Dictionaries vs encyclopaedias

There are many different types of English dictionaries. Things are further complicated by the fact that the name dictionary is regularly used in the titles of books which are not dictionaries in the proper sense of the word, but encyclopaedias. What is the difference between the two major types of reference books?

To begin with it should be made clear that there is no absolute equivalence between meanings of words and our knowledge about their referents, the way they exist in the actual world of experience. This is where the borderline between a dictionary and an encyclopaedia comes. The study of the word’s meanings with reference to reality and World Knowledge is the province of reference books focusing on the objects, phenomena, and concepts for the sake of their comprehensive description, detailed scrutiny and further elaboration. Such editions are ranked as encyclopaedias even if they sometimes bear the name of dictionaries. For example, Dictionary of Modern Culture, edited by J. Wintle, presents a survey of twentieth-century ideas and orientations from Freud and Picasso to Wittgenstein and Popper. Its main task is to supply information on the subject of modern culture, to deal with notions rather than words covering the given conceptual area. Here we have things and concepts in their own right, and this determines the encyclopaedic genre of the reference book.

So first of all dictionaries may be roughly divided into two groups – encyclopaedic and linguistic.

The two groups of reference books differ essentially in the choice of items included and in the sort of information given about them. Linguistic dictionaries are wоrd-books, their subject matter is lexical units and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation, meaning, peculiarities of use, etc. The encyclopaedic dictionaries, the biggest of which are sometimes called simply encyclopaedias are thing-books, that give information about the extra-linguistic world, they deal with concepts (objects and phenomena), their relations to other objects and phenomena, etc. It follows that the encyclopaedic dictionaries will never enter items like father, go, that, be, if, black, but only those of denotative character, such as names for substances, diseases, plants and animals, institutions, terms of science, some important events in history and also geographical and biographical entries.

The so-called subject dictionaries of academic reference take a middle position between dictionaries proper and encyclopaedias because, on the one hand, they cover particular disciplines and their entries deal with theories, issues, and methods within those disciplines, while on the other – they provide a whole range of terms (or names) introducing the reader to the vocabulary of the specialised field in question. For example, A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms, edited by R. Fowler, includes traditional terms of literary criticism which can be used to describe the central preoccupations of contemporary critical thinking.

As distinct from an encyclopaedia, a dictionary presents a systematic description of the vocabulary of a given language highlighting the special features of lexical items: their orthography, pronunciation, etymology, grammar as well as semantic and pragmatic characteristics. All these aspects of representation are discoverable in dictionaries where words (or names, and not things), their differences and similarities, become a priority. For example, a dictionary distinguishes between neutral and stylistically coloured (emotive) vocabulary and uses a special set of labels indicating the stylistic values of words: archaic, colloquial, dated, derogatory, euphemistic, slang, formal, literary, jocular etc. These are distinctions that are made within language vocabulary. They are crucial for the functioning of lexical items, such as die and kick the bucket; marry and join in holy matrimony, although within each pair they denote the same referent.

Although some of the items included in encyclopaedic and linguistic dictionaries coincide, such as the names of some diseases, the information presented in them is altogether different. The former give much more extensive information on these subjects. For example, the entry influenza in a linguistic dictionary presents the word’s spelling and pronunciation, grammar characteristics, synonyms, etc. In an encyclopaedia the entry influenza discloses the causes, symptoms, characteristics and varieties of this disease, various treatments of and remedies for it, ways of infection, etc. When the emphasis is on linguistic aspects of lexical items rather than on what they actually refer to in the outer world, there is every reason to believe that it is a dictionary and not an encyclopaedia one is dealing with.

As concept and word-meaning are closely bound up the encyclopaedic and linguistic dictionaries often overlap. Encyclopaedias sometimes indicate the origin of the word, which belongs to the domain of linguistics. On the other hand, there are elements of encyclopaedic character in many linguistic dictionaries. Some of these are unavoidable. With terms, for instance, a lexicographic definition of meaning will not differ greatly from a short logical definition of the respective concept in encyclopaedic dictionaries. Some dictionary-compilers include in their word-lists such elements of purely encyclopaedic nature as names of famous people together with their birth and death dates or the names of major cities and towns, giving not only their correct spelling and pronunciation, but also a brief description of their population, location, etc.

For practical purposes it is important to know that American dictionaries are characterised by encyclopaedic inclusion of scientific, technical, geographical and bibliographical items whereas it is common practice with British lexicographers to exclude from their dictionaries information of this kind to devote maximum space to the linguistic properties of words.

It may be useful for students of English to know that the most well-known encyclopaedias in English are The Encyclopaedia Britannica (32 volumes, 65,000 articles) and The Encyclopedia Americana (30 volumes, 45,000 articles). Besides the general encyclopaedic dictionaries there are reference books that are confined to definite fields of knowledge. There are also numerous dictionaries presenting information about notable persons (scientists, writers, kings, presidents, etc.) often called Who’s Who dictionaries.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-15