The Cambridge Companion to English Dictionaries

A comprehensive and engaging overview of English language dictionary-making from the first monolingual English dictionary to the current day.

Sarah Ogilvie (Edited by)

9781108451680, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 September 2020

350 pages
15.5 x 23 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'Among the topics that crosscut the essays are the policy, purpose, and philosophy of various dictionaries, along with the evidence and technology that drive them and the economic factors that constrain them. But equally valuable, particularly for nonspecialists, will be the bits of dictionary lore that contributors bring to their work. Replete with useful illustrations, tables, and reproductions of dictionary entries, the work also provides a guide to further reading and a chronology of dictionaries and important events. This is a welcome addition to the literature on English language and linguistics. Highly Recommended.' E. L. Battistella, Choice

How did a single genre of text have the power to standardise the English language across time and region, rival the Bible in notions of authority, and challenge our understanding of objectivity, prescription, and description? Since the first monolingual dictionary appeared in 1604, the genre has sparked evolution, innovation, devotion, plagiarism, and controversy. This comprehensive volume presents an overview of essential issues pertaining to dictionary style and content and a fresh narrative of the development of English dictionaries throughout the centuries. Essays on the regional and global nature of English lexicography (dictionary making) explore its power in standardising varieties of English and defining nations seeking independence from the British Empire: from Canada to the Caribbean. Leading scholars and lexicographers historically contextualise an array of dictionaries and pose urgent theoretical and methodological questions relating to their role as tools of standardisation, prestige, power, education, literacy, and national identity.

Introduction Sarah Ogilvie
Part I. Issues in English Lexicography: 2. How a word gets into an English Dictionary Kory Stamper
3. Technology and English dictionaries Michael Rundell, Miloš Jakubí?ek and Vojt?ch Ková?
4. Diachronic and synchronic English dictionaries Judy Pearsall
5. Description and prescription: the roles of English dictionaries Edward Finegan
6. European cross-currents in English lexicography Giovanni Iamartino
7. English slang dictionaries Michael Adams
Part II. English Dictionaries throughout the Centuries: 8. A dictionary ecosystem: four centuries of English lexicography John Considine
Seventeenth-Century English Dictionaries: Hard Words: 9. Cawdrey, Coote, and 'Hard Vsual English Wordes' Roderick W. McConchie
10. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English lexicography Rebecca Shapiro
Eighteenth-Century English Dictionaries: Prescriptivism and Completeness: 11. Recording the most proper and significant words Allen Reddick
12. Samuel Johnson and the 'first English dictionary' Jack Lynch
Nineteenth-Century English Dictionaries: Descriptivism: 13. The making of American English dictionaries Michael Adams
14. The Oxford English Dictionary Sarah Ogilvie
Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Dictionaries: 15. The English period dictionaries Robert E. Lewis and Antonette diPaolo Healey
16. English-as-a-foreign-language lexicography Howard Jackson
17. Electronic dictionaries Orin Hargraves
18. English dictionaries and corpus linguistics Patrick Hanks
19. Natural language processing in lexicography C. Paul Cook
Part III. Dictionaries of English and Related Varieties: 20. Dictionaries of Canadian English Stefan Dollinger
21. Australian lexicography: defining a nation Pam Peters
22. New Zealand's lexicographic legacy John Macalister
23. Hobson-Jobson and dictionaries of Indian English Traci Nagle
24. South African English dictionaries: from colonial to post-colonial Jill Wolvaardt
25. Dictionaries of Caribbean English: agents of standardization Jeannette Allsopp
26. Dictionary of American Regional English George Goebel
27. The Scottish dictionary tradition Maggie Scott.

Subject Areas: Literary companions, book reviews & guides [DSRC], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D], Lexicography [CFM], Language: history & general works [CBX], Dictionaries [CBD]