10.1.2 Linguistic Dictionaries

A linguistic dictionary is a published list of the words of a language, which is “a representation of part of the lexicon of a language for a certain purpose” (Lehman, n.d.). The entries of a dictionary are usually arranged in alphabetical order. Derivatives and compounds are given under the same head-word. Linguistic dictionaries may be divided into general-purpose and specialist dictionaries (some use the term specialized). General-purpose dictionaries are intended to contain all the lexicographic information that users might want to look up while specialist dictionaries contain information not covered or not adequately covered by general- purpose dictionaries (Jackson, 1988, p. 159).

General-purpose Dictionaries

In a general-purpose dictionary, the entries are listed in an alphabetical order, and they provide “a comprehensive coverage of the vocabulary within the limits of its size” (Jackson, 1988, p.159). It is designed within the tradition of regular dictionary compilation that defines the information about lexemes such as definition of a lexeme, pronunciation, irregular inflections, word-class indication, etymology, stylistic and dialectal restrictions, and fields of usage.

General-purpose dictionaries come in different sizes. The largest dictionaries are ‘desk dictionaries’ such as Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, the Collins English Dictionary (CED), the Longman Dictionary of the English Language, and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Next in size are ‘concise’ dictionaries such as the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, the New Collins Concise English Dictionary, and the Longman Concise English Dictionary. Next come the smallest dictionaries; they are usually ‘pocket’ or ‘compact’ dictionaries such as the Pocket Oxford English Dictionary, Webster’s New Pocket Dictionary, the Pocket Oxford American Dictionary, Meriam Webster’s Pocket Dictionary, the Collins Pocket English Dictionary, and the Longman English Compact Dictionary.

General-purpose dictionaries can be monolingual, bilingual and multilingual. For dictionaries in which the words and their definition belong to the same language, the term unilingual or explanatory is used, whereas multilingual, bilingual or translation dictionaries explain words by giving their equivalents in another or other languages (Arnold, 1986, p.272). A bilingual or multilingual dictionary is used by several kinds of people: those who study foreign languages and specialists reading foreign literature. Such dictionaries may have two different principal purposes: reference for translation and guidance for expression. These dictionaries must provide an adequate translation in the target language or languages of every word and expression in the source language. Also, they should contain all the inflectional, derivational, semantic, and syntactic information that the reader may need, and include information on spelling and pronunciation. Data on levels of usage are also considered necessary, including special notification about a word’s style of usage, e.g., poetic, archaic, or slang. The number of general-purpose bilingual dictionaries is increasing.

Specialist Dictionaries

There are also dictionaries that concentrate their attention upon only one of these aspects: pronunciation (phonetical dictionaries), origin (etymological dictionaries), and meaning (dictionaries of idioms, dictionaries of homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms). In addition, dictionaries may give information not only about the words themselves but also about their referents. So, dictionaries may give a word’s referential meaning. They may also give notional meaning when they define a word by synonyms, antonyms, or longer expressions such as phraseological units. Larger dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary give illustrative quotations, which is a way of providing distributional meaning.

One of the types of specialist dictionaries is a learner’s dictionary which is intended for foreign learners. The monolingual learner’s dictionary provides detailed information about the pronunciation, definition, and usage illustrated in examples, which may be covered in bilingual dictionaries, but not in a systematized fashion. The idea of a learner’s dictionary is that a foreign language learner will advance from a bilingual dictionary to a monolingual learner’s dictionary as he or she becomes more proficient in his or her target language. The most popular learners’ dictionaries are the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (3rd edition, 2008), the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary (5th edition, 2006), the Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary (6th edition, 2009), the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD) (7th edition, 2005), and Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (2008)

10.1.3 Non-alphabetical Dictionaries

The concept of semantic fields suggests that there are other approaches to lexicography besides the alphabetical ordering of lexemes. The most successful attempt in this regard was made by Peter Mark Roget to group vocabulary by lexical fields which resulted in compilation of Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. In a thesaurus, lexemes are grouped thematically. Only one form of a word is entered in the alphabetical word list. One will find synonyms of this lexeme; they are the entries printed in small capitals under a listed lexeme. Synonyms are stylistically labeled, e.g. colloq (colloquial), slang, dial (dialect), etc. It also provides corresponding nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The following entry illustrates the arrangement in a thesaurus ((Roget’s College Thesaurus, 1978, p. 235):