Living Words: Language, Lexicography and the Knowledge Revolution

by Tom McArthur

Overview

In this unique and entertaining collection of articles, a noted scholar and compiler of key works of reference reflects on the nature of language, the art of lexicography and the breath-taking developments in communication, the media and information technology in the late twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780859896207
Publisher:	University of Exeter Press
Publication date:	01/01/1999
Series:	Exeter Language and Lexicography
Edition description:	1
Pages:	299
Product dimensions:	5.87(w) x 8.82(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Tom McArthur is an independent writer, editor, consultant and broadcaster, and editor of English Today: the international review of the English language, the quarterly review published by Cambridge University Press. He is Deputy Director of the Dictionary Research Centre and Honorary University Fellow at the University of Exeter, and General Editor with R.R.K. Hartmann of the series Exeter Language and Lexicography. He has published over 20 books and is the editor of The Oxford Companion to the English Language.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Reinhard Hartmann

Introduction

Living words
1 Bagaba and carcari: or, the paradox at the heart of language
2 Rhythm, rhyme, and reason: the power of patterned sound
3 The power of words: pressure, prejudice, and politics in our vocabularies and dictionaries
4 The word word
5 The vocabulary-control movement in the English language, 1844-1953

Language
6 Wee Jimmy and the dugs: or, where do YOU stand in the classroom?
7 The usage industry
8 Problems of purism and usage in editing English Today
9 The pedigree of plain English
10 The printed word in the English-speaking world

Lexicography
11 The background and nature of ELT learners' dictionaries
12 Thematic lexicography
13 Reference materials and their formats
14 A mutually defining circle of words: some reflections on the making of the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English
15 Culture-bound and trapped by technology: centuries of bias in the making of wordbooks
16 Guides to tomorrow's English: dictionaries for a universal language

The knowledge revolution
17 What then is reference science?
18 The scholarly guild
19 Knowledge, knowledge everywhere: the global library
20 Themes and dreams: the romance of the database
21 Representing knowledge for human consumption

Appendix
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary of Language Teaching

Editorial Reviews

There are many valuable insights in this collection of papers . . . The articles in this collection will fascinate lexicographers.” –International Journal of Lexicography, Vol. 13, No 2, 2000

International Journal of Lexicography

"There are many valuable insights in this collection of papers...The articles in this collection will fascinate lexicographers." International Journal of Lexicography, Vol. 13, No 2, 2000 "The collection has many attractions apart from the intrinsic interest of the subject matter. Mc Arthur's roles as the editor of English Today, and as the author of Worlds of Reference, The Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English, and The Oxford Companion to the English Language, have given him a breadth of experience in linguistic, lexicographical, and encyclopaedic fields that few could match." English Studies, Vol.83, No.6

From the Publisher