Delahunty and Garvey
to augment our discussion of morphology and parts of speech.
dictionary entries
Dictionaries are probably the sources of information on words you are
most familiar with, so we begin our discussion of words by exploring the
information dictionaries provide and the ways in which they present it.
Exercise
- Just to see how much you may have been taking for granted, and
how much of that was right and how much was mistaken, write a 6-7
page critical review comparing/contrasting two reasonably substantial
dictionaries (i.e., compact, collegiate or larger; pocket dictionaries are
too small) suitable for your purposes, e.g., for your own personal or
professional uses or to recommend to the kinds of students you may
teach. We think you will learn a lot about dictionaries by comparing/
contrasting a learner’s dictionary with one for native English speak-
ers. Make sure to give their full names, editions, publishers, dates of
publication, and sizes. Indicate the size of the dictionaries by number
of pages or entries. Your instructor should approve your choice of dic-
tionaries before you begin. As this is to be a critical review, you should
clearly articulate for yourself and your readers the criteria you use to
evaluate the dictionaries.
Compare/contrast their front matters (i.e., everything from the
front cover to the beginning of the alphabetical listing of words) and
their back matters (i.e., everything from the end of the alphabetical
listings to the inside back cover). Pay particular attention to:
a. the dictionaries’ range of contents (e.g., illustrations, proper
names, maps, etc.);
b. the information included in the entries (e.g., pronunciation
[what systems are used to describe it, e.g., IPA or some other
system?], syllabication [what is meant by this in the dictionar-
ies?], etymology, part(s) and subcategories of speech [what range
of these is used in the dictionaries?], definitions, etc.);
c. the ways in which definitions are organized (e.g., earlier to later,
most general to most particular, most frequent to least, etc.);
d. the ways in which your dictionaries deal with expressions related
to the head word, including derivationally related forms, com-
pounds, phrases, idioms, homographs, etc.;
e. the ways in which your dictionaries deal with controversial usage