Anthropocentrism in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary: A Synergic Perspective of Critical Lexicographical Discourse Studies and Systemic Functional Linguistics
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Critical Lexicographical Discourse Studies (CLDS) view the dictionary as a discourse and emphasize an ideological, ethico-political dimension to the lexicographical process. Combining CLDS with Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper looks into how anthropocentrism is manifested linguistically in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Seventh Edition), the most influential authoritative general-purpose Chinese dictionary, by examining the transitivity and appraisal patterns in the definition texts concerning animals and plants. The analysis shows that animals and plants are seldom assigned agency in their own right and that the animals and plants are evaluated either positively or negatively according to whether they are useful to the human beings while their intrinsic value is ignored. In particular, animals are highlighted for their agricultural and medicinal use and plants for their medicinal and ornamental value. However, compared with its previous editions, the dictionary has shown an enhanced awareness of environmental protection by deleting the encyclopaedic information that describes the use of some rare animals’ meat, bones and fur. It is argued that, although modern general-purpose dictionaries are increasingly corpus-based and descriptive, their role in shaping social values and stances cannot be disregarded. Dictionary makers need to balance what words mean with what they can be said to mean or be allowed to mean (Moon, 2014). The study contributes to unmasking and denaturalizing the hidden ideology in colony texts such as the dictionary, enhances a critical use of dictionaries and helps develop the theory of critical lexicography and emerging ecolexicography.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Lexicography was launched in 1988. Interdisciplinary as well as international, it is concerned with all aspects of lexicography, including issues of design, compilation and use, and with dictionaries of all languages, though the chief focus is on dictionaries of the major European languages - monolingual and bilingual, synchronic and diachronic, pedagogical and encyclopedic. The Journal recognizes the vital role of lexicographical theory and research, and of developments in related fields such as computational linguistics, and welcomes contributions in these areas.