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English Lexicography in Japan:
its History, Innovations and Impact
Shigeru Yamada and Yuri Komuro
1. Introduction
It is only recently that Japan has been
recognized as one of the world's major lexicographic powers,
producing quality bilingual dictionaries, especially English-Japanese
ones. Two examples of early innovative features of such dictionaries
are: some eighty years ago, an attempt to indicate the un/countability
of nouns, in Hidesaburo Saito's Jukugo Honi Ei-wa Chu-jiten ('Idiomological
English-Japanese Dictionary', 1915) and fifty years ago a large-scale
dictionary of collocations, Senkichiro Katsumata's Eiwa Katsuyo
Dai-jiten ('New Dictionary of English Collocations', Kenkyusha,
1939). Regrettably, this dictionary has never been well known
outside Japan.
Nowadays, however, the world knows more, though still not enough,
about the generations of ingenuity, endeavor, competition and
interaction which have made Japanese lexicography what it is
today: a massive, complex, and highly competetive industry. Bilingual
lexicography in Japan owes a great deal to European and American
lexicography, but has in turn made a number of significant contributions
to Western lexicography, in particular to EFL dictionaries -
the most advanced and successful of all dictionary genres as
the importance of English for global communication increases.
This paper attempts to provide a guide to the world of lexicography
in Japan, especially with regard to English-Japanese dictionaries
(EJDs).
2. History
During the period when Japan followed
a policy of seclusion (1639-1853), it allowed business transactions
only with the Netherlands, and depended solely on that country
for contact with the outside world. Because of this, Dutch studies
were very important and prominent. However, the Phoeton Incident
(1808), in which a British warship in Dutch guise raided Nagasaki,
made the Shogunate - the Japanese government of the time - realize
keenly the necessity of shifting its foreign-language emphasis
from Dutch to English. It therefore immediately commissioned
a team of official Dutch-Japanese interpreters to compile an
English textbook (1811) and an English-Japanese vocabulary (1814)
for governmental (but not public) use.
It is generally agreed that the first proper English-Japanese
dictionary was published in 1862: Tatsunosuke Hori's Ei-wa Taiyaku
Shuchin Jisho ('A Pocket Dictionary of the English and Japanese
Languages'. This work was based on the English-Dutch half of
H. Picard's A New Pocket Dictionary of the Dutch and English
Languages, 1843, 2/e 1857), which Hori aligned with the Dutch-Japanese
halves of existing dictionaries of Dutch and Japanese. The Dutch
language therefore served as a 'bridge' or mediating medium between
the English and Japanese languages.
Half a century was required before the publication of Saito's
dictionary (above, 1915). This innovative work was compiled with
the needs of Japanese students in mind, unlike its predecessors,
which drew considerably on such works as Webster's dictionaries
in the United States and W. Lobscheid's An English and Chinese
Dictionary (4 vols., 1866-1869, Daily Press, Hong Kong). As its
English title suggests, Saito's dictionary laid emphasis on idiomatic
expressions, and in particular on collocability with prepositions.
Thus, he discriminated the meaning of interfere into two senses,
the first collocating with in in the bracketed phrase in a matter,
the second with with in the phrases with one's work, with business,
and with a plan. In addition to his novel indication of the countability
of nouns, Saito's work provided notes on points of difficulty
for Japanese students. The Fowler brothers' Concise Oxford Dictionary
(1911) also influenced Saito's dictionary and its contemporaries,
especially Jukkichi Inoue's Ei-wa Dai-jiten ('English-Japanese
Dictionary', 1915).
Yoshisaburo Okakura's Shin Ei-wa Dai-jiten ('New English-Japanese
Dictionary', 1927) was the precursor of Kenkyusha's New English
Japanese Dictionary (now 5/e, 1980), generally considered the
most authoritative of its kind. Okakura's dictionary was the
cutting-edge dictionary of its day, incorporating both etymology
and IPA transcription, and with this publication Kenkyusha established
itself as a major dictionary publisher. The other (and indeed
most) traditional company in this field has been Sanseido, which
started producing dictionaries in 1884. Jujiro Kawamura's Crown
Ei-wa Jiten ('Crown English-Japanese Dictionary', 1939) and Tamijei
Iwaskai's3 Kanyaku Ei-wa Jiten ('Concise English Japanese Dictionary',
1941) were published respectively by Sanseido and Kenkyusha.
The major characteristics of the former was the inclusion of
a vast number of examples, while the latter claimed to be the
abridged edition of Okakura's work (2/e, 1936), and spared much
space for functional and other basic words. These two works are
said to be the forerunners of the now flourishing genre of English-Japanese
learner's dictionaries (EJLDs).
The year 1942 witnessed the historic publication by Kaitakusha
of the Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary (ISED), compiled
in Japan by A.S. Hornby, E.V. Gatenby, and H. Wakefield in the
1930s, and completed before the outbreak of war in 1941. This
was the first EFL dictionary, initiating a genre that has dramatically
and excitingly evolved into its many complex present day forms.
ISED has exerted a profound influence on the shape of future
learner's dictionaries both within and beyond Japan. Kaitakusha
published an EJD based on ISED in 1981: Kaitakusha's Contemporary
English-Japanese Dictionary (eds. Kasahara, Goro, Gatenby, and
Wakefield).
Sanseido's Crown series enjoyed considerable commercial success
until it was overtaken by Kenkyusha's Ei-wa Chu-jiten ('New Collegiate
English-Japanese Dictionary', 1967) with its more sophisticated
categories of information. The triumph of this dictionary continued
into the 1980s4 until other companies entered the market. The
appearance of new rivals (such as the Progressive English Japanese
Dictionary, Shogakukan, 1967; Genius English-Japanese Dictionary,
Taishukan, 1988; Proceed English-Japanese Dictionary, Fukutake,
now Benesse, 1988) was responded to by the traditional houses
with publication of new titles (such as the Global English-Japanese
Dictionary, Sanseido, 1983; the Lighthouse English-Japanese Dictionary5,
Kenkyusha, 1984). As dictionaries with ever further innovative
and user-friendly features appear each year6, the present scene
of the EJD, especially the EJLD, has become highly competitive,
versatile and specialized.
3. Major Characteristics
3.1. A great number and variety
In large bookshops, it is overwhelming
and dazzling to look at dictionary shelves crowded and stacked
with various colorful kinds of dictionaries. English dictionaries
take up the most space because many companies publish various
books, specialized according to levels and purposes. Over 100
titles of EJDs are in print, excluding such specialist works
as EJDs for students of economics. Kenkyusha alone has published
the main EJDs listed in the accompanying table.
¨ EJDs for readers and advanced
students (college and above):
New EJD5 (1927, 5/e 1994) 235,000 ref
185x260 mm 2,478pp ¥13,200
New Collegiate EJD6 (1967, 6/e 1995) 90,000 ref
125x190 mm 2,099pp ¥ 2,910
College Lighthouse EJD (1995) 78,000 ref
125x195 mm 2,100pp ¥ 3,110
¨ For intermediate students (senior high school):
Lighthouse EJD3 (1984, 3/e 1996) 65,000 ref
125x195 mm 1,703pp ¥ 2,820
¨ For beginners (junior high school7):
Green Lighthouse EJD (1994) 56,000 ref
125x190 mm 1,361pp ¥ 2,430
¨ For travelers:
New Little EJD6 (1929, 6/e 1994) 62,000 ref
87x165 mm 644pp ¥ 1,460
Three dictionaries in the table bear
the name 'Lighthouse'. Likewise, a family is formed by Genius
EJD (with Young Genius EJD) and Progressive EJD (with Learner's
Progressive EJD). Other dictionaries worthy of special mention
are: Kenkyusha's EJD for the General Reader (1984, 260,000 ref,
130x190 mm, 2,540pp, ¥6,410) for advanced readers and translators,
with a supplement (1994, 190,000 ref); New Shogakukan Random
House EJD2 (1973, 2/e 1994, 345,000 ref, 195x265 mm, 3,180pp,
¥14,400), based on the Random House Dictionary of the English
Language (2/e Unabridged, 1987), with 30,000 references and 50,000
senses added to cater for Japanese needs.
3.2. Characteristics of the EJLD
We may now focus on EJLDs for advanced
students, which are the most imporatnt: that is, the best-selling,
the most competitive, and the most innovative. They typically
pack some 90,000 references into a portable size within an affordable
price range of around 3,000 yen, because they are targeted at
students, who are usually supposed to bring their dictionay to
school. They come in flexible plastic covers, are placed inside
cardboard boxes, use quality India paper, and have an A-Z indication
down the edge of the page like a thumb index. They deal with
both American and British English, but primarily the former,
and their back matter includes digests of grammar and phonetics.
Some other characteristics are:
Other possible features are: (1) Information
on etymology and sense development for learning and referencing
purposes; (2) The verbal and diagramatic provision of the results
of contrastive study between Japanese and English; (3) More emphasis
on encoding than formerly (such as help with collocations and
with the spoken language). All such innovative features have
influenced bilingual dictionaries of other language pairs published
in Japan.
4. Innovations: the Impact on EFL
Dictionaries
In this section we briefly introduce
some noticeable innovations in most of today's EJLDs. Some are
unique, whereas others are common to EFL dictionaries.
4.1. Indication of frequent and/or
important words
As mentioned in Section 3, most current
EJLDs indicate, in one way or another, the several levels of
importance of headwords. The selection of important words is
not merely based on frequency of occurrence, but also on knowledge
derived from the editors' teaching experience. In addition, the
lists of words to be taught at junior and senior high school,
which are made up by the Ministry of Education, have an influence.
Taishukan's New Standard EJD (1929) established this tradition.
With the help of the American educational researcher Edward L.
Thorndike's word list, ten thousand of the most important basic
words for Japanese learners were selected. The words were then
divided into groups of about one thousand each according to frequency,
marked 1 to 10 to indicate the level. By contrast, in the Oxford
Wordpower Dictionary (1993), a star is used to mark the commonest
words of the language. This seems to be more or less the same
policy as using numbers, although there is only one level of
importance.
The information on frequency found in the second edition of Collins
COBUILD English Dictionary (COBUILD2) and in the third edition
of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE3) (both
1995) is based purely on statistical evidence provided by corpus
analysis, and tells us significant facts about the way the English
language is used. That is very useful, especially for encoding
and vocabulary learning purposes. On the other hand, however,
EJLDs place more emphasis on helping learners study English efficiently.
4.2. Usage notes
Another common feature is usage notes,
which can be more or less grouped into two kinds: on general
usage and on typical mistakes that Japanese learners make. An
example of each is taken from Genius EJD2 (1994), which reputedly
provides detailed usage notes. Under keep there is a note on
the difference between "keep ~ing" and "keep on
~ing": (1) keep on doing emphasizes continuity or repetition,
and often implies irritation on the part of the speaker. Standing,
in "I kept standing for an hour" is not stative, but
dynamic, and means either repeatedly standing up and sitting
down or standing of one's own will. (2) an adverb cannot be put
between on and doing: "Mary's condition kept on (*steadily)
worsening." (cf. Mary's condition kept steadily worsening.)
Compare it with the explanation in Collins COBUILD English Usage
(1992), "For emphasis, you can use keep on instead of keep."
Under front there is a note on the difference between in front
of and ahead of, because in Japanese the two complex prepositions
are often translated into the same word, thus learners sometimes
get confused. The note reads:
The prepositional object for in front of can be either fixed
or moving, while that for ahead of is something on the move:
There is a big park in front of [*ahead of] our office. In front
of [Ahead of] us we saw another tall building.
The usage notes in LDOCE3 are all based on an analysis of Longman
Learner's Corpus, and help users avoid making common mistakes.
But LDOCE3 is not, of course, designed specifically for Japanese
learners of English, and this is where bilingual learner's dictionaries
intended solely for Japanese fit the bill better.
4.3. Verb patterns
One major information category of English
lexicography in Japan led the way in the presentation of verb
patterns. Hornby's ISED8 was the first English learner's dictionary
that systematically introduced both coded verb patterns and the
abbreviated grammatical codes C and U to represent countable
and uncountable nouns respectively. The publication of this illustrious
learner's dictionary in Japan was a strong incentive for Japanese
lexicography, which consequently brought out much earlier than
any EFL dictionary elsewhere a more user-friendly system to show
grammatical patterns.
Hornby's verb patterns consist of letters and numerals which
are not user-friendly since the codes are neither transparent
nor mnemonic. According to Herbst's classification (1996: 328-330),
this is the first stage of a coding system, the second stage
of which can be represented by mnemotechnically designed systems
(in which, for instance, T stands for 'transitive') developed
in LDOCE1 and in the fourth edition of Oxford Advanced Learner's
Dictionary (OALD4). At the third stage, led by LDOCE2 and COBUILD1,
abbreviations for grammatical terms (e.g. '+ to-v' means 'followed
by the to-infinitive') took the place of opaque codes, and it
became immediately apparent what sort of information was being
provided. In the history of EFL dictionaries LDOCE1 played a
leading role in simplifying grammar codes and applying them to
nouns and adjectives. When its first edition appeared in 1978,
the Longman team had extended Hornby's syntactic approach to
the English lexicon to other parts of speech: they not only developed
a new coding system for verbs, but also coded noun and adjective
complementation which was a huge step ahead in EFL lexicography
(Stein 1989: 26-27).
As regards English-Japanese lexicography in Japan, however, lucidity
of grammar codes had already been accomplished in 1967 by Kenkyusha's
New Collegiate EJD1. The syntactic information is provided in
abbreviated (Japanese) grammatical terms at the beginning of
each sense, and this is done not only for verbs, but also for
nouns and adjectives. While it is recognized and acknowledged
that they derived from the formulas in the OALD, this presentational
system was adapted to the needs of Japanese learners. Below is
a tabulation of how the verb patterns of Oxford, Longman and
Kenkyusha's dictionaries have developed, taking the verb want
as an example. Here one of the patterns it takes, object + to-infinitive
complementation, is shown with its example. It should be noted
that both in the New Collegiate EJD1 and in the Union EJD1 (1972)
the word in question, want, and another word which marks the
construction, to, are italicized in the example, which - together
with the codes - ensures the users' understanding. Another significant
point concerning grammar codes is their location in the entry.
LDOCE2 was much praised because it placed its transparent codes
immediately before the corresponding examples. Once again, however,
a similar method was already being employed in the Union EJD1
where each example was followed by the construction pattern.
In retrospect, we can certainly argue that Japanese lexicographers
had a perceptive view, because they placed their transparent
codes adjacent to corresponding examples, something that is now
taken as a matter of course internationally. In 1995 LDOCE3 introduced
a new, even more user-friendly way which was already developed
in the Longman Language Activator (LLA), 19939. Both LDOCE3 and
LLA spell out patterns in full in boldface type, without any
metalanguage, with the result that users do not need to have
any previous knowledge of grammatical terminology.
5. Conclusion
In this brief introduction to English
lexicography in Japan we focused on the considerable impact that
it has had on pedagogical lexicography both at home and abroad.
From the very earliest stage, lexicographers have been aware
of the importance of user-friendliness in learner's dictionaries,
and have incorporated the findings of contrastive studies of
English and Japanese into their works. However, EJLDs are still
expected to continue to improve in order to meet the more sophisticated
requirements of users, and also succeed in an intensely competitive
market. Lexicographic stimulation from outside of Japan, and
more communication between lexicographers and publishers, will
be vital to the creation of even better EJLDs.
The Development of Verb Patterns
|
|
Oxford |
Longman |
Kenkyusha |
|
1942 |
ISED
(P3) ...
He wants me to go. |
|
|
|
1967 |
|
|
New Collegiate EJD1[+ +to do/+ +doing]
...She ~s me to go with her. |
|
1972 |
|
|
Union EJD1I want you [John] to be here.<V
+ O( ) + C (to )> |
|
1974 |
OALD3[VP17] ... She ~s me to go with her. |
|
|
|
1978 |
|
LDOCE1[V3] ... I want him to rest. |
|
|
1987 |
|
LDOCE2[ + obj+ to-v]He wants you to wait
here. |
|
|
1989 |
OALD4[Tnt no passive] ... She wants me
to go with her. |
|
|
|
1995 |
OALD5[V.n to inf] She wants me to go with
her. |
LDOCE3want sb to do sth I don't want
Linda to hear about this. |
|
Notes
- Sections 1-3 are primarily the work
of Shigeru Yamada, and Sections 4-5 are primarily the work of
Yuri Komuro. The authors would like to express their particular
thanks to Professors Peter Sharpe, Kazuo Dohi and Richard Murto
for their valuable comments on and help with the final draft.
- This section provides only a rough
sketch. Those interested in more detail are referred to the on-going
project on this topic (in which both authors are involved). See
Kokawa, et al., 1994, 1996 and 1997, and Dohi, et al., forthcoming.
- The Iwasaki Linguistic Circle (whose
journal is entitled Lexicon) developed from a study group with
Tamihei Iwasaki, who was a professor at Tokyo University of Foreign
Studies and significantly contributed to English lexicography
in Japan as the editor of Kenkyusha's New EJD 3/e and 4/e, and
New Collegiate EJD 1/e, 2/e, and 3/e.
- Some 15 years ago in S.Y.'s senior
high school class almost every student owned a copy of Kenkyusha's
New Collegiate EJD (4/e, 1977), and this has been fairly similar
in other good schools. According to the blurb of the 6/e (1995),
the company sold 9m copies [S.Y.].
- This dictionary is actually the renamed
third edition of the Union EJD (1972, 2/e 1978), which uniquely
combined a dictionary and a grammar book.
- Modern English Teaching 34.10:21 (Kenkyusha,
1998) reports on 3 revised and 3 newly published EJDs in 1996:
Kenkyusha's Lighthouse 3/e, Sanseido's New Century 3/e, Obunsha's
New Sunrise 2/e, Gakken's Super Anchor and Victory Anchor, Tokyo
Shoseki's Favorite; and, 1 revised and 2 new EJDs published in
1997: Shogakukan's Learner's Progressive 2/e, Kenkyusha's Trim,
Sanseido's Vista.
- Formal English language education usually
starts in the first year at junior high school (age 13).
- The project to publish the ISED was
started by Harold E. Palmer. When Hornby succeeded Palmer after
the latter returned to England in 1936, he realized his idea
of verb patterns.
- This method is used in the Longman
Active Study Dictionary of English (2/e 1991), but the use is
not systematic.
References
Dohi, K. et al. (eds.) forthcoming. The Historical Development
of English-Japanese Dictionaries in Japan (4): The Three Dictionaries
in the 1880s. Lexicon 28.
Herbst, T. 1996. On the Way to the Perfect Learner's Dictionary:
a First Comparison of OALD5, LDOCE3, COBUILD2 and CIDE. International
Journal of Lexicography 9.4:321-357.
Kojima, Y. 1989. Eigo Jisho Monogatari: Ge ('The Stories
of English Dictionaries: Part Two'). Tokyo: ELEC.
Kokawa, T. et al. (eds.) 1994. The Historical Development of
English-Japanese Dictionaries in Japan (1): Tatsunosuke Hori's
Eiwa-Taiyaku-Shuchin-Jisho ('A Pocket Dictionary of the English
and Japanese Languages', 1862). Lexicon 24:80-119.
Kokawa, T. et al. (eds.) 1996. The Historical Development of
English-Japanese Dictionaries in Japan (2): Fuon-Sozu-Eiwa-Jii
('An English and Japanese Dictionary', 1873) by Masayoshi Shibata
and Takashi Koyasu (eds.). Lexicon 26: 77-130.
Kokawa, T. et al. (eds.) 1997. The Historical Development of
English-Japanese Dictionaries in Japan (3): Tetsugaku-Jii ('A
Dictionary of Philosophy', 1881) by Tetsujiro Inoue et al. Lexicon
27:74-137.
Nakashima, D. 1970. Ranwa Eiwa Jisho Hattatsushi ('The Historical
Development of Dutch-Japanese and English-Japanese Dictionaries').
Tokyo: Kodansha.
Nakao, K. 1989. English-Japanese Learner's Dictionaries.
International Journal of Lexicography 2.4:296-314.
Nakao K. 1998. The State of Bilingual Lexicography in
Japan: Learners' English-Japanese/Japanese-English Dictionaries.
International Journal of Lexicography 11.1:35-50.
Sato, H. 1977. Eigo Jisho no Chishiki ('General English
Dictionaries'). Tokyo: Yashio Shuppansha.
Stein, G. 1989. Recent Developments in EFL Dictionaries.
In Tickoo M.L. (ed.), Learner's Dictionaries: State of the Art.
Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, 10-41.
Takebayashi, S. et al. (eds.) 1992. Sekai no Jisho ('Dictionaries
in the World'). Tokyo: Kenkyusha.
Shigeru Yamada graduated in Lexicography from Waseda University,
Tokyo and the University of Exeter, UK. His interests include
EFL dictionaries, and dictionary use and instruction. He contributed
as a lexicographer to Kenkyusha's College Lighthouse English-Japanese
Dictionary and Japanese-English Dictionary (both 1995). He is
an assistant professor at Waseda University.
Yuri Komuro graduated in Lexicography from the University
of Exeter. Her thesis deals with the inclusion, placement and
presentation of collocational information in learner's dictionaries.
She is a part-time English instructor in Edogawa and Rikkyo Universities
in Tokyo.
Editor's Acknowledgement
This article was originally commissioned for Kernerman
Dictionary News (Issue No. 6, July
1998). It appears in the book Lexicography in Asia, and was thus
edited also by Tom McArthur. The book version has a more extensive
appendix. [I.K.]
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