week 10: reflection on lexicography

On 9^th April 2013, we learned about lexicography which is one of the areas under the big umbrella of corpus linguistics. Basically, lexicography is the study of words, lexical items or vocabulary.

The experts in this area are called lexicographers. They are linguists and expertise in writing dictionaries. Prof. Kev Nair, who was born in Kerala, South India, in 1949, is the father of fluency lexicographer.

Lexicography does not only focus on English but also other languages. It has two related disciplines which are practical lexicography as well as theoretical lexicography. Practical lexicography deals with the area of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. Theoretical lexicography is quite intensive than practical lexicography. It deals with the process of analyzing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language. It also focuses on developing theories of dictionary component and structures linking the data in dictionaries. Other than that, theoretical lexicography studies the needs of information by users in specific types of situation, and how users may best access the data incorporated in printed and electronic dictionaries. This is also known as ‘metalexicography.’

What is the relevance of lexicography to corpus linguistics?

There is a relevance of linking corpus linguistics with lexicography. As we all know, writing a dictionary is not an easy task. Lexicographers have to do many researches on a particular word before they can put it in a dictionary. To do this, lexicographers need to have a huge amount of data. The solution for this problem is to use concordancer. By using concordancer, lexicographers can go through the words and get data regarding the words, for example, the meaning of the words, the contexts in which they can be used.

As the students of Bachelor of English Language and Literature, who are taking Computer Applications for Language Studies, learning about lexicography can expose us to one of the various fields in linguistics. Even though we were only learning about the introduction of lexicography, it can help to develop our interest in that area of study. When we have interest in something, we would want to know more about it. Thus, we would read more and do some research about it. This interest would later develop to love. Since lexicography is not a very popular field in Malaysia, who knows someday in the future, we can make this field as one of the most wanted jobs among Malaysians. InsyaAllah.