Abstract: |
The purpose of this project is to establish a dictionary of spoken Danish, titled Ordbog over Dansk Talesprog (ODT). Through the use of extensive empirical data, it is the aim of the project to convey the latest knowledge of spoken language to the broad public. ODT combines existing and new research based primarily on qualitative methods with the quantitative analysis of a corpus of spoken language. The result of this combined method will be made available to the public through the development of a web-based dictionary of spoken Danish.
ODT is a project of the Centre for Language Change in Real Time (LANCHART) at the University of Copenhagen. Building on a large corpus of spoken language consisting primarily of sociolinguistic interviews, recorded from 1978 - 2010 and consisting of almost 7 million transcribed tokens, we are working on a dictionary portal. We inscribe the project into a tradition of significant national dictionaries, namely the Dictionary of the Danish Language (1918 - 1956) and The Danish Dictionary (2003 - 2005). Both were published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, which is one of our foremost institutional cooperating partners along with the Danish Language Council.
The ODT project pursues two spheres of action. One lets the editors conduct research of their own, both in the field of spoken-language research in line with the other activities at the LANCHART Centre, and in the new field of spoken-language lexicography. In this way the editors, future dissertation writers, and Ph.D. students working on the project will produce new knowledge. The other sphere of action concerns conveying this knowledge to the public. We see it as our job not only to promote and expose the research activities of the editors themselves and the other LANCHART researchers, but also to pass on knowledge and research on spoken language gained outside of the Centre.
The user segment of ODT consists of two groups. The primary recipient is the linguistically curious layperson interested in spoken language; the secondary recipient is the research oriented user. Both groups will benefit from a web portal which allows fast access, is segmentally differentiated (i.e., relevant), has a high level of service, is free of advertising, and is free to use.
ODT is designed as a web-based dictionary portal with a possibility for parallel comparable searches in a corpus of written Danish (KorpusDK) and in a dictionary mainly based on written Danish (The Danish Dictionary). Theoretical work on ODT consists in elaborating on well-established lexicographic methods and exploring the possibilities for transferring them into a dictionary of spoken language. The practical work consists of actual dictionary compilation: searching, editing, storing, and presenting the corpus data. |