1、Lecture NineEnglish DictionariesDictionaries are very helpful in our daily life.A dictionary is commonly used as a reference work,consulted only on special occasions to find specific information.The words in a dictionary are usually arranged alphabetically,although there are exceptions,such as the t
2、hesaurus(usually a dictionary of synonyms,which may be arranged by meaning).Organization of the EntryFor each lexical item,an entry usually contains four main types of information about the item:(a)its underlying phonological representation,(b)the possible sequences of morphemes into which it enters
3、,(c)its syntactic properties(such as noun,verb,and so on)and(d)its semantic representation.Dictionary entries often consist of six parts:(1)the headword or lemma,often in bold or some other special font;(2)its pronunciation,in some form of alphabetic notation;(3)its word class(part of speech);(4)its
4、 etymology(historical origin and derivation);(5)its definition;and(6)examples of its use.Most dictionaries follow this general structure,but there are variations.For example,etymological information may come at the end of the entry rather than near the beginning.Nowadays dictionaries are compiled fo
5、r a wide range of different purposes.Therefore they vary,both in the information they contain and in the way the information is presented.Besides,additional information may be included.HeadwordThe headword is the base form under which the word is entered and assigned its place.The number of headword
6、s in the dictionary depends on the purpose,the audience and the size of the dictionary.This part will,of course,give you its spelling.The information about spelling is a complex matter.There is much variation in the spelling of words.Compounds,like makeweight,make-work,and cold war,may be spelled so
7、lid,hyphenated,or spaced.The dictionary will indicate one common variety,although there may be others.Some words like judgment or judgement have more than one standard spelling.PronunciationThe pronunciation in most dictionaries is indicated by the International Phonetic Alphabet,although some use a
8、 modified one.The pronunciations listed in any dictionary need to be treated with caution because many words can have more than one kind of pronunciation.To know the pronunciation symbols correctly,you will have to read their explanation in the front part of the dictionary.The noun merchandise may e
9、nd in/s/as well as in/z/,and most dictionaries will show that variation.In addition to the consonants and vowels of the word,the pronunciation will show the stress and the syllable division.Grammatical InformationThe grammatical information given by dictionaries is limited to the part of speech for
10、a word and the labels prefix,suffix,or combining form for bound forms like pre-,-er,or tele-.The parts of speech will be one of the primary word classes.Some indication of a subclass may be added,for example count or mass noun,intransitive or transitive verb.Following the label,the inflected forms o
11、f a noun,verb,or adjective are listed if they are in any way irregular or doubtful.The inflected forms commonly listed are the plural of nouns,the past tense and the participles of verbs,and the comparative and superlative of adjectives.In some dictionaries,an irregular form may appear as a separate
12、 headword,with cross reference.Different meanings of a word are closely associated with different lexical and syntactic patterns.Many dictionaries record and exemplify the most important of these patterns.For example,in Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary(1987),most of the grammatical inform
13、ation is given,in an extra column beside the entry,in abbreviated form in capital letters with some symbols such as+and/.Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English(1978)gives more descriptions of the behavior of words in the form of letters and numbers between square brackets.The letters give inform
14、ation about the way a word works in a sentence or about the position it can fill.The numbers give information about the way the rest of a phrase or clause is made up in relation to the word being described.EtymologyEtymology in the dictionary is a statement of the origin of the headword.It may inclu
15、de not only the earliest known form and the language in which this occurs(e.g.Old French)but also cognate forms in other language.In some dictionaries it comes before the definitions,in others,after.In describing etymologies,the dictionary makes use of a number of abbreviations and signs.These vary
16、somewhat from one dictionary to another but include abbreviations of language names like MD for Middle English and special signs like meaning derived from.DefinitionThe heart of a dictionary entry is the definition.The definition takes one or both of two forms:description and synonymy.The descriptio
17、n often uses a sentence but may need to include words that are less frequently used.Some dictionaries limit the vocabulary that they use in their descriptions.For example,all the definitions in Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners(2002)are written using a carefully chose list of under
18、2500 words.These are the most common and basic words in English.They are chosen on the basis of word-frequency information from hundreds of millions of words of English.With synonymy,a word or a set of words of similar meaning is brought in,often giving slightly more specific senses.All the definiti
19、ons are ultimately circular;but compilers try to avoid very small circles,such as defining sad as sorrowful,and then sorrowful as sad.Since most words have more than one meaning,the definitions are usually grouped together in some order.There are usually three kinds of order in which definitions are
20、 presented:historical order,frequency-determined order and logical order.Generally speaking,the introductory part to each dictionary will tell what arrangement its editors have tried to follow.In historical order,the sense known to have been first used in English is entered first.Divisions of subsen
21、ses are also in historical order with respect to one another.The Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster dictionaries arrange their senses according to the dates when each sense first came into English.Logical order begins with the most general meaning and ends with the most specific.Entri
22、es containing more than one sense are arranged with the central and often most commonly sought meanings first.Senses and subsenses are grouped to show their relationships with each other.In frequency-determined order,the meanings which are most frequent or most central come before those that are les
23、s common or more peripheral.Most words have several different but related senses.Dictionaries divide up their definitions into categories,one for each sense.The Oxford English Dictionary divides the senses of the noun work into 23 main categories,with up to seven or eight subcategories under each of
24、 the main ones.The Random House College Dictionary has 13,the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English(new edition)has 15 categories and Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary(seventh edition)has 14.All dictionaries will have similar if not identical categories of sense.But the order in which the sen
25、ses are presented is radically different,and has lead to serious misunderstandings on the part of dictionary users.ExamplesTo supplement the definitions,the dictionaries may use examples containing the headword in question.Examples are often grouped under numbers referring back to definitions or sen
26、ses to show how the word is used in context.They usually illustrate a typical usage.In the past,dictionaries used made-up examples,partly because there was not enough authentic text and partly because there was the assumption that made-up examples could be tailored to the needs of the dictionary ent
27、ry.However,now it is generally recognized that the naturalness provided by authentic examples is the most important in giving an accurate picture of language in use.Related Forms and Usage LabelsIn many entries there are related forms of one kind or another.The entry may include various idioms,phras
28、es or proverbs.For instance,the entry may include idioms using the headword.Derivatives that are formed from the headword and whose meanings are obvious will be listed.Synonyms and antonyms may be listed and distinguished from one another in a short note.Usage labels are often found among the defini
29、tions.They indicate that a words use is restricted in certain ways.Some words or meanings are used mainly by particular groups of people or in particular social contexts.Many definitions in the dictionary will give information about the kind of people who are likely to use a word or expression,and t
30、he type of social situation in which it is used.Style and attitude labels show that a word is most suitable for a particular occasion and can express a particular attitude.Regional labels show that a word is restricted to or characteristic of a particular geographical area,such as Australia,Canada,a
31、nd the United States.Subject labels indicate that a word,or often one meaning of a word,is limited to a special subject matter,such as psychology,chemistry,or linguistics.For example,there are three kinds of labels in Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners(2002).Style and attitude labels
32、 include formal,humorous,impolite,informal,literary,offensive,old-fashioned,spoken,and very formal.Subject labels include business,computer,journalism,legal,linguistics,medical,science,and technical.Regional labels include Br E,Am E,mainly Am E,Australian,Canadian,Caribbean,East African,Indian,Irish
33、,New Zealand,Scottish,South African,Welsh,and West African.IllustrationsDictionaries may include pictorial illustrations.These illustrations provide a visual support for the definition of a word.They can help clarify the semantic description and distinguish the meaning differences among meanings of
34、some words.Oxford ESL English-Chinese Dictionary(2008)contains over 1000 words illustrated for the user to see what they mean.Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary(seventh edition)has 2000 words illustrated.Many are in groups.Supplementary MatterIn addition to the usual vocabulary entries,many diction
35、aries provide a wide variety of supplementary information,either in the body of the work,in special prefatory sections,or in appendixes.Topics that may be covered include abbreviations,punctuation,pronunciation,names of people and places,usage,special signs and symbols,forms of address,irregular ver
36、bs,weights and measures,the history of English,grammar,academic writing,word formation,and so on.No dictionary will include all of these or present them in quite the same way as another dictionary,but if you examine your dictionary carefully,you are likely to be surprised at the amount of informatio
37、n it gives in addition to vocabulary entries.Oxford ESL English-Chinese Dictionary(2008)is rich in supplementary matter.In the body of this dictionary there are 32 study pages on topics of the environment,words that go together,phrasal verbs,word formation,U.S.education system,Canadian education sys
38、tem,U.S.government,Canadian government,writing an essay,interpreting graphs,letter writing,practice for the TOEIC and TOEFL tests,taking notes,writing a resume,and computers.At the end of this dictionary there are appendices of irregular verbs,prefixes and suffixes,punctuation,map of North America,P
39、rovinces and States of Canada and the U.S.,geographical names,key to study pages,and pronunciation.CorporaCorpus work in English began in the 1960s with the development of the Survey of English Usage and the Brown University Corpus.By the 1990s lexicographers could draw on massive resources such as
40、the British National Corpus,the International Corpus of English,and the Bank of English.The dictionary can now be founded on authentic usage in text and talk.In a corpus-based dictionary,every example is taken from real-life discourse.With the help of corpora,the frequency of use can be worked out,a
41、nd the different meanings of a word can be described and classified by inspecting how the word is actually used.The description of English can reliably corresponds to the way people speak and write the language.The use of a large corpus not only allowed the lexicographers to ascertain reliable infor
42、mation about the relative frequency of occurrence of words and senses,but more importantly to obtain data,in the form of concordances,for deciding on the senses and meanings of words.Nowadays corpora have been widely used in dictionary making.The use of the corpus as the primary data source for dict
43、ionaries has become standard practice,and the quality,range,and sheer volume of available corpus resources has increased dramatically.All Collins dictionaries are based on the Bank of English,which now contains over 650 million words of contemporary English.The British National Corpus has formed the backbone of the evidence used in compiling the New Oxford Dictionary of English(1998).
