LANGUAGE DYNAMICS IN THE MIRROR OF BILINGUAL LEXICOGRAPHY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE ACADEMIC GERMAN-RUSSIAN DICTIONARY)

Abstract

The article is based on observations made while working on Academic German-Russian dictionary. Modern dictionaries are mostly based on the earlier publication, so a substantial part of the work on updating the dictionary is to overcome its inertia. Search engines and technology of corpus linguistics allow lexicographers to evaluate the relevance of the numerous mosaic changes in language usage. The study deals with specific mechanisms for updating all sections of dictionary entries. An example of lexicographic processing of neologisms, described in the paper, shows the principles of including new lemmas into academic bilingual dictionaries. It is emphasized that the actual frequency is not yet a sufficient basis for the lexicographic fixation of a «trendy» word in the academic dictionary. New words have to demonstrate stable frequency of use during several years. The principles of dictionary fixing of changes in the semantic structure of a word are discussed in detail. For example, the extension of the semantics of the noun «der Nazi» demonstrates the complexity of the search for a translation equivalent with communicative and functional equivalence. Special attention is paid to the necessity of fixing new meanings in the bilingual dictionary, if they were not reflected in the explanatory dictionaries. Based on the concept of lexicographical equivalence, the authors show how to update the translation part of the dictionary entry.