The lexicographer’s ethos, a glance towards the preface

Abstract

The ideas contained in this text  were first seen in the recently presented  essay Vozes na colônia, um estudo discursivo sobre os dicionários gerais de língua. The research aimed to track, through the approach of modalization in the definitions of entries, the ways by which the different interpretations interfere in the discourse of the general language  dictionaries in the corpus constituted by Houaiss (2009) and Aurélio (2010) dictionaries, in their most recent versions  customized according to the new spelling agreement. By researching for such interpretations, we tried to understand the dictionary as a genre which is multiple even in its essence, as it gathers other genres such as the entries, the preface, the bibliography and the presentation. We also made use of the concept that like any other genre, the dictionary is a social construction, which emerges from the communication needs of a contract that is established, in this case, between the author (lexicographer)  and the reader (consultant). Both publications were used as corpus for the research, and their prefaces, as we will observe here, are the result of a team work, in such a way that the name of the authors forms an assurance of quality instead of registering the authorship of the product. Thus, seeing that there is not only one producer of the work, we established the lexicographer as a communicative entity and outlined its ethos through the features of the lexicographical work and its producer in different meta lexicographic texts, such as the ones by Margarita Correia (2009), Francisco da Silva Borba (2003), Maria Teresa C. Biderman (1984, 1998), José Horta Nunes (2002), Claudia Xatara (2011) and Hebert Welker (2004, 2006). Besides the meta lexicography, we were guided by the studies of Dominique Maingueneau (1997, 2000), Patrick Charaudeau e Maingueneau (2006) and Ruth Amossy (2005) on polyphony and communicative ethos . Starting from what is stated about the dictionary to what is inside it, the preface, we could observe which rules of contract are applied and how they are outlined for the consultant in their presentation texts, the lexicographers and as a result, their work. In the prefaces here analyzed, the lexicographer can be seen as the figure of authority in the language, wise, diligent, reliable, discerning and overcareful researcher, humbly portrait when he talks about himself, but highly glorified when portraited by somebody else.