From dictionary user From dictionary user to amateur lexicographerto amateur lexicographer

Possibilities of on-line searchesPossibilities of on-line searches

Costas Gabrielatos(Lancaster University)

Gresham CollegeGresham College

Lecture series: Look it up yourself! A History of the Dictionary

23 March 2009

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Samuel Johnson(Statement made April 18, 1775, quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson)

• How will the information be used?• Comprehension• Production

Do you know this word?Do you know this word?

• What does ‘knowing’ a word involve?

To know a word:To know a word:FormForm

• Written form– Spelling chagrin

• Spoken form– Pronunciation ‘sh’ or ‘tsh’– Stress chagrin or chagrin– Symbols vs. audio /ʃægrɪn / (BrE)

/ʃəgrɪn/ (AmE)

To know a word: To know a word: Grammar (a) Grammar (a)

• Part of speech

• Countable/uncountable (for nouns)– Not independent of meaning– experience [LDOCE]

• Derivatives– extend (verb)– extendability / extendibility / extensibility (noun) – extendable / extendible / extensible (adjective)

To know a word:To know a word:Grammar (b)Grammar (b)

To know a word: To know a word: MeaningMeaning

• Sense(s)• Connotations

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online http://www.ldoceonline.com

• Image reredos

To know a word: To know a word: Meaning: specialised wordsMeaning: specialised words

collateralized debt obligationcollateralized debt obligation

InvestorWords, www.investorwords.com

To know a word: To know a word: The lexical company a word keepsThe lexical company a word keeps

stale breadstale bread

rancid butter rancid butter

sour milksour milk

To know a word: To know a word: The lexical company a word keepsThe lexical company a word keeps

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online http://www.ldoceonline.com

To know a word: To know a word: UseUse

• Contexts of use– general/specialised• heart attack – (acute) myocardial infarction

– archaic/formal/informal/colloquial/slang• offspring - minor - child - kid - brat

• Frequency– In what contexts?

To know a word: To know a word: Meaning in relation to other wordsMeaning in relation to other words

• Synonyms / Antonyms• expand

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionaryhttp://www.merriam-webster.com

To know a word:To know a word:Etymology (the history of a word)Etymology (the history of a word)

Encartaahttp://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx

World Wide Words (Michael Quinion), www.worldwidewords.org

To know a word:To know a word:A holistic view: examplesA holistic view: examples

• Examples can demonstrate most of the aspects of knowing a word.

• What does this word mean?• What does this word do?

• The more examples, the better our understanding – patterns and frequency

• What kind of examples?• Whose examples?

Prescription or description?Prescription or description?

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll, 1871

Sources of examplesSources of examples

• Corpora– British National Corpus (BNC), 100 million words– http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html

• The web as a corpus– WebCorp– http://www.webcorp.org.uk

egregiousegregious

• Conspicuously bad or offensive. • Often of mistakes, extremely and noticeably bad.• An egregious mistake, failure, problem etc is

extremely bad and noticeable.• Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an

egregious mistake; an egregious liar. • Conspicuous ; especially : conspicuously bad :

flagrant <egregious errors> <egregious padding of the evidence — Christopher Hitchens>

egregiousegregious

• Conspicuously bad or offensive. • Often of mistakes, extremely and noticeably bad.• An egregious mistake, failure, problem etc is

extremely bad and noticeable.• Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an

egregious mistake; an egregious liar. • Conspicuous ; especially : conspicuously bad :

flagrant <egregious errors> <egregious padding of the evidence — Christopher Hitchens>

egregiousegregious

• Conspicuously bad or offensive. • Often of mistakes, extremely and noticeably bad.• An egregious mistake, failure, problem etc is

extremely bad and noticeable.• Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an

egregious mistake; an egregious liar. • Conspicuous ; especially : conspicuously bad :

flagrant <egregious errors> <egregious padding of the evidence — Christopher Hitchens>

egregiousegregious

• Conspicuously bad or offensive. • Often of mistakes, extremely and noticeably bad.• An egregious mistake, failure, problem etc is

extremely bad and noticeable.• Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an

egregious mistake; an egregious liar. • Conspicuous ; especially : conspicuously bad :

flagrant <egregious errors> <egregious padding of the evidence — Christopher Hitchens>

egregiousegregious in the BNC in the BNC

• 36 instances

• Action/behaviour/event/result etc. (15)• Person/organisation etc. (12)• Mistake/error etc. (6) • Object (2)• Other (1)

Types of dictionariesTypes of dictionaries

• General - alphabetical • General - thematic (concepts)

• Thesaurus

• Terminological

• Pronunciation• Collocations (lexical patterns)• Pictorial

• Encyclopaedic

Possibilities of online searchesPossibilities of online searches

• The ‘ultimate’ reference source (?)

• Free

• Quick and easy comparison of information

• ‘Lexical journeys’

• Primary research