When we look up a word in a dictionary, we want to know not just its meaning but also its function and the circumstances under which it should be used in preference to words of similar meaning. Standard dictionaries do not address such matters, treating each word in isolation. R. M. W. Dixon puts forward a new approach to lexicography that involves grouping words into 'semantic sets', to describe what can and cannot be said, and providing explanations for this. He provides a critical survey of the evolution of English lexicography from the earliest times, showing how Samuel Johnson's classic treatment has been amended in only minor ways. Written in an easy and accessible style, the book focuses on the rampant plagiarism between lexicographers, on ways of comparing meanings of words, and on the need to link lexicon with grammar. Dixon tells an engrossing story that puts forward a vision for the future.
When we look up a word in a dictionary, we want to know not just its meaning but also its function and the circumstances under which it should be used in preference to words of similar meaning. Standard dictionaries do not address such matters, treating each word in isolation. R. M. W. Dixon puts forward a new approach to lexicography that involves grouping words into 'semantic sets', to describe what can and cannot be said, and providing explanations for this. He provides a critical survey of the evolution of English lexicography from the earliest times, showing how Samuel Johnson's classic treatment has been amended in only minor ways. Written in an easy and accessible style, the book focuses on the rampant plagiarism between lexicographers, on ways of comparing meanings of words, and on the need to link lexicon with grammar. Dixon tells an engrossing story that puts forward a vision for the future.
Languages around the world organize their lexicons, or vocabularies, in a myriad of different ways. This book is a celebration of global linguistic diversity, bringing together fascinating cases from a wide range of languages to explore how and why this lexical variation occurs. Each of the thirty-six short chapters shows how different culturally-specific words, relating to a range of phenomena such as kinship, colour, space, time, objects, smells, and animals, vary across languages and geographical locations. It also explains the mechanisms of development in vocabularies, showing why this variation occurs, and how languages and cultures interact, to deepen the reader's understanding of one of the most important aspects of linguistics. Assuming little to no prior knowledge of linguistics, and introducing concepts in an accessible way, this book is an entertaining, informative read for anyone who wants to learn more about the incredible variation and diversity of the human lexicon.
A high degree of cultural and racial homogeneity has long been associated with Japan, with its political discourse and with the lexicon of post-war Japanese scholarship. This book examines underlying
Does a bilingual person have two separate lexicons and two separate grammatical systems? Or should the bilingual linguistic competence be regarded as an integrated system? This book explores this issue, which is central to current debate in the study of bilingualism, and argues for an integrated hypothesis: the linguistic competence of an individual is a single cognitive faculty, and the bilingual mind should not be regarded as fundamentally different from the monolingual one. This conclusion is backed up with a variety of empirical data, in particular code-switching, drawn from a variety of bilingual pairs. The book introduces key notions in minimalism and distributed morphology, making them accessible to readers with different scholarly foci. This book is of interest to those working in linguistics and psycholinguistics, especially bilingualism, code-switching, and the lexicon.
New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics provides a comprehensive lexicon of semiotic concepts. With sections on linguistics, narratology, psychoanalysis and intertextuality, it constructs an indispensable
Architectural Topographies is a critical dictionary for architects and landscape architects in which the graphic lexicon can be read from a beginning, the ground, to a conclusion, the specific case st
