Linguistic and Encylopaedic Information Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Linguistic and Encylopaedic Information - Essay Example It has been an observation that this distinction has often been very metaphorical due to inter-relation of lexical and non-lexical knowledge, and thus one can come across different viewpoints regarding possibility of distinction of linguistic and encyclopaedic information. On one hand, few linguistics advocate invalidity of any distinction between the two types of knowledge and/or information due to globalization of language and knowledge that has resulted in increment in spread of semantics and enhanced dependence on semiotics that do not facilitate any distinction between lexical and encyclopaedic information. On the other hand, linguistics of other school of thoughts deny this argument and oppose that it is essential to distinguish both information, especially from the perspective of linguistics as it will allow an in-depth understanding of different elements of a language. In this regard, different viewpoints exist; however, this paper will now include a brief description and dis cussion regarding dictionary and its entries that will allow a general understanding of information that is provided in the dictionaries, which will later on be considered for discussion on its distinction with encyclopaedic information. ... 93) Nowadays, it has been an observation that a dictionary entry usually consists of lexical information regarding a particular word. For instance, in the above example also, dictionary entry consisted of form, syntax, and semantic information regarding the word ‘cat’. However, latest versions of dictionaries are now coming with additional information as well, such as semantic relatives and morphologies, pronunciations, as well as alternative spellings (Spencer, 2012). In this regard, one can see distinction between different types of dictionaries as well since one can come across general dictionaries, subject dictionaries, translating dictionaries, special dictionaries, etc, and thus, every dictionary differentiates from one another based on its characteristics. In some dictionaries, dictionary entry will consist of orthographic information that is not a linguistic characteristic of a word according to many linguistic experts and thus will not be present in entries of o ther dictionaries. According to few linguistic experts, various additional factors play a critical role in understanding of words in English language; they do affect meaning, and consequently utilization of the particular word. Thus, it has now become very difficult to separate worldly meaning associated with lexical word meaning since native speakers although begin with lexical understanding of the language; however, they left the former as soon as they increase the volume of their vocabulary. In this regard, although one can distinguish between lexical that is dictionary information and non-lexical that is encyclopaedic information; however, it will require selection of a particular lens and/or perspective that will enable