#Collins monolingual english dictionary manual#

Of course, it is essential to consider which groups a dictionary is aimed at. They often have a prescriptive character. Zgusta mentions pedagogical dictionaries which restrict themselves to information that a learner is expected to need, e.g. The factor purpose is to be considered as a powerful one in dictionary making. Monolingual dictionaries like the Oxford Advanced Learner` s Dictionary belong to this category, too. Mostly dictionaries like these are made for people learning English as a foreign or second language and are therefore called EFL or ESL dictionaries. There are monolingual dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries and, although rather infrequently, dictionaries including more than two languages. The counterpart of this type of dictionary is the general dictionary, which focuses on the general standard national language in use.Īn important dimension of classifying dictionaries is the number of languages dealt with. The focus of restriction can be on almost everything: semantic properties, etymological roots, geographical areas and many more.

Dictionaries of loan-words, idioms and various others also belong to this large group. There is a great variety of restricted dictionaries dealing for example with dialects, slang, jargons and their lexicon or the words and terms used by an author or in a special work, the word indexes or concordances. Secondly, we have to distinguish between general and restricted dictionaries.Īuthors of restricted dictionaries narrow their view to a certain part of the lexicon or other features of a language. Synchronic dictionaries deal with the language and its word-stock at a certain point in time, for example in the Early Modern period or the Present Day English period, although this definition bears methodical problems when one considers that language is in change every day and used differently by everyone. So we can subsume historical and etymological dictionaries under this category. The first differentiation, Ladislav Zgusta makes is between diachronic dictionaries and synchronic ones.ĭiachronic dictionaries are mainly concerned with the history and development of the form and meaning of words. Let us now take a look at the categories he chose.

#Collins monolingual english dictionary manual#

In his book Manual of Lexicography, Ladislav Zgusta tried to create a possibility to categorize dictionaries better.