General-Purpose Dictionary and Society

The Functions of

the General-Purpose Dictionary

Cuibinbin

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?

1. What are the dictionaries for?

The front matter of dictionaries is a fair enough indication of what their authors were trying to achieve.

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.

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)

Gives information about the meaning,

speaking and pronunciation of the most important

and most frequently used words and phrases in

the English language. (WBD)

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)

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.

More generally, the dictionary 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 thecommercial market will be successful in proportion to the extent to which they answer these questions of the buyer.

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.

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…

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.

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

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

How are dictionaries really used?

1. Who uses dictionaries

Some dictionaries indicate with more or less

precision what sort of user they intend to address:

--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

--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

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:

--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

The lexicographer is obviously trying hard not

to forget anyone.

Non-educated public is never explicitly

referred to.

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.

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.

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:

Who buys general-purpose dictionaries?

What social class are the users?

What age and sex?

Are the buyers and the users the same

persons?

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

General-purpose dictionaries are needed

more than any other type, and their success in

different societies seems to rest on particular

features:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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,

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.