Sandro Nielsen

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Sandro Nielsen (born 1961) is a Danish metalexicographer, [1] Associate Professor at Centre for Lexicography at the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark, from where he received his PhD in 1992. Nielsen has contributed to lexicography as a theoretical and practical lexicographer with particular reference to bilingual and multilingual specialised dictionaries (technical dictionaries). He is the author and co-author of more than one hundred [2] publications on lexicography, theoretical papers, printed and electronic (online) dictionaries.

Contents

Influence and work

Sandro Nielsen is an authority on legal lexicography and bilingual law dictionaries and has proposed a fundamentally sound general theory of bilingual legal lexicography, which is described in his book The Bilingual LSP Dictionary – Principles and Practice for Legal Language published in 1994.

His research and publications identifies him as a modern lexicographer with the introduction of lexicographic concepts such as lexicographic information costs (Nielsen 2008), the distinction between a maximizing dictionary and a minimizing dictionary, the typology of multi-field, single-field and sub-field dictionaries, and the concept of function-related cross-references. He is one of the lexicographers that have combined lexicographic theory and translation strategies in an attempt to suggest improvements to bilingual translation dictionaries by showing how bilingual LSP dictionaries mix up source-language and target-language translation strategies (Nielsen 2000).

In his paper "Changes in dictionary subject matter" from 2003, Sandro Nielsen suggested a lexicographic approach to defining a dictionary in contrast to the traditional linguistic approach. He defines a dictionary in terms of its major features, and a dictionary has three such features: A dictionary is a lexicographic reference work that has been designed to fulfill one or more functions (its pure potential), contains lexicographic data supporting the function(s), and contains lexicographic structures that combine and link the data in order to fulfill the function(s). This definition applies to printed, electronic and Internet dictionaries, and it applies to existing, planned and imaginary dictionaries alike.

Sandro Nielsen has also proposed a practical and theoretical framework for reviewing dictionaries (Nielsen 2009). In this paper, he describes the requirements for scholarly or academic reviews and suggests that the dictionary should be regarded as a true object of analysis and examination. The framework introduces three approaches to dictionary reviewing: the linguistic approach, the factual approach, and the lexicographic approach. These approaches may be combined so as to achieve really academic reviews. Finally, the framework also gives some guidelines as to the requirements regarding the informative value of dictionary reviews: they must be reliable, deal with relevant and material aspects, and be unbiased.

In addition to his theoretical publications, Sandro Nielsen has published three printed dictionaries, an English-Danish law dictionary (Engelsk-Dansk Juridisk Basisordbog) a Danish-English accounting dictionary (Regnskabsordbogen. Dansk-Engelsk), and an English-Danish accounting dictionary (Regnskabsordbogen. Engelsk-Dansk) and five Internet dictionaries, a Danish-English law dictionary ( Dansk-Engelsk CISG-ordbog ), a Danish accounting dictionary ( Den Danske Regnskabsordbog ), a Danish-English accounting dictionary ( Den Dansk-Engelske Regnskabsordbog ), an English accounting dictionary and an English-Danish accounting dictionary. He is the author of The Bilingual LSP Dictionary – Principles and Practice for Legal Language and is a contributor to the Manual of Specialised Lexicography.

Published literature

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dictionary</span> Collection of words and their meanings

A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically, which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.

Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.

Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that analyzes the lexicon of a specific language. A word is the smallest meaningful unit of a language that can stand on its own, and is made up of small components called morphemes and even smaller elements known as phonemes, or distinguishing sounds. Lexicology examines every feature of a word – including formation, spelling, origin, usage, and definition.

Legal lexicography is the complex of activities concerned with the development of theories and principles for the design, compilation, use, and evaluation of dictionaries within the field of law, see e.g. Nielsen 1994.

A language-for-specific-purposes dictionary is a reference work which defines the specialised vocabulary used by experts within a particular field, for example, architecture. The discipline that deals with these dictionaries is specialised lexicography. Medical dictionaries are well-known examples of the type.

A specialized dictionary is a dictionary that covers a relatively restricted set of phenomena. The definitive book on the subject includes chapters on some of the dictionaries included below:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Law dictionary</span> Dictionary compiled to define legal terms

A law dictionary is a dictionary that is designed and compiled to give information about terms used in the field of law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal translation</span>

Legal translation is the translation of language used in legal settings and for legal purposes. Legal translation may also imply that it is a specific type of translation only used in law, which is not always the case. As law is a culture-dependent subject field, legal translation is not necessarily linguistically transparent. Intransparency in translation can be avoided somewhat by use of Latin legal terminology, where possible, but in non-western languages debates are centered on the origins and precedents of specific terms, such as in the use of particular Chinese characters in Japanese legal discussions.

Lexicographic information cost is a concept within the field of lexicography. The term refers to the difficulties and inconveniences that the user of a dictionary believes or feels are associated with consulting a particular dictionary or dictionary article. For example, the extensive use of abbreviations in articles in order to save space may annoy the user, because it is often difficult to read such condensed texts and understand the abbreviations, thereby increasing the lexicographic information costs.

Specialized lexicography is an academic discipline that is concerned with development of theories and principles for the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialized dictionaries. A specialized dictionary is a dictionary that covers a relatively restricted set of phenomena, usually within one or more subject fields. An alternative term for this type of dictionary is LSP dictionary.

The term cross-reference can refer to either:

Centre for Lexicography is a research centre affiliated with the Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus Denmark, and was established in 1996. The centre's aim is to carry out lexicographic research into needs-adapted information and data access, i.e. research work into dictionary theory in general and it has built a solid, international reputation in that field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic dictionary</span> Dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can be accessed through a number of different media

An electronic dictionary is a dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can be accessed through a number of different media. Electronic dictionaries can be found in several forms, including software installed on tablet or desktop computers, mobile apps, web applications, and as a built-in function of E-readers. They may be free or require payment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bilingual dictionary</span> Specialized dictionary used to translate words or phrases from one language to another

A bilingual dictionary or translation dictionary is a specialized dictionary used to translate words or phrases from one language to another. Bilingual dictionaries can be unidirectional, meaning that they list the meanings of words of one language in another, or can be bidirectional, allowing translation to and from both languages. Bidirectional bilingual dictionaries usually consist of two sections, each listing words and phrases of one language alphabetically along with their translation. In addition to the translation, a bilingual dictionary usually indicates the part of speech, gender, verb type, declension model and other grammatical clues to help a non-native speaker use the word. Other features sometimes present in bilingual dictionaries are lists of phrases, usage and style guides, verb tables, maps and grammar references. In contrast to the bilingual dictionary, a monolingual dictionary defines words and phrases instead of translating them.

Beryl T. "Sue" Atkins was a British lexicographer, specialising in computational lexicography, who pioneered the creation of bilingual dictionaries from corpus data.

Reinhard Rudolf Karl Hartmann is an Austrian and English lexicographer and applied linguist. Until the 1970s, lexicographers worked in relative isolation, and Hartmann is credited with making a major contribution to lexicography and fostering interdisciplinary consultation between reference specialists.

Contrastive linguistics is a practice-oriented linguistic approach that seeks to describe the differences and similarities between a pair of languages.

Ultralingua is a single-click and drag-and-drop multilingual translation dictionary, thesaurus, and language reference utility. The full suite of Ultralingua language tools is available free online without the need for download and installation. As well as its online products, the developer offers premium downloadable language software with extended features and content for Macintosh and Windows computer platforms, smartphones, and other hand held devices.

Lexicography evolved in order to serve one of two needs i.e. in order to explain in a simple way difficult words and expressions or in order to explain the words and expressions of one language in another. In this case we can trace the tradition of lexicography in Irish back to the 8th century.

References

  1. ↑ "Lexicography". Oxford Bibliographies. Retrieved 13 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ↑ Sandro Nielsen's List of publications
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