Style Labeling In English ALDs

Competent language use entails not only knowing how to combine words (grammar) and what the words denote (meaning) but also developing an instinct about the situations in which words can be used. To indicate information about the use and situation, most dictionaries resort to what are often called "style labels".With the study of English-Chinese bilingualized dictionaries, we soon found that though style labels are used widely, their use is not at all consistent and most dictionaries do not even explain what they mean by "style" in the dictionary. Besides, a close look at the front matters of a few well-known dictionaries also reveals that the labeling system is in such a disorder that would confuse foreign learners in a certain degree. Furthermore, labeling has long been one of the major bugbears of lexicography. Theoretical documentation on this topic is sparse, which makes the present study more difficult and complicated.This present thesis probes into the style labels on the aspects of 1) Ideas on style and the related concepts in lexicography; 2) Contrastive analysis of the "big four" and different LDOCEs' front matters; 3) Contrastive comparison of style labeling practices in different dictionaries' entries; 4) Corpus analysis to help determine the style labeling and the correctness of the style labeling.And the thesis is trying to answer the following four questions:1. How does the labeling system of LDOCEs develop?2. How is the labeling system of LDOCEs different from the other three dictionaries of the "big four"?3. What advantages and disadvantages does the labeling system of LDOCEs have compared with the other dictionaries?4. What kind of style labeling should English bilingualized dictionaries have?According to the comparisons, suggestions and improvements in style labelingpractices in bilingualized dictionaries have been made at the end of the thesis, which are: 1) The reduction of the number of labels could lead to some consensus in labeling and the labels being used should be the simplest and easiest, which the language learners can understand and remember at the first glance; 2) Reliable monolingual English dictionaries should be served as a guide to the English bilingualized dictionaries during their labeling practices; 3) Words from different types of documentation will be labeled differently, formal in court documentation, informal in sports one, poetic in poetry, etc; 4) The corpus offers invaluable help in modern lexicography, which helps the lexicographer decide that a word is more formal than neutral, or that it is considered offensive or that it is becoming accepted as a neutral word; 5) Labels should be carefully checked at the various revision stages, because the same word is very likely to be labeled differently with the time passing by.