Lexicography: How do I make a Dictionary?

Ken Rehg

http://infield.faculty.linguistics.ucsb.edu/courses/lexicog.html

June 30 - July 3, 8:30 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.
Life Science Computing Facility B

Instructors

Kenneth L. Rehg
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

Course Overview

The goal of this workshop is to provide you with a conceptual framework within which you can produce and maintain a dictionary.

Course Materials

• Syllabus [PDF]

• Handout 1: Websites of Interest [PDF]

• Handout 2: Dictionary Making Software [PDF]

• Handout 3: Funding Sources [PDF]

• Handout 4: Alphabetized List [PDF]

• Handout 5: Creating a Custom Dictionary [PDF]

Recommended Reading

Coward, David F. and Charles E. Grimes. 2000. Making dictionaries: A guide to lexicography and the multi-dictionary formatter. SIL International. Download free from: http://www.sil.org/computing/shoebox/MDF.html .

Landau, Sydney I. 2001. 2nd edition. Dictionaries: The art and craft of lexicography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

An Excellent Bibliography Available on the Web

R.R.K. Hartmann Bibliography of Lexicography

Workshop Content

A dictionary is a product. The development of successful new products, from software to widgets to dictionaries, involves the same five steps: (1) Research, (2) Planning, (3) Construction, (4) Distribution, (5) Support. We will consider what each of these steps entails in the development of a dictionary.

Take Note

A dictionary is a thousand pages of ideas and history, a guide to the mind and the world of a people. No book—except for, perhaps, religious documents, themselves guides to the mind and world of a people—has a shelf life longer than a dictionary. Surely that must be worth something. (Frawley, Hill, and Munro 2002:22)