Spring term 2018
Thursday, 15.00-16.30, Collegium Novum B, Room 323
Attention: the lecture starts March 1
30 contact hours
3 ECTS
Lecturer: Nicole Nau
Go to Bibliography
Go to Tasks & Texts
Course description and aims:
This class introduces students to lexicography as the art and craft of dictionary making. They will acquire knowledge about different types and uses of dictionaries (print, online, and mobile application; monolingual and bilingual dictionaries; general and specialized dictionaries; learner dictionaries; etc.) as well as practical skills in various tasks that lead to the making of a dictionary.
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.
- 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.
Classroom sessions include lecture, exercises, and short presentations by students (for example, presenting a dictionary). In addition, students work on individual projects (preparing a part of a dictionary or lexical database).
Assessment:
Classroom activities, exercises = 40%, individual project = 60%
Short bibliography (the first two positions will be the main textbooks) – for more references go to Bibliography
SYLLABUS:
Week 1: Introduction: Lexicography as the art and craft of making dictionaries
Week 2: Types of dictionaries and ways of using dictionaries; macrostructure
Week 3: Sources of data; different ways of collecting words and examples
Week 4: Corpora in lexicography
Week 5: Word-meaning and sense relations
Week 6: Content and structure of dictionary entries (print, online, apps)
Week 7: Lexicography for endangered and lesser documented languages
Week 8: Between corpus and dictionary: the lexical database; grammatical information
Week 9: The lexical unit; multi word expressions
Week 10: Word-senses and examples in the database
Week 11: Designing dictionary entries for various dictionaries and users
Week 12: Definitions in monolingual dictionaries
Week 13: Translation equivalents in bilingual dictionaries
Week 14: Presentation of students’ projects
Week 15: Presentation of students’ projects and final discussion