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Dictionary scholars debate slang, standardisation and the 'special relationship'

15 June 2010

The dictionary in the age of the internet, slang words and the Americanisation of the English language will all be on the agenda as more than one hundred of the world's top dictionary scholars arrive in Oxford this week.

The fifth annual International Conference of Historical Lexicography and Lexicology (ICHLL5) will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) online on June 16-18 with a series of lectures, seminars and panels, accompanied by a display at the Bodleian Library.

The diplomatic 'special relationship' between Britain and the United States has long been an important feature of Anglo-American politics. On the cultural side, the 'Americanisation' of the English language has an equally long and colourful history. Anglo-American lexicography, World War II and the Dictionary of American English will be the subjects of a plenary lecture by Professor Michael Adams, who is the author of Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon and a leading expert in Anglo-American dictionaries.

Professor Charlotte Brewer of Oxford's Faculty of English Language and Literature, who organised the conference, said: 'When the first Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1933, Britain's Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin wrote to the head of Oxford University Press in despair to ask, "How are we to save our tongue from being ruined by the American language"? But Oxford's dictionary makers accepted that it was impossible to change the way people spoke - and moreover that OED's job was to provide an impartial record of language, not a culturally biased one.

'Today all English language dictionary-makers accept that recording American English is an essential part of their work and OED's New York office sends a steady stream of words back to the head office in Oxford, including recent OED entries big whoop, generation Y and anyhoo.'

World Cup referees brushing up on international swear-words are not the only people interested in international slang. A series of papers and talks on slang will see international experts cover topics ranging from how to define slang to graffiti scrawls and CB radio slang. The international language of sport will also be examined in a talk on how to translate American baseball terms into an English vocabulary defined by cricket.

Meanwhile, another paper investigates how the internet has changed the way language is used and codified in dictionaries. John Simpson, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary at Oxford University Press, will talk about the making of the most recent OED. He said: 'In the old days we used to say that we would consider adding a new word or a new sense to the OED if our reading programme had collected five examples spread over a five-year period.

'With the arrival of the internet, that has been completely blown out of the water, as anyone can easily find 10,000 examples online of any spelling mistake. The explosion of material available on the internet provides a mass of data for dictionary-writers to study, but paradoxically makes the job harder rather than easier. It will be very interesting to find out how other lexicographers at the conference are addressing this issue.

Other topics on the history of dictionaries and words at the conference include the use of racial slurs in French dictionaries, the use of dictionaries in courts of law, cooking terms and illustrations in dictionaries, and historic dictionaries of Cornish, Welsh, Maltese English, German, Dutch, Georgian and others.  

For more information contact Professor Charlotte Brewer on 07850 131525 or charlotte.brewer@hertford.ox.ac.uk
Questions on the OED should be directed to Julia Hall on 07986 683940 or at julia.hall@oup.com

Alternatively contact the Oxford University Press Office on 01865 280531 or press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk

Notes to editors:

  • The fifth annual International Conference of Historical Lexicography and Lexicology (ICHLL5) will take place from 16 to 18 June. Organised by Professor Charlotte Brewer of the English Faculty and Hertford College, events will take place at St Anne's College, Oxford. It is accompanied by a display in the Proscholium of the Bodleian Library on the links between the OED and the Bodleian Library.
  • The history of the Oxford English Dictionary is the special focus of the conference. Many of the papers probe and explore the OED's record of English both past and present, and its construction by enthusiastic volunteer helpers as well as trained lexicographers - all through its history OED has turned to the public for help in supplying evidence on words and their usage.
  • The conference will feature plenary talks by OED editor John Simpson, Professor Michael Adams (Indiana University, Bloomington) and Professor Ulrike Hass (University of Duisburg-Essen)
  • Panels and discussions at the conference include highly specialised topics such as the development of typography in bilingual Japanese and western European languages, words for clothing in Old and Middle English, as well as much more general ones, such as lexicography and human rights, and how words function as the building-blocks of human culture.
  • The full conference programme is available at: http://sites.google.com/site/ichll2010/programme