Lesson11ButWhatsaDictionaryFor课文讲解PPT讲解学习

• Dictionary:
• The first modern examples of lexicography are thought to be Nathan Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721) and his larger Dictionarium Britannicum (1730), which served Samuel Johnson, who was considered as England's first complete man of letters, in preparing his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the first comprehensive English lexicography.
Summary and comments (16-17)
Part II (4-30) body argument
Return to thesis with new idea: Certainty impossible and simplification misleading (18)
Details with examples: spelling (19) pronu.(20-21)
Give facts or other usual data to support your thesis. This can be done in several paragraphs in order of importance or relevance to the thesis.
By tying together what has been discussed, conclude your essay with a restatement of the thesis or a forceful sentence that helps to drive your thesis home.
Three virtues of dictionary making
• Accuracy • Clearness • Comprehensiveness • Wherever there is a conflict,
accuracy is put first.
• Encyclopedia:
• book or set of books giving information about every branch of knowledge, or about one particular subject, with articles in alphabetical order
Organization of the text
• Text frame
Part I negative reaction (1) positive reaction (2) thesis : what’s a dictionary for ? (3)
Statement 1: dictionary concerns words (4)
• The American Dictionary of the English Language, his greatest work, was published in 1828. Of the 70,000 words, 12,000 had not appeared in any other dictionaries before. Within one year, all the 2,500 copies issued in American and the 3,000 copies in Britain were sold n
• Argumentative piece of writing
• Style: formal
• Many rhetorical devices
Argumentation
The purpose is to state an opinion which you are going to defend and to offer supporting evidence in order to convince the reader to agree with you.
• Webster's other contributions include efforts in the passage of a national copyright law, in the founding of the Amherst College, etc.
• His view:
• He holds that the spelling and grammar of a language must be based on actual usage rather than artificial principles. And thus laid a foundation for the 20th century lexicography.
Lesson11ButWhatsaDictionar yFor课文讲解PPT
• His Elementary Spelling Book (the first part of the Grammatical Institute of the English Language) and The American Dictionary of the English Language established the nobility and vitality of the American Language.
Accelerate the deterioration of language
• Speed up the lowering of the quality of the language
Bar
• the bar: the profession of being a lawyer, or lawyers considered as a group
Statement 2: progress and changes (5)
Change in linguistics (6-12) Changes in the two generations (13) Changes by mass edu.and demo. (14) Explanation with example (15)
•
behind bars (in prison,监禁)
• lexicographic
• the editing or making of a dictionary;
• Lexicography: the principles and practices of dictionary making
• The next great lexicographer was Noah Webster. His American Dictionary of the English Language has been skillfully revised and abridged over the years, thereby retaining its popularity.
Write your thesis clearly at the beginning of the essay. The thesis is your statement of purpose and it will serve to guide you in writing the entire paper.
• American Dictionary of the English Language ---1828
• 1840, second edition, failure, copyright sold to Merriam
• 1961, third edition, 2752 pages, 460,000 entries, 200,000 usage examples, 3,000 pictorial illustrations and more than 1,000 synonym articles.
• be called to the Bar UK • to qualify as a lawyer who can argue a case
in a higher court • be admitted to the Bar US • to qualify as a lawyer
• Robert was planning to read for the Bar.
• Lexicon: • dictionary, esp. of an ancient language
or of words from a single subject • Thesaurus: • book containing lists of words and
phrases grouped according to their meanings or types (a thesaurus of slang)
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
• In 1840, the second edition was a failure and he had to sell the copy right to Merriam Publishing Company which thereafter became the Merriam-Webster corporation.
Details: meaning (22-25)
Further argument with examples (26-30)
Part III Attenuation of his argumentative tone (31) Emphasis of key idea (32)
•IV.A Detailed Study of the Text
• 5. How does the author think of the Third New International Dictionary? / What is the author’s attitude towards the Third New International Dictionary?
• The Elementary Spelling Book, first published in the late years of the 18th cent., standardized American spelling and by 1850, when the whole population was under 23 million, was sold at 1 million copies annually.
• 3. Describe the merits and faults of a dictionary you’re familiar with.
• 4. Make comments on the printed dictionary and the electronic dictionary.
/
II. Topics for discussion
• 1. What’s a dictionary for in your opinion? What does a common reader go to a dictionary to find?
• 2. What dictionaries do you know? What is your favourite dictionary?