[Lexicog] stereotypical beliefs and lexicography

[Fritz Goerling]

Here is a good-natured cross-cultural joke involving stereotypes:
An American, Englishman, Frenchman, German and Arab decide to write a book
on elephants.
A year later they meet again. Everybody shows his product. The American has
written a booklet
"How to raise bigger and better elephants -- faster", the Englishman shows a
book entitled
"A sportsman's guide to elephants", the Frenchman has written a brochure
entitled
"the love life of elephants", the German comes with a wheelcart behind him
full of twenty thick
volumes entitled "A Cursory Introduction to the Science of Elephants", the
Arab has written
a book "Elephants - and the Palestine question."

What kind of book would someone from your nationality write?

Fritz Goerling



  Oho! Lexicographylist has woken up again!

  Do all languages contain derogatory stereotypes about neighbouring
peoples? The recent discussion of "Dutch courage", etc. provided some
interesting examples. Does Dutch have derogatory expressions involving
"English"?  Or is Dutch stereotypically more polite -- or more parochial --
than English?

  Sometimes there is reciprocal derogation. English "take French leave" is
(or was) matched by French "filer à l'anglaise".  Any other good examples?

    See the French and English habit of calling a venereal disease by each
other's nationalities: "the French disease"
    and "la maladie anglaise" respectively.

  More seriously, I suppose that a major contribution that lexicography can
make to the advancement of knowledge is to compile systematic lists of
distinctions between stereotypical beliefs in various languages and the
corresponding scientific and mundane realities.

     If this leads to mutual understanding between peoples that would be
very helpful. I think protoype semantics can help find similarities
     and common ground, while componential semantic analysis focuses more on
differences. Both approaches need to complement
     each other.
  An example: If you accept statistically significant word associations as
evidence for stereotypical beliefs, then the English stereotype for 'oasis'
is that oases are calm. tranquil, quiet, and green (evidence from the
Waspbench analysis of the British National Corpus,
http://wasps.itri.bton.ac.uk/). But my much-travelled colleague Christiane
Fellbaum tells me that in reality oases are typically noisy, smelly, dirty
places full of bustling people and honking trucks.  About the only things
that a stereotypical oasis in English has in common with the real thing, it
seems, is that it's found in a desert and has water!

  Patrick



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