Problems and prospects of educational lexicography: a new school dictionary of Russian pronunciation

Abstract

The article critically examines various educational pronouncing (orthoepic) dictionaries and states the main objections to the quality of such resources. Criticism centres on the irregularities in the transcription rules adopted in school textbooks; phonetic and orthoepic errors; mixing orthoepic information with other linguistic phenomena; the issue of age-related adaptation of school dictionaries; insufficient relevance of pronunciation instructions; criteria for glossary compilation. The analysis demonstrated the need for creating a new educational dictionary, a Dictionary of Russian Pronunciation Difficulties, for years 5 to 11. It was compiled at the V. V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the editorship of M. L. Kalenchuk and D. M. Savinov. The cornerstone of this lexicographic source is the idea that normative recommendations in dictionaries should be based on the actual speech practices of educated people. The article justifies the choice of the pronouncing dictionary type and argues for a dictionary of difficulties rather than an orthoepic dictionary proper. We provide comprehensive criteria for compiling a dictionary glossary and structuring a dictionary entry. The paper also formulates the principles of normative evaluation of stress and pronunciation of sounds used in codification, as well as the system of permissive and prohibitive standard notes. If necessary, the Dictionary entries provide additional orthoepic data about obsolete pronunciation variants, folk poetic and professional accentual features, stress variants and pronunciation of sounds specific to phraseological units. Information about obsolete variants found in fiction is illustrated and verified with examples from poetic texts.