What I have learned from chapter 2
of English dictionaries history
Chapter 2 is mainly concerned with analysis of
phraseology and collocations, and one report named
the Second Interim Report on English Collocation
and seven dictionaries related with the above analysis.
1. The Second Interim Report on English Collocation
(SIREC)
The first large-scale analysis of phraseology was
undertaken mainly by Palmer and Hornby from
the 1920s. With their effort, SIREC was published
in 1933, with a revised and corrected impression
following in 1935 with 3,879 collocations of all types
included in it. In 1936,Horby and his wife enlarged
the number of items from 3,879 to 5,749 . SIREC
was a major landmark and shaped the treatment of
phraseology in the highly innovative dictionaries of
Palmer and Hornby. Palmer proclaimed in the
report that A collocation is a succession of two or
more words that must be learned as an integral
whole and not pieced together from its component
parts. The subsequent development of the term
took
different
meaning:
collocation
are
ready-made ,memorized word –groups ,in which
one word has a sense found only in combination
with other word ,or with very few similar words, a
limitation which explains the “restricted” of
restricted collocation. .collocations are midway
between idioms and free combinations which fall
outside the scope of the Report altogether.
2. A Grammar of English Words (GEW)
Palmer’s GEW published in 1938 was attached
much to the arrangement and presentation of word
combinations. Idioms in the strict sense were
distinguished by the use of bold print and very few
were not given due prominence by this means.
Suitable labels and the use of bold print were
helpful
aids
to
location
,but
unambiguous
treatment of restricted collocations was hindered
by
the
theoretical
difficulties
mentioned
earlier ,which sometimes led to collocations and
free combinations appearing side by side in
illustrative sentence without any distinguishing
typography. GEW was a specialized dictionary,
because it focused on the core of the lexicon,
provided an exceptionally rich treatment of
word-combinations.
3.
The Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary
（ISED）
(1) ISED was a general-purpose dictionary for the
advanced foreign learner .It gave great prominence
to phraseologyand deserves close examination ,both
because
it
established
precedents
for
the
subsequent treatment of word-combination in
general EFL dictionaries and because certain of its
features set a pattern for the phraseological
dictionaries of the 1970s and 1980s. It marked a
significant stage on the way to the specialized
phraseological dictionary.
(2)There is a helpful distinction between lexical and
grammatical collocations in the ISED. The former
consist of two or more open-class words, such as the
verb +object-noun combinations discussed earlier
in this section .the latter are made up of an
open-class word and a closed-class word, and are
represented by the preposition +noun collocations
also noted earlier.
The two parts represent quite different learning
problems .In the lexical type, both parts of the
collocation need to be known. In dealing with the
grammatical type, knowledge of the appropriate
preposition is essential for encoding, but it is often
fixed.
These
differences
have
important
implications for the treatment of lexical and
grammatical collocations in EFL dictionaries.
(3)Hornby consistently used examples of four basic
structural types: complex and compound words,
noun
phrases,
to-infinitive
clauses,
and
full
sentences, and that he tended to assign these to
specific functions. phrase and clause examples
account for a high proposition of the examples in
ISED ,in the analysis referred to earlier ,in which a
continuous run of 506 entries and sub-entries was
examined ,there are 95 phrases ,34 clauses ,and 115
sentences out of a total of 258 examples .Hornby
assigned specific example types to particular
functions and that the specific function of clauses
and phrases was to serve as simplified lexical
frames for comprehension and sentence building.
4. The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic
English, volume 1 (ODCIE1)
(1)The first response to the need for a specialized
dictionary of word-combinations came in the late
1950s from Ronald Mackin, an EFL specialist. He
had assembled a corpus of some 30,000citations
from written texts with the aim of producing a
dictionary of multi-word items that were in the
broadest sense ‘collocations’. In 1975, ODCIE1
was published.
（2）the author furthered to analyze the two aspects
of phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs on the
theoretical basis of T.F.Mitchell about these two
tiers. The result of this analysis played a very
important role in dealing with the problem of
‘idiomaticity’。
(3)The authors devised a set of codes that was
simpler and more systematic than in ALD. The
letter A and B were chosen to represent intransitive
and transitive patterns respectively and 1, 2, or 3
were added to indicate whether the sentence
pattern contained a particle, a preposition or a
particle and a preposition.
The codes were then introduced singly, or in
combination, into dictionary entries. A number of
abbreviations were also introduced into entries to
indicate that they could undergo one or more
specified transformations.
5. Dictionaries of English Idioms ： the Longman
dictionary of English idioms（LDEI）and the Oxford
dictionary of English idioms(ODEI)
(1)A movement pioneered by a group of Russian
scholars ,including V.V Vinogradov and N.N
Amosova .they recognized a primary distinction
between
‘ sentence-like’
combinations
and
word-like combinations. The former were further
divisible into sayings, catchphrases, slogan, speech
formula;
the
combination,
latter were
restricted
divided
collocation,
into
free
figurative
idiom, and pure idiom.
(2)There are three ordering principles adopted in
LDEI.
The first was that the first or only noun of a
combination was treated as the keyword under
which the combinations would be looked up, and
was made the capitalized heading under which all
expressions introduced by that word were grouped
and defined. The second was that entries gathered
under a specific keyword should be arranged in
strict alphabetical order. The third was that under
the
keywords
and
within
the
alphabetical
arrangements for those keywords, the user would
find the above mentioned idioms.
The author of LDEI designed a special scheme for
treating the syntax of idioms and collocations. It
employed a set of there capital letters denoting
major clause functions ,D for direct object ,I for
indirect
objects,
and
P
for
object
of
a
preposition ,and two superscript letters “0” to
indicate that a word might inflect ,and “m” to show
that it could be transposed .
(3)ODCIE2 was based on a specific analytical
scheme,
which
had
its
origins
in
Russian
phraseological theory. ODCIE2 included a broad
spectrum
of
sentence-like
expressions
and
word-like expression, as mentioned in the above.
Entries in ODCIE2 were arranged in strict
alphabetical order. In the treatment of grammar,
ODCIE2 used a set of transparent codes similar to
those in LDEI for subjectless clauses.
6. Dictionaries of Collocations: selected English
Collocations (SEC) and The BBI Combinatory of
English (BBI)
(1) The first dictionary of English collocations
worthy of the same was published in 1982, entitled
Selected English Collocations. It had as one of its
two
compilers
of
English,
which
ensured
authenticity, and this collection proved a rich
source of information about the collocability
headwords. The sole purpose of a collocational
dictionary is to provide information about the
combinatorial
properties
of
words
,other
information being stripped away and more space
created for collocations.
(2)Each collocation in SEC contains at least one
noun and a noun features in every case as the
headword. This orientation- from noun headword
to verb, adjective, or noun collocate,-reflects the
‘encoding’ function of the dictionary. SEC purports
to deal not with restricted collocations, but free or
open collocations, which means that a range of
other words can be added at will.
(3)The BBI dictionary was published in 1986
written by three American compilers. It enlarged
the scope of headwords
from nouns to adjectives,
verbs , and a few adverbs and prepositions, which
not only dealing with
problem of choosing
collocations with nouns ,but also solve the problem
of collocations with other different class of words.
BBI provided lexical collocations and grammatical
collocations. The lexical collocations stood the first
followed by grammatical collocations. This is
helpful to learners.
From the above study about chapter 2, I learn the
history development of seven dictionaries compiled in
accordance with the analysis of phraseology and
collocations for the need of English learners.