A Handbook of Lexicography. The Theory and Practice of Dictionary-Making (review)

Alot of time has passed, and a lot of things have happened since I came across the first version of this book. Both DSNA and EU-RALEX have held 10 biennial meetings, and earlier this year I joined the celebration of the 10^th biennial conference with the Nordic Lexicography Association; we have also seen more and better coverage of the field in terms of courses, research and publications. The author of this textbook has moved on, too, from his early philological training and his editorial work in publishing and dictionary compilation to specializing in technical terminology and assisting the Secretary of the Swedish Academy. And the text has seen several significant changes, with the 2004 revision of the original 1987 Swedish text (and this completely new edition of the 1993 English version) more than doubling in size and incorporating brand-new material which reflects the recent developments we all have witnessed in lexicography, both as an academic discipline and an electronically expert profession.

The book fulfills its double aim of providing a general introduction to the field of lexicography and a practical guide to dictionary-making. It covers all essential aspects, from the typology of dictionaries and the collection of lexicographical source data to the structural features of dictionaries and their presentation, including wider aspects of and advances in dictionary production, criticism and use. Particularly valuable seems to me the author's awareness of current trends and changes (such as some of the innovations introduced by English learners' dictionaries) and their treatment in the global literature.

Each of the 28 chapters is introduced by a suitable motto quoting an authority in the field (although without bibliographical attribution of its source), then contains several sections and sub-sections appropriate to the topics treated, often exemplified by relevant extracts from dictionaries, and sometimes accompanied by warnings about the restricted applicability of practices to certain languages or their limited generalizability to particular dictionary types. There are also useful references to sections elsewhere, and chapters usually end with suggestions for follow-up reading, including annotated references to the literature—over 40 for Chapter 1 alone. At the front of the book, there is the usual table of contents, with lists of illustrations and acknowledgements and an author's preface, and at the end there is a comprehensive general bibliography (of over 90 dictionaries and more than 500 other publications) and a detailed subject index.

The range of topics is impressively comprehensive and detailed, and their progression is eminently logical. Starting with the subject of lexicography in Chapter 1, all technical notions are explained (e.g., by marking and defining technical terms in context) and the reader is immediately drawn into the material awaiting exploration in later chapters, while at the same time being intrigued by potentially controversial topics (such as the significance of 'metalexicography'). In Chapter 2, Svensén leads the reader on to the enormous variety of genres that are available in the real world of dictionaries, exploring various ways of classifying them, while readily admitting that not all of them can be covered in equal measure (e.g., semasiological-alphabetic rather than onomasiological-thematic, bilingual almost as much as monolingual, but not terminological-LSP types). Next (in Chapter 3) we are made aware of the important matter of collecting and selecting data from the right primary and secondary sources, such as introspection, text corpora, the Internet, and other dictionaries, and we are shown that all of these have their limitations and that special care is needed in deciding how to utilize the information for the benefit of the dictionary user.

The structural part of the guided tour begins, at Chapter 4, with an overview of how the dictionary text differs from other discourse genres, how its constituent elements relate to the whole and to each other, and what is required to disentangle their intricate and often almost incomprehensible condensation. In the next 8 chapters we are then presented...