Encyclopedic Information Research Articles

Anthropocentrism in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary: A Synergic Perspective of Critical Lexicographical Discourse Studies and Systemic Functional Linguistics

Abstract Critical Lexicographical Discourse Studies (CLDS) view the dictionary as a discourse and emphasize an ideological, ethico-political dimension to the lexicographical process. Combining CLDS with Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper looks into how anthropocentrism is manifested linguistically in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Seventh Edition), the most influential authoritative general-purpose Chinese dictionary, by examining the transitivity and appraisal patterns in the definition texts concerning animals and plants. The analysis shows that animals and plants are seldom assigned agency in their own right and that the animals and plants are evaluated either positively or negatively according to whether they are useful to the human beings while their intrinsic value is ignored. In particular, animals are highlighted for their agricultural and medicinal use and plants for their medicinal and ornamental value. However, compared with its previous editions, the dictionary has shown an enhanced awareness of environmental protection by deleting the encyclopaedic information that describes the use of some rare animals’ meat, bones and fur. It is argued that, although modern general-purpose dictionaries are increasingly corpus-based and descriptive, their role in shaping social values and stances cannot be disregarded. Dictionary makers need to balance what words mean with what they can be said to mean or be allowed to mean (Moon, 2014). The study contributes to unmasking and denaturalizing the hidden ideology in colony texts such as the dictionary, enhances a critical use of dictionaries and helps develop the theory of critical lexicography and emerging ecolexicography.

Towards a distinction between non-euphemistic and euphemism-based politically correct expressions

Abstract This qualitative research is the first attempt to analyse differences in the interpretation of politically correct (PC) expressions by using relevance-theoretic and lexical pragmatics tools. The results suggest that PC language can be non-euphemistic and euphemism-based. Non-euphemistic PC expressions achieve relevance by explicitly communicating their lexically encoded conceptual content. Euphemism-based PC expressions become relevant by communicating some concepts and propositions that are not lexically encoded by them and are inferred logically from the utterance context or/and by accessing encyclopaedic information. These concepts and propositions constitute euphemistic meaning and are recovered at explicit and implicit levels, as well as with varying degrees of strength.

Фреймовая структура аллюзивного антропонима как художественного концепта (на материале романа Донны Тартт «Тайная история» / Donna Tartt “The Secret History”)

The aim of the paper is to establish and describe the frame structure of an allusive anthroponym as a representative of an literary concept on the basis of Donna Tartt’s novel “The Secret History”. It is shown that allusive anthroponyms belong to onomastic realities, connotative lexicon, activating the concepts of the literary text. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the cognitive approach to the analysis of the literary concept through the establishment of the frame structure of an allusive anthroponym as a representative of the textual concept on the material of Donna Tartt’s novel “The Secret History” and working out a methodological model of analysis of the frame structure of allusive anthroponym. It is shown that an allusive anthroponym has a frame structure including a number of cognitive components. An allusive anthroponym can represent a text frame and can act as a component of it, representing the author’s worldview, and contributing to the creation of an literary image. The obtained results have shown that an allusive anthroponym can serve as a means of verbalising a text frame, which has a structure including such conceptual componenets as the frame name, time, place of action, the subject of the frame, the relation between objects / participants of the action, the characteristic of the action (with the involvement of encyclopaedic information).

"A Rare Vocabulary Dictionary based on school curriculum literature": theoretical issues of creation and methodological prospects for use

The article describes the principles of compiling the Rare Vocabulary Dictionary based on school curriculum literature (hereinafter referred to as the Dictionary) and its methodological potential for being used as an electronic educational resource in teaching schoolchildren. Moreover, the study examines the specific features of the Dictionary in comparison with similar existing lexicographic publications. The Dictionary creation is relevant as there is a need to make Russian classical literature texts more understandable for the modern reader. As a result, the resource can promote the culture of reading literary texts and the formation of students’ linguistic personality, as well as enhance learning efficiency. The Dictionary materials were comprised of Russian authors’ works included in the school literature curriculum for years 5 to 11. The paper pays particular attention to the innovative solutions concerning the principles of glossary compilation and dictionary entry creation. The research relied on corpus linguistics methodology and its tools for working with text, which enabled us to select vocabulary based on objective criteria (low frequency in modern Russian) and describe the meaning of a particular word relying on the entire set of contexts of its use in the literature under study. The focus of lexicographic interpretation was an extensive layer of rare vocabulary of various semantic groups (including proper names and occasionalisms) and different parts of speech. Semantic description demonstrates the history of word meanings in the language in conjunction with contextual interpretation of a lexical unit. The entries contain encyclopedic information and a detailed cultural and/or philological commentary. Maximal attention is given to authorial neologisms. Some entries are accompanied by images of the item being described. The Dictionary is implemented as a module of the new Russian Classics cross platform mobile application. The article also describes the operating principles and capabilities of the application.

The building gift of Bishop Sofron Mudryi: Church-Education-Culture

Behind the scant encyclopedic information about Sofron Stefan Mudryi, whose 100th birthday we are celebrating, Bishop of Ivano-Frankivsk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, there appears a majestic figure of a builder - a builder of the Church, education, and culture. Today we sincerely wonder how this man concentrated so much intelligence - not for nothing that he was called Mudryi (Sofron means prudent in Greek), so many talents, so much faith, so much love, so much efficiency, so much patriotism. Sofron Mudryi is one of the famous Ukrainians in the diaspora who made a fateful decision in 1991, immediately after Ukraine gained independence. They exchanged their measured, orderly life abroad for hard work - they began to revive/rebuild a free Ukraine. For many, this man is a symbol of the Christianity of a Ukrainian and the Christianity of a Ukrainian.

A Study on the Roles of Proper Names in English Education Using Movies

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how L2 (second language) learners recognize and utilize proper names when they are instructed. Proper names have been researched linguistically but have not been considered as the research subject of second language acquisition. In addition to encyclopedic knowledge that includes cultural information, proper names facilitate the association of narrative contents with language forms. Based on Hoey’s theory of lexical priming [1], this maximizes the retention of language forms, and helps with the understanding of pragmatic contexts. This case study of three students shows the educational value of proper names in the field of English education using movies. The study consisted of an oral memorization test and a written test about proper names followed by an oral interview about the participants’ experiences of proper names. The results show that learning proper names can help with memorization, suggesting it would be promising to teach encyclopedic information in the classroom through proper names. The results further indicate that the participants understood the importance of proper names in remembering a storyline and as a valuable aid for memorization. The participants subconsciously used proper names as primes which gave salience to the target utterances, such salience contributed to the participants’ successful memorization.

Book Review: Winchester, S. (2009). The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology. United States: HarperCollins

Writers have their own storytelling techniques to attract their readers, and Simon Winchester is no exception. The author is known for a unique interest in anecdotes dealing with the transmission of knowledge from one source to another and finally to the human mind, with its own inquisitive spirit. The Map That Changed the World is a perfect example of an author’s unerring ability to combine a character’s drama with historical facts and encyclopedic information. The book is a tribute to the achievement of a self-taught and extremely practical blacksmith’s son, named William Smith, and his famous map that paved the way for the science of geology to become part of the acknowledged scientific culture of the 18th century and beyond. Organized in 17 chapters, with a prologue and an epilogue, the whole project also contains valuable data that would enchant the readers’ eyes with geological terms to facilitate the journey of a pleasant awakening to the beauties of fossils, layers of rock, and excavations. And this all started in 1793, when the eight-year-old boy William Smith made a startling discovery: circular pound-stones used by dairymaids (like his aunt) to operate their butter-scales.

Pseudonyms and Nicknames as a Variety of Anthroponyms in Modern Prose

Such anthroponyms varieties as nicknames and pseudonyms are considered. The importance of using these poetonyms in the formation of the character’s image is revealed. Fiction works represent a unique sphere of using proper names, where words acquire meaning not only in the context of the real world, but also in the fictional reality created by the authors. Nicknames and pseudonyms are the anthroponymic field periphery, but they play an important role in the structure of a literary text. They act as a fixing way the development of the world and human experience. Proper names create linguistic diversity. The stylistic function of such proper names is different. They can act as a designation and characterization of the character. The proper names study clarifies the author’s intention and contributes to a deeper and more complete text interpretation. There are few works devoted to the study of the language of modern prose. In the literature, the proper name’s role in works of fiction has not been sufficiently studied. The study subject is the functions of these poetonymsin a literary text. The study object is pseudonyms and nicknames. Material — literary texts of different genres, published at the beginning of the 21st century and containing lexical units important for research. The work purpose is to identify the specifics of pseudonyms and nicknames and their role in artistic speech on the example of the texts of modern authors. The main theoretical base is the work related to the theory and linguistics of the text, onomastics. In the structure of a literary text, not only common vocabulary is used, but proper names. They play an important role in the structure of a literary text, evoking in the reader various allusions and associations associated with society and concepts. For the perception of any literary text, encyclopedic information is important, which allows you to understand the creative intent of the writer.

ТЕОРЕТИЧНІ ПЕРЕДУМОВИ ЛІНГВІСТИЧНОГО ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ КОМІЧНОГО В УКРАЇНСЬКІЙ ПОЕЗІЇ КІНЦЯ ХХ – ПОЧАТКУ ХХІ СТОЛІТТЯ

The article reveals and investigates the peculiarities of modern poetic language and its differential features. Attention is primarily focused on those features of the poetic language that reflect its historical dynamics and allow us to classify the poetic language as one that, while preserving its universal typological features (expressive richness, aesthetic significance, etc.), at the same time appears as a specific historical phenomenon. The article is devoted to the analysis of poetic language as a linguistic and aesthetic object that needs to be studied in all its inherent complexity, heterogeneity and contradiction, and dialectical unity of all components. The comic plays an extremely important role in philosophical, civic, and love lyrics, which is manifested in the semantic and compositional plans of the artistic text. The subject of the research is the comic in different genres of lyrics, that is, the subject itself is not limited in any way to a single variety or the work of one poet. In general, poetic language determines the means of creating the comic, its paradigm, and its scope. The development of the poetic language directly affects the peculiarities of the linguistic expression of the comic. The study of the constituent elements of poetic imagery is an important condition for the linguistic analysis of the specifics of linguistic means and techniques of comic creation, in particular with regard to emotional and expressive charge and evaluative semantics. The linguistic means of creating the comic is quite important and valuable because with its help a certain artistic effect is achieved, it is the linguistic means that activate the reader's understanding of the comic at the denotative level, where encyclopedic information, presupposition, etc., play an important role.

(Review) Xu, J.J. (eds.) (2022). Tiyu Yingyu Cihui Shouce (The Wordbook of Sports English). Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press

In this article, the advantages and disadvantages of Tiyu Yingyu Cihui Shouce (The Wordbook of Sports English), a recently published corpus-based English wordbook related to sports, will be reviewed and discussed. This wordbook has some highlighting features including vocabulary and example sentences based on sports-related corpus, especially Olympic-related corpus which displays some encyclopedic information about the Olympic Games especially the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 in both content and appendixes. To cater to mobile learning, the book integrates all the headwords into the smartphone application, which offers multiple ways to memorize vocabulary. However, this book has something that needs to be improved in the following edition, including the unclearness of icons which indicates the usage scenario, lack of the function to review previous learning, translation of some entries, etc. In general, this wordbook is a useful tool for those who want to learn words about sports in China.

The lexicographic legacy of Professor B. A. Larin and modern lexicography (to the 130th anniversary of the birth)

The paper examines the lexicographic legacy left by Professor B. A. Larin (1893–1964). It also points out the direct correlation between Larin’s ideas and the controversial issues and moot points in modern lexicography. I provide a brief review of B. A. Larin’s biography and his philological interests. The conclusion underscores the significance of the lexicographic ideas in the linguist’s works as well as the versatility of his scientific interests. At the same time, they are united by such cross-cutting leitmotifs as a broad historical perspective, studying colloquial speech in its various manifestations, attention to semantics. B. A. Larin’s ideas that were far ahead of their time are identified as a result of comparing the concepts he developed and the directions of modern lexicography evolution. For example, one such idea is a complete dictionary. It directly correlates with the currently relevant project of a complex (universal) dictionary. Moreover, Larin raised the issues of combining linguistic and encyclopaedic information in a historical dictionary as well as of scientific illustration of historical dictionary entries, which are still unresolved. The ideas of bilingual author lexicography, onomastic author lexicography, and historical phraseology proposed by Larin have hardly been implemented yet. The paper emphasises that B. A. Larin is one of the founders of Russian historical lexicography. Also, he created such a type of historical dictionary as the thesaurus of one written monument and became the father of Russian sociolinguistics and comparative phraseology. He formulated principles for describing various aspects of vocabulary, proposed a number of innovative lexicographic projects, thus anticipating many modern lexicographic theories and developments.

Computational Models of Anaphora

Interpreting anaphoric references is a fundamental aspect of our language competence that has long attracted the attention of computational linguists. The appearance of ever-larger anaphorically annotated data sets covering more and more anaphoric phenomena in ever-greater detail has spurred the development of increasingly more sophisticated computational models; as a result, the most recent state-of-the-art neural models are able to achieve impressive performance by leveraging linguistic, lexical, discourse, and encyclopedic information. This article provides a thorough survey of anaphora resolution (coreference) throughout this development, reviewing the available data sets and covering both the preneural history of the field and—in more detail—current neural models, including research on less-studied aspects of anaphoric interpretation such as bridging reference resolution and discourse deixis interpretation.

50 років Теріологічного товариства в Україні: ключові віхи

Information on the formation and development of mammal research in Ukraine in the format of the activity of a scientific society is summarized. The beginning of systematic research was determined by such events as the formation of academic programs and research groups for the study of mammalian fauna (study of fauna composition, distribution, taxonomy, morphology, and population dynamics), the economic importance of mammals (game species, pests, and role in zoonoses), study of the history of fauna and some systematic groups (palaeontology, archaeozoology, and phylogenetics), and analysis of fauna changes (synanthropy, alien species, red book, environmental and climate changes). Such directions were formed in the academy of sciences, universities, nature reserves, anti-plague and sanitary-epidemiological and plant protection stations, especially in 1950–1960, which led to the formation of relevant scientific schools, state programs, specialties, publications, and conference cycles. In June 1972, with the participation of Ukrainian academician I. Pidoplichko, the creation of the All-Union Theriological Society (AUTS) was initiated, and he became its vice-president. Over the next 10 years, theriological research in Ukraine expanded significantly, and in March 1982, the Ukrainian Branch of the AUTS (UB) was created, with 4 sections: paleozoology, morphology, game management, and ecology. In the spring of 1992, the UB was reorganized into the Ukrainian Theriological Society (UTS), and two more its sections were created: medical theriology and the Theriological School. The latter has focused on research carried out in the network of protected areas and biostations and has dealt with the organization of seminars for the exchange of experience and improvement of the qualification of colleagues, and soon it became the main form of activity of the UTS. Within its framework, several new groups were formed (monitoring of bats, large carnivores and small mammals, standardization of scientific terminology and nomenclature). In 1994 to 2022, 26 therioschools and 12 seminars were held, the website Terioshkola was created, dozens of issues were published, and the newsletter Novitates Theriologicae and the journal Theriologia Ukrainica (23 volumes) were established. To the 50th anniversary of the UTS, issues of the bulletin dedicated to the history of theriology have been prepared, which include encyclopaedic information about 183 people and an overview of scientific centres and regional studies.

Motivation of Helonyms from Anykščiai District, Utena County (1935–1937)

The article addresses the representative examples of the semantic group of helonyms from the area of the Anykščiai subdialect of the Eastern Aukštaitian dialect. These examples were collected from the spoken language in the Lithuanian ‘Land Names’ questionnaires. The complex analysis of these onyms enabled us to establish the links existing between the elements of the unofficial toponymic village system of the interwar period and to describe them using the representative examples of the system expressed by structural and motivational models, which are based on the data about the content of the linguacultural consciousness of the community members recorded in the questionnaires, as well as geographical, cultural, and encyclopaedic information. The research highlighted the most typical phenomena that occurred in the process of naming a fragment of reality, revealed the rational, emotional, and associative relationship between the members of the ethnic domain and the marshy places in the landscape, and allowed recreating a segment of the onomastic worldview.

Parameters of Lexicographic Description of New Vocabulary of Modern German in Electronic Dictionary of Neologisms of Leibniz Institute for German Language

The problem of lexicographic fixation of neologisms at the present stage of development of German-language lexicography by private explanatory dictionaries of electronic format is considered. A fairly successful example of lexicographic practice was chosen as the object of the study — an electronic dictionary of neologisms of the modern German language on the lexicographic online portal of the Leibniz Institute for the German Language. The dictionary is a “living”, constantly updated edition, which is based on the criteria for the definition and classification of neologisms, developed by its compilers. The authors of the article performed an analysis of the parameters of the lexicographic description of neologisms in this dictionary. The question is raised about the mandatory or optional nature of the parameters used by the compilers of the dictionary when forming the microtext (dictionary entry). Standard and specific parameters of lexicographic description, which are profile for the dictionary of new words are distinguished: example-definition, first fixation, language reflection, encyclopedic information, representation in dictionaries, etc. The analysis of lexicographic practice sets the task of summarizing the practical experience of lexicographers in order to determine the optimal set of parameters for the codification of neology.

A Study on Roles of Proper Names in Movie English

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how L2 learners recognize and utilize proper names when they are instructed. Proper names have been researched linguistically but have not been considered as the subject of second language acquisition research. As well as encyclopedic knowledge that includes cultural information, proper names facilitate the association of narrative contents with language forms. Based on Hoey(2013)’s theory of lexical priming, this maximizes the retention of language forms, and helps with the understanding of pragmatic contexts. This case study of three students shows the educational value of proper names in the field of English education using movies. The study consisted of an oral memorization test and a written test about proper names followed by an oral interview about the participants’ experiences of proper names. The results show that learning proper names can help with memorization, suggesting it would be promising to teach encyclopedic information in the classroom through proper names. The results further indicate that the participants understood the importance of proper names in remembering a storyline and as a help for memorization. The participants subconsciously used proper names as primes which gave salience to the target utterances. Such salience led the participants to successful memorization.

Methods of fixing and circulating precedent names in Chinese cultural space

The paper presents some results of the study of precedent names of a Chinese cultural space and describes the main methods of fixing and circulating precedent names (PN) in a modern Chinese discourse. According to the author, the main ways include epithets-invariants of the perception of referents of precedent names in dictionaries and textbooks, and, therefore, in the minds of the Chinese who went to school; special dictionaries and collections with images of PN referents (more often these are historical personalities) and very brief encyclopedic information about them; adapted chapters from precedent texts with headings in the form of precedent names-eventonyms in books for children and teenagers; phraseological units and set expressions of Chinese language of all types which are connected with the precedent phenomena; frame works; precedent names, precedent texts. The author believes that epithets represented by phraseological units, phraseological units as such, name variants and precedent texts can be attributed to primary basic methods. These methods show the specifics of the Chinese cultural space and serve the basis for PN preservation, fixation and translation. Special dictionaries and collections, adapted texts of chapters from classic novels with names in the form of PN eventonyms and frame works are secondary derived methods and tools that demonstrate the great demand of the Chinese linguistic and cultural community for precedent names and are based on language-saved knowledge of PN and other precedent phenomena.

Идеографический словарь архитектурно-дизайнерской терминологии русского языка

The article discusses reasons for compiling a dictionary of architectural and design terms in the Russian language. The topicality of creating it is connected with the brisk growth of design activity, the branching out of a new training program, Design of Architectural Environment, and the absence of a linguistic terminological dictionary of this professional sphere. The aim of the article is to describe the conception of an ideographic dictionary of Russian architectural and design terminology. The dictionary is based on the special language of architecture and design selected from terminological reference books, educational materials and research literature, commercial catalogues, professional weblogs, websites, and e-commerce sites. The dictionary defines not only terms, but also terminoids, preterms and quasi-terms, and pays special attention to the foreign terminological units and neologisms. This is caused by the under-investigated functional lexis of the architectural environment design sphere, variability and movability of its concepts and terms. The research methods and techniques used in the study are: the lexicographical method with the research techniques of thematic (ideographic) arrangement, definition, componential and contextual analyses. The chosen type of an ideographic dictionary defined its marco-structure: it is represented by a system of thematic groups, subgroups and microgroups, contributes to the development of a holistic professional worldview, and facilitates work with the dictionary. The microstructure shows the content of a lexical entry including core and optional components as well as its design. The core components include the headword with its variants, their stresses and pronunciation features, information on the word’s grammar, its definition and examples of its usage in professional speech. The optional components (etymology, derivatives, terminological collocations with the headword, analogues, synonyms and illustrations) are used as supplementary characteristics of a lexical item if available. Definitions are made by the principle of generic, genetic, operational and contextual explanations with elements of encyclopedic information. The dictionary is intended for linguists, terminologists, students and teachers of the disciplines of the Design of the Architectural Environment training programs, and is of interest to professionals in this field

Словарь иностранных слов как лексикографический жанр

The research was carried out on the material of dictionaries of foreign (foreign-language) words published in the period from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day (a total of nineteen editions). Among them are dictionaries of a general type, including concise ones, as well as dictionaries of neological vocabulary. The article sets the aim of analyzing the experience accumulated over two centuries and identifying the features in their development that are inherent in the dictionary of borrowings as a genre. The author’s field of vision is the issue of the opposition of linguistic and encyclopaedic features of the dictionary description in the dictionary of borrowed words. In the first part of the article, attention is paid to the dictionary’s microstructure, in the second to its macrostructure. Despite the initial conceptual setting on the communication of encyclopaedic information about the concept denoted by a foreign word, features of a linguistic dictionary have always been inherent in loanword dictionaries. This is shown by the material of dictionary entries from papers of different years, starting from 1901. At the level of the dictionary microstructure, such features are: etymology, data on the sphere of use of the word, data on semantic derivation and semantic transfers, paradigmatic connections of the word, its combinatorial properties, closest derivational connections, and variability of form. At the level of macrostructure, this may be a reflection of the typological properties of foreign-language vocabulary (borrowings, quasi-borrowings, hybrid words, secondary borrowings, semantic derivatives). The fact of genetic heterogeneity of borrowed vocabulary has hardly been reflected in dictionary practice until now. All the provisions are illustrated with examples from dictionary editions of different years. Proposed for discussion is the thesis about the unproductiveness of the fundamental opposition of encyclopaedic and linguistic knowledge within the framework of an explanatory dictionary (a dictionary of foreign words by its genre refers to aspect explanatory dictionaries). This thesis is supported by the evidence of well-known lexicographers and examples from the semantic, phraseological and illustrative zones of modern dictionaries. The specificity of the vocabulary of the loanword dictionary is a high percentage of terminological vocabulary, which is essentially a carrier of encyclopaedic information. Therefore, the synthesis of conceptual presentation and linguistic description (in various proportions) in the interpretation of a foreign term is inevitable. In conclusion, a brief typology of dictionaries of foreign words is given in various aspects: in terms of the period of the borrowing of the word, the source language of the borrowing, the addressee of the dictionary, the selection of dictionary units in relation to their belonging to the language standard. The question is raised about the appropriateness of including sub-standard vocabulary in the dictionary of foreign words of a general type. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

A Study of the Internal Structure of N+N Compounds

This paper addresses the issue of how the language user can interpret two-constituent compounds. After reviewing the previous studies regarding classifications, this study finds out that although the studies suggest several sets of semantic relations or syntactic structures, the criteria of the classifications are not clear, and the previous studies usually depend on our encyclopedic information to get the appropriate interpretation of two noun compounds, especially attributive-appositive compounds. In order to distinguish similar-looking N+N compounds from each other, this study explores relevant notions, such as autonomacy/dependency in a cognitive framework regarding the relation between the two elements in compounds. The same examples in noun-noun compounds in the previous studies can be analyzed and examined from this perspective. Finally, this study goes back to Lees’ (1960) classification on the syntactic aspects and tries to elaborate upon his proposal by employing the findings in this study.