Реферат: Lexicography as a science of dictionary-making
The Johnsonian Method.
This page illustrates several features of the approach Johnson outlines in his Preface:
1. Most of the definitions are appropriate and consistent between entries;
2. He plays special attention to the different senses of a word – five, in the case of eternal;
3. There’s a copious use of quotations to support a definition – 116,000 in all;
4. He routinely identifies parts of speech;
5. He shows the most strongly stressed syllable in a headword by an accent;
6. There’s an openness of approach;
7. He includes topical explanations of some words;
8. A wide range of ordinary words are included alongside technical terms;
9. It includes, in the «hard-words» tradition, many cumbersome Latinate forms, such as cubicula, estuation, whose status within English was doubtful;
10. His creations are highly selective, chosen more for their literary or moral value than for their linguistic clarity;
11. Several of his definitions use difficult words, such as reciprocates in estuary;
12. Several of his definitions have become famous for their subjectivity.
Some Johnsonian Definitions.
There’re not many truly idiosyncratic definitions in the Dictionary, but some have become famous.
LEXICOGRAPHER – a writer of dictionary, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.
EXCISE – a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
OATS – a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
PATRON – one, who countenances, supports or protects.
PENSION – an allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it’s generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
His definitions sometimes got him into trouble. He was threatened with libel over excise, and much lampooned over pension.
So Johnson’s Dictionary was the first attempt at a truly principled lexicography. It portrayed the complexity of the lexicon and of English usage more accurately than ever before; and his quotations initiated a practice which has informed English dictionaries ever since. The dictionary influenced normalization of the English vocabulary but at the same time it helped to preserve the English spelling in its conservative form.
In 1857 the Philological Society of Great Britain, noting the inadequacies of the English dictionaries then available, adopted the decision to compile a dictionary including all the words existing in the language from Anglo-Saxon times.
Twenty six years later in 1884 the first volume was published; it contained words ginning with A and B. The editor of this dictionary was James A. H. Murray. The aim was to produce a 4-volume work in a period of 10 years; but after 5 years, Murray and his colleagues had managed to complete only the section A-ANT; it was 352 pages, and sold for 62 ½ p in modern money. It was evident that the dictionary was a much greater work than had been envisaged. Additional editors were appointed and the last volume was published in 1928, the dictionary was called NED (New English Dictionary). It contained 12 volumes, comprising 15,487 pages and covering 414,825 lexical items.
In 1933 the dictionary was republished under the title «The Oxford English Dictionary» because the work on this dictionary was conducted at Oxford. The dictionary contained 13 volumes. Work on the dictionary recommended in1957, with the appointment of R.W. Burchfield to edit a new supplement. This appeared in 4 volumes between 1972 and 1986, and included the content of the 1933 work: it added 5,732 pages to the dictionary, and nearly 70,000 further lexical items.
As it was large and very expensive scientists continued their work and made shorter editions of the dictionary. The shorter Oxford dictionary contained the same number of entries but far less examples from literature. They also compiled a Concise Oxford Dictionary. It contained only one volume and no examples at all.
American lexicography began to develop much later at the end of the 18th century. The most famous American dictionary was compiled by Noah Webster. In 1828 he published a two volume dictionary (70,000 words), which was called American Dictionary of the English language. He tried to simplify English spelling and transcription. The work greatly improved the coverage of scientific and technical terms, as well as terms to do with American culture and institutions and added a great deal of encyclopedic information. A new feature was the introduction of Webster’s own etymologies – though the speculative nature of many of these was an early source of unwelcome criticism. The spellings were somewhat more conservative than those used in the 1806 book. Its pronunciations were generally provincial in character – those of Webster’s own New England. The label «American» in the title is more a reflection of the works of American authors referred to than of its uniquely American lexicon. Indeed, at one point Webster observed that «there were not 50 words in all which were used in America and not in England». On the other hand, nearly half of the words he did include are not to be found in Johnson’s Dictionary, which added considerable force to his claim that he was giving lexicography a fresh direction.
Despite its weaknesses and its critics, the American Dictionary made Webster a household name in the USA. It was fiercely attacked in Britain for its Americanism especially in matters of spelling and usage; but the work was crucial in giving to US English an identity and status comparable to that given to the British English lexicon by Dr Johnson.