Kernerman Dictionary News • Number 15 • July 2007
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The Kaoru Akasu
This article is based on a paper
entitled ‘Dictionary Analyses in Lexicon
Revisited’, read on
The
Iwasaki Linguistic Circle (ILC) is a study group of linguists and
lexicographers, based in 2.
Historical Background Let
me begin by referring to the ILC history and today’s ILC, of which I am an
active member. The ILC―or Iwasaki Kenkyukai in Japanese, and Iwaken
for short―was set up in 1962 and started as a very small reading
circle. Under their professor’s guidance, five or six university graduates
met at his home to read books and articles on both general linguistics and
English linguistics.1
The mentor’s name was Tamihei Iwasaki, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University
of Foreign Studies (Tokyo Gaikokugo Daigaku). The late Professor
Iwasaki, a phonetician, was among the leading English linguists at the time
and well known for the English-Japanese dictionaries he wrote and edited.
Obviously, this circle is named after him. As time went by, the ILC grew and
now boasts a membership of some 200 people. The circle is currently headed by
two original members: the ILC President, phonetician Shigeru Takebayashi,
Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and
Vice-President, metalexicographer Yoshiro Kojima, Professor Emeritus at In
1972, ten years following its inception, the ILC launched the first issue of
its journal, Lexicon, which is
published annually. It is unique in that it often contains one or two very
detailed dictionary analysis articles.2 Actually,
the first and second issues of Lexicon
did not carry any analyses of dictionaries, and Lexicon No. 3 (1974) was the first to include dictionary
analysis. However, in 1968, four years before the first issue of Lexicon came out, ILC members had
published an original dictionary analysis in another journal: Reports of the University of
Electro-Communication, which constituted the first of its type. This
review, in the so-called Iwaken-style, broke new ground and set the standard
for the many analyses to follow in Lexicon,
as well as for two other analyses published in the International Journal of Lexicography (IJL) and two more in Reports
of the University of Electro-Communication. There
are four study groups in the current ILC: Lexicography, Corpus, Grammar, and
Theoretical Linguistics. Interested members meet basically once a month and
read a book or an article of their choice and discuss the subject matter. As
mentioned earlier, this kind of meeting, which we call rindokukai
(regular meeting of a reading circle), was the starting point of the ILC, and
is still at the heart of the circle. Also, some younger members of the ILC
have started looking into the history of major English-Japanese dictionaries
published in 3.
The First Dictionary Analysis Let
us take a look at the first dictionary analysis, which appeared in 1968 in Reports of the University of
Electro-Communications, the Japanese title of which journal is Denki-tsushin Daigaku Gakuho. One
might wonder just why it appeared in this particular publication. The reason
can be attributed to the fact that two of the four authors were faculty
members at this university.3 What
follows explores the methodological dimension of this review dissecting Penguin English Dictionary (1965).
Five aspects of the dictionary are examined in this analysis and compared
with other dictionaries, namely, selection of words entered, description of
senses, usage labels, idiomatic phrases, and pronunciation. 3.1 Headwords As
for the first aspect, the selection of words entered, 100 words were taken
from each of five, randomly chosen, sections of Penguin, totaling 500 words. These word selections came from
pages 150-151, 301-302, 450-451, 598-601, and 697-698, and were then compared
to corresponding entries in the following dictionaries: Concise Oxford Dictionary 5e (COD),
Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate
Dictionary, Random House Dictionary,
and Webster’s Third New International
Dictionary. The results of the comparison were given in tables and the
conclusion, taken from the English synopsis at the head of the article,
states as follows: “Penguin is much
more liberal toward informal terms and Americanisms than COD. Moreover, inflected forms are freely included as the main
entries to an extent unusual for a dictionary of this size. On the other
hand, Penguin is not so active as COD and other smaller 3.2 Sense Description The
second aspect dealt with coverage, arrangement, manner of presentation, cross
referencing, and terms and expressions used in definitions. In so doing,
common words such as cat, grass, nice, large, fairly, fast (adv), please, and
look were scrupulously compared
mainly between Penguin and COD. Also compared were words like constellation, crustacea, and feminism,
which are much less common. Here is the conclusion: “Penguin attaches greater importance to the colloquial meaning
than to the literary, and arranges the meanings according to the frequency of
their use to the great advantage of the general user. The poor presentation
in this dictionary of grammatical terms shows contrastive features against
other dictionaries, and in this respect Penguin
has practically nothing to offer. Lack of illustrative sentences and cross
references, apart from the references to Penguin
Reference Books, are other flaws to
be improved.” 3.3 Usage Labels For
usage labels, 200 headwords were chosen from each of the following eight
sections: advert - agometer; d - deadlight; f - faro; j - jeans; m - manna1; proud - pulverizer,; stink - stratosphere; virtual - vying. The j - jeans part was the only exception in that it contained 100 word
samples, bringing the headword total to 1,500 in all. These words were
compared between Penguin and COD for the presence or absence of
usage labels and their specific types such as slang, colloquial, archaic, and vulgar. Hence, the conclusion: “A comparative survey of the usage
labels, especially those of slang, colloquial, archaic, and poetic,
discloses that there is an undeniable, even if slight, discrepancy in the use
of the labels, and this is certainly due to the difference in the outlooks of
the English language of COD and Penguin.” 3.4 Idioms As
for the idiomatic phrases, the analysts looked into location, arrangement,
and coverage. Idiomatic phrases within entries given for such common words as
get, make, put, and take were compared mainly between Penguin, COD, and Webster’s New
World Dictionary of the American Language. It says in the synopsis that
“[a]s regards the ‘idiomatic phrases’ in Penguin,
they are considerably large in number and are various in kind. Some of them,
mostly labeled coll or sl, are supposed to be the ones rarely
found in other dictionaries of a similar or even larger size. The
explanations given to them are usually simple and plain, forming a remarkable
contrast with COD which often uses
somewhat difficult expressions for the purpose. All these may be called the
chief merits of the ‘idiomatic phrases’ in Penguin, but the most marked demerit we have noticed is the
confusion in the order of their arrangement.” 3.5 Pronunciation As
regards the last aspect, pronunciation, the analysis comprised two different
parts. The first dealt with the transcription system, with a comparison made
between the Penguin symbols and the
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). In addition, specific transcriptions
of consonants and vowels were compared between Penguin and COD or the English Pronouncing Dictionary 12e (EPD12). The latter part of the analysis was an attempt to see if Penguin identified any new
pronunciation trends. Penguin and EPD12 were specifically compared for
this purpose. Here is the synopsis: “The phonetic symbols employed in Penguin are not those proposed by the
International Phonetic Association, but are based on conventional spelling.
They are, however, fairly consistent and satisfactory so far as the symbols
for vowels in accented syllables and for consonants are concerned. On the
other hand, vowels in unaccented syllables are rather poorly represented and
the notation of full vowels in syllables with secondary stress is misleading.
This defect is due to the principle of accentuation adopted by the
dictionary. Penguin marks accented
syllables with italic letters and unaccented ones with romans. By this method
only two degrees of stress can be distinguished, while, in fact, three
degrees of stress—primary, secondary and weak—are distinctive in English.
Hence this ambiguity: both secondary stressed full vowels and weak stressed
obscure vowels are represented with the same symbols …. In our opinion the
system of accentuation in Penguin
leaves much to be improved.” In
conclusion, the reviewers stated that “[t]he remarkable features of this
dictionary we have revealed in the above analyses lead us to think that it is
a fairly successful experiment in modern lexicography and that, along with COD, it will satisfy the needs of the
general reader of today.” It is noteworthy that they brought their discussion
to a conclusion on a positive note. 4.
Concluding Remarks The
above goes to show that this first ever dictionary analysis, by four Iwaken
members, had certain characteristic features worthy of attention. First, it
was a comparative analysis. This is pointed out in Nakamoto (1998). Second,
the analysis was based on random sampling. Random sampling is necessary for
the analysis to be objective rather than subjective, and being objective adds
reliability to the analysis. Third, it was a collaborative project involving
four analysts: to use 4.1
In his article titled ‘Dictionary Reviews and Reviewing:
1900-1975’, Robert Chapman offers four interesting suggestions on the method
of dictionary reviewing. After commending, as a model, a review conducted by
James B. McMillan, he writes: “I have four suggestions to offer toward a
still better method. First, it would be desirable, if it does not prove too
clumsy, to constitute a reviewing team something like the technical advising
team most dictionaries use. … Second, reviewers should use a random sampling
device that covers the book from A to Z, so that the total average
performance may be assessed. … Third, very close attention should be paid to
the quality of these fifty or more definitions. They should be painstakingly
analyzed for, to use McMillan’s criteria, accuracy, completeness, clearness,
simplicity, and modernity. … Fourth, the “referential integrity” should be
tested by tracking down a number of cross-references. This is an excellent
gauge of editorial thoroughness and the effectiveness of systems.” The ILC
researchers did just this in their analysis of Penguin English Dictionary.
The article by Chapman was published in 1977, so again, it is worth pointing
out that the Iwaken analysis of Penguin
was out in 1968. 4.2
Regrettably, Lexicon
has yet to enjoy due exposure and acknowledgment, and I can think of a couple
of reasons for that. One major reason is linguistic in nature. Not all articles in Lexicon were written in
English up until 1994, and as far as dictionary analyses are concerned, all
of them were written in Japanese. Though they had additional English
summaries it is not clear how much these helped to lower the barrier of
non-recognition. In a way, Lexicon
was turned in on itself. In 1994 a welcome change was made in the Lexicon’s Guidelines for Contributors, and it was decided that all
submissions must be in English. So, since 1995, all dictionary analyses have
been made more easily accessible to non-Japanese readers in and outside of Incidentally,
Howard Jackson (2002: 175-76) stated the following: “Where team reviewing has
been undertaken more recently (e.g.
the well-organized and comprehensive Japanese reviews of COD5 … and of LDEL2
…), each member of the team has taken a different aspect of linguistic
description (pronunciation, definition, usage, etymology, etc.) rather than
vocabulary specialism, which is probably a more sensible division of labour.”
This, I think, is another reason why Lexicon
was not receiving due attention. If 4.3
Again, it seems to me that, until quite recently, we failed to
make it clear, in the first place, to whom these dictionary analyses in Lexicon were addressed. It is quite understandable
why that was the case. Who would have imagined, in the nineteen sixties, that
lexicography would attract such attention as we are witnessing now? Things
have really changed over the years. My belief is that the world of
lexicography is becoming smaller and smaller, more so than ever, so there is
a sense in which dictionary analyses in Lexicon
are aimed at all people interested in practical or theoretical lexicography.
We need to realize that we can, and should, make a contribution to the
development of this ever expanding field. The
name of Lexicon is now listed as a
main entry in the Dictionary of
Lexicography (1998), and 350 copies are printed each year, with some 60
sent to individuals and institutions abroad. I believe that we have so much
more to contribute in a variety of ways toward better lexicography. Notes 1.
See Takebayashi (1973), Kojima (1985), Higashi (2003), and others for more
detail. 2.
I constructed two tables at the end of this paper in order to help readers
overview what kind of dictionary analysis has been carried out by ILC members
in the past nearly four decades. These tables are actually revised and
updated versions of the tables given in Nakamoto (1998). Table
1 shows all the relevant dictionary analyses in chronological
order. The middle group, headed by roman numeral (II), is composed of all the
analyses appearing in Lexicon. The
dictionary analyses that preceded these in time are given in the first group,
indicated by roman numeral (I). The third group is the Iwaken-style review
articles that came out in IJL,
indicated by roman numeral (III). I hasten to add that dictionary analyses
made by single authors have been left out of this account. If one wishes to
get some idea of what the Iwaken dictionary analysis is like, I suggest
taking a look at these two reviews in IJL,
since they are perhaps more easily accessible. The one difference I might
point out between them and the analyses in Lexicon is that, the IJL
reviews are considerably shorter and much more concise than the Lexicon articles because of space
limitations. Table
2 indicates which aspects of the dictionary have been examined
in each analysis. Obviously, not every dimension is dealt with for plausible
reasons, but it is safe to say that these analyses are quite comprehensive in
their coverage of the material. The
reference to Katsumata (1958) in Table 1 concerns Kenkyusha’s New
Dictionary of English Collocations. 3.
See Nakao (2003) for more detail. References Akasu, Kaoru. (2003). Dictionary
analyses in Lexicon revisited. A
paper presented at the Third Asialex Biennial International Conference, Akasu, Kaoru. (2005). A glimpse
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Language Postgraduate Seminar, Chapman, Robert L. (1977). Dictionary
reviews and reviewing: 1900--1975. In James C. Raymond and I. Willis Russell
(Eds.), James B. McMillan: Essays in
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