[Lexicog] Survey

[Danko.Sipka]

Dear Colleagues:

I am working on a paper devoted to ambiguous definitions, e.g., when a word
in L1 is defined by the English word "bar" alone, from which it is not clear
if the word refers to a rigid piece of metal or wood, a saloon, a legal
community, etc.

Could you please take literally two minutes of your time to answer to the
three questions below and e-mail it back to me to Danko.Sipka at asu.edu.
Alternatively, you can go to http://cli.la.asu.edu/survey.htm to answer the
questions on-line.

Sidney I. Landau in his "Dictionaries. The Art and Craft of Lexicography"
(Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 170-171) states the following
principle relating to avoidance of ambiguous definitions:

"Words in definitions must be used unambiguously in the context of the
definition. If a word used in a definition has more than one meaning (i.e.,
it is polysemous), the particular sense in which it is intended must be made
clear by the rest of the definition. This problem is most conspicuous in
dictionaries that depend on synonyms for definitions, such as bilingual and
short monolingual dictionaries. One cannot define back-yard, either in
English or its equivalent in another language, by the English word lot,
since lot has a lot of other meanings."

Could you please answer to the following three questions (please place an X
in front of your choice). The answers will be used for a paper addressing
the problem stated by Landau.

1. How often have you encountered the problem of ambiguous definitions in
your lexicographic practice?

       very often       often       occasionally       rarely       almost
never

2. How many years have you been working as a lexicographer?

       less than one     1-9      10-19     20-29     30 or more

3. What is your primary field of lexicography?

       monolingual lexicography            bilingual lexicography

Sincerely,



Danko Sipka
Research Associate Professor and Acting Director
Critical Languages Institute (http://www.asu.edu/cli)
Arizona State University
Danko.Sipka at asu.edu
http://www.public.asu.edu/~dsipka
/until May 15, 2005/




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