I may perhaps find time to join in some of the other discussions underway,
and will soon offer access to a new paper with my take on the some of the
'individual/social' issues discussed recently, but meanwhile, had this
interesting request from a lexicographer with interest in getting
communities to flesh out the contexts in which we use language -- through a
sort of collective hypertext lexicon-encyclopedia. It reminded me of some
proposals here a couple years ago about developing a glossary for the
terminology and fields and theories that we use, with links to some of the
source texts, etc.
If you reply to xmca, please cc: the initial writer (Bob Parks) below, and
if you write directly to him, please cc: to me.
JAY.
>Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 22:34:27 -0400
>From: Bob Parks <bobp who-is-at pop.lightlink.com>
>Subject: Dictionaries and Power
>
>
>I teach politics at Elmira College in upstate NY, and have a course in
>"Political Communication". I have appreciated your work, particularly
>"Textual Politics". And I am in agreement with those who see
>decontextualization as one of the most problematic of communicative
>devices. And dictionaries represent, in principle, one of the most
>decontextualized repositories for meanings. Nonetheless, I find myself in
>the position of being responsible for developing and distributing a a large
>dictionary and thesaurus of English - "The Wordsmyth Educational
>Dictionary-Thesaurus" - which is currently served to the web from the
>University of Chicago, at http://www.wordsmyth.net .
>
> I have tried to reconcile the need for personal contexts of meaning with
>the use of a general semantic network, representing a community's
>repository of glosses in a short proposal I have written - at
>http://www.wordsmyth.net/lexipedia.htm . This "Lexipedia" approach grew out
>of an assignment I have used in my "Peace Studies" class, in which I asked
>students to create word lists they associated with "peace", and colections
>of pictures and quotations associated with those words. But I am looking
>for seasoned eyes to look at the viability of my proposal, and perhaps to
>speculate on possible uses for the dictionary in research on development of
>critical consciousness. I would appreciate your views, if you had an
>opportunity to evaluate the Lexipedia proposal.
>
>Regards,
>Bob Parks
>Associate Professor
>Elmira College
>
---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
---------------------------