230120 Dafydd Gibbon, Grundkurs 1a: How to Make a Dictionary (Thursday 8-10, C0-273)

Class notes.

Everyone knows `the dictionary'... Or do they? The familiar expression in fact covers hundreds of dictionaries, and perhaps a couple of dozen different kinds of dictionary, depending on how many detailed differences one is interested in. For a student of language and languages, dictionaries are the most important of their their `intellectual tools'; in fact, in the theories of language developed in modern linguistics, the central component is always the lexicon.

The course introduces students to the principles and practice of dictionary making, based practical analysis of dictionaries and considering the three basic dimensions of

1. the content of dictionaries, i.e. types of lexical information, from pronunciation through grammar to meaning and usage;
2. the organisation of dictionaries, from `alphabetical lists' to concept based hierarchical `thesauri' or synonym dictionaries;
3. the methods of discovering lexical information from written and spoken language texts and transcriptions.

Dictionary publishing houses always uses computer based methods for making modern dictionaries; in fact, the Collins Cobuild dictionary series, for example, is based almost completely on an automatic computer analysis of millions of words of English text and dialogue which was conducted at the University of Birmingham. For this reason, the basics of lexical database construction and the structure of internet dictionaries will also be covered.

The class is parallel to the class by Dr Sprengel; both classes will use many of the same materials, and at the end of term a joint `Zwischenprüfung' will be held. Qualification is by term paper.

For further information, reading list, etc., please consult our Internet site

http://coral.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/Classes/

and notices on C6.