Значение слова в толковых словарях

The Word Definition in Dictionaries: Cognitive Approach

The word definitions in traditional dictionaries don’t include very often important information about human perception. At present it is an actual issue to give the cognitive character to the dictionary definition. The article concerns problems of optimization definitions structure. Word as a necessary instrument for cognizing the world needs an adequate definition and explanation. The existing dictionary definitions on different reasons very often do not satisfy the users. One of the most important tasks of modern cognitive linguistics is a study of the problem of non-agreement between the word definition and its real usage by the native speaker. At present it is an actual issue to give the cognitive character to the dictionary definition. The main aim of cognitive definition is to answer the question about the way the native speakers see an object described, that means the fixed by the society and available for study through the language way of cognizing the world, categorizing its phenomena, their characteristics and evaluation. Scientific character of definitions is especially visible in case with explanation of words belonging to basic vocabulary fund and having old tradition of usage. Analysis of dictionary definitions has shown that direction of the traditional lexicography often has impersonal, formally objective character, the definition gives no hint to the associations the word has in the mind of ordinary speaker, the features of the object that are the most important. The consequences of scientific-encyclopedic character of many definitions are: 1) inner non-coordination of the dictionary articles as unlike definitions citations are taken not from the scientific texts but from the texts of fiction or from everyday talk; 2) figurative meanings lose their ties with the primary meaning. These drawbacks of explanatory dictionaries are sometimes done away with in the new type dictionaries. To conclude the cognitive definition must include all components fixed in the collective conscience of the native speakers. Thus, cognitive definition is a kind of story of a world’s fragment based on language facts and illustrated by citations and typical sayings.