Ulrike Rothe

The main title of this work might be a bit misleading, because it creates the impression that a very wide and general topic will be discussed. The subtitle, however, is much more to the point, since the author specifically investigates English and French monolingual dictionaries in view of certain aspects. The author makes it clear (2001: 210) that she does not want to describe general "influences" of a socio-cultural nature on the contents of dictionaries, but rather how socio-cultural trends and traditions had an impact on the methodological aspects of lexicography in Britain and France. This means that generalisation for other languages will only be possible after further in-depth studies. The author sets out to demonstrate systematically and empirically how, in the two particular societies, differences exist in the conception of dictionary writing because of differences in the two language communities, and poses as a sub-question (2001: 2) whether one could say that dictionaries are "culturallydetermined". She investigates five contemporary general monolingual dictionaries in French (Le Nouveau Petit Robert (1993) (NPR); Le Petit Larousse Illustré (1995) (PL); Dictionnaire de la Langue Française; LEXIS (1994) (LEXIS); Le Robert Micro-Poche (1988) (MR); and Dictionnaire du Français au Collège (1995) (DFColl)), and four contemporary general monolingual dictionaries in English (Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (19959) (COD); Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English (19955) (AOLD); Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (19953) (LCODE); and Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (19952) (COBUILD)). For testing the results of her analyses, several other French and English dictionaries are also occasionally involved in her investigation. Rothe (2001: 2) states that her study is not intended as a contribution to the field of dictionary criticism, and therefore her main aim is not to suggest ways of improving the dictionaries discussed. Rothe lists the criteria for the selection of dictionaries (2001: 14), which include that the chosen dictionaries should already have been on the market for a while, and should have undergone at least one new edition. They should more or less address the same target groups, and have more or less the same range with regard to their lemma collection and their microstructure. Even though her own study is mainly synchronic, Rothe places the dictionaries under discussion in their historical context. The exposition starts, in Chapter 1, with contemplations on the notion of "culture" and how Rothe interprets this notion in her study. Reference is made to Hausmann's (1983, 1985) expression "dictionary landscape" ("paysage dictionnairique") (2001: 3-4) and Rothe (2001: 213) formulates her basic premise on Hausmann's (1997: 184) statement that "dictionaries, as cultural products, follow the cultural guidelines of the society". She also draws on Rey's publications