Dictionary of foreign words as a lexicographic genre

Abstract

The research was carried out on the material of dictionaries of foreign (foreign-language) words published in the period from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day (a total of nineteen editions). Among them are dictionaries of a general type, including concise ones, as well as dictionaries of neological vocabulary. The article sets the aim of analyzing the experience accumulated over two centuries and identifying the features in their development that are inherent in the dictionary of borrowings as a genre. The author’s field of vision is the issue of the opposition of linguistic and encyclopaedic features of the dictionary description in the dictionary of borrowed words. In the first part of the article, attention is paid to the dictionary’s microstructure, in the second to its macrostructure. Despite the initial conceptual setting on the communication of encyclopaedic information about the concept denoted by a foreign word, features of a linguistic dictionary have always been inherent in loanword dictionaries. This is shown by the material of dictionary entries from papers of different years, starting from 1901. At the level of the dictionary microstructure, such features are: etymology, data on the sphere of use of the word, data on semantic derivation and semantic transfers, paradigmatic connections of the word, its combinatorial properties, closest derivational connections, and variability of form. At the level of macrostructure, this may be a reflection of the typological properties of foreign-language vocabulary (borrowings, quasi-borrowings, hybrid words, secondary borrowings, semantic derivatives). The fact of genetic heterogeneity of borrowed vocabulary has hardly been reflected in dictionary practice until now. All the provisions are illustrated with examples from dictionary editions of different years. Proposed for discussion is the thesis about the unproductiveness of the fundamental opposition of encyclopaedic and linguistic knowledge within the framework of an explanatory dictionary (a dictionary of foreign words by its genre refers to aspect explanatory dictionaries). This thesis is supported by the evidence of well-known lexicographers and examples from the semantic, phraseological and illustrative zones of modern dictionaries. The specificity of the vocabulary of the loanword dictionary is a high percentage of terminological vocabulary, which is essentially a carrier of encyclopaedic information. Therefore, the synthesis of conceptual presentation and linguistic description (in various proportions) in the interpretation of a foreign term is inevitable. In conclusion, a brief typology of dictionaries of foreign words is given in various aspects: in terms of the period of the borrowing of the word, the source language of the borrowing, the addressee of the dictionary, the selection of dictionary units in relation to their belonging to the language standard. The question is raised about the appropriateness of including sub-standard vocabulary in the dictionary of foreign words of a general type. The author declares no conflicts of interests.