The Art and Techniques of Lexicography, Second Edition

Author: (American) Sydney Landau
Publisher:
Publication Date: Not available
Features: The book "The Art and Technique of Lexicography" 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 it. The second edition was published in 2001, and the author saw this book the following year and found 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 work only began in November 2003. We sincerely apologize to the readers and the publisher for this delay. After nearly a year of effort, we have finally completed the translation and proofreading of "The Art and Technique of Lexicography" and are presenting it to Chinese lexicographers and enthusiasts in Chinese.
The second edition of "The Art and Technique of Lexicography" is a summary of Sydney Landau's decades of experience in lexicography. He shares his personal insights with readers, covering everything from methods, principles, and the protection of lexicographers' rights to the handling of individual words. As he states in the "Introduction," the uniqueness of the book lies in it being "the firsthand experience of a lexicographer with extensive practice in the planning, management, and compilation of dictionaries." The writing style is akin to a heartfelt conversation between two people, rather than the condescending instruction of a mentor to his assistants or a room full of students in academic robes.
Landau 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 lexicography. Regarding the view that modern computer technology can significantly speed up dictionary compilation, thus making material conditions rather than human factors the key to quality, Landau points out that such a perspective undervalues 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 and personnel dedicated to dictionary compilation. Moreover, due to time constraints, valuable resources like large corpora are often underutilized, which naturally hinders the improvement of dictionary quality. Only those who have personally participated in dictionary compilation can truly grasp these insights.
The book mentions many dictionaries, and to save space, the original text uses numerous abbreviations. Even where abbreviations are not used, the names are often shortened—for example, "Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition" is usually 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, such as "Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition" (4).