Different Types of Dictionaries

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Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2 (B), Bielefeld University (FB Anglistics), course: GK Linguistik 1b How to Make a Dictionary, language: English, abstract: There is a vast amount of different dictionaries available for users of the Englishlanguage. All these dictionaries share the aspect that they provide information aboutEnglish words and items, but they are also very different and need to bedistinguished from each other. One may need a dictionary in one case and the samedictionary may be absolutely useless when one tries to solve another problem.Monolingual learners, general monolingual, and bilingual dictionaries present a problem:in spite of what may be advertised on the outside cover of these texts, no singledictionary can adequately serve all users. A variety of dictionaries is required to suit thebackgrounds, needs, and expectations of individual language learners (BATTENBURG24).So different users and different questions require different dictionaries. One needs toknow where to find the information asked for in a particular case, and one certainlyneeds more than one dictionary for different aspects of the English language. Toavoid getting lost here, it is necessary to distinguish between the different types ofdictionaries that exist.This report provides some suggestions for distinction, amongst other thingsestablished through empiric research.First, an outline of the different types of dictionaries is given, including generaldictionaries (monolingual, bilingual), learners dictionaries, historical dictionaries andencyclopedias.Moreover, the typical structure of an entry in a dictionary is explained, because thedictionary entries examined later are mainly checked according to these parts of anentry; it is looked what parts they in- or exclude and how the parts are realized.After the theoretical part, the empiric research is documented. Five dictionaries(monolingual American and British, bilingual English-German, learners dictionary,historical dictionary) and one encyclopedia are compared in the way that threedifferent items (general, encyclopedic, and regional) are looked up and the entriesare compared in order to find differences and in this way get a guideline how andwhen to consult what dictionary.

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