How Dictionaries Cope With Language Change
Can English language dictionaries cope with the current speed of language change? While such change usually involves grammar, pronunciation, spelling, and phrasing, the English language appears to be changing particularly fast in the realm of phrasing: the incorporation of new words and expressions relating to various topics, influenced, among other things, by the speed of technological change. Yet, it may be inferred that technological change is not a sufficient criterion for such change. Japanese, for example, has changed little, compared with English, according to a recent National Science Foundation report; other social and cultural factors appear to play a role ("Language Change").
Paul McFedries’ intriguing web site Word Spy (The Word Lover’s Guide to New Words) is a good example on the density of new expressions entering the English language, some of which are making it into the dictionaries. To cope with the phenomenon, well-known dictionaries are providing constant online updates. Merriam-Webster, for example, has a section for words proposed by the public: “You know that word that really should be in the dictionary? Until it actually makes it in, here's where it goes” (“New Words and Slang”). How, then, in the perpetual tsunami of new vocabulary, do dictionary editors decide which new words to include in updates to their dictionaries? First of all, an unabridged dictionary is likely to include more new words than an abridged one because of space considerations. Secondly, new words go through a long process before they are either incorporated or dropped, as illustrated through the example of Merriam-Webster. To make a long story short, a typical procedure involves the following broad phases: editors “reading and marking” a variety of published material, noting neologisms, variant spellings, etc.; saving the marked passages, along with their citations in a searchable database, showing not only where each text came from but in what context the new word was used; and “definers” reading through the citations, deciding which words to keep based on the number of citations found for each word as well as the variety of publications where it is used over a substantial period of time (“How Does a Word Get into a Merriam-Webster Dictionary?”). The process is almost identical in the Oxford Dictionaries (“How a New Word Enters the Oxford Dictionary”).
Dictionaries are coping with the speed of change with the help of technology: easier access to a variety of publications, searchable electronic databases, user input and faster statistics. With time, dictionaries can only become more objective -- descriptive rather than prescriptive as most were in the past. They are also becoming more democratic. A Wikimedia era of McDictionaries or a regulated lexicographic democracy? You decide.
Posted by May Mikati on 05 April 2012, 4:43 AM
Can English language dictionaries cope with the current speed of language change? While such change usually involves grammar, pronunciation, spelling, and phrasing, the English language appears to be changing particularly fast in the realm of phrasing: the incorporation of new words and expressions relating to various topics, influenced, among other things, by the speed of technological change. Yet, it may be inferred that technological change is not a sufficient criterion for such change. Japanese, for example, has changed little, compared with English, according to a recent National Science Foundation report; other social and cultural factors appear to play a role ("Language Change").
Paul McFedries’ intriguing web site Word Spy (The Word Lover’s Guide to New Words) is a good example on the density of new expressions entering the English language, some of which are making it into the dictionaries. To cope with the phenomenon, well-known dictionaries are providing constant online updates. Merriam-Webster, for example, has a section for words proposed by the public: “You know that word that really should be in the dictionary? Until it actually makes it in, here's where it goes” (“New Words and Slang”). How, then, in the perpetual tsunami of new vocabulary, do dictionary editors decide which new words to include in updates to their dictionaries? First of all, an unabridged dictionary is likely to include more new words than an abridged one because of space considerations. Secondly, new words go through a long process before they are either incorporated or dropped, as illustrated through the example of Merriam-Webster. To make a long story short, a typical procedure involves the following broad phases: editors “reading and marking” a variety of published material, noting neologisms, variant spellings, etc.; saving the marked passages, along with their citations in a searchable database, showing not only where each text came from but in what context the new word was used; and “definers” reading through the citations, deciding which words to keep based on the number of citations found for each word as well as the variety of publications where it is used over a substantial period of time (“How Does a Word Get into a Merriam-Webster Dictionary?”). The process is almost identical in the Oxford Dictionaries (“How a New Word Enters the Oxford Dictionary”).
Dictionaries are coping with the speed of change with the help of technology: easier access to a variety of publications, searchable electronic databases, user input and faster statistics. With time, dictionaries can only become more objective -- descriptive rather than prescriptive as most were in the past. They are also becoming more democratic. A Wikimedia era of McDictionaries or a regulated lexicographic democracy? You decide.
Posted by May Mikati on 05 April 2012, 4:43 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment