Autore
Nuccorini, Stefania

Titolo
Usage, Authority and Stance in the Lexicographic Management of English: Webster's 3rd, OED, Learner's Dictionaries
Periodico
Textus
Anno: 2020 - Fascicolo: 1 - Pagina iniziale: 225 - Pagina finale: 249

This paper deals with the concepts of usage, authority and stance in thefield of lexicography, with special reference to the first edition of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (W3), theOxford English Dictionary (OED), and different editions of learner’sdictionaries up to the latest ones. The main aim is to compare and assessdifferent dictionary-making policies and their outcomes on the basis of themore or less overt role played by the interpretations and implementationsof the above-mentioned concepts of usage, authority and stance and theirinterconnections with descriptivism and prescriptivism.Scholarly approaches to the concepts of usage, authority, and stanceare presented in section 1 to outline the scientific background to theirpervasiveness in dictionary-making policies. The definitions of thewords usage, authority and stance given in W3 and in the OED, whoseoutstanding positions in the lexicographical field are undisputed, arethen analysed in section 2. The related definitions of descriptivism andprescriptivism are compared and their application and instantiation areexemplified by the treatment of woman question (as a lexical item) in theOED, as representative of its historical perspective, and of ain’t in W3, asthe symbol of its lexicographic breakthrough (section 3). Section 4 focuseson Learner’s Dictionaries and their specific pedagogical role with referenceto usage, authority and stance, and on their definitions of ain’t in differenteditions, to see if that headword has undergone socio-cultural changes intime. A few concluding remarks are offered in section 5.



SICI: 1824-3967(2020)1<225:UAASIT>2.0.ZU;2-Y
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.7370/97360
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.7370/97360

Esportazione dati in Refworks (solo per utenti abilitati)

Biblioteche ACNP che possiedono il periodico