Metalexicographic Criteria for a Monolingual Descriptive Dictionary Presenting the Standard Variety of Yipunu
Year: 2007
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The dictionaries available in the Gabonese languages are all translation dictionaries biased towards French and compiled by missionaries and colonial administrators.No proper monolingual dictionaries exist in the Gabonese languages.There is therefore a need for monolingual dictionaries in the Gabonese languages, particularly in Yipunu, one of the Bantu languages (B 43) spoken in the South of Gabon.Yipunu is a regional vehicular language or a major or majority language.Yipunu is a domestic language i.e spoken inside Bapunu communities or a mother tongue or first language and Yipunu is also taught as subject in the national educational system.As a response to this need, this dissertation proposes metalexicographic criteria for the compilation of a standard descriptive monolingual dictionary with special reference to Yipunu.The proposed model focuses primarily on the inclusion and the treatment of the standard variety of Yipunu and to a lesser degree on the other varieties.Such a model is directed at a dictionary primarily dealing with the needs of the average, educated members of the Yipunu speech community, the mother-tongue speakers, and also designed for experienced and advanced learners of Yipunu and their teachers.This study aims to point out how important standard descriptive monolingual dictionaries are in general and specifically in the case of African Bantu languages.This study also aims to highlight the importance for Gabonese lexicographers to adopt modern lexicographical principles in dictionary compilation such as the user-driven dictionary and the corpus-based dictionary.This model, although devised for Yipunu, will eventually serve as model for the design of standard descriptive dictionaries in all Gabonese languages.This study provides information about the content and the structures of such a dictionary and is structured as follows:http://scholar.sun.ac.za/ iv Chapter 1 focuses on introducing and contextualising the research.It presents the linguistic situation in Gabon with reference to the status of Yipunu.It also shows the importance and the relevance of the research and gives the theoretical basis, methodology, hypotheses and objectives underlying the study.Chapter 2 criticises the lexicographic works in Yipunu in order to improve the quality of future Yipunu dictionaries and examines the major needs of Yipunu lexicography.Chapter 3 envisages some aspects of the standardisation of Yipunu.It targets the discussion at the level of the language analysis namely the phonology, the grammar, the dictionary and the orthography of Yipunu.Chapter 4 discusses the user perspective, which guides the dictionary compilation.It focuses on the user profile, user typologies and dictionary functions.The intended dictionary has a multifunctional character.Special attention is given to a pioneering survey of dictionary use among Gabonese students and to the discussion of the teaching of dictionary use in Gabon.Chapter 5 deals with the dictionary plan.Different aspects such as the style guide, the genuine purpose, the dictionary basis, data collection, the data collection policy, data collection methods and the corpus of the proposed dictionary are discussed Chapter 6 elaborates on the macrostructure of the proposed dictionary.The dictionary gives priority to a strict alphabetical macrostructure.Macrostructural elements, lemmatisation strategies, and types of lemmas and articles to be included in the proposed dictionary are discussed.Chapter 7 focuses on the microstructure of the proposed dictionary.The model suggests an obligatory microstructure and an extended obligatory microstructure and discusses the variety of data to be included in the articles of the proposed dictionary.Chapter 8 deals with the outer text section and the guide structures of the proposed dictionary, which includes front and back matter texts.Polyaccessibility, a system of cross-referencing, and lemmatic and non-lemmatic addressings are characteristics of the proposed dictionary.
Author: Fatima Tomba Moussavou
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2131601695