Explanatory dictionaries have traditionally been used as an empirical foundation for theoretical research of literary language: its semantic structure and grammatical features of its lexical units, derivational models, stylistic stratification, etc. However, the language of science and especially its terminology remained at the periphery of such dictionaries. This article argues in favour of using materials of the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 21st Century, which is currently being compiled by the Laboratory of computer lexicography, as the basis for theoretical description of the modern language of science. This full-type dictionary is focused on synchronic description of the Russian lexical system, which is under a substantial influence of the intellectualisation process. It does not only include words, but also collocations, which form a significant part of the language of science. Entries in the dictionary are compiled according to significant relations within lexical-semantic groups. This allows the explanatory dictionary to describe systemic interrelations of lexical units both inside the terminology of a particular area of knowledge and the modern lexical system in general. Terminology dictionaries — which are based on achievements of contemporary terminology studies — are widely used in the compilation process, so resulting definitions are highly specialised. A system of thematic labels used in the dictionary makes it possible to identify a definition as belonging to a particular area of knowledge or to several scientific fields. A dedicated label is used for definitions of general scientific nature to specify another important layer of the modern language of science. This results in a wide list of scientific language units — words of different parts of speech and collocations — marked with labels indicating a particular area of knowledge they belong to or their general scientific nature, provided with verified definitions and illustrative examples from modern texts.
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