Igor Burkhanov. Linguistic Foundations of Ideography: Semantic Analysis and Ideographic Dictionaries

In his book, Igor Burkhanov assumes that cognitive semantics, as developed mainly in the United States of America from about 1980, is a linguistic innovation which lends itself to a thorough renovation of pedagogical dictionaries. In order to show this convincingly, he discusses lexicography as an applied discipline of linguistics with the study of meaning at its centre. The various types of ideographical (onomasiological) dictionaries extant are presented and the development of semantics is unravelled from the field theory of the early 20th century to the present. After a general sketch of the learner's ideographical dictionary, the possible contribution of cognitive semantics is shown in a number of sample entries. The book is evaluated as being highly informative and equally highly honest, because the many shortcomings and deficiencies of pedagogical metalexicography are pointed out. A careful weighing of its statements gives occasion for some critical ideas about the relationship between linguistics and philology, the terminology and typology of ideographical dictionaries, and the feasibility of the proposed new dictionaries for didactic purposes

Introduction: building the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT)

The papers presented in this issue are the result of a workshop held at the University of Nottingham in December 2012 as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council research network Towards a History of Modern Foreign Language Teaching and Learning (2012–14) intended to stimulate historical research into language teaching and learning. This, the first workshop in the programme, focused on exchanging information on the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT) across the different language traditions, for it had become clear to us that scholars working within their own language disciplines were often relatively unaware of work outside these. We hope that this special issue — with overview articles on the history of English, French, German, and Spanish as second/foreign languages — will help overcome that lack of awareness and facilitate further research collaboration. Charting the history of language teaching and learning will, in turn, make us all better informed in facing challenges and changes to policy and practice now and in the future. It is instructive in the current climate, for example, to realize that grave doubts were held about whether second foreign languages could survive alongside French in British schools in the early twentieth century (McLelland, forthcoming), or to look back at earlier attempts to establish foreign languages in primary schools (Bayley, 1989; Burstall et al., 1974; Hoy, 1977). As we write, language learning in England is undergoing yet more radical change. Language teaching for all children from the age of seven is being made compulsory in primary schools from 2014, while at Key Stage 3 (up to age 16), where a foreign language has not been compulsory since 2002, the most recent programme of study for England has virtually abandoned the recent focus on intercultural competence and now requires learners to ‘read great literature in the original language’,1 a radical change in emphasis compared to the previous half-century, which seems to reflect a very different view of what language learning is for. We seem to be little closer in 2014 than we were at the dawn of the twentieth century to answering with any certainty the questions that lie at the very foundations of language teaching: who should learn a foreign language, why learners learn, what they need to learn, and what we want to teach them — answers that we need before we can consider how we want to teach. The research programme begun under our research network is intended to help us to take ‘the long view’ on such questions

Women and their world in Withal's dictionary of 1553

ABSTRACT : Withals' book is in the tradition of topical glossaries and dictionaries. It was intended to be a study help for English boys who learned Latin. Investigating « women and their world » in the selection of lexemes means analyzing a XVI^-century text in the light of a XX^-century interest. This can be called a case of « creative anachronism » in historiography. The lexemes in the dictionary cover the whole universe according to traditional principles of order. Entries pertaining to « women and their world » are given, guided by the fact that the word « feminine » can have a biological, grammatical and social meaning. The latter case is the really interesting one. The entries are matched with facts which are known about the non-/integration of women in societal life of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Particular attention is paid to crafts and trades, clothes, and family relations.RÉSUMÉ : Se situant dans la tradition des glossaires thématiques et des dictionnaires, le livre de Withals était destiné à venir en aide aux garçons anglais qui étudiaient le latin. L'examen des « dames et du monde féminin » à travers le choix des lexemes consiste à analyser un texte du XVIe siècle sous l'angle d'une préoccupation du XXe siècle ; on pourrait donc considérer cette approche comme un cas d'anachronisme créatif en historiographie. Les lexemes du dictionnaire comprennent l'univers entier selon les principes d'ordre traditionnels. Les entrées qui concernent « les dames et le monde féminin * sont données, leur choix dépendant du fait que le mot « féminin » peut avoir à la fois un sens biologique, grammatical et social. C'est ce dernier sens qui nous intéresse surtout. Les entrées sont comparées à ce que l'on sait sur la (non)-intégration des femmes dans la vie sociale vers la fin du Moyen Ape et pendant la Renaissance. Une attention toute particulière est portée aux métiers, aux vêtements et aux parentés.Hüllen Werner. Women and their world in Withal's dictionary of 1553. In: Histoire Épistémologie Langage, tome 16, fascicule 2, 1994. La grammaire des dames, sous la direction de Wendy Ayres-Bennett . pp. 191-212