because it is the way we adapt our language to different uses. A style is a kind of language suitable for a particu­lar occasion, such as a commencement address or a dormitory bull session. Even more than level, style is a scale with many values, but the two directions are usually called formal (which in the extreme becomes ritualistic) and in­formal (which at its extreme becomes intimate). Dictionaries customarily leave all formal varieties unlabeled and for informal may use such additional labels as slang and colloquial.

Currency is a scale with the notion "common in present-day English" at the unlabeled end and terms like rare, archaic, and obsolete toward the opposite end. Locality labels show that a word is restricted to or characteristic of a particular geographical area, such as Scotland, the United States, or even a region of the United States, such as the South. Field labels indicate that a word, or often one meaning of a word, is limited to a special subject matter, such as psychology, chemistry, or linguistics. The most important thing to remember about all usage labels is that they are rough descriptions of use that can be no more than approximately correct.

The dictionary's etymology is a highly condensed statement of the origin of the entry word. In some dictionaries it comes before the defini­tions, in others, after. In describing etymologies, all dictionaries make use of a number of abbreviations. These vary somewhat from one book to an­other but include abbreviations of language names like OE for Old English and special signs like < meaning 'derived from.' Some desk dictionaries give quite elaborate etymologies, tracing a word back to its prehistoric origins; others are more laconic, giving hardly more than its immediate source. For this information, as well as other information that varies from dictionary to dictionary, the reader can consult whichever book is best for his immediate purpose.

In many entries you will find related forms of one kind or another. For instance, the entry may include and define idioms using the main word. Derivatives that are formed from the main word and whose meanings are obvious will be listed. Synonyms and antonyms may be listed and distinguished from one another in a short note. Collateral adjectives, which are closely related in meaning but quite different in form from their corresponding nouns, like equine and horse, may be listed under the noun for cross reference.

In addition to the usual vocabulary entries, most desk dictionaries provide a wide variety of supplementary information, either in the body of the work, in special prefatory sections, or in appendixes. Abbreviations, names of people, places and colleges, rimes, spelling, punctu­ation and capitalization, English usage, special signs and symbols, forms of address, weights and measures, the history of English, grammar, American dialects, vocabulary-building, reference works, and manuscript preparation are topics that may be covered. No dictionary will include all of these or present them in quite the same way as another dictionary, but if you examine your dictionary carefully, you are likely to be surprised at the amount of information it gives in addition to straightforward English vocabulary entries.

A dictionary is the most useful book a student can own, provided he uses it with common sense. Dr. Johnson, whose opinion we can rely on in such matters, once remarked that "dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true." If Johnson, who was a leading figure in what is often known as the Age of Authority, had such a healthy skepticism about lexicographical authority, we should pay attention to him. The best English dictionaries are very good indeed. For the most part we can use them with confidence and gratitude, but we must remember that even they may not go quite true.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-27