Graded Assignment 3 - Corpus Linguistics - Lexicography + Reflections

LEXICOGRAPHY

DEFINITION OF THE FIELD

• The editing, compiling, writing, or making of a dictionary.
• The principles and practices of dictionary making.

Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:

•  Practical Lexicography
• Theoretical Lexicography

Practical Lexicography

•  The art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries

Scope of Practical Lexicography

•  Involves several activities, and the compilation of well crafted dictionaries require careful consideration of some of the following aspects:
• Shaping the intended users
• Selecting and organising the components of the dictionary
• Selecting words and affixes for systemisation as entries
• Selecting collocations, phrases and examples 
• Defining words
• Organizing definitions
• Specifying pronunciation of words
• Labelling definitions and pronunciations for register and dialect where appropriate
• Designing the best way in which users can access the data in printed and electronic dictionaries

Theoretical Lexicography

• The scholarly discipline of analyzing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language.
• Developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries. 

Scope of Theoretical Lexicography 

•  Concerns the same aspects as lexicography but is meant to lead to the development of principles that can improve the quality of future dictionaries.
• Several branches of such academic dictionary research are:
• Dictionary criticism - evaluating the quality of one or more dictionaries
• Dictionary history - tracing the traditions of a type dictionary in a particular country or language
• Dictionary typology - classifying the various genres of reference works (eg: monolingual versus bilingual dictionary)
• Dictionary structure - formatting the various ways in which the information is presented in a dictionary
• Dictionary use - observing the reference acts and skills of dictionary users
• Dictionary IT - applying computer aids to the process of dictionary compilation

CORPUS USED IN THE FIELD

• Corpora is used for the production of dictionaries and grammar books. For example: 
• DICTIONARIES

1. Collins Cobuild
2. British National Corpus (BNC)
3. Longman Corpus Network
4. Online Dictionaries

• GRAMMAR BOOKS

1. COBUILD Corpus of Spoken and Written British
2. American and Australian English
3. LOB Corpus of Written British English
4. Kohlapur Corpus of Written Indian English
5. London-Lund Corpus of Spoken British English
6. UTS/Macquarie Corpus of Spoken Australian English 

RELEVANCE OR APPLICATION LANGUAGE RESEARCH

• Corpus Linguistics Printed bilingualised learners' dictionaries, typically include an L2 definition immediately followed by an L1 translation and provide access to both monolingual and bilingual information.
• The corpora that they use to produce the dictionary: HOW THEY DECIDE? current, reliable, user-friendly, more information and relevancy.

SYNOPSIS OF A STUDY DONE IN THE FIELD

[http://ir.uz.ac.zw/jspui/bitstream/10646/27/3/Hadebe_Improving_Dictionary_Skills_in_Ndebele.pdf]

• Topic: "Improving dictionary skills in Ndebele" by Samukele Hadebe, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
• Level: School pupils and Ndebele community
• Purpose: To improve dictionary skills amongst the Ndebele
• Method: Incorporating the teaching of dictionary skills into teacher training
• Tools: Dictionaries
• Findings: Current and future Ndebele dictionaries are likely to remain underutilised unless users develop requisite skills for dictionary use. Dictionary skills is improved when the teaching of reference skills is incorporated in the school syllabus.

REFLECTIONS

We learn what is lexicography about and a brief summary was done on how words are selected into dictionaries. A presentation will be carried out and this is an interesting topic since it is regarded as a new knowledge for us.