| Titel: |
Can Authority be Sustained while Balancing Accessibility and Formality? |
| Personen: | Hashimzade, Nigar/Myles, Georgina A./Myles, Gareth D. |
| Jahr: |
2014 |
| Typ: |
Aufsatz |
| Periodikum: |
Hermes. Journal of Language and Communication in Business |
| Seiten: |
11-24 |
| Band: |
52 |
| Untersuchte Sprachen: |
Englisch*English |
| Schlagwörter: |
Bedeutungserläuterung/Definition*paraphrase/definition
Fachlexikografie*specialised lexicography/LSP lexicography
Internet-Lexikografie/Online-Lexikografie*internet lexicography/online lexicography
Zugriffsstruktur*access structure
|
| Abstract: |
Economics has developed into a quantitative discipline that makes extensive use of mathematical and statistical
concepts. When writing a dictionary for economics undergraduates it has to be recognised that many users will not
have suffi cient training in mathematics to benefi t from formal defi nitions of mathematical and statistical concepts. In
fact, it is more than likely that the user will want the dictionary to provide an accessible version of a defi nition that
avoids mathematical notation. Providing a verbal description of a mathematical concept has the risk that the outcome
is both verbose (compared to a defi nition using appropriate mathematical symbols) and imprecise. For the author of a
dictionary this raises the question of how to resolve this confl ict between accessibility and formal correctness. We use a
range of examples from the Oxford Dictionary of Economics to illustrate this confl ict and to assess the extent to which
a non-formal defi nition can be viewed as authoritative. |