Lexicography is one of the main focus of linguists. Why dictionaries are compiled? how dictionaries are compiled? who compiles a dictionary? Does he master the words or words master him? all such stuff lies in the realm of lexicographic domain.

1. Lexicography
Umair Ijaz.
March 13, 2014

2. Definition
1. According to Oxford Advanced Learner
Dictionary,
• "the activity or occupation of compiling
dictionaries.
2. According to Dictionary.com,
• " the writing, editing, or compiling of
dictionaries".
3. According to Merriam Webster Dictionary,
• "the principles and practices of dictionary
making".

3. Etymology and Origin
• 1670–80; lexic(on) + -o- + -graphy
• From the Greek, "word" + "write”

4. Branches of Lexicography
• Practical Lexicography: The act of writing, or
editing dictionaries is known as Practical
Lexicography.
• Theoretical Lexicography: The analysis or
description of the vocabulary of a particular
language, and the meaning that links certain
words to others in a dictionary, is known as
Theoretical Lexicography.

5. Types of Lexicography
• General Lexicography: General lexicography
involves the art of
writing, compiling, designing, using and editing
dictionaries that describe language as used in
general.
• Specialized lexicography focuses on the
design, compilation, use and evaluation of
specialized dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that are
devoted to a (relatively restricted) set of linguistic
and factual elements of one or more specialist
subject fields, e.g. legal lexicography.

6. What is Dictionary
• Dictionaries are used at home and at
school, cited in law courts, sermons and
parliament, and referred to by crossword
addicts and Scrabble players alike.
• A dictionary is a list of words with their
definitions, a list of characters with its glyph or
a list of words with corresponding words in
other languages.

7. Lexicon and Lexeme
• Lexeme is the minimal abstract unit of a
language which originates other related forms
• For example, fly, flight, flew, all have a
common lexeme of fly.
• Lexicon is the archive of lexemes.

8. Kinds of dictionary
• • Scientific dictionaries which are dictionaries of record in that they register all (if possible)
vocabulary of language, usually on historical principles with numerous examples showing words’
usage;
• • Functional dictionaries for everydayuse which are designed for use by native speakers who want
to check the meaning of an unfamiliar word. It is difficult to choose the words that should appear in
such dictionaries and the most often used criterion is that of the rarity of the words’ occurrence. It
is believed that very frequently used words (such as paper, or road) would not be looked up in a
dictionary, so the focus is on words less frequently used as it is assumed that those could be
unfamiliar and thus checked in such a dictionary.
• • Pedagogical dictionaries are divided into two types: compiledfor language learners with the
emphasis on syntax and usage; and dictionaries for schoolchildren who are native speakers.
Dictionaries for schoolchildren are often just simplified versions of dictionaries for adults.
• • Dictionaries of slang in which a lot of effort is put into collecting citations, providing examples
and precise definitions, as even for native speakers many headwords might be unfamiliar.
• • Dictionaries of idioms are in most cases aimed at foreign language learners and explain the
phrases whose meanings could not be inferred from the context.
• • Dictionaries devoted to only one subject such as medicine, law, computers or sport games. They
usually have more detailed, almost encyclopedic information about the headwords, often without
notes on usage, or linguistic properties.
• • Bilingual dictionaries which are tools for learning a foreign language.
• • Onomasiological dictionaries - dictionaries of synonyms, thesauruses.

9. Making/ Compiling Dictionaries and
three methods
According to Mosel 2004, “the first step in actually
writing the dictionary is making lists of words
which are to become head words or run-ons in
dictionary entries. There are three methods:
• translating wordlists in the lingua franca into the
source language as is suggested in most field
manuals, at least for the basic vocabulary;
• extracting words from a text corpus;
• eliciting words by techniques which encourage
the dictionary helpers to produce wordlists
without translation.”

10. Lexicographer
• A lexicographer is concerned with what words
are, what they mean, how the vocabulary of a
language is structured, how speakers of the
language use and understand the words, how
the words evolved, and what relationships
exist between words. This is the information a
lexicographer compiles when creating a
dictionary.

11. Two fundamental questions for
lexicographers
• 1. Users – who will use the dictionary?
• 2. Uses – what will the dictionary be used for?

12. Doctor Samule Johnson
• Johnson's A Dictionary of the English
Language (1755) was the first authoritative
and comprehensive English
dictionary.

13. Ladislov Zgusta
• In 1971, historical linguist and lexicographer
Ladislav Zgusta published the first major
international handbook on
lexicography, Manual of Lexicography, which
is still regarded as a standard text in the field.
•

14. History of Lexicography
• History traces back to the 5th century CE when Hesychius , a
grammarian from Alexandria developed a lexicon of obscure
and ancient Greek words.
• In China, Sima Guang, a historian was responsible for
compiling a dictionary in the 11th century.

15. History of English Lexicography
• "The beginnings of English lexicography go back to the Old English period .
. .. The language of the Roman Church was Latin; its priests and monks
needed to be competent in Latin in order to conduct services, and to read
the Bible . . .. As English monks studied these Latin manuscripts, they
would sometimes write the English translation above (or below) a Latin
word in the text, to help their own learning, and as a guide to subsequent
readers. These one-word translations, written between the lines of a
manuscript, are called 'interlinear glosses'; they are seen as the beginnings
of (bilingual) lexicography."
(Howard Jackson, Lexicography: An Introduction. Routledge, 2002)
• In 1911, the concise Oxford dictionary was developed by the
lexicographer, Henry Watson.

16. Macrostructure of Dictionary
macrostructure – overall structural organisation
of volume, typically:
• front matter, introduction, user guidelines
• body – entries and definitions (plus often
other stuff), typically organised alphabetically
• end matter – appendices and additional
information, eg. personal names, place
names, loan items etc.

17. Microstructure of dictionary
microstructure – internal structure of dictionary entry
blocks, typically:
• headword (lemma, form to be looked up) – spelling
• pronunciation
• part of speech category or word class
• semantic specification – senses and reference
• cross-references to related items, related by sense
• collocations, co-occurrence strings
• usage with examples
• etymological or historical notes
•

18. Chief significance
• lexicography has simplified the task of the
linguists in learning languages.

19. Criticism
• A negative thing about compiling dictionaries
is that the writer of a dictionary has rarely
been spared by critics as most of the
dictionaries have been found lacking in one
area or another.

20. Thank you! Have questions?
• Umair Ijaz
• UmairTheScholar@gmail.com