Definition of dictionary
The first dictionary in the World was found in Elba in 2300 BCE- today it is a Syria. It was a bilingual Sumerian–Akkadian wordlist for Akkadian Empire. In Britain the first English dictionaries were bilingual. They are just glossaries of Latin, French or Spanish words. The Inventor of word „dictionary” was John of Garland; Englishman who had written book contains Latin diction for helping people how to pronounce words. It was in 1220, and the book called Dicionarious. In Poland, Samuel Bogu-mil Linde made the first dictionary in years from 1807 to 1814. The dictionary of Polish language was written in six parts.
To make a proper definition of dictionary I set below definitions of three different authors.
1. Robert Ilson (1985)
“The dictionary is the most successful and significant book about language.”
2. Christian Lehmann (2013)
“A dictionary is a representation of part of the lexicon of a language for a certain purpose.”
3. George Lakoff
“The purpose of a dictionary … is to fill in what the speaker cannot be ex-pected to know already” to which we must add […] and also to serve as a remind-er of forgotten knowledge and an organizer of diffuse knowledge”.
I think that all definitions picture what dictionary really is. Dictionary has a certain purpose – give explanation or knowledge about that what is understandable. In my opinion dictionary is also a set of words or expressions usually in alphabetical or-der with explanations, often with the rules of using this word and writing, pronuncia-tions, translations, etymologies. The structure of dictionary is divided into alphabet-ical sections or topics.
On the market, we can buy different kind of dictionaries, from simple one language dictionary to bilingual, specialized, for children. It is connected with that, what readers need. Language is changing, people are making new things, which need new names and its equivalents, definitions – this is the job for lexicographers. However, the question is what type of dictionary can we find? Bergenholtz and Kaufmann (1997) describe the best definition of how dictionaries look :
Dictionaries are traditionally divided into language dictionaries, encyclopedias and ency-clopedic dictionaries. […] Language dictionaries provide information about the language and only about subject field, in as far as this is necessary to the correct usage or under-standing of linguistic expressions. Encyclopedias, however, provide information about things or about a subject matter. Finally, there are encyclopedias dictionaries, which aim at being both language dictionaries and encyclopedias. The librarian classification has been adopted in the preface of many dictionaries and has been used in a variety of modifica-tions in metalexicographical literature, albeit in such way that encyclopedic dictionaries have been projected to either the language dictionaries or the encyclopedias.
The theory quoted above divided the dictionaries into language, encyclope-dias and encyclopedic dictionaries. Furthermore, the dictionaries can be classified by the purpose or needs of the group of readers. (tutaj jeszcze dopiszę, staram się znaleźć lepszą referencję do której będę mogła się lepiej odnieść)
Types of dictionaries:
-specialized (Oxford Dictionary of World Religions),
-defining (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English),
– Prescriptive/descriptive (Oxford English Dictionary (OED)),
– Natural language processing (Lexical Markup Framework),
-registration.
Of course, dictionaries can by classified by the general criteria:
-number of languages (multilingual, bilingual, monolingual),
-size (academic, medium),
-alphabetical,
-phonetically,
-for whom is made (for students, specialists),
-chronological,
-thematically,
-the type of graphic vision (casual word-definition form or with pictures).
Next important feature of dictionary are the microstructure and macrostructure. It is strictly connected with the construction of dictionary as an entirety and as the single word with the definition in book. The microstructure specifies how the definitions look and what kinds of information must be given for making clear the explanation of word. The macrostructure describes entire dictionary as a book, what kind of in-ternal order is in it. This features, micro and macrostructures are given in every dic-tionary in the Instructions chapter, from this we know how it is build the dictionary and what kind of information are given there.
The object of studying micro and macrostructure is called entry list. The build of general dictionary is given below.
(Lehmann, christianlehmann.eu, 2012)
2.2 Slang dictionary and dictionaries in use
The kind of dictionary that i will be making in my work is a slang dictionary.
A dictionary what is called slang dictionary includes informal language used by group of people and explain what they mean. It is a very good source for people who want to know more about language from the casual side, and how the formal language is transformed to every day used equivalents and how creative people can be.
Of course, there is also a dark side of slang, in majority it refers to committing crime, sex, violence, vulgar words and is used by speakers in lower social status. Therefore, we can see that slang can be determinant of social status of group.
Because of high speed of changing slang, it is hard to find printed version of dic-tionary, which is current. Good alternative for printed dictionaries are online bases of slang words, which are updated every day by specialist.
The types of slang dictionaries depend on what kind of slang it is. It can be for example Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang or slang of the Internet communica-tion. In Poland the most known slang dictionary is ‘WAZZUP Słownik slangu i potocznej angielszczyzny’. As we can see, the Polish slang is connected with Eng-lish because English is the language that develops, have great influence on other countries, and is the most popular foreign language in Poland. In this case, young people use slang more often, and they are learning English as them second lan-guage in school. In my opinion, next reason is that we are using the Internet in which major pages are in English se we are adapting some words and phrases from English to Polish.
The dictionaries about slang words and expressions are in written and online access. Online we can find the pages with dictionaries, applications for mo-bile phones, which we can download, and more dictionaries in „pdf” format.
Of course, the better idea is to check meaning in traditional, written by professional lexicographer dictionary. We must remember that language is changing, so find the newest dictionary to find appropriate meaning.
The most famous dictionaries about slang are:
• „Historical Dictionary of American Slang”, Richard A.Spears,
• „A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English” Eric Patrige,
• „Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang” Jonathon Green
I am fascinated with the grunge slang dictionary because there is no official, made by professional lexicographer dictionary about it. From sources like internet we can find only examples and single words on blogs, relations of people from nineteen’s, describes of this subculture, publications and other sources like photos, movies, interviews from which lexicographer can collect terms. In Poland are not many dictionaries about slang. It is very important to make an English- Polish dic-tionary about slang because most of words in Poland are from English language. Especially the grunge slang because it is something that was in 90’s and today is it the same lexicon of words with the same meanings, in Poland grunge was not a popular as in America in 90’s but today is a most ‘cool’ trend on social media and in fashion.
(tutaj dodam jeszcze referencje)
2.3 Dictionary making and observations
The process of making dictionary is called lexicography and is divided into two parts:
1. Practical lexicography
2. Theoretical lexicography
The first part of the process of craft: compiling, writing and editing dictionary. The second is only analyzing and developing theories of dictionary components and in which form will be the dictionary. The access to dictionary may be online or in printed form. Today people prefer online dictionaries because they are more cur-rent than printed and it is easier to search in the Internet free without going out and paying for book.
Definition of lexicography
Definition from The New Oxford Dictionary of English (2004)
The practice of compiling dictionaries
Definition from Innovateus.com (2013)
General lexicography involves the art of writing, compiling, designing, using and editing dictionaries that describe language as used in general.
Theory of Lexicography
Bergenholtz and Tarp (2011)
area of social practice and independent science concerned with analysing
and building dictionaries which can satisfy the needs of a specific type of
user with specific types of problems related to a specific type of user
situation
In my opinion, the simplest definition of lexicography is : all activities con-nected with dictionary making, collecting information for work, dividing into catego-ries base of terms and of course at beginning creating a view of for whom the dic-tionary is making, what the user need to know and what kind of dictionary will be the best.
A person who is making dictionary is called lexicographer.
Skills required for a lexicographer.
Making the descriptions in dictionaries by lexicographers consists of researching all sources that are known and searching for new and documenting word mean-ings, etymologies and for example pronunciation, phonetics transcription, contexts in which a word is used.
This person must have a deep knowledge in the language and culture, of course in language that lexicographers uses in dictionary. A lexicographer must have:
– active listening skills,
– good reading habit,
– analytical skills,
– be responsible for work,
-Good critical thinking skills,
-written communicational skills,
– be good in searching information.
All lexicographer’s work is based on science called lexicology. It it a mother of all rules of making words, etymology, names of categories of terms. This science learns what kinds of words maker can use in dictionary. Lexicology is a science about how the language is built from linguistic view. It is the science of the study of words; it is theoretical part of work of lexicographer.
(jak odnosi się ten rozdział do częsci empirycznej)
2.5 Typology of words in dictionaries
We can create everything from words, and create new words. Nevertheless, what exactly is word?
It is the smallest part of language and can be written or spoken. Words can build larger parts of language, such as phrases, clauses or sentences. Compound-ing words form made up of two or more single words.
There can be words which are identical orthographically, but which are pro-nounced differently. Still they are different words with different meanings (Jackson, 1988)
In dictionaries, we can specify a type of words called lexemes. They are the base forms of the words, from which are given varieties of words (with heading part) for example star, starring. The „word star” is of course a lexeme.
There are also multi-word lexemes that includes larger units of language:
-Phrasal verbs – we understand it as a one sentence
-Prepositional verbs
-Compound verbs – build from two words but regarded as single words
-Idiomatic phrases – are single lexemes
In dictionaries ale also grammatical words (functional words, functors, empty words) include pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions and conjunctions and lexical words (full words) include nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and other types of words that we know form a language lessons. (Carter, 1988)
In slang dictionary, we can find special types of words, which are strictly connected with the informal type of this language. This vocabulary is full of abbre-viations (the Internet slang), colloquial terms, neologisms, idioms and similes.
The definitions of words that we have in dictionaries we can simply name as paraphrase – just putting a word into other words. In English- Polish dictionary of slang the most important features are:
– To give an English words,
– give polish equivalent,
– make polish definition.
(ten punkt jest dla mnie ciężki do przejścia, jeszcze muszę nad nim popracować)