Lexicology and Lexicography

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 429.

Both lexicology and lexicography are derived from the Greek work lexiko (adjective from lexis meaning 'speech', or 'way of speaking' or 'word'). The common concern of both of them is 'word' or the lexical unit of a language. Lexicology is derived from lexico 'word' plus logos 'learning or science' i.e. the science of words. Lexicography is lexico 'word' plus graph 'writing' i.e. the writing of words. The etymological meaning of these words speaks for itself the scope of these branches of linguistics. Lexicology is the science of the study of word whereas lexicography is the writing of the word in some concrete form i.e. in the form of dictionary. As we shall see later, lexicology and lexicography are very closely related, rather the latter is directly dependent on the former and may be called applied lexicology.

As already noted, both lexicology and lexicography have a common subject 'word'. The sum total of all the words of a language forms the vocabulary or lexical system of a language. The words of a language are like constellations of stars in the firmament. Every word although having its own independent entity is related to others both paradigmatically and syntagmatically. The paradigmatic relations are based on the interdependence of words within the lexical system. The syntagmatic relations show the relation of words in the patterns of arrangement. In other words the vocabulary of a language is not a chaos of diversified phenomena but consists of elements which, though independent, are related in some way. A word has a particular meaning, it has a particular group of sounds, and a particular grammatical function. As such it is a semantic, phonological and grammatical unit. Lexicology studies a word in all these aspects i.e. the patterns of semantic relationship of words as also their phonological, morphological and contextual behaviour. Words undergo constant change in their form and meaning and lexicology studies the vocabulary of a language in terms of its origin, development and current use. The study of the interrelationship of lexical units is done in terms of the contrasts and similarities existing between them.

As a word does not occur in isolation, lexicology studies it with its combinative possibilities. And thus the scope of lexicology includes the study of phraseological units, set combinations etc.

Like general linguistics, of which lexicology is a branch, lexicology can be both historical and descriptive, the former dealing with the origin and development of the form and meaning of the lexical units in a particular languages across time and the latter studying the vocabulary of a language as a system at a particular point of time. But there are many areas in lexicology, where one cannot be studied in isolation, without regard to the other. They are, thus, interdependent.

The lexicological studies can be of two types, viz., general and special. General lexicology is concerned with the general features of words common to all languages. It deals with something like universals in language. Special lexicology on the other hand studies the words with reference to one particular language.

Lexicological studies can be, further, of comparative and contrastive type wherein the lexical systems of two languages are studies from a contrastive point of view.

Lexicology fulfills the needs of different branches of applied linguistics, viz., lexicography, stylistics, language teaching, etc.

As the vocabulary or the lexical system of a language forms a system of the language as other systems, its study in lexicology should not be separated from the other constituents of the system. So lexicology is closely related to phonetics and grammar.

The relation between phonetics and lexicology is very important. Words consist of phonemes, which, although not having meaning of their own, serve in formation of morphemes, the level where meaning is expressed. So they serve to distinguish between meanings. Moreover, meaning itself is indispensable for phonemic analysis. The difference of meaning in /pIt/ and /pUt/ helps in the fixation of the phonemes /I/ and /U/. Historical phonetics helps in the study of polysemy, homonymy and synonymy.

The link between lexicology and grammar is also very close. Each word has a relation in the grammatical system of a language and belongs to some parts of speech. Lexicology studies this relationship in terms of the grammatical meanings as also their relationship with the lexical meaning. In the field of word formation, lexicology is still more closely related to grammar. Both study the patterns of word formation.

Language is a social phenomenon. The study of language cannot be divorced from the study of the social system and the development in society. The development and progress in the social, political and technological system is manifest in the vocabulary of a language. New words are introduced and old words die out. New meanings are added to words and old meanings are dropped out. Lexicology studies the vocabulary of a language from the sociological points also.

Lexicography also studies the lexicon as lexicology does but "whereas lexicology concentrates more on general properties and features that can be viewed as systematic, lexicography typically has the so to say individuality of each lexical unit in the focus of its interest". Lexicography has been generally defined as the writing or compiling1 of a lexicon or dictionary, the art or practice of writing dictionaries or the science of methods of compiling dictionaries. The word was used as early as 1680.

In lexicology the word is studied as a part of the system. In lexicography it is studied as an individual unit in respect of its meaning and use from the practical point of its use by the reader of the dictionary for learning the language or comprehending texts in it or for any other purpose like checking correct spelling, pronunciation etc. A word may have different and varied characteristic, all of which may not be needed by a lexicographer. His work is guided more by the purpose of the dictionary and the type of the audience. He presents the words of the lexical system in a way so as to make it more practically useable in real life situation i.e. in actual speech. For example lexicology may give the theoretical basis for enumerating different meanings of a polysemous word, but how these meanings are worded and presented in the dictionary is governed by the practical problems of utility of the dictionary for different types of readers. The aim of lexicology is to study the vocabulary of a language as a system, so the treatment of individual units may not claim to be complete because the number of units is very larger. Its goal is systematization in the study as a whole but not completeness as regards individual units. So it cannot claim to be a perfectly systematic treatment. Here, every entry is treated as an independent problem. Lexicologists present their material in sequence according to their view of the study of vocabulary. The lexicographers are mostly guided by the principle of convenience in retrieval of the data and arrange words usually in alphabetical order.

Lexicography is the science and art of compiling dictionary. The word 'dictionary' was first used as Dictionarius in this sense in the 13th century by an English man John Garland. The word Dictionarium was used in the 14th century. The first book published under the English title Dictionary was Latin-English Dictionary by Sir Thomas Elyot (1538). For a medieval scholar a dictionary was a collection of diction or phrases put together for the use of pupils studying Latin. One of the purposes of dictionary in medieval times was glossing texts and employing synonyms for them.

Dictionaries are prepared to serve different practical needs of the people. A reader looks at the dictionary mainly from the following points of view: -

(1) as a reference book for different types of information on words e.g. pronunciation, etymology, usage etc. this may be called the store house function of the dictionary.

(2) as a reference point for distinguishing the good or proper usage from the bad or wrong usage. This is the legislative or the court house function of the dictionary2.

One of the most widely accepted criteria for selection of entries in many dictionaries is usually frequency count. The frequency of head words the lexicographer usually chooses the canonical or the most frequently occurring form of a word. This is found out from the grammatical study of the language. For written languages and languages with established grammatical traditions the problem of selection of the head word is not so difficult as in the case of unwritten languages. Here the lexicographer has to be his own linguist and have recourse to the linguistic analysis of the language. For data collection he takes the help of field linguistics and for analysis, of descriptive linguistics. For giving definitions of flora and fauna as also of artifacts and other cultural items the lexicographer gives encyclopaedic information. For this the principle of the hierarchical structure of the vocabulary in terms of folk taxonomy is utilized by a lexicographer. Thus he enters the domain of ethnolinguistics.

For giving spellings and pronunciation of words in his dictionary the lexicographer is helped by the phonetic study of the language. For grammatical information he has to depend on the morphological analysis of the language.

In the determination of the central meaning of a polysemous word the lexicographer is helped by historical linguistics. Etymology gives him the clue to decide the basic meaning. In the fixation of the number of meanings and their interrelationship the lexicographer has to take recourse to the linguistic methods of set collocations, valency and selective restrictions etc.

Historical linguistics helps in tracing the origin and development of the form and meaning of the words in historical dictionaries. In descriptive dictionaries such labels as archaic, obsolete etc., denoting the temporal status of words, are decided with the help of historical linguistics. Historical linguistics, especially etymological study, helps in distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy. But where etymological consideration is not applicable for want of such studies it is the native speaker's intuition which is taken as the determining factor. In this the lexicographer is helped by psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics also helps in providing material for vocabulary development which might be used for the preparation of the graded dictionaries.

Dictionaries give status labels like slang, jargon, taboo, figurative, formal, graamya (vulgar) etc. These labels are decided with the help of sociolinguistic and stylistic studies.