Guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Dr. Ulrich Busse “Planning and creating a Global Anglicism Database”
The talk aims at introducing the GLAD-project, whose aim it is to create a Global Anglicism Database.
In a first step, a brief outline of the project – as it presently stands – will be given. In planning a database or a dictionary – no matter whether on paper or in electronic form – a number of basic questions need to be addressed and answered in a principled and consistent manner.
Here are some of these basic decisions that need to be taken care of:
- How many languages shall be covered?
- What counts as an Anglicism?
- How can the raw data for the different languages in the absence of parallel corpora be “harmonized”?
- What is the time-depth of coverage? (Synchrony vs. diachrony)
- Who are the potential users and what do they expect to find in the database?
As a pilot study, the contributors worked on letter – O – as a test run last autumn. We can explore the preliminary results to study the potential of the database.
Currently, the compilers are working on letters A-C. This work is still in progress. By focussing on German, I will report on the preparatory stages that lead from potential candidates to headwords in the database. This involves, for instance, extracting entries from previous dictionaries, adjusting the data according to the set principles, checking the data in corpora, writing the “final” entry in the database.
Bio:
Professor Ulrich Busse is chair in English linguistics at Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. In his research on historical linguistics, he focuses on Early Modern English, the language of Shakespeare, and historical pragmatics. More recently, he has also investigated the standardisation and codification of English as well as aspects of variation in English from the 18thcentury to today. His research in synchronic linguistics is concerned with language contact (in particular the influence of English on German and on other European languages) and with (meta-)lexicography. Among his range of publications, he is co-author of Anglizismenwörterbuch (3 Vols.; together with Broder Carstensen), the leading lexicographical achievement in the field of English influence on German.
Date and place:
June 4, 2018
N.0.43, 12-13:30
