Stylistic qualification of word in academic explanatory dictionary

Abstract

The article discusses problems of lexicographic stylistics, such as the necessity of reflecting speech phenomena as language ones, the limitations of the lexicographer’s tools for choosing a particular stylistic mark, as well as the diffusion, subjectivity, and inconsistency of criteria for stylistic marks. When making decisions about the stylistic properties of a lexical unit, lexicographers may be guided by the following: 1) the tradition established by authoritative predecessor dictionaries; 2) their own language intuition; 3) formal indicators of stylistic membership (e.g., stylistically colored suffixes); 4) citation materials. Each of these instruments has its own drawbacks and limitations. The paper analyzes controversial cases of stylistic qualification of words in academic explanatory dictionaries, starting from the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D. N. Ushakov, which are associated with both the underdevelopment of stylistic theory for lexicographic practice and the objective complexity of formalizing stylistic categories (using the example of words: koldobina ‘pothole’, razdevalka ‘changing room’, razdeval'nya ‘undressing room’, otmyvaniye deneg ‘laundering (of money)’). It is emphasized that for the correct stylistic qualification of the word, it is important to take into account the statistical data of the Russian National Corpus on the frequency of word usage and its dynamics. In addition, as an auxiliary method of lexicographic stylistics, surveys of Russian language speakers about the stylistic colouring of a particular word should be used. It is impractical to expand the registry of stylistic marks for a more detailed stylistic description of a word, as increasing their quantity will only enhance subjectivity and hinder the perception by the ordinary dictionary user. Probably, fundamentally new solutions to the issues of stylistic qualification of a word in explanatory dictionaries can be found in electronic lexicography, when developing an integral digital dictionary resource.