1.Lexicography: historical development, problems of dictionary making; main types of dictionaries.

Lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. It focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of general dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that provide a description of the language in general use. Such a dictionary is usually called a general dictionary or LGP dictionary. Specialized lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialized dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that are devoted to a (relatively restricted) set of linguistic and factual elements of one or more specialist subject fields, e.g. legal lexicography. Such a dictionary is usually called a specialized dictionary or LSP dictionary.

The history of compiling dictionaries for English comes as far back as The Old English period, where we can find glosses of religious books. Regular bilingual dictionaries began to appear in the 15^th century. These dictionaries were Anglo-Latin, Anglo-German, Anglo-French. The first true English dictionary was Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabetical of 1604, although it only included 3,000 words and the definitions it contained were little more than synonyms. The first one to be at all comprehensive was Thomas Blount's dictionary Glossographia of 1656. In 1721 an English scientist and writer Nathaniel Bailey published the 1^st etymological dictionary which explained the origin of English words. In 1755 an English scientist Samuel Johnson compiled a famous explanatory dictionary which was called A Dictionary of the English language. Over a seven-year period, Johnson wrote the definitions of 40,000 words, illustrating their use from the best authors since the time of the Elizabethans. Further by and by dictionaries became more practical (simple words dictionary – etymological – synonymous – several meanings of one word – number of meanings of the words).

There are two directions of dictionary compiling: Webster (USA), and Oxford (England).

Dictionary is a list of words with their definitions, a list of characters, or a list of words with corresponding words in other languages. Many dictionaries also provide pronunciation information; grammatical information; word derivations, histories, or etymologies; illustrations; usage guidance; and examples in phrases or sentences. Dictionaries are most commonly found in the form of a book, but more and more dictionaries are produced as software runs from electronic PDA or a general purpose computer.

Since words and their meanings develop over time, dictionary entries are organized to reflect these changes. Dictionaries may either list meanings in the historical order in which they appeared, or may list meanings in order of popularity and most common use.

Dictionaries also differ in the degree to which they are encyclopedic, providing considerable background information, illustrations, and the like, or linguistic, concentrating on etymology, nuances of meaning, and quotations demonstrating usage.

Any dictionary has been designed to fulfill one or more functions. The dictionary functions chosen by the maker(s) of the dictionary provide the basis for all lexicographic decisions, from the selection of entry words, over the choice of information types, to the choice of place for the information (e.g. in an article or in an appendix). There are two main types of function. The communication-oriented functions comprise text reception (understanding), text production, text revision, and translation. The knowledge-oriented functions deal with situations where the dictionary is used for acquiring specific knowledge about a particular matter, and for acquiring general knowledge about something. The optimal dictionary is one that contains information directly relevant for the needs of the users relating to one or more of these functions. It is important that the information is presented in a way that keeps the lexicographic information costs at a minimum.

Types of dictionaries: All dictionaries are divided into linguistic and encyclopedic. Encyclopedic dictionaries describe different objects, phenomena and people and give some information about them. Linguistic dictionaries describe vocabulary units, their semantic structure, their origin and their usage; words are usually given in the alphabetical order.

Linguistic dictionaries are divided into general and specialized dictionaries. General dictionaries include explanatory (monolingual) and translation (bilingual) dictionaries. In explanatory (monolingual) dictionaries the entry consists of the spelling, transcription, grammatical forms, meanings, examples, phraseology. Translation (bilingual) dictionaries give words and their equivalents in the other language. Specialized dictionaries include dictionaries of synonyms, antonyms, collocations, word frequency, slang, neologisms; etymological, pronouncing, phraseological and other dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries (also technical dictionaries) focus on linguistic and factual matters relating to specific subject fields. Phraseological dictionaries describe idioms, colloquial phrases and proverbs. Some of them have examples from literature. Etymological dictionaries trace present-day words to the oldest forms of these words and forms of these words in other languages. Pronouncing dictionaries record only pronunciation. Dictionaries of neologisms contain newly appearing words.

Problems of dictionary making: 1. collection of words, 2. arranging of words (and entries) in a dictionary, 3. choosing definitions to the words – they must be concrete and understandable, 4. giving examples 5. giving additional information to the word, it depends on the aim of the dictionary.

How to choose a dictionary: 1. number of words 2. pay attention to entries 3. pay attention to references. 4. what type of dictionary do you need; translational or explanatory, etc.

Task:

Comment on the origin of the underlined words.

1. Once upon a time a knight(Old English cniht servant ; related to Old High German kneht boy) in armour (from Old French armure, from Latin armātūra armour , equipment) was watching along the bank of a river with his lady. She saw some flowers growing at the edge of the water and asked him to pick them for her. As the knight stretched out his hand for them, he slipped and fell into the river. Wearing heavy armour, he was unable to swim and was carried away down streams but not before he had thrown the flowers onto the bank for her. Forget-me-not! (translating the Old French name Nem’oubliez Mye, said to have a virtue of insuring that the wearer of the flower would never be forgotten a lover). He cried as he drifted away. The maiden never forgot him and called the flower Forget-me-not in his memory.

The Forget-me-not gets its botanical name Myosotis scorpioides (New Latin from Greek muosōtis mouse-ear (referring to its furry leaves), from muos , genitive of mus mouse + -ōt- , stem of ous ear) from the idea that the leaves resemble the ears of nice; all the plants of this family are known as Seorpion Grass because their clusters of flowers curl upwards like the tail of a scorpion.