[Lexicog] stereotypical beliefs and lexicography

[Margarita Correia]

This is a very interesting question and it has been posed to me several
times in the last years.
Two or three years ago, some days before the 8th March, one female
journalist called me to ask my opinion about the insertion of sexist
expressions in dictionaries. I answered her, without hesitating, that
lexicographers were supposed to be objective about the facts they were
describing and then I thought that all those expressions were to be
described with no marks at all. She was very upset, and although she
insisted, I was completely sure of what I thought to be right at the
moment. My answer was based on the fact that I am most of all a
Linguistics professor and hence I look at the lexicon mostly as a study
object to be described as "scientifically" as possible.
Yet, last year I was talking to a Brazilian lexicographer who was doing
a dictionary for children in schools, funded by the Brazilian
government, and she told me how she had some difficulties to deal with
racist terms: basically, after great discussion, it was decided not to
include them in the dictionary. At the first moment I was very puzzled
with that suggestion, claiming that lexicographers were not supposed to
decide what is or isn't politically correct, that the idea of
politically correct changes, etc. She then called my attention to the
following fact: in dictionaries for scholars, if we keep these kind of
expressions, we are contributing to keep them in the language for future
generations; if we simply don't insert them, maybe we may prevent them
to be kept in the lexicon.
I think then that first of all we have to think about the public of the
dictionary we are writting and about its goals. I keep thinking that a
general language dictionary has to keep those expressions and I do not
even consider myself able to decide what is or is not politically
correct in society. However, in learning dictionaries, specially for
children, I believe we should not introduce such expressions.
 
Margarita Correia

-----Mensagem original-----
De: Thapelo Otlogetswe [mailto:thaps at yahoo.com] 
Enviada: terça-feira, 22 de Fevereiro de 2005 13:16
Para: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Assunto: [Lexicog] stereotypical beliefs and lexicography


How would such derogatory information be represented in dictionaries?
"Its all Greek to me", may not be as offensive as "work like a Black"
and I would think that "work like a slave" would also be less offensive.
And does a lexicographer have a responsibility in challenging steretypes
through dictionary entries? Or his role should be better seen as that of
a scientist from without looking in as it were, merely describing the
uses of language that he sees. But does impartiality really exist in
these matters or one is either challenging the status quo or endorsing
it (a Terry Eagleton position in the later chapter of Literary Theory )?
Put differently, are certain entries like 'work like Black' racist when
used by racist communities and also racist when entered and discussed by
lexicographers? In this case the lexicographer guilty of participating
in the development and sustainance of racist views. On the other hand,
would it be accurate to leave them out from a dictionary?
 
 



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lexicography/attachments/20050222/7052817e/attachment.htm>