Difference between encyclopedic and linguistic dictionaries.

Today the volumes of dictionaries on the shelves are completely dusty, but this does not mean that they are a thing of the past. They are now scrolling through Google for us, displaying the pages of Brockhaus and Efron, Ozhegov, Ushakov. Make sure to remember the difference between encyclopedic dictionaries and linguistic dictionaries, otherwise following a link can be frustrating.

Definition

Encyclopedic Dictionary - reference edition, containing information about objects, phenomena and persons, certain topics, scientific industry or universal. The articles are arranged in the alphabetical order of the names of the subjects.

The Linguistic Dictionary describes lexical units from the point of view of linguistics, gives an explanation of the meaning and use of words.

Comparison

The encyclopedic dictionary, despite the concise form of the information provided, tells about an object, phenomenon or person as fully as possible, describes not only the concept, but also the structure, composition, principles and mechanisms of functioning, gives a reference to the story. The linguistic dictionary considers a word from the point of view of a narrow subject: in the explanatory one you can learn about its semantic meaning, in the spelling one - about the spelling, in the orthoepical one - about the placement of stress, in the dictionary of synonyms, respectively, about synonyms. We can say that the encyclopedic dictionary correlates the word in question with the realities of the external world, and the linguistic dictionary - with other units of the language.

The attitude to proper names is another difference between encyclopedic dictionaries and linguistic ones. In the latter, you will not find information about specific persons, geographical names, special terms - only common vocabulary. Encyclopedias tell about famous personalities, provide information about countries and cities, articles can accompany illustrations, diagrams and maps.

The Big Encyclopedic Dictionary. Biology

On the other hand, linguistic reference books include all words of the language, without ignoring particles, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, interjections; encyclopedic - only nouns (or phrases with them).

Linguistic reference books explaining the meaning can give an everyday description, while encyclopedic ones adhere to strictly scientific definitions. Explanatory dictionaries get by with formal information about the subject, encyclopedic ones - meaningful.

Pages of both types of publications clearly demonstrate the difference between encyclopedic and linguistic dictionaries.

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language

Table

[thirty].
Encyclopedic dictionaries Linguistic dictionaries
Contains information about objects, phenomena and personsContains information about the names of objects and phenomena
Describe the content of conceptsDescribe words from the point of view of linguistics: interpretation, grammatical properties, spelling, etc.
Contain proper namesDo not contain proper names
Consist of nouns (or phrases with them)Includes all words of the language