Lexicography. Lexicography is traditionally defined as the art and science of dictionary – making (compiling)

Historical outline

Lexicography is traditionally defined as the art and science of dictionary – making (compiling). Lexicographers aim at a systematic description of the word’s semantic structure, its different meanings. It is no easy matter to bring together contexts within a dictionary matter which have existed there for a long time and contexts which appeared quite recently and which reflect numerous changes taking place in extralinguistic reality.

It goes without saying that to keep dictionaries up-to-date is extremely difficult because there is a considerable time-lag between the process of collecting data and dictionary-compiling and the process of the publication of a dictionary.

English lexicography has very rich traditions and a long history. The forerunners of modern dictionaries appeared long ago in medieval England as the work of nameless scholars who wrote in the margins of Latin manuscripts English equivalents for some difficult Latin words. These were collected into lists called glosses. Then several glosses were combined into a book called a glossarium which may be called a short Latin-English or English-Latin dictionary of selected words. The first English-Latin dictionary was printed in England in 1440. It had a Latin title “Promptorium Parvolorum” which means “A Storehouse for Young Boys”. At that time Latin was the international language of scholars, of church and the most important institutions of the Middle Ages.

As international connections of England grew stronger and foreign trades became important to the country, Latin began to lose ground and in the XVIth century appeared English-Italian, English-French and other dictionaries.

The first “real” English dictionaries appeared in the XVII th century. They defined English words in terms of other English words. The authors of such dictionaries concentrated on the so-called “hard words” which people were not likely to know and which were coming into the language at that time in large quantities.

The definitions in such dictionaries were too short to be of any value and sometimes the information given about many words was wrong. Among the first English dictionaries published at that time were Robert Cawdrey’s “Table Alphabetical of Hard Words” (1604), John Bullockkar’s “An English Expositor” (1616), Henry Cockeram’s “The English Dictionary” (1623). Cockeram’s book was the first in English to use the word “dictionary” in the title. In one of such early dictionaries, Elisha Coles’s “An English Dictionary” (1676) you can find even a special section of jargon words of the criminal underworld. But upon the whole the English society was uncomfortably aware of the backwardness in the study of their own tongue. The air was full of schemes for improving the English language and giving it greater prestige.

Great English writers: Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Edward Pope and others made proposals for establishing authorative standards which could stop language change and fix it in its present “pure” form forever. The time was ripe for a great literary figure to undertake the task of compiling a dictionary comparable to the best European academic dictionaries.

It was Dr. Samuel Johnson, a critic and essayist considered by most of the artists and writers of his time to be the best judge and authority in matters of taste. He undertook the task and his “plan of a Dictionary of the English language” was published in 1747.

When he first conceived the idea of making a standard dictionary, Johnson estimated that he could complete the task within three years. In 1755, eight years after he had signed the contract with his book-sellers, Johnson’s dictionary was published in two volumes. It contained about 40.000 entries. As a starting point he used Bailey’s dictionary because all dictionaries are built upon other dictionaries.

For nearly one hundred years after its publication Johnson’s dictionary was the dictionary in England and in America. Although it was not the dictionary in the world both as well as in France and Italy published by academies of scholars, this was the best dictionary created by a single man. Its numerous merits may be described as follows: it was the most comprehensive dictionary of English with extensive etymologies, complete and clear definitions, followed by quotations from reputable authors illustrating the use of a word, adding important dimensions to definitions. Various senses of meanings of the same word were numbered and distinguished.

Of course, Johnson’s dictionary was by no means perfect; some of the definitions were difficult to understand and he allowed personal remarks to creep into supplementary notes:

job (a low word now much in use of which I cannot tell the etymology) …petty, piddling work; a piece of chance work.

spick and span (This word I should not have expected to have found authotized by a polite writer … a low word). Quite new. Now first used.

Johnson’s dictionary contained a number of words inherited from early dictionaries. Thus he described the act of taking off shoes as “discalceation”. The XVIII th century wanted more than definition; it wanted a standard and Johnson tried to supply it. He wanted to stop the degradation of the language from a state of excellence which it had reached in earlier times. Johnson hoped that with the authority of the standard dictionary as a guide the language might be stabilized, as he said: “the dictionary might fix our language and put a stop to those alterations which spoilt it”.

But by the time he had finished writing his two volumes he was already convinced that the natural course of language change cannot be stopped.

The reception of Johnson’s DICTIONARY by his contemporaries was mixed. It was said to have too many quotations, sometimes from writers “of no authority”, its etymologies were attacked and even ridiculed; Johnson was criticized for not including more specialized terms of art and commerce and for including too many artificial or purely literary words.

But upon the whole the DICTIONARY was praised and his definitions were admired, his choice of illustrative quotations was accepted as major advances in the practice of lexicography. In fact, Johnson grandly fulfilled the expectations of the literary English establishment. For well over a century it remained the most authoritative dictionary of English.

Time seems to have challenged Johnson’s view of linguistic change. Language continues to go its merry way: words die, new ones are born, “barbarities” flourish, usage changes.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11