5. The Expression of Changing Social Values in Dictionaries: Focus on Family Relationships

Abstract

The m anner in which dictionaries reflect shifts in prevailing social sentim ent can tell us a great deal about how far and fast attitudes, and possibly behavior as well, have changed over time. The social values em bedded in dictionaries are perhaps most accessible in children’s dictionaries, where the abundance of in­ vented illustrative sentences in support of definition betrays as few other contemporary sources can the prevailing attitudes toward family relationships, particularly the roles of m other and father. This study was suggested by “An Evaluation of the 1952 and 1962 Editions of the Thorndike B arnhart Beginning Dictionary,” by Ann Ediger Baehr. By compiling a list o f the illustrative sentences in the 1952 edition, Baehr convincingly dem onstrated, among o ther things, that boys were presented routinely as mischievous or wicked and girls as tender and dutiful. This paper is an elaboration of her m ethod and represents an attem pt to analyze in a systematic way the corresponding illustrative sentences o f two different edi­ tions of the same work. Let us make our assumptions clear at the outset. Commercial lexicographers, like o ther people engaged in business, are m ind­ ful of their market. The values their products express must be designed, whether consciously or not, to appeal to those who are likely to buy dictionaries. (In this they are no different from textbook publishers, producers o f movies, or m anufacturers of swimsuits.) Their customers may not actually observe the values expressed any m ore than they really look the way they think they do in the swimsuits they buy, but the question here is one of selfimage, not behavior. O r rather, of buying behavior, not the coinci­ dence or lack of it between ethical standard and moral behavior. The Thorndike B arnhart dictionaries, published for the school m arket by Scott, Foresman, are the most successful school dictio­ naries ever published. There can be no question of their appeal to