Chapter 9   English Dictionaries （3）

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 Types of Dictionaries

•       “The function of a dictionary is to serve the person who consults it.”(Philip, G.) Owing to the complexity of demands on dictionaries, there have been numerous types of dictionaries in terms of different criteria.

•       1) Prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries:

•       2) Diachronic and synchronic dictionaries:

•       3) General and specialized dictionaries

•       4) Monolingual and bilingual dictionaries

•       5) Printed and electronic dictionaries

•       6) Unabridged, medium-sized and pocket dictionaries

•       7) Adults and children dictionaries

•       1) Prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries: a dictionary can either describe actual linguistic usage or state/prescribe a certain usage.

•       2) Diachronic and synchronic dictionaries: diachronic dictionaries focus on the vocabulary development throughout the history of the language while synchronic dictionaries describe the vocabulary of a certain period. OED is the example of diachronic one, while Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English are most famous synchronic dictionaries.

The learner’s dictionary aims to help non-English learners in some certain way, and its development lies in the endeavors of three teachers of English, coinciding with the growth of the English-as-a-foreign-language industry.

The three teachers are Harold E. Palmer and A. S. Hornby in Japan, Michael West in India. West promoted “vocabulary movement”, while Palmer and Hornby investigated grammar pattern, collocations and idioms, which resulting in the first general-purpose learner’s dictionary—Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary in 1942, marking the birth of the first learner’s dictionary.

•       Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary(OALD)

In 1948, Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary was republished as A Learner’s Dictionary of Current English by Oxford University Press and changed in 1952 to The advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, the second edition of which came in 1963, the third edition in 1974 with the replacement of “Oxford” to “The” in the title.

The college, or" collegiate ", dictionary is a desk-size dictionary, aimed at native language learners as well as the learners of English as a second language. By comparison with their British counterparts in terms of the content, American collegiate dictionaries have tended to be more "encyclopedic "in their scope. They have routinely included biographical and geographical entries, as well as more extensive scientific and technical information. Diagrams and line drawings also intersperse the text. The collegiate dictionary is much more of an all-purpose reference work. On the other hand, they tend to contain limited information on etymology.

•       Although Merriam-Webster's "collegiate" dictionaries were first published in 1898, and were widely used, it is not until from the 1940s that we saw remarkable development of college dictionaries. The American College Dictionary (ACD) applied linguistic studies of that time to its dictionary. In 1953, Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language appeared.

•       In 1963, Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary appeared. And that same year Funk Wagnalls new dictionary, the Standard College Dictionary, was issued. In 1968, Random House, publisher of the ACD, issued the Random House Dictionary, College Edition with 155,000 entries.

•       In 1973, the eighth edition of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, much expanded in vocabulary from the seventh edition, was published. and ten years later， Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, enlarged still more, with nearly160, 000 entries, appeared.

•       Being a typical American product the collegiate dictionary distinguishes itself with unique Americanism.