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Lexiculture and the EFL Dictionary
Anthony P. Cowie
Anthony P. Cowie has vast experience and
expertise in teaching English as a Foreign Language, particularly in Nigeria,
subsequently as a specialist with the British Council, and then as a Lecturer
at Leeds University. He was involved in six ELT dictionary projects,
including editorship of the Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (fourth edition) and joint compilation of
the Oxford Dictionary of Current
Idiomatic English in two
volumes, and was Director of the OUP Lexical Research Unit at Leeds. He was
later appointed Reader in Lexicography, and now serves on the Editorial Board
of the New OED. He was until
recently Editor of the International
Journal of Lexicography and is author of English Dictionaries for Foreign Learners – a History (Oxford
1999).
a.p.cowie@btinternet.com
As
Jean Pruvost has argued convincingly in this stimulating account of Robert
Galisson’s pioneering work on ‘lexiculture’, cultural aspects of meaning are
a neglected element in standard dictionaries, and a much-needed one in
dictionaries intended for foreign learners of a language. Less progress has
admittedly been made among English-speaking than French-speaking scholars in
elaborating a theory of lexiculture – an exception being Gabriele Stein’s
invaluable article on ‘EFL dictionaries: meaning, culture and illustrations’
in Better Words (Exeter, 2002) –
yet some noteworthy advances have been made since the early1990s in this
area, and specifically in the development of the so-called ‘EFL cultural
dictionary’. We now have the Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, Encyclopedic Edition
(1992) and the Longman Dictionary of
English Language and Culture (1992, 2nd edition, 1998), each based on the
immediately preceding edition of the standard EFL work.
In both dictionaries, there are notes on various aspects of English culture.
For example, in the Oxford Encyclopedic,
there are ninety-four special ‘articles’ dealing with ‘class’, ‘crime’,
‘food’, ‘gardens’, ‘the royal family’, and so on. These topics are generally
treated at some length, and with a wealth of lexicultural detail, such as for
example guidance on how to order a pint of bitter beer! Here and there, too,
one finds very precise information about the use of various routine formulae.
For example, under ‘conventions’, the reader is told when he or she should
use ‘please’, ‘excuse me’, ‘how do you do?’ and ‘that’s all right’.
Other places in the Oxford Encyclopedic
in which cultural detail appears are the ‘mini-notes’: ‘short extra
paragraphs giving information on the special connotations these words have
for native speakers of English.’ Consider some of the detail in the mini-note
for ‘tea’ – suggesting parallels with the small details of everyday life
which clearly fascinate Galisson: ‘Tea also suggests comfort and warmth, and
sitting down with “a nice cup of tea” is a common response to problems and
worries.’
Corresponding, in the Longman
work, to Oxford's mini-notes are a large number of so-called 'cultural notes'.
These deal with a wide range of topics, including religion, popular
superstitions and social stereotypes, and are well set out for quick
reference and learning purposes.
A noteworthy feature of the Longman dictionary is the space given over to
cultural illustrations. Several pictures (e.g. the one for ‘yuppie, or Young Upwardly-Mobile
Professional’) reflect in an entertaining way the connotative details
appearing in the definition, which include: ‘In Britain, yuppies are seen as
young people who earn a lot of money without necessarily working very hard,
usu. on the financial markets in the city.’
Less then a hundred ‘mini-notes’, and about the same number of special
articles – and this is just to speak of the Oxford Encyclopedic – do not amount to a great deal in a
dictionary of 93,000 entries. However, the two dictionaries represent a
notable step forward, both in identifying words and phrases of cultural
interest and in devising effective methods of presenting them to the advanced
learner. None the less, English-language dictionaries still have much to learn
from the type of systematic exploration of culturally-rich items to be found
in the research of Robert Galisson.
K Dictionaries Ltd
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tel: 972-3-5468102 • fax: 972-3-5468103
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