Specialised lexicography (also spelled specialized lexicography) is an academic discipline that is concerned with deveovelopment of theories and principles for the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialized dictionaries. A specialized dictionary is a dictionary that covers a relatively restricted set of phenomena, usually within one or more subject fields. An alternative term for this type of dictionary is LSP dictionary.

Contents 1 Various aspects of specialised lexicography 2 See also 3 Relevant literature 4 External links

[edit] Various aspects of specialised lexicography

The study of specialised lexicography deals with several important aspects within the general field of lexicography. The problems involved in designing and making bilingual dictionaries within a culture-dependent subject field involves aspects such as the user's linguistic competence in both languages as well as the user's extra-linguistic (factual) competence in both cultures.

As described in Nielsen 1994, the coverage of dictionaries may be divided into three lexicographically relevant types. First, the multi-field dictionary, which covers several subject-fields; secondly, the single-field dictionary, which covers one subject-field; and thirdly, the sub-field dictionary, which covers one sub-field within a general subject-field. This distinction is lexicographically important, because the best treatment of a subject-field is given in single-field and sub-field dictionaries, as these are the best reference tools for containing and presenting the relevant data.

The function for which the dictionary has been designed is also relevant. The dictionary may have been designed to help the user with two general types of function: communication-oriented and knowledge-oriented. The former deals with the translation of texts, understanding of texts, production of texts and editing/revision of texts, and the latter deals with the acquisition of knowledge (data and information) in situations that are independent of communication.

Specialised lexicography is therefore the discipline where scholars attempt to develop principles and techniques that can help both the compilers of dictionaries and the users. Nielsen 2008 argues that, in particular, the presentation of data in the dictionary should be structured in such a way that the lexicographic information costs are kept at a minimum.

[edit] See also

• Terminology
• Controlled vocabulary

[edit] Relevant literature

• Henning Bergenholtz/Sven Tarp (eds.): Manual of Specialised Lexicography. Benjamins Publishing 1995.
• Sandro Nielsen: The Bilingual LSP Dictionary. Gunter Narr Verlag 1994.
• Sandro Nielsen: The Effect of Lexicographical Information Costs on Dictionary Making and Use. Lexikos 18-2008: 170-189.

[edit] External links

• Lexicographical Basis for an Electronic Bilingual Accounting Dictionary: Theoretical Considerations
• Lexigraf

v • d • e Lexicography Types of reference works Dictionary · Glossary · Lexicon · Thesaurus Types of dictionaries Bilingual · Biographical · Conceptual · Defining · Electronic · Encyclopedic · LSP · Machine-readable · Maximizing · Medical · Minimizing · Monolingual learner's · Multi-field · Phonetic · Picture · Reverse · Rhyming · Rime · Single-field · Specialized · Sub-field · Visual Vocabulary topics Focal vocabulary · Function word · Headword · Holonymy · Hyponymy · Idiom · International scientific vocabulary · Lemma · Lexeme · Meronymy · Morphology · Synonym · Vocabulary size · Word Lexicographic topics Controlled vocabulary · English lexicology and lexicography · Lexicographic error · Lexicographic information cost · Linguistic prescription · Specialised lexicography Lexicographic projects Lexigraf · WordNet Other List of lexicographers · List of online dictionaries