| Abstrakt: |
General explanatory dictionaries contain numerous words whose only meaning or one of the meanings is used as a special lexis unit - a term. Usually, those are words from such areas as journalism, literature, culture, art, politics, sports, etc., but the dictionaries often include terms from different fields and subfields of science with a narrow, specific usage. It creates a series of questions in lexicography: which groups of terms are selected for inclusion into general dictionaries; how the terms are marked; how consistent the explanations of the terms' meaning are; how lexicographers have dealt with polysemy when the terminological comprehension occurs only in one or several explanations of the meanings. The linguists Regina Kvašytė, Māris Baltiņš, Juris Baldunčiks, Valentīna Skujiņa, Ieva Zuicena, Imants Šmidebergs, Silga Sviķe and others have carried out research on different aspects of the label system used in lexicography, mostly developing the principles of labelling, but the application of labels has been investigated to a considerably lesser extent. The theoretical ground of the research is based on a well-known conclusion in lexicography: labelling the terminology of a particular field in general dictionaries is of special importance because a term is not identical to a word. It is crucial to emphasize the lexicographical difference - in general dictionaries, the lexical meaning of a word is explained, but in the explanation of a term, the core of the particular field's notion is described. The labelling system should be present in every dictionary, but it should not clog the entries and the dictionary as a whole. The aim of the article is to reveal how the labelling system of a word's terminological functionality is used in contemporary Latvian explanatory dictionaries. Four philological-type explanatory dictionaries were selected as the sources for the research: the eight-volume Latvian Literary Language Dictionary (Latviešu literārās valodas vārdnīca, LLVV 1972-1996), two editions of Latvian Dictionary (Latviešu valodas vārdnīca, LVV 1987; LVV 2006) and Dictionary of Contemporary Latvian (Mūsdienu latviešu valodas vārdnīca, MLVV-e). In LLVV, the most comprehensive Latvian dictionary of the 70s-90s of the 20th century, 67 labels of different branches and fields are used. Those labels refer not only to such fields as music, sports, literature, culture, but also to many specific fields and subfields of science, e.g. bacteriology, entomology, geodetics, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, etc. It rises a question if all those specific terms should be included in general dictionaries. In both single volume dictionaries, the term labels have not been used. These dictionaries contain a much smaller number of terms, and the information about their affiliation to one or another field can be found in the details of explanation, thus interfering with the search for terms. In the newest electronically accessible dictionary MLVV, the use of the labelling system is explained by the chief editor Ieva Zuicena. The number of labels is considerably reduced (to 47). In the practical application, the principles of the labelling system are not always consequently applied, because, as the chief editor points out, the lexicographical description of terms in general dictionaries is complicated. Some conclusions can be drawn from the research. The labelling system helps to navigate the explanations of terms in general explanatory dictionaries, albeit it is more suitable several-volume dictionaries. The elimination of terminological labels in single-volume dictionaries is almost unjustifiable, because the use of a label would contribute to the economy of space in comparison to the descriptional thematic outline in the explanation of a word. The main deficiency of the marking system is its inconsistent use: not all terms belonging to one microsystem have been marked. The marking system should be revised and improved during the development of each new dictionary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
