rewards for lexicographical research

[Joanne M. Despres]

On 2 Aug 2002, at 14:27, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:

> In a message dated 8/1/2002 5:41:00 PM, jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM writes:

I do feel
> strongly--and have invested quite a bit of time and energy myself in
> this--that academia does not reward lexicographers the way it should. Someone
> can toil for years and produce a lot of significant scholarship that is then
> swallowed up in a commercial project for which the scholar herself is not
> given nearly enough credit (in terms of salaries, promotions, and tenure)
> because no "book" (nor even an "article") has been "authored."
>
I hope I'm not jumping ahead of things by asking this question -- I
think a panel on the status of lexicographical work vis-a-vis other
types of scholarly research would be terrificially interesting -- but I'll
plunge in anyway:  how much of this lack of recognition accorded
to lexicographical work by promotion and tenure committees has to
do with its lack of trendiness?  In my experience, most people who
do lexicography aren't very theoretically inclined.  Is this type of
data-intensive work regarded as a sort of mechanical and
unimaginative gathering of nuts and berries?  Excuse me if this
question is naive.

Joanne