General-Purpose Dictionary and Society The Functions of

1. General-Purpose Dictionary and Society The Functions of the General-Purpose Dictionary Cuibinbin

2. The functions of the general-purpose dictionary 1. What are the dictionaries for? 2. How are dictionaries really used? 1. Who uses dictionaries 2. What do the dictionary users want?

3. What are the dictionaries for? The front matter of dictionaries is a fair enough indication of what their authors were trying to achieve.

4. Dubois and Dubois, after having examined the front matter of French dictionaries published in the sixties, came to conclusions that were not Particularly surprising: Some dictionaries introduce themselves as ‘portraits’ of the language, and others as instruments for its acquisition – and the distinction is not very clear.

5. The aim of the PED is to capture and record Modern English and to present a selection of its vocabulary. (PED) A treasury of information about every aspect of words. (AHD)

6. Gives information about the meaning, speaking and pronunciation of the most important and most frequently used words and phrases in the English language. (WBD)

7. The …aim is to provide…a comprehensive vocabulary aid for the present-day reader, speaker and writer of English. (CTD) A guide to the English of today (OPD) To meet the needs of students and others (WNW)

8. Barnhart clearly sums up the functions of the ‘instrument dictionary’: the function of a commercial general-purpose dictionary—college dictionaries are the best examples—is to answer questions about words for users of different levels of ability.

9. More generally, thedictionary aims at answering all sorts of questions about everything in the culture: it is the function of a popular dictionary to answer the questions that the user of the dictionary asks, and dictionaries on the commercial market will be successful in proportion to the extent to which they answer these questions of the buyer.

10. The way the dictionaries are really used, as opposed to the way lexicographer would like them to be used, has been the object of much conjecture. It is logical to imagine that there are different possible uses even for the same dictionary, according to who the users are.

11. McDavid distinguished three types of user, and four types of use. To scholars, in all probability, the most important function of a dictionary is that of a record of the language. Another function of the dictionary is that of acquainting a user with a language, or a variety of language, other than his own…

12. A third function is to supply incidental information, linguistic or otherwise, for the casual user… Finally, there is the role of conduct book,… a guide to what one should do and especially to what one should not do.

13. Hartmann, a few years later, substantially enlarged the list, though without distinguishing categories of users: he saw seven functions of the general-purpose dictionary. 1. The dictionary as an authority on usage 2. The dictionary as a store of (difficult) vocabulary

14. 3. The dictionary as a tool for improving communication 4. The dictionary as a means of strengthening the language 5. The dictionary as a stimulus to reflection on language 6. The dictionary as an aid to foreign- language learning 7. The dictionary as an ideological weapon

15. How are dictionaries really used? • Who uses dictionaries Some dictionaries indicate with more or less precision what sort of user they intend to address:

16. --for the learned people of time, the erudites, philologists, physicians, and intellectuals in general --for users whose education is above average, students, teachers, well-read individuals

17. --for the educated person who is part of what was until fairly recently called the elite, but is now preferably referred to as the upper middle or middle middle class

18. All this is fairly vague, because it would not be commercially sound to restrict the public to only one category. The Preface of LDOCE is typical of this attitude:

19. --although the dictionary is intended primarily for the foreign student, its design and the new features it contains make it particularly suitable as a small reference dictionary for any person– whether teacher, student, linguist, or writer

20. The lexicographer is obviously trying hard not to forget anyone. Non-educated public is never explicitly referred to.

21. The conclusions, if one examines modern general-purpose English-language dictionaries, are vague, and very similar for all dictionaries: the average user tends to belong to the middle classes and to be fairly well educated, in Britain, the USA, just as France.

22. But such observations are not only vague; they can also be deceptive: they allow conclusions about the dictionary users as the lexicographers see them, not necessarily as they are.

23. Some metalexicographers, particularly in Britain and in Germany, have recently been asking for a sociological type of study of lexicography that would provide better answers to questions like:

24. Who buys general-purpose dictionaries? What social class are the users? What age and sex? Are the buyers and the users the same persons?

25. The argument is that studying the population of dictionary users is important because the results could determine the contents and layout of the dictionary. The choice of linguistic information in a dictionary, and the means of access provided to it, will vary with the class of user for whom the dictionary is intended.

26. Conclusion: It was necessary to design different dictionaries for different categories of users. ‘Dictionaries should be designed with a special set of users in mind and for their specific needs.’ (Householder)

27. Research on the public of dictionary users have never been answered in practice. Many people doubt that anything of any use can be achieved through such a study.

28. The conclusion, it is thought, would be that the public of dictionaries is too diverse, its use of dictionaries too varied and inconsistent, its motivations too confused.

29. How are dictionaries really used 2. What do the dictionary users want? What people want with dictionaries is to a certain extent indicated by the commercial success -- or absence of dictionaries.

30. Lexicographers must give to the public what the public expects, or at least what they think the public expects, at the expense of what a truly scientific description of the language would require. No lexicographers can escape these social pressures, whether they like it or not.

31. A dictionary that sells well is not necessarily a good dictionary from the point of view of the metalexicographer, who may have entirely different criteria; but it is certainly a dictionary that responds to a social need.

32. General-purpose dictionaries are needed more than any other type, and their success in different societies seems to rest on particular features:

33. American users want encyclopedic facts, usage notes, and information such as word- division and etymologies, While British users want short definitions, no pictures, etc. Dictionaries reflect the changes in society.

34. But the commercial success of dictionaries should be regarded with caution as well. Dictionary users cannot buy what is not offered for sale. If they buy the dictionaries that are on offer, it may be because they like them and find them useful, or it may be because they have no choice.

35. Dictionaries, as Samuel Johnson said, are “like watches, the worst is better than none”, even if ‘the best cannot be expected to go quite true’. The expectations of the public are created by the dictionaries themselves.

36. The number of words in the word-list is by far the biggest preoccupation of most popular reviewers. But it is only one aspect, and the quality of a dictionary should be evaluated on other aspects as well.

37. The ideal general-purpose dictionary: --contains as many entry-words as possible, particularly all the ‘good’ words, but omits taboo words, neologisms, and other ‘undesirable’ words that do not fit into the popular image of the language

38. The ideal general-purpose dictionary: --defines all entry-words with undisputable authority --indicates clearly how far each word is acceptable or unacceptable --seen everywhere as storehouses of the best language, undisputable sources of word meanings, and authorities on usage in general

39. The ideal general-purpose dictionary: --seen as the guardians of the purity of language, as thesauri of the totality of the lexicon and of all the collective knowledge of the society,

40. The ideal general-purpose dictionary: --as repositories of the truth as well as of the moral and ideological values of the society. --sometimes even seen as patriotic emblems.