LEXICOGRAPHY

When students travel, they don’t carry

grammar books, they carry dictionaries.

Professor Stephen Krashen

British Council Conference,

Milan, 1987

LEXICOGRAPHY

Branch of applied linguistics which deals with the theory and practice of making dictionaries

OBJECTIVES

To demonstrate the importance of the use of the dictionary in the foreign language classroom

To develop strategies to get the most out of dictionaries and use them in the most effective way

TERMS USED IN DICTIONARIES

• headword
• entry
• definition
• symbol
• abbreviation

CLASSIFICATION OF DICTIONARIES

According to the treatment of the word as speech material or not

Linguistic

Encyclopedic

Linguistic dictionaries

Language or languages in which definitions are given

Unilingual or monolingual bilingual multilingual

Coverage of the vocabulary

• General or Special

PROSPECTIVE USER

General Use Dictionaries

Ordinary Academic Dictionaries

Learner’s Dictionaries

Learner’s Dictionary

Limited Word List

Prescriptive normative character

Compilation with native linguistic background in view

WHAT DOES KNOWING A WORD IMPLY?

1. spelling _____________ written form

2. pronunciation_________ spoken form

3. grammatical information ___ word class /

3.1 inflections

4. etymology______language/s it comes from

5. meaning_______ semantic relations

5.1 intralexematic relations__ polysemy

5.2 interlexematic relations__ homonymy, synonymy

5.2.1 antonymy, hyponymy

6. Collocations

6.1 free phrases
6.2 set phrases

7. Usage

7.1 regional

7.2 social

8. Frequency

9. Morphological combinations _word-forming processes

CONTROVERSIAL PROBLEMS LEXICOGRAPHERS FACE

• Coverage - Selection of headwords
• Arrangement of entries
• Selection and arrangement of meanings
• Definition of meanings

• By means of encyclopedic definitions
• By means of descriptive definitions
• With the help of synonyms and/or expressions
• By means of cross reference

Illustrative examples

OALD - Oxford Advanced

Learner’s Dictionary

LDOCE - Longman Dictionary of

Contemporary English

Look up the following words

Alone

Alpaca

Alphabet

Nouveau rich

Thing

Mention the information given in each entry

Compare and contrast the information given in OALD and LDOCE