The Cambridge Companion to English Dictionaries (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

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. Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 2 Title - Full......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 Illustrations......Page 10 Tables......Page 11 Notes on Contributors......Page 12 Acknowledgements......Page 21 Chronology......Page 22 Chapter 1 - Introduction......Page 29 Part I - Issues in English Lexicography......Page 33 Chapter 2 - How a Word Gets into an English Dictionary......Page 35 Chapter 3 - Technology and English Dictionaries......Page 46 Chapter 4 - Diachronic and Synchronic English Dictionaries......Page 59 Chapter 5 - Description and Prescription: The Roles of English Dictionaries......Page 73 Chapter 6 - European Cross-Currents in English Lexicography......Page 86 Chapter 7 - English Slang Dictionaries......Page 103 Part II - English Dictionaries Throughout the Centuries......Page 115 Chapter 8 - A Dictionary Ecosystem: Four Centuries of English Lexicography......Page 117 Seventeenth-Century English Dictionaries: Hard Words......Page 129 Chapter 9 - Cawdrey, Coote, and ‘Hard Vsual English Wordes’......Page 131 Chapter 10 - Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century English Lexicography......Page 142 Eighteenth-Century English Dictionaries: Prescriptivism and Completeness......Page 155 Chapter 11 - Recording the Most Proper and Significant Words......Page 157 Chapter 12 - Samuel Johnson and the ‘First English Dictionary’......Page 170 Nineteenth-Century English Dictionaries: Descriptivism......Page 183 Chapter 13 - The Making of American English Dictionaries......Page 185 Chapter 14 - The Oxford English Dictionary......Page 198 Twentieth and Twenty-First-Century Dictionaries......Page 209 Chapter 15 - The English Period Dictionaries......Page 211 Chapter 16 - English-as-a-Foreign-Language Lexicography......Page 223 Chapter 17 - Electronic Dictionaries......Page 235 Chapter 18 - English Dictionaries and Corpus Linguistics......Page 247 Chapter 19 - Natural Language Processing in Lexicography......Page 268 Part III - Dictionaries of English and Related Varieties......Page 281 Chapter 20 - Dictionaries of Canadian English......Page 283 Chapter 21 - Australian Lexicography: Defining the Nation......Page 293 Chapter 22 - New Zealand’s Lexicographic Legacy......Page 302 Chapter 23 - Hobson-Jobson and Dictionaries of Indian English......Page 310 Chapter 24 - South African English Dictionaries: From Colonial to Post-Colonial......Page 316 Chapter 25 - Dictionaries of Caribbean English: Agents of Standardisation......Page 326 Chapter 26 - Dictionary of American Regional English......Page 334 Chapter 27 - The Scottish Dictionary Tradition......Page 343 Guide to Further Reading......Page 352 Index......Page 370 "Dictionaries and lexicography (the art and craft of dictionary-making) have existed as long as humans have been writing. When one considers that the first dictionaries were carved into clay tablets by Sumerians over 4000 years ago, then the first monolingual English dictionary, which appeared in 1604, could be considered positively 'recent'. However, the four centuries since then present a fascinating story of evolution, innovation, devotion, plagiarism, and controversy. Dictionaries are the kinds of books that are always 'just there'. Alongside religious texts they have acquired, throughout history, a sense of sacredness and authority. There are reasons for this, and this volume traces how this became so. How did a single genre of text have the power to standardize the English language across time and region, to rival the Bible in notions of authority, and to challenge our understanding of objectivity, prescription, and description?"-- Provided by publisher