Some problems of dialect lexicography with particular reference to the preparation of a draft of an illustrative, experientially categorised Dictionary of South African English

Abstract

This dissertation consists in essence of an experiment and a commentary upon it. The text which constitutes Part II is a lexicographical experiment incorporating some features and treatments not usual in lexicography, and Part I consists of a discussion of the problems encountered, principles applied and procedures followed. Neither the matter nor the manner of the experiment, however, lends itself in the present state of our knowledge to the fully impersonal objectivity that is often claimed for the experiments in the physical sciences. At the same time every effort has been made to establish an unbiased record of the data and to maintain a certain methodological consistency. The main experimental feature of Part II is that it is an attempt to combine an orthodox, alphabetical dictionary with an experiential categorisation of the vocabulary, without repeating the entire data for each type of treatment. This has been done by means of a series of numbered, classified word-lists with a limited subject index as a guide to their use. The entries themselves, instead of being repeated in the order of their classification, are numbered according to the category or categories to which the word defined belongs. It can then, by means of its number(s), be found in its own lexical or experiential set (or sets) in the categorised section. This part of the work might be better described as lexicology rather than lexicography but does, I think, prove itself to be a useful adjunct to the A - Z lexicon proper. Apart from the detailed categorisation system the text contains three features not normally included in dictionaries of small compass: illustrative quotations, etymologies and a number of tentative parallels between South African and other varieties of English by means of cross-references to items of similar or related meaning or form in the English of Australia, Canada, the U.S.A., Hong Kong, Anglo-India and other 'overseas' English speech communities. Introduction, p. 1.