Lexicographic Conferences

Lexicography and Semantics

Lexicography and semantics, particularly lexical semantics, share a deep connection, as the accurate representation of meaning is a fundamental aspect of both disciplines. The intersection of lexicography and semantics is a fertile ground for exploring how words convey meaning and how meaning is structured in language. Over the past century and a half, various significant theoretical approaches to understanding word meaning have left their mark on the field of lexicography, enhancing the way lexicographers analyse and describe word meanings, and resulting in more comprehensive lexical resources. These resources are used in fields like information retrieval, sentiment analysis, machine translation, and large language models development, demonstrating the practical relevance of the synergy between lexicography and semantics. This conference aims to foster discussions, share research findings, and promote collaboration within the fields of lexicography and semantics, with a particular focus on cognitive approaches and their applications.

Lexicography for Inclusion

The eLex 2023 organising committee, in consultation with the Hornby Educational Trust, selected eight applicants who received the Hornby Educational Trust bursary:

• Regiani Aparecida Santos Zacarias (full professor at São Paulo State University, Brazil)
• Katherine E Challis (linguist at FamilySearch, USA)
• Tamila Krashtan (student at Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine)
• Anna Kernerman (editorial manager at Lexicala by K Dictionaries, Israel)
• Chayanon Phoodai (student of European Master in Lexicography (EMLex))
• Dr. Tóth Ágoston (senior lecturer at the University of Debrecen, Hungary)
• Tomasz Michta (assistant professor at University of Bialystok, Poland)
• Tyler Nickerson (Designer & Developer, USA)

Lexicography for Inclusion

For a second year running, ASHDRA awardees had the opportunity to showcase their projects at the EURALEX congress. EURALEX is the leading international association for lexicography, and its conference series has been running since 1983. The 20th International Congress, was a virtual event included a dedicated session for ASHDRA awardees, where previous winners Aisling O’Boyle, Agus Riadi, Yan Yan Yeung, and Janine Knight gave presentations about their projects. Expert Panel members Julie Moore and Michael Rundell (also appearing remotely) chaired the session and managed the Q&A that followed.

The conference was hosted by the Institut für Deutsche Sprache (IDS) in Mannheim, Germany, from 12th to 16th July, 2022, and was ’live’ for the first time since the Covid19 pandemic. The conference included a ‘hybrid day’ — when delegates attending and presenting in person were joined by attendees from all over the world — and this was when our three ASHDRA representatives, who had won their awards in 2021, were invited to talk about their research and its progress. This time the format was simpler: the presenters sent in pre-recorded videos, and Michael Rundell, who was at the conference in person, chaired the session. Amy Chi (from Hong Kong, Chinh Nguyen Lee (from Vietnam but studying in Australia), and R. Vennela (from Telangana, India) all gave engaging and well-organised presentations. Summarising a complex project in an 8-minute video is quite a challenge, but our winners carried it off impressively. Their talks were well received by conference delegates (both in-person and virtual), and the session stimulated a lot of discussion. It also gave us the opportunity to raise awareness of the ASHDRA scheme ahead of the next Call for Applications.

Dictionaries and Society

The topic of eLex 2021 was post-editing lexicography. Digital lexicography has progressed over the past 30 years up to the point where large parts of entries in a new dictionary (such as headword lists, inflections, translations, or example sentences) may be drafted automatically from a sufficiently large and sufficiently annotated text corpus. This technological progress leads to new methodological approaches where most editorial work consists of post-editing of automatically created content – similarly to post-editing of machine-translated texts. On the one hand, these changes promise speeding up the editorial work (as less work needs to be carried out in total). and allow the editors to focus on the lexicographically most challenging issues (as the easy bits are likely to be drafted correctly). On the other hand, the changes to the overall editorial workflow and dominant lexicographic paradigms are substantial and not straightforward to implement.

Dictionaries and Society

The ASHDRA award scheme was showcased in a session at the congress. EURALEX is the premier international lexicography society and has held conferences every two years since 1983. In this virtual conference Michael Rundell, Chair of the ASHDRA Expert Panel, introduced the session by talking about Hornby himself and the Trust’s activities, especially about ASHDRA and its progress since 2018. The main event was the excellent presentations made by four of the 2019 award holders, who explained the diverse and innovative projects they are pursuing. Their presentations were followed by a lively Q&A session, moderated by Julie Moore, another member of the expert panel. There were almost 70 EURALEX members in the ‘audience’ for the session, and many of them sent in positive and enthusiastic comments. One of the goals for the session was to raise the profile of ASHDRA in the dictionary community, and there was confidence that this was achieved. Many thanks to the four awardees – Janine Knight, Aisling O’Boyle, Agus Riadi, and Yan Yan Teung – who all gave excellent accounts of the interesting work they are doing, funded by the Hornby Trust.