How To Analyse A Dictionary

HOW TO ANALYSE A DICTIONARY

Sarai Rivas Solano (23062565-M)
Lexicología de la lengua B, Inglés
Ldo. Traducción e Interpretación

To analyze a dictionary in a detailed way we have to establish two levels: an aseptic level, in which we study the characteristics of the dictionary, and a practical-personal one, in which we check the operation of the dictionary.
A dictionary is aconsultation work that has the definition of a word collection which is given in alphabetic order. A dictionary can be monolingual (if it has only one language) and bilingual (if it has two languages in it). Furthermore, a dictionary can be descriptive (if it describes something) or prescriptive (if it prescribes or stipulates something).
First of all, I have chosen a paper dictionary. It is calledLangenscheidt and it was published by C.C. Smith, G.A. Davies and H.B. Hall in 1966. This bilingual dictionary (it contains two languages: English and Spanish) was published by a publishing company called Santillana. Although it exists an online version, the paper one has a lot of entries. It contains more than eighty five thousand entries, a large list of grammarian comments, spelling and orthographyrules, abbreviations, declines, Hispano-American voices, phonetic indications, a lot of neologisms, etc
Secondly, for checking the quality of the dictionary, we should try to translate a text using the dictionary chosen. Like the dictionary chosen is a bilingual one, we can translate the fragment from English to Spanish or vice versa. The text chosen is a speech given by Martin Luther King duringthe March to Washington for Works and Freedom. Like the mother tongue of Martin Luther king is English, I am going to translate a fragment of the text from English to Spanish.
‘I Have A Dream’
by Rev. Martin Luther King
28 August 1963
Washington, D.C.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Fivescore years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. Onehundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we havecome here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would beguaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds". But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice isbankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check. […]
Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. […] Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. […] There will be neither rest nor...