Meaning, Dictionary And Dictionary Definition

The present study, focusing on frame of theoretic lexicography, employs related research on semantics, pragmatics and the like. Purposes of the study cover a discussion on the objectivity of meaning, essence of definition and theories concerning various types of dictionaries. The study follows four aspects of questions, namely the entrance of objective meaning into the dictionary, relationship between encyclopedia knowledge and language knowledge, appositive unity concerning vagueness in language and accuracy in meaning, as well as the difference and relation among translation, meaning translation and definition.We may look at meaning as a combination of encyclopedia meaning and linguistic meaning, the former is about scientific information concerning any specific principle, whilst the latter, the lexical, grammatical and rhetoric meaning within the linguistic system. The process of lexicographer's description over objective meaning starts with sense partition. Various language communities may take different views in deciding how to articulate a concept, resulting in a cross-language conflict on word meaning. Thus sense partition is subjective rather than objective. Explaining the senses comes next to partition. As meaning is objective, definition is about the objective part of lexical meaning.The present study holds that encyclopedia meaning is objective, amongst all parts of linguistic meaning, lexical and grammatical meaning are also objective whereas rhetoric meaning may be subjective. Therefore encyclopedic dictionary definition aims at reflecting people's understanding to the essence of any subjects. It is understandable that human being's limit in knowledge sometimes leads to inappropriate definition, but this is not to be covered by linguistic study. Linguistics is responsible for looking for the best ways of defining the present knowledge storage. As for language dictionary, lexicographers need to record and analyze the lexical and grammatical meaning of the head word in an honest way, without judging the appropriateness or screening any language units or ways of usage. Rhetoric meaning sometimes can be subjective, lexicographers need also to understand and record language users practice over it.Encyclopedia meaning is to be explained by encyclopedic dictionary, while linguistic meaning exhibits itself to be the various senses under any head word within a linguistic system. Under the general term of linguistic meaning, there exist meaning of langue and meaning of parole. Dictionary definition focuses meaning of langue, and a small fraction of meaning of parole, if there are any. People define encyclopedia meaning with definition, but they describe linguistic meaning with explanation. Definition needs to exhibit the essence of a subject whist explanation serves more often for understanding or making use of language. The sufficient and necessary condition for any definiens to be true is what a definition needs to provide, a common practice in giving definition is to introduce the genus and differentia.Steps people take deciding on expressing a group of similar subjects start with an observation on their common features, follow by articulation of the common features, end up with an accepted expression of the group. This also explains why language is abstract. It is the abstract of language that results in its vagueness. When a language is no longer vague, nor is it abstract, which defunctionize language as a way of expressing. To sum up, language has to be vague. One the other hand, precise is a criterion measuring definition quality. To define head word precisely using language of vagueness is to balance between the two. The present study holds that both vagueness and precision serve as restriction on dictionary definition.The present study holds that bilingual dictionary and dictionary of two languages are not the same. Bilingual dictionary normally takes more than one blueprint, yet dictionary of two languages is no more than a translation of one dictionary of the source language. Thus dictionary of two languages involves no matters of definition while definition problems concerning bilingual dictionary are much more complicated. Normally a bilingual dictionary researches on some dictionaries of the original language before writing an integrated version of its own definition, the process involves translation and definition at the same time. The present study holds that bilingual dictionary definition is neither simply translation of texts from two languages or defining any meaning for a monolingual dictionary, it is to look for equivalent from the source language.