[Lexicog] stereotypical beliefs and lexicography

[Margarita Correia]

I can add a story in a different direction. 
When I worked in Tetum-Portuguese dictionary with Luís Costa, (Tetum is
the vehicular language spoken in East-Timor) we decided to include
unpolite names of sex organs and corporal functions, as we thought that
it could be usefull for instance for Portuguese doctors to communicate
with their pacients. However, all those entries were marked as unspite
and they only contained a remission to the polite equivalent term.
It's worth saying that the dictionary was mostly thought of as a way of
preserving East-Timor culture (it was started long before the process of
independence, in 1995) and, if the independence of the country ever
occurred, as a way to promote cooperation with Portugal.
Well, I can tell you that, in spite of the way we treated those terms,
our iniciative was very criticized in East-Timorese society, specially
within Church members, who considered very shocking to see such words in
the dictionary.
 
Margarita

-----Mensagem original-----
De: Chaz and Helga Mortensen [mailto:chaz_mortensen at sil.org] 
Enviada: terça-feira, 22 de Fevereiro de 2005 17:23
Para: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Assunto: Re: [Lexicog] stereotypical beliefs and lexicography


Friends,

In regard to Wayne's comment below and to Margarita's experience with
the journalist, I would have to agree. I went through the same questions
in regard to sex organs and related vocabulary. I asked a N. Embera
pastor if these should be included in a dictionary and he, without
hesitating, said, "Yes, because we need to know all the words in our
language."

-Chaz

On Feb 22, 2005, at 11:21 AM, Wayne Leman wrote:



Where do we draw the line, Fritz? My own thinking on the matter is that
we do not draw the line. My preference for lexicography is to be
exhaustive, and I prefer that for dictionaries also. But I believe we
can mark rascist entries as being rascist, vulgar entries as vulgar,
xenophobic entries as xenophobic, etc. If a term or phrase is used in a
rascist manner by speakers of a language, that fact is part of its
lexical information and deserves to be in a dictionary.
 
Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
http://committed.to/fieldtesting
Wayne and Thapelo,
 
Where do we draw the line? If we have a politically correct dictionary,
certain entries will be marked sexist, racist, or homophobic or not even
be mentioned. Of course, there are dictionaries of certain subcultures,

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lexicography/attachments/20050222/a55cb29b/attachment.htm>