7th International Conference of the

African Association for Lexicography

 

 

AFRILEX 2002

Culture and Dictionaries

Programme & Abstracts

 

 

To front and back cover of this booklet (pdf 60KB)

 

 

Dates:

8-10 July 2002

Hosts:

Dictionary Unit for South African English, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

(Kathryn Kavanagh, Dotty Mantzel, Madeleine Wright, Jill Wolvaardt)

Venue:

Eden Grove, Rhodes University

Exhibitors:

Macmillan, Maskew Miller Longman, Oxford University Press, Pharos

Abstract Reviewers:

Mariëtta Alberts, Sonja E. Bosch, Rachélle Gauton, Rufus H. Gouws, Laura Löfberg, D.J. Prinsloo, Elsabé Taljard

Programme Committee:

Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Kathryn Kavanagh, D.J. Prinsloo, Jill Wolvaardt

 

 

edited by

Gilles-Maurice de Schryver

 

 

Copyright © 2002 by the African Association for Lexicography

Pretoria: (SF)2 Press

Cover & Ruly by Giovanni Plozner (g.plozner@pandora.be || http://www.giovanniplozner.com)

 

 

Welcome Dear Conference Delegate!

 

 

This booklet comprises the programme and abstracts of the papers scheduled to be presented at the 7th International Conference of the African Association for Lexicography (AFRILEX).

 

This is the first time we at AFRILEX compile such a collection, and we hope that it will prove to be useful. This first AFRILEX Programme & Abstracts booklet comes at a good time indeed, as our annual Conference has never been this popular. No less than 49 presenters will cover 40 papers. At the time of writing, already over a hundred attendees confirmed their registration. Especially strong delegations from Gabon and Zimbabwe will be welcomed, as well as presenters from as far away as Tanzania, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Hong Kong.

 

A record-number of languages will also be covered, ranging from Zulu (isiZulu), Ndebele (isiNdebele), Swati (SiSwati), Northern Sotho (Sepedi, Sesotho sa Leboa), Southern Sotho (Sesotho) and Tswana (Setswana), to Shona (ChiShona), Zimbabwean Ndebele, Lunyole, Swahili (Kiswahili), the Gabonese languages, and finally to German, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese and Chinese. The conference theme, Culture and Dictionaries, is given the attention it deserves, and metalexicographic presentations are also well-balanced. Each day of the three-day conference will begin with a keynote address. Together with the regular parallel sessions and the two special sessions (one on dictionary funding and one on morphological analysers), attendees should have ample options to choose from.

 

The Conference Hosts invite us to visit their Dictionary Unit for South African English (DSAE), and might convince us to see more of Grahamstown (Egazini Tour). Finally, the Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University will entertain us with a cocktail party, while Pharos will once again contribute generously towards the Conference Dinner.

 

No doubt, we might be heading for our most successful conference so far. Enjoy!

 

 

Pretoria, June 2002

 

Gilles-Maurice de Schryver

Organiser: AFRILEX.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Programme

 

Keynote addresses

 

Special Session 1: Fundraising for Dictionary Publishing

 

Special Session 2: Morphological Analysers for the Bantu Languages

 

Parallel Sessions

 

Correspondence

 

 

Programme

 

AFRILEX 2002

 

40 papers

49 presenters

 

To programme

 

 

KEYNOTE ADDRESS (1)

 

Towards a User-oriented Understanding of Descriptive, Proscriptive and Prescriptive Lexicography

 

Henning Bergenholtz

Centre for Lexicography, The Aarhus School of Business, Denmark

 

There is much uncertainty and confusion as to the real differences between prescription and description. Is introspection part of the empirical basis, i.e. a part of a descriptive process? Or are introspective verdicts always a part of the prescriptive process? Both conceptions are expressed in existing linguistic dictionaries. It is also uncertain whether prescription must always contain statements which differ from descriptive statements. Finally, it is uncertain whether you can distinguish clearly between description and prescription, as several levels of descriptive accuracy are pointed out. You could presume the existence of a transitional zone between a descriptively low accuracy and the use of a very small empirical basis respectively, and a prescription without major differences to actual usage. In conclusion, you may say that admittedly the dispute between usus tyrannus and usus imperans has lasted for at least 300 years, but it is still of current interest. Is usage a tyrant or is it the ruler?

This uncertainty has carried on to lexicography where there is much confusion as to the real differences between prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries. In general, the majority of existing accounts can be summed up to this: Descriptive relates to the empirical basis; accordance between the empirical data and the dictionary is required. Prescriptive relates to the genuine purpose of the dictionary; the dictionary is meant to help with problems concerning text production and will thus affect usage. This asymmetrical understanding would imply prescriptive and descriptive in practise being false contrasts. This is also related to the paradox which Wiegand (1986) has pointed out: The statements of a descriptive dictionary have a prescriptive effect on the users. Or in other words: When maintaining a certain usage in a dictionary this description obtains an oracular status. The descriptive dictionary also has an effect on usage, often a conversational one. The oracular status actually corresponds with the expectations of the dictionary user in the event that he or she has a problem which relates to text production. The user has a problem and seeks help with a specialist. Naturally, he or she will trust the statements given by the dictionary unreservedly. This applies both to descriptive and prescriptive dictionaries.

However, this does not mean that I will argue in favour of abandoning the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive dictionaries in my lecture. On the contrary, I wish to suggest a specification and the introduction of a new term, proscription, which in actual fact is only new as a term, since the phenomenon itself is known in many dictionaries around the world. What is meant is the suggested use of a certain variant based on an exact analysis of an empirical basis without prohibiting other existing variants. Coincident with this, a specification of both the new term and the two hitherto used terms will be suggested which will allow for both the nature and the use of the empirical basis:

(1)    introspection,

(2)    analysis of a linguistic survey,

(3)    the involvement of descriptions in existing dictionaries, grammars, monographs, articles, etc.,

(4)    the analysis of a number of examples which have been randomly chosen from random texts (corresponding with the practice of dictionary making before the age of computers),

(5)    the analysis of a specifically constructed text corpus,

(6)    the analysis of usage found in texts in the examined language in all available websites on the Internet.

Furthermore, you must allow for the nature of usage recommendations:

(1)    a specific linguistic variant is explicitly prohibited,

(2)    one or more linguistic variants are explicitly prescribed, thus prohibiting all other non-mentioned variants,

(3)    a specific linguistic variant is explicitly prescribed; as opposed to prescription (2) this involves a new word, new spelling, new pronunciation, a new inflexion or a neologism, cf. Wiegand (1996).

Here, I suggest a more consistent terminology which allows for both the function of the dictionary and the relation of the dictionary to the empirical basis:

 

 

empirical basis

accordance with empirical basis

wishes to influence the user

descriptive dictionary

+

+

–

proscriptive dictionary

+

+

+

prescriptive dictionary

±

±

+

 

To Table of Contents

 

KEYNOTE ADDRESS (2)

 

Cultural Implications on Lexicography

 

A.C. Nkabinde

 

A speech community's origin, history, mythology, exploits, legendary, wisdom lore and world view are reflected in its language. Similarly the arts, crafts, and other activities together with phenomena in nature and the environment are expressed or described by means of language. Language is inextricably bound with the culture of a people. Language captures the changes and developments that occur in society from generation to generation.

Linguistics offers a useful tool for analysing the structure, function and meaning of words in a language. It, however, does not always provide the necessary background to the meanings of words, particularly in unwritten languages where historical linguistics is based on hypotheses rather than factual evidence.

The challenge confronting the lexicographer is how to deal with cultural material in an organised and consistent manner in the compilation of a dictionary. She/he must walk a tight rope of defining words without straying into other fields of knowledge such as ethnography, sociology, medicine, science, anthropology, etc. in which she/he has no training nor expertise.

This article attempts to identify some of the problem areas in the accommodation of culture in lexicography and raises some questions or makes tentative proposals on how to deal with problems. These are:

·        ''standard" and ''non-standard" variations of a language including lexical variations of words in a language,

·        use of a corpus in unwritten languages or languages with a limited written tradition,

·        figurative use of language,

·        different kinds of dictionaries,

·        euphemisms, taboo and "hlonipha",

·        tone dialects,

·        translation and monolingual dictionaries,

·        concepts and functional mobility of a language,

·        socio-economic, political, and historical influences on language.

 

To Table of Contents

 

SPECIAL SESSION 1: Fundraising for Dictionary Publishing (1)

 

Funding of Technical Dictionaries

 

Mariëtta Alberts

Department of Arts, Culture Science and Technology (DACST), South Africa

 

Already in the early fifties, the Government started with the funding of terminology projects and with the publication of the technical dictionaries that resulted from these endeavours. At that stage the focus was on the compilation of English/Afrikaans technical dictionaries because of the bilingual policy of the then government. The terminology projects were funded in the sense that terminologists were paid salaries to compile these dictionaries. The terminologists who were employed by the Department of National Education, the forerunner of the present Department of Arts, Culture Science and Technology (DACST), mainly did the terminology work. The Government Printer published all the technical dictionaries compiled by the Terminology Section.

         Other Government departments such as the then Department for Defence, the South African Railways and Harbours and the Department of Education (to mention just a few) were also involved in the compilation of technical dictionaries in their special fields of interest. They all published their respective dictionaries on their own.

         Bodies such as the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (SAAWK, 'South African Academy for Science and Art'), the Afrikaanse Taal- en Kultuurvereniging (ATKV, 'Afrikaans Language and Cultural Association'), municipalities, etc., also devoted time to terminology work and published their respective dictionaries. They all employed language practitioners to compile these dictionaries.

         Besides the Government and the above-mentioned bodies, publishers also typically commission subject specialists to compile dictionaries on various subject areas. In these cases the dictionary makers do not receive any funding whilst compiling. Instead, royalties are paid to such compilers of technical dictionaries.

         Since 1994 the Government devotes time to the provision of African-language term equivalents in a variety of subject areas. The Terminology Co-ordination Section of the National Language Service compiles terminology lists in the eleven official languages. The terminologists utilise the MultiTerm program of TRADOS to capture terminological information. Draft terminology lists can be printed directly from the MultiTerm program for distribution to collaborators, PanSALB structures (National Language Bodies (NLBs), National Lexicography Units (NLUs), Provincial Language Committees (PLCs)), etc. Once the Terminology Co-ordination Section has received feedback from the various collaborators, the terminological data can be finalised in the Termbank and the multilingual terms can be disseminated to the language users, the subject specialists and the National Lexicography Units (NLUs) for inclusion in their wordbanks.

         Since the multilingual polythematic terminologies form part of the Termbank, they will also be available on the Internet in the future. The terminological data can also be made available and disseminated on CD-ROM. Whether the terminological data will also be published in traditional dictionaries remains to be seen.

         In the past there were always private initiatives where an individual felt the need for a dictionary on a specific subject area. These people would then compile such a term list or ask someone else to do it on their behalf and publish it on their own. The problem with this kind of work is that the compiler has to work on a term list without earning a salary. The compiler will only receive some form of benefit from his/her endeavour once the technical dictionary has been published. If one takes royalties compared to the amount of work involved in the compilation of a dictionary into account, it is really not worth the while to compile a dictionary in private capacity.

 

To Table of Contents

 

SPECIAL SESSION 1: Fundraising for Dictionary Publishing (2)

 

Financing of the National Lexicography Units (NLUs) in a New Lexicographic Dispensation

 

Dirk J. van Schalkwyk

Bureau of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT), South Africa

 

The history of lexicographic projects throughout the world shows that they always have too little money and therefore too few staff members to finish their assigned task effectively and within a reasonable length of time. The history of the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal is a good example. The National Lexicography Units (NLUs) for the official languages of South Africa will not be able to avoid these problems.

         The NLUs are financed by government. These government funds are channelled from the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) to the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) for allocation to the NLUs. Owing to Government's numerous responsibilities these funds will not provide in all needs of the NLUs. Therefore the responsibility lies with the NLUs to become involved in fund-raising.

         The NLUs can obtain funds by generating funds and/or by fund-raising. The units can generate funds with lexicographic products and services. Dictionaries written with the needs of the dictionary users in mind, will be good marketing tools. A language query service, translation service, language editing service or training on how to use dictionaries are examples of possible services. Funds can be raised at provincial authorities, municipalities or town councils, at the tertiary institutions where units are established, but also in the private sector. The users of a specific language ought to be the best possible donors for the language, as would businesses and companies to which individuals who are sensitive to language are affiliated. Certain trust funds earmark their funds for language and language development. They are good potential donors for the NLUs.

         It is the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief or Executive Director to generate and raise funds. The question that arises is whether the Editor-in-Chief or Executive Director can take on the comprehensive and specialized task of the generation of funds and fund-raising in addition to his or her lexicographic responsibilities and functions arising from the performance areas of a lexicographic unit.

         According to the Articles of Association of the National Lexicography Units the functions of the Editor-in-Chief may be reduced to managing the unit and reporting to the Board of Directors. When these functions are analysed carefully, however, it is clear that several focus areas are relevant. It includes the whole process of dictionary making from needs analysis, building a database, determination of the macro- and microstructure of the dictionary, the development of a style guide and its computerisation, lexicographic processing and editing of the data, typesetting, printing and binding of the lexicographic products, and the marketing of the products. Yet the finances and staff members of the unit, physical facilities, research, editorial and administrative support services, etc., are also his/her concern.

         The establishment of a trust for each of the National Lexicography Units should be considered to help generate and raise funds. This will lighten the load of the Editor-in-Chief considerably, providing the Trust has its own staff members. If not, the Editor-in-Chief will in effect obtain an extra job.

         The Pan South African Language Board is aware of the financial situation of the National Lexicography Units. Therefore the Subcommittee: Lexicography and Terminology Development has established an Ad hoc committee for Fund-raising. The aim of this Ad hoc committee is to raise funds for the NLUs.

         In order to ensure a satisfactory financial dispensation for the NLUs, it is important that the financial responsibilities of Government, of PanSALB, as well as of the NLUs and their trusts are properly identified and synchronised.

         PanSALB and the National Lexicography Units must know in time every year what funding they will receive from government and PanSALB and the trusts must agree how fund-raising will take place and how potential donors will be treated. This will prevent potential donors from becoming irritated and annoyed.

 

To Table of Contents

 

SPECIAL SESSION 1: Fundraising for Dictionary Publishing (3)

 

Dictionaries, A Cultural Investment?

Some Thoughts on Fundraising for Dictionary Projects

 

Jill Wolvaardt

Dictionary Unit for South African English (DSAE), South Africa

 

This session is intended for staff of National Lexicography Units, their board members, advisers, and others interested in ensuring that speakers of all South African languages will have access to a well-designed range of dictionary products adequate to their needs.

         National Lexicography Units (NLUs) for each of SA's official languages have been established as Section 21 Companies, that is as non-profit organisations, subsidised by national government via the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB). Their principal objective is to write definitive monolingual dictionaries for their respective speech communities. So much we know. However, it is already apparent a) that the funds that PanSALB has at its disposal are only sufficient to maintain the minimal/basic functions of each lexicography unit and b) that most language groups are expressing a more urgent need for bilingual dictionaries. The discussion in this session will focus on how, given this context, NLUs can respond effectively to the demands of their target users.

         It should be recognised from the outset that dictionaries are rarely commercially profitable products. This is all the more so in South Africa where the book-buying public is small, and public institutions such as libraries and schools have limited resources. Publishers may, therefore, be reluctant to take on our products. If, however, we can identify organisations prepared to underwrite some of the production costs, our dictionaries may become a more attractive proposition for publishers. In the light of this, the presentation will suggest that in order to subsidise the production of much-needed dictionaries for our speech communities, we should look for potential investors amongst those who are interested in the cultural dividends of our work, rather than in the financial return on their investment. That is, NLUs should – like other non-governmental organisations – consider seeking funds for their work from the so-called "donor community".

         To do this, it is important that each dictionary be considered as a separate 'project' which should be formulated with the same structure and discipline as, for example, a project for a local clinic which is formulated by a community health organisation. By the same token, NLUs will have to be prepared to market and promote the cultural and educational importance of each of their proposals, in order to compete successfully alongside the many other worthy enterprises seeking support from the donor community.

         The discussion will review what preparing a dictionary project within these parameters might entail. It will outline the preliminary processes to be considered long before the first entry is even drafted, highlighting some of the basic elements required for formulating a publishing proposal. Fortunately, these are largely similar to the components that the funder of any development project will be looking for when considering a proposal for support. So by undertaking this sort of preparatory work before embarking on each dictionary, NLUs will be equipping themselves to access both publishers and the necessary funding.

         In this session, National Lexicography Units will be encouraged to see themselves as an active part of a process which unites those who need dictionaries with those who can make them available. The premise is that rather than working as cloistered researchers, we should find pro-active ways of linking with our speech communities. By building a relationship in this way, we can ensure that we are working to provide our target users with appropriate materials; equally, we will be in a position to assure prospective publishers that there will be a market for our product. And finally, we will be in a position to assure potential investors of the benefits of what we aim to produce. The workshop will discuss the characteristics of each of the elements in this cycle: user group – publisher – investor/donor, and first steps we might take to identify these elements, develop a relationship, and incorporate them in our plans for forthcoming projects.

 

To Table of Contents

 

SPECIAL SESSION 2: Morphological Analysers for the Bantu Languages (1)

 

KEYNOTE ADDRESS (3)

 

New Advances in Corpus-based Lexicography

 

Arvi Hurskainen

Institute for Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland

 

In this paper I shall point out and demonstrate how language analysis tools can be maximally utilised in dictionary compilation based on text corpora.

 

1. Requirements for analysis tools

With the help of comprehensive language analysis tools it is possible to automate several labour-intensive phases in dictionary compilation. Such tools have to be able to:

a.      identify the lemma form of each word

b.     give full linguistic analysis of each word-form

c.     solve ambiguity in analysis

d.     optionally give glosses in target language

e.      find examples of use for each key-word from corpus

Below I shall describe a set of tools and their development environments which, when applied together, fulfil these requirements.

 

2. General description of tools

a. Morphological analyser

The morphological analyser is the first and also the most labour-intensive of the components in the analysis system. It lays the foundation for other modules, and special attention has to be paid to its accuracy. The Finite-State calculus, advocated by Xerox, has so far been the most successful method, especially in analysing agglutinating languages. It is closely related to the more traditional two-level morphology, which also utilises finite states. A more recent approach that utilizes regular expressions has been used by Conexor in language management systems.

 

b. Disambiguator

In disambiguation there are two major approaches. One of them relies on probabilities in choosing the correct interpretation. Another method uses linguistic rules. Although the success rate in probabilistic disambiguation has been reported to be fairly good, it has two major disadvantages. It is not a knowledge-based, or intelligent, system, and the danger of wrong guesses is remarkable. It should be fairly clear that the knowledge-based system is the preferable one. This is particularly obvious with Bantu languages, where the concord system lays the linguistic foundation for writing disambiguation rules. Heuristic rules are applied only if there is no information available for writing knowledge-based rules.

 

c. Semantic analyser

Semantic analysis can be performed in two ways. Semantic information may be written directly into the morphological lexicon, or it can be done later with the help of a special external semantic lexicon. In the former case, the lexicon becomes large and its maintenance is burdensome. The latter method keeps individual modules more manageable, and their use is more flexible. What is particularly useful in the latter method is that semantic tagging can be performed to the morphologically disambiguated text. Semantics adds again ambiguity, of course, but this can be done in a more manageable environment, when morphological disambiguation has already been carried out earlier.

 

d. Syntactic analyser

In syntactic parsing, there are currently two successful methods available. Constraint Grammar is fairly good and for many applications sufficient. If the aim of the system is to develop into a genuine language translation system, then more is needed from syntax. Functional Dependency Grammar, already applied to several languages by Conexor, seems to provide a 'full' syntactic analysis of text, and by this a major problem in knowledge-based translation systems is solved.

 

All phases of analysis will be demonstrated with a system applied to Swahili.

 

To Table of Contents

 

SPECIAL SESSION 2: Morphological Analysers for the Bantu Languages (2)