Specialised Lexicography

From 1990 1994 the Danish Research Council for the Humanities granted a research project entitled translation of LSP texts, which was initially split up into five part-projects, one of which has been concerned with LSP lexicography."The Manual of Specialised Lexicography" is one of the results of the research undertaken by this project. The primary purpose of the Manual is to contribute towards an improved basis for practical specialised lexicography, which has so far had but a small share in the explosive development that has taken place in general-language lexicography since the early 1970s. One implication of this is that only to a limited extent has it been possible to build upon existing findings.The Manual thus has the twofold aim of offering guidance and direction to authors of specialised dictionaries as well as contributing towards the further development of lexicographical theories.

Despite the great number and diversity of specialised dictionaries and terminologies, several major issues of specialised lexicography still remain unresolved. The articles in this volume intend to discuss and resolve such open questions and, at the same time, spawn further research.

This stimulating new book, which combines dictionary research and linguistic knowledge, analyses the representation of meaning in business dictionaries from a pedagogical perspective. By examining in detail the macrostructure, mediostructure, access structure and microstructure of eight business dictionaries, this book presents interesting findings on how the dictionaries studied represent the ‘noun-term’, and on how they cope with the principles of new lexicography that aims at solving the needs of a specific type of user with specific types of problems related to a specific type of user situation. This exhaustive study, which makes simultaneous contributions to the theory of terminology, lexicography, and LSP teaching, defends a methodological confluence between LSP lexicography and terminology, and proposes some guiding principles towards the construction of pedagogically-oriented specialised dictionaries that must target students enrolled in LSP courses: Business English, Business Spanish, Business Translation, etc.

This stimulating new book, which combines dictionary research and linguistic knowledge, analyses the representation of meaning in business dictionaries from a pedagogical perspective. By examining in detail the macrostructure, mediostructure, access structure and microstructure of eight business dictionaries, this book presents interesting findings on how the dictionaries studied represent the 'noun-term', and on how they cope with the principles of new lexicography that aims at solving the needs of a specific type of user with specific types of problems related to a specific type of user situation. This exhaustive study, which makes simultaneous contributions to the theory of terminology, lexicography, and LSP teaching, defends a methodological confluence between LSP lexicography and terminology, and proposes some guiding principles towards the construction of pedagogically-oriented specialised dictionaries that must target students enrolled in LSP courses: Business English, Business Spanish, Business Translation, etc.

This book puts forward the specialised lexicographical approach (SLA) as the result of a natural evolution in the field of specialised dictionary-making that goes a step further the «mere» terminographical practice. The kind of specialised lexicographical works to be obtained with this approach are specialised, active, user-friendly, user-focused, corpus-based dictionaries deeply grounded on the belief that terminology has a practical, communicative dimension that terminographical works have not normally reflected. All through this book the theoretical and applied aspects of this approach have been illustrated by showing the elaboration process of an active, corpus-based, bilingual (English-Spanish, Spanish-English) dictionary of the ceramics industry. The first part of the book provides a sound theoretical framework in which the different aspects involved in the creation of dictionaries within the SLA for speciality areas of knowledge have been progressively disclosed - namely, a review on specialised languages, corpus linguistics, terminology and socio-economic aspects - all this leading to the final characterisation of specialised lexicography from a theoretical perspective. On the basis of this theoretical framework and according to the SLA, this book also presents an innovative, corpus-based method of work for specialised dictionary-making, closely linked to the use of corpora, terminotics and new technologies.

The need for constructing a lexicographical theory with a particular focus on specialised dictionaries for learners is well documented in recent publications. This will imply paying attention to, at least, four basic lexicographic categories: learners; the learner's situation; the learner's needs; dictionary assistance. In one or other way, these categories are analysed in this book, whose eleven chapters are grouped into three parts. Part 1 reflects on some of the main ideas defended by the function theory of lexicography, perhaps the theoretical framework that has paid more attention to specialised lexicography. Part 2 presents some proposals that have already being explored in the field of general learner's dictionary and must be incorporated into specialised metalexicography: cultural aspects; figurative meaning; the inclusion of grammatical information; the use of corpora. Part 3 introduces the state of play regarding specialised dictionaries in China and offers some ideas for coping with the proliferation of terminological glossaries in Internet. The book also describes Enrique Alcaraz's academic achievements, together with some personal anecdotes, and a personal short tribute to his memory.

This book gathers some of the latest approaches to Lexicology and Lexicography, which span from research on language for specific purposes to the study of lexical constellations and translation. It aims to present a multifaceted insight on current trends and, thus, includes papers that explore lexical processes in several areas, which comprise fields so diverse and riveting such as the language of cinema, fashion, tourism, and even comics. In addition, other papers examine the lexicon of well-established professional languages, such as the language of law, medicine and business, by revealing leading-edge perspectives on topics such as translation, word-formation, cultural clashes, or lexical selection. Key issues on learning and teaching are also considered, as part of a long tradition in the study of professional and academic languages that posits users’ learning needs as the cornerstone to the study of these languages. Therefore, this work proposes a strong emphasis on lexis and terminology, which are highlighted as the fundamental core of the definition and analysis of specialized languages. All in all, this publication intends, on the one hand, to embrace current trends in the study of specialized lexicon and terminology from the perspective of both Lexicology and Lexicography, and, on the other hand, to open new possibilities for future research.

This is a state-of-the-art volume on lexicography at the beginning of the 21st century. It also offers proposals for future theoretical and practical work. The contributions, inspired by the ground-breaking work of Henning Bergenholtz, address topics such as dictionary functions; dictionary users; access routes; dictionary structures; dictionary reviewing; subject-field classifications; data retrieval; corpus lexicography; and collocations and phraseology. The contributors, all highly regarded international scholars in the field of lexicography, show how the theory of lexicographical functions can extend the forefront of the discipline by focusing on dictionary functions and how these meet the needs of users in various types of user situations. Thereby echoing Bergenholtz’s idea that a dictionary is a tool that can help users solve problems encountered in communicative, cognitive and operative situations. This volume is not only of interest to practical and theoretical lexicographers but to anyone interested in lexicography.