Folk defining in monolingual English learners’ dictionaries

Part III. The Modern World: Continuing Traditions 
As made explicit in the corresponding title, this section constitutes a continuation from the 
previous one. Based on Part II, by now the reader of 
The Cambridge WHL 
is already familiar 
with how lexicography emerges across civilisations (Part I) and progresses into modernity (Part 
II). This new part contains the following articles: ‘China from c. 1700,’ by Henning Klöter; 
‘Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese from c. 1800,’ by David Lurie, Heokseung Kwon, and John 
D. Phan; ‘Turkish and Persian from c. 1700,’ by Luciano Rocchi and Arthur Dudney; ‘South 
Asia from c. 1750,’ by Walter Hakala and Lisa Mitchell; ‘Arabic from c. 1800,’ by Jan 
Hoogland; ‘Modern Hebrew,’ by Tsvi Sadan; ‘The Slavic and Baltic languages,’ by Rick 
Derksen; ‘The Germanic Languages Other than English from c. 1700,’ by Charlotte Brewer; 
‘Regional Varieties of English,’ by Michael Adams; and, finally, ‘The Romance languages 
from c. 1700,’ by Pascale Renders.
In Part III, the selection of articles (as well as the approach(es) thereof) highlights 
The 
Cambridge WHL
’s willingness to create a genuinely inclusive world history of lexicography. 
Readers may easily get the feeling that, whenever there has been much or little documentation 
available for a particular period or civilisation, all the extant information has been brought to 
their attention in some way or other (e.g. by means of explicit in-text references or, otherwise, 
a comprehensive list of references for further reading). This applies to civilisations and/or 
periods which may have been typically overlooked in the field of lexicography and, more 
broadly speaking, other areas within linguistics (e.g. Scandinavian countries, Slavic and Baltic 
languages, Vietnamese). Even though certain readers might find gaps in the coverage of the 
vast scope shown in 
The Cambridge WHL
, such gaps are most likely due to constraints in the 
availability of documentation rather than neglect on the editor’s or authors’ sides. Some might 
also find certain objections along the lines of the ever-challenging quest for so-called 
‘representativeness.’ For instance, whereas two full chapters from Part III are dedicated to 
English (i.e. Ch. 23, ‘standard English’; Ch. 24, ‘regional English’), only Ch. 25 is dedicated to 
the ensemble of Romance languages. While arguably space constraints would make it virtually 
impossible to dedicate one chapter to each of the languages within a specific family (be it, e.g., 
Romance or Germanic), an upside to the current structure may be that, on the one hand, the 
English chapters (i.e. standard vs. regional) provide potentially translatable insights across 
languages, and, on the other hand, synthesis in the Romance field goes hand in hand with 
insightful pan-Romance approaches.
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In connection with the latter idea, articles in Part III show a more recent historical period 
and, thus, one for which documentation has become more readily available (e.g. this is the first 
section which explicitly refers to Vietnamese lexicography, and also the first specifically 
tackling the Slavic and Baltic languages). This holds especially true in the light of societal and 
otherwise historical revolutions (e.g. ‘the rise of cultural nationalism and heightened awareness 
of the national language led to attempts to codify and standardize Korean’—p. 352; for the 
influence of European colonisation on Vietnamese lexicography, see pp. 360–365; for ‘German 
lexicography, patriotism, and nationalism,’ see pp. 464–465). The emergence of a new context 
allows authors to delve into the underpinnings of lexicography as they pay special attention to 

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detail, including—but not limited to—linguistic and orthographic parameters (e.g. for Japanese, 
see 341–342). Not only do we have more information available about lexicography, but these 
works have also become increasingly prevalent (e.g. through print technologies and, in more 
recent times, digitization; for Hebrew, see pp. 442–443), diversified, inclusive (e.g. emergence 
of complex corpora; for so-called ‘standard English,’
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see pp. 502–), precise, professionalised 
(e.g. for South Asia, see pp. 400–401), specialised, and—to a lesser extent—standardised (e.g. 
for Slavic languages, see pp. 452–; for standard English, see Ch. 23).
It is also during this period that the ‘description vs. prescription’ debate becomes 
commonplace among lexicographers, and in particular instances lexicography even becomes 
politicised. This encompasses a proliferation of multi- and—especially—bilingual works, as 
well as increased interest in specific varieties of the same language (e.g. for Chinese, see pp. 
318–320; for Turkish, see pp. 371–373, 375–376; for Arabic, see pp. 418–420, 426–427; for 
Hebrew, see pp. 438–441). During this period, lexicography also becomes increasingly 
diversified, as is shown by the emergence of innovative, alternative types of dictionaries (e.g. 
for Arabic, see p. 429–430). These encompass so-called ‘learners’ dictionaries’ (e.g. for 
Hebrew, see pp. 441–442). 
2.4.