Openness and the Didactic Function of a Specialized Dictionary

Abstract

The article focuses on openness of lexicographic description in two German-Polish and PolishGerman LSP dictionaries of economics. As part of the issue of openness, the didactic function of a dictionary was examined. In the analysis, the adopted user’s perspective was that of a philologist, while the context of use of a bilingual dictionary was set as communication in German as a foreign language. The dictionary openness study was conducted on three levels, namely, on a macro-, micro- and mediostructural level, with a reference to contrastive studies on general-language and LSP dictionaries conducted in Poland (e.g. Frączek, Lipczuk 2004) and international research, especially German studies (e.g. Wiegand 1998a; Bergenholtz, Tarp, Wiegand 1999; Wiegand 2005; Wiegand 2013). Selected examples served as a basis for presenting the extent to which the type of macrostructure, directionality and polyaccessibility of lexicographic data contribute to the performance of the didactic function of a dictionary. The analysis conducted on macrostructural level showed word-formative nest-alphabetical order of entries to be a type of macrostructure oriented at foreign language didactics. The microstructural analysis shed light on weaknesses of lexicographic description, such as insufficient presentation of paradigmatic relations within an entry article. In the examined dictionaries, the feature of monodirectionality was found to prevail over bidirectionality.

Keywords

• specialized dictionary
• didactics of the german
• the functions of a bilingual dictionary