The Art and Techniques of Lexicography (2nd Edition)

Author: Landau
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: The Art and Technique of Lexicography, this lexicology monograph, is not unfamiliar to many, as it was published in 1984 by publishers in the United States and the United Kingdom, and it is believed that many lexicography enthusiasts have read this book. The second edition was published in 2001, and the author saw this book the following year and felt that it had made significant improvements based on the first edition, adding much new content. Therefore, the author asked graduate student Tian Bing to write a summary of the book, which was submitted to Mr. Zhou Hongbo of the Commercial Press in October 2002, along with an intention to translate and publish it. The Commercial Press quickly approved the project and settled the copyright. Mr. Zhou's work efficiency was astonishing. However, due to the author's numerous commitments and other reasons, the translation only began in November 2003. Here, we sincerely apologize to the readers and the publisher. After nearly a year of effort, we have finally completed the translation and proofreading of The Art and Technique of Lexicography, presenting it to the in Chinese.
The second edition of The Art and Technique of Lexicography is a summary of Sydney Landau's decades of lexicography practice. He shares his personal experiences in dictionary compilation with the readers, covering everything from methods, principles, and the protection of lexicographers' rights to the handling of individual words and phrases. As he states in the "Introduction," the book's uniqueness lies in being "the firsthand experiences of a lexicographer with extensive practice in the planning, management, and compilation of dictionaries; the writing style is like a close conversation between two people, rather than the condescending preaching of assistants or students in academic gowns surrounding him." He speaks frankly about some current issues in the dictionary publishing industry, such as the practice of American and British dictionary publishers exaggerating word counts to engage in unfair competition. He dedicates a section to discussing word count calculation (see Chapter 3), a practice never seen in other lexicology monographs. Regarding the view that modern computer technology can significantly speed up dictionary compilation, making material conditions rather than human factors the key to quality, Landau points out that such a perspective underestimates the role of human initiative and skills in lexicography (see Chapter 7). While computers allow people to accomplish more work in a given time, they also reduce the time available for dictionary compilers and the number of people involved in dictionary projects. Moreover, due to time constraints, many valuable resources, such as large corpora, are often underutilized, which naturally hinders the improvement of dictionary quality. Without personal experience in dictionary compilation, it is difficult to have such unique insights.
The book mentions many dictionaries, and to save space, the original text uses numerous abbreviations. Even where abbreviations are not used, the text often employs shortened forms, such as Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, which is generally referred to as Webster's New World College Dictionary in the text without the full name. However, in the "Abbreviations List" at the beginning of the book and the "Bibliography Index" at the end, the full names are provided. In the translation, to maintain consistency throughout the book, we have used the full names, i.e., 《4》(Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition).