40Types of English dictionaries. The main problems of dictionary compiling.

Lexicography is the science and practice of compiling dictionaries and describing them.All dictionaries are traditionally divided into encyclopedic and linguistic dictionaries.Encyclopedic dictionaries are thing book, the deal with concept reflecting different objects and phenomena, their relationships and so on.

Linguistic dictionaries are word-books. they list word of the language and give other linguistic facts. Besides these two types now there exists the so-called cultural dictionaries. They combine their information of two types both encyclopedic and linguistic dictionaries.Linguistic dictionaries can be uni-lingual or explanatory and by-lingual or translation.In the first one explanations are given in one language and the second one in a different/other language.

Dictionaries are also divided diachronic and synchronic.

The diachronic shows the history of the word and reflects its development up to the present moment.One of the most famous dictionaries is the OED 13 volumes.

Synchronic dictionaries are disrupted dictionary. They show either the present day meaning and usage of words or those meaning which the words had at a certain historical period.

There are general and special dictionaries. General represent the vocabulary as a whole. Special dictionaries cover a specific part of the vocabulary; There are synonyms and antonyms, dictionaries of neologism and slang, pronouncing and so on.

There are glossaries and concordances. Glossaries explain term or difficult words, may be archaism, different branches of knowledge.Concordances record the complete vocabulary of some author. EG: there are concordances to the works of W. Shakespeare.

And finally there are ideographic dictionaries and thesaurus. These dictionary group words according to the concepts expressed. They supply a word or words by which a given idea may be expressed.

The main problems of dictionary compiling It divided into two problem: that of the number of the words, and that of the list of words to be included in a dictionary. As for the number of words there exist dictionaries of different volumes, EG: there are pocket dictionaries with 25 or less thousand words. Among the largest dictionaries there is Webster’s dictionary, it include about 600000 words.

The volume of the dictionary and the list of the words depend on the type of dictionary and its aim. Hornsby’s dictionary student includes about 100000 words, among which there are no words used by Shakespeare.

On the contrary the OED does include such words, used by W. Shak. for specialist. The problem of the choice of words is connected with the problem of the norm of the language it may be included into a dictionary.

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