Classification of linguistic dictionaries

 

1. One of the basic criteria for classifying linguistic dictionaries is the number of lexical items they include. A linguistic dictionary may be u n a b r i d g e d, the most complete of its type, and a b r i d g e d.

 

One may think that the bigger the dictionary is the better vocabulary is presented there. This may be true but it is simplification of the problem of lexicon.

 

The most complete, unabridged general dictionaries, like Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language and the Oxford English Dictionary include about half of a million (500, 000) entry words. But even they do not include all the lexical units in the language. Scientific, technical terms and many other specialized lexical units are left out and delegated to special dictionaries.

 

The number of lexical items in other dictionaries is usually less numerous. A dictionary for kindergartens like The Oxford Picture Dictionary for Kids may include about 700 words, which are actually labels for pictures. A second-grader may need a dictionary with about 3, 500 entries. Pocket English dictionaries may include over 12, 000 words, like the Longman New Pocket English Dictionary.

 

2. Depending on the nature of the included lexical items linguistic dictionaries may be divided into g e n e r a l and r e s t r i c t e d. General dictionaries include words from different spheres of life. Restricted linguistic dictionaries are limited to some special branch of knowledge like medicine, business, chemistry, or to some special kinds of lexical units, such as dialectal words, foreign words, neologisms, obsolete and archaic words, or phraseological verbs and idioms, for example, Dictionary of American Slang by Richard A. Spears, The Basic Words by C.K.Ogden, American Dialect Dictionary by H. Wentworth, the Oxford Dictionary of Computing for Learners of English, or the Oxford Dictionary of Business English for Learners of English.

 

As mentioned above, there are numerous dictionaries of the same type compiled and published by different people and different companies. For example, some well-known dictionaries by different companies are restricted to English idioms as Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms (by A.P. Cowie, R. Mackin, I.R. McCraig) with 7, 000 references, Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms with 7, 000 references, Longman Idioms Dictionary (by Addison Wesley/Longman) with 5, 000 references, Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms with 4000 references, Chambers Dictionary of Idioms, and Penguin Dictionary of English Idioms. They differ not only in the number and character of idioms included in the dictionary but also in the manner of their presentation, interpretation, and some of them include exercises aiding assimilation and correct usage.

 

3. Depending on the linguistic information they provide all dictionaries may be s p e c i a l i z e d or n o n - s p e c i a l i z e d. Specialized dictionaries may specialize in phonetic information, like English Pronouncing Dictionary by Daniel Jones, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary by J.C. Wells, or in etymological data, for example, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology by C.T. Onions, in usage as does Longman Guide to English Usage by J. Whitcut and S. Greenbaum, in frequency as the General Service List of English Words by M.A. West, in word collocations like The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English by Morton Benson, Evelyn Benson and Robert Ilson, or The LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations, where, for example, the section ‘Noun’ gives about 50, 000 collocations for 2, 000 most essential nouns. Dictionaries also may specialize in semantic relations of words as A WordNet Electronic Database which includes word nodes and indicates their synonymic, antonymic, hyponymic, meronymic, taxonymic and other relations.

4. Depending on the number of languages used in the entries, a linguistic dictionary may be m o n o l i n g u a l, b i l i n g u a l and p o l y l i n g u a l. Monolingual dictionaries are usually e x p l a n a t o r y, while bilingual and polylingual are normally t r a n s l a t i o n dictionaries. Yet, this correlation is not strict. Some of the monolingual specialized dictionaries, like Roget’s Thesaurus are not explanatory at all, and some bilingual dictionaries, like Англо-русский фразеологический словарь by A.V. Kunin , can hardly be called just translation dictionaries because they provide many different explications for lexical units.

5. Depending on the time period embraced as well as the character of treatment of lexical items, dictionaries are divided into s y n c h r o n i c – including the words of a certain language period, mainly modern English, like The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon by H.Sweet, and d i a c h r o n i c, or historical dictionaries that register chronological development of a word over time (the Oxford English Dictionary and its shorter two-volume version the ShorterOxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles ).

 

6. Dictionaries are also classified according to the prospective user (a teacher, a lawyer, an adult, a child, or a person with poor vision). For example, the Longman Business English Dictionary is for students and people working in business. It includes 13, 000 entries covering terms in accounting, marketing, finance and other fields. The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics is written for students and teachers of linguistics and language teaching.

 

 

There is a special type of dictionaries for learners of English as a foreign language that is usually referred to as learners’ type of English dictionaries.

 

These dictionaries are typically linguisticdictionaries that cater to the needs of foreign language learners’ of different age, interest and level of language proficiency.

 

Linguistic dictionaries of learners’ type vary in number of words, information about them, the manner in which this information is presented. But all of them are noteworthy for the thorougness of their entries, explicit pronunciation, carefully chosen examples of usage, and abundance of pictorial illustrations.

 

Here are some m o n o l i n g u a l dictionaries of this type, listed according to the learner’s proficiency level:

Elementary to intermediate:

The Oxford Basic English Dictionary (11, 000 words and phrases) and the Oxford Elementary Learner’s Dictionary (15, 000 references)have easy explanations of meaning and use, include guides to grammar forms and provide vocabulary-building notes.

The topical Oxford English Picture Dictionary for beginners to intermediate by E.C.Parnwell explains over 2, 000 words (mainly nouns).

The Longman Elementary Dictionary gives the meaning of 2, 000 basic English words. It is aimed at young learners and is richly illustrated.

 

Intermediate:

The Oxford Wordpower Dictionary has 30, 000 references. It is designed to help students make the breakthrough from a basic survival vocabulary to greater fluency. It pays special attention to vocabulary-learning skills and includes a study section that presents techniques for learning and recording new words.

 

The Longman Active Study Dictionary has over 45, 000 references with clear definitions based on the 2, 000-word Longman Defining Vocabulary. It also has corpus-based examples of usage, vocabulary practice exercises, and usage notes to help students to avoid common errors.

 

Intermediate to advanced:

The Oxford Learner’s Wordfinder Dictionary is designed to enrich and expand learners’ vocabularies. It includes over 600 entries that group vocabulary around keyword concepts. It also has extensive coverage of synonyms, opposites, derived words and common phrases.

 

The Longman Essential Activator, like many other Longman dictionaries, has extra information to help students avoid making common mistakes registered in Longman Learner’s Corpus.

 

Upper-intermediate to advanced (proficient):

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary by A.S. Hornby is the world’s leading dictionary for learners of English. It includes 63, 000 references, 90, 000 examples, 11, 600 idioms and phrasal verbs. The vocabulary used for definitions includes 3, 500 carefully chosen words. The sixth edition is available both in a book and CD-ROM format.

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English is of the same type. In addition to the types of information presented the dictionary by A.S. Hornby it also lists 3, 000 most frequently written and spoken words. Definitions in this dictionary are easily understood because only 2, 000 words make up its defining vocabulary. More than 25, 000 fixed phrases and collocations are included. The dictionary is based on language databases of six corpora, including the British National Corpus (Written and Spoken) and the Longman American Corpus (Written and Spoken), so it has the most up-to-date coverage of English.

Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English by Tom McArthur includes a detailed and well-grounded taxonomy of semantic fields, clearly worked out definitions and an alphabetical index. It is both an explanatory dictionary and a thesaurus.

The Longman Language Activator is especially good for self-study and preparing for an examination like the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English. It takes students from a key word through words and phrases they may need to express themselves accurately and appropriately in every situation.

 

B i l i n g u a l and P o l y l i n g u a l Learners’ Dictionaries

Bilingual dictionaries are in special demand among beginning foreign language learners.

 

The most important and widely used English-Russian dictionaries in the CIS countries are Англо-русский словарь by V.K. Muller, which includes about 70, 000 references, Большой англо-русский словарь in two volumes (edited under the direction of I.R. Galperin and E.M. Mednikova) with 160, 000 references.

 

The recent English-Russian bilingual dictionary under the editorship of Y.D. Apresyan Новый большой англо-русский словарь (1997, second edition) includes more than 250, 000 references. It pays special attention to finding ways of rendering semantic equivalence between two correlative naming units in English and Russian.

 

Making the list of complete and reliable Russian-English dictionaries one should mention, first of all, the Русско-английский словарь with 50, 000 words compiled under the general direction of A.I. Smirnitsky, edited by O.S. Akhmanova.

 

A new generation of bilingual dictionaries tries to combine accurate and up-to-date translations with the features of a monolingual learners’ dictionary. The necessity of such a combination was pointed out by the Soviet linguist L.V. Shcherba as long ago as the 40’s /Щерба 1958: 88/. The major emphasis in these dictionaries is placed now not just on correct understanding of English words but also on learning how to use them. Carefully chosen words are backed up by corpus-based examples, pronunciation and illustrations. Notes in the user’s own language help explain the grammar, usage, and vocabulary. There are also cultural notes, study pages and appendices on areas of particular interest to different groups of students.

 

A polylingual learners’ dictionary Pocket English-Belarusian-Russian Dictionary ( Кiшэнны англа-беларуска-рускi слоý нiк ) is compiled and edited by T.N. Susha and A.K. Shchuka at Minsk State Linguistic University and published by Vysheyshaya Shkola in 1995. It includes 10, 000 English naming units (words, collocations, phrasal verbs and idioms) and their equivalents in Belarusian and Russian as well as a list of geographical names, most common abbreviations and some extralinguistic information.

 

There are a number of electronic bilingual dictionaries. The Abbyy Lingvo 6.0 is useful for any foreign language learner and especially professionals as it is rather a system of 14 dictionaries. One of its LingvoUniversal (English-Russian Dictionary) includes 100, 000 entries, the other LingvoUniversal (Russian-English Dictionary) includes 70, 000 entries. The rest are specialized dictionaries in business English, management, polytechnical terms, and oil and gas refinement terminology. It also provides a sound track for 5, 000 most frequently used English words.

 

Besides purely linguistic dictionaries there are many encyclopedias for English learners that combine encyclopedic and linguistic information, like the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary with 93, 000 references, among them 4, 650 entries on people, institutions, literature, and art, 94 feature articles on British and American life, special notes on literary and cultural connotations, or the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture with 80, 000 words and phrases and over 15, 000 cultural references.

 

 

Further reading:

Ступин. Л.П. Словари современного английского языка. – Ленинград: Изд-во Ленинградского университета, 1973.

Суша Т.Н. Лингвистические основы лексикографии/На англ. языке – Mинск: МГЛУ, 1999.

Щерба Л.В. Опыт общей теории лексикографии//Избранные работы акад. Л.В. Щербы, т.1. – Ленинград: Изд-во Ленинградского ун-та, 1958.

Burchfield, Robert. The English Language. – Oxford, New York: OUP, 1985.

Hartmann, R.R.K. (ed.). Lexicography: principles and practice. – London: Academic press, 1983.

Kraske, Robert. The Story of the Dictionary. – N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.

WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database (Ed. by Christian Fellbaum). – Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998.

 

Chapter 10. THE MENTAL LEXICON
AND THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

 

“When we survey the variety of conceptual structures that the English language expresses we see that they are far too heterogeneous to submit to any simple formula. No single blueprint can adequately characterize the internal structure of every semantic field; the architecture of the lexicon is at least as diverse as the architecture of houses, skyscrapers, bridges, gardens. If we wish to discover generalizations about semantic structures, the best place to look would be in the ways lexical concepts can be put together rather than in the shapes of the finished products”.

George Miller and Philip N. Johnson-Laird, Language and Perception, 1976: 271.

 

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