Wow! eBook
English Dictionaries as Cultural Mines
Author(s): Roberto Facchinetti (Author, Editor)
- Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Publication Date: 27 Jan. 2012
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 275 pages
- ISBN-10: 1443836478
- ISBN-13: 9781443836470
Book Description
Dictionaries are mines whose word-gems encapsulate centuries of language history and cultural traditions; they are store-houses of meanings and uses, ‘lamp genies’ to be set free at the very moment readers set their eyes on their entries. This book is an attempt to free such lamp genies, by discussing the role of dictionaries in the identification and expression of cultural aspects in language, with special reference to English. As such, its eleven chapters have been arranged to focus on general, genre-specific, monolingual and bilingual lexicography, both from a diachronic and a synchronic perspective. The book will be of use to lexicographers and lexicologists, as well as to corpus linguists, historical and contemporary English scholars, students of English, and anybody interested in the juice of culture(s) that can be fruitfully extracted from dictionary entries.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Roberta Facchinetti is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Verona, Italy. Her main research fields focus on language description and textual analysis, with special reference to lexico-grammar and discourse. This is done mostly by means of computerized corpora of both synchronic and diachronic English. On the subject she has authored, co-authored and edited various books and articles, among which are A Cultural Journey through the English Lexicon (2012) and From International to Local English – And Back Again (2010) with David Crystal and Barbara Seidlhofer.
