Monday, 13:15-14:45, room 605 Collegium Novum A; starts 7 October
30 contact hours
6 ECTS (with exam)
Lecturer: Nicole Nau
Course description
This class teaches lexicography as the art and craft of dictionary making. Students will acquire knowledge about different types and uses of dictionaries and about basic achievements of theoretical lexicography. Most of all however they will learn methods and techniques of practical lexicography: selecting and processing linguistic data, designing the macrostructure of a dictionary and the microstructure of dictionary entries, selecting examples from corpora, writing definitions, determining translation equivalents, adding audiovisual material.
After successful completion of the course, students will
- be able to characterize, compare, and critically evaluate dictionaries of different types;
- understand and be able to explain basic principles of lexicography for traditional and electronic dictionaries;
- understand the role of corpora in lexicography and be able to use a corpus of English or other languages in a dictionary project;
- be able to build and use a lexical database for a dictionary project;
- be able to design and write entries for monolingual and bilingual dictionaries;
- know about current tools (software) used in dictionary making and be able to choose an appropriate tool for a given task;
- be able to explain specific problems of lexicography for endangered and lesser documented languages.
Classroom sessions include lecture, exercises, and short presentations by students (for example, presenting a dictionary). In addition, students work on an individual project (preparing a small dictionary).
Assessment and grading:
Student’s activity in class (exercises, presentations) = 50% of grade for “zaliczenie”
Assessment tasks, for example, test = 50% of grade for “zaliczenie”
Individual project (design and compile a dictionary, write a report) = grade for “egzamin”
Preliminary bibliography
Atkins, B. T. Sue and Michael Rundell. 2008. The Oxford guide to practical lexicography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fontenelle, Thierry, ed. 2008. Practical lexicography: a reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Béjoint, Henri. 2004. Modern lexicography: an introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Durkin, Philip, ed. 2016. The Oxford handbook of lexicography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Granger-Legrand, Sylviane & Paquot, Magali, eds. 2012. Electronic lexicography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mosel, Ulrike, 2004. Dictionary making in endangered speech communities. Language documentation and description 2, 39-54.
Nielsen, Sandro & Tarp, Sven, eds. 2009. Lexicography in the 21st century. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Svensén, Bo. 2009. A handbook of lexicography: the theory and practice of dictionary-making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.