| Abstract |
This paper is about changing policies at the OED towards words which have come into English from languages outside Europe. It examines how, as global varieties of English emerged and stabilized, lexicographic practice changed to meet the demands of the language. Using archival material never before accessed, this paper examines editorial work on World English from the beginning of the dictionary in the mid nineteenth century through to the current third edition, focusing on editors' inclusion policy and the practice of distinguishing World English from other vocabulary, often with a marker || denoting it as 'alien or not yet naturalized'. It shows that the OED has now incorporated World English without any distinguishing label. This is not perhaps a surprising practice. What is more surprising is that this practice is occurring for the second time: the paper argues and demonstrates that the OED did this at other times in its history too, in particular in 1933, and that the early editors were ahead of their time in giving World English a legitimate place in the OED. |
| BibTex |
@InProceedings{ELX04-071,
author = {Sarah Ogilvie},
title = {From "outlandish words" to "World English": the legitimization of global varieties of English in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) },
pages = {651-658},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 11th EURALEX International Congress},
year = {2004},
month = {july},
date = {6-10},
address = {Lorient, France},
editor = {Geoffrey Williams and Sandra Vessier},
publisher = {UniversiteĢ de Bretagne-Sud, FaculteĢ des lettres et des sciences humaines},
isbn = {29-52245-70-3},
} |
