A Comparative Study on the Microstructures of Chinese and English Monolingual General-purpose Dictionaries

The comparative study of dictionaries is an important part of theoretical lexicography, and a valuable source of inspiration for dictionary compiling. Regarding the former, it helps to discover the similarities and differences in the compilation philosophies and design features between the two dictionaries. Regarding the latter, it helps to provide mutual references for the compilation of both dictionaries. However, according to Yu and Du’s (2016) review, the comparative studies on monolingual general-purpose dictionaries (MGPDs) published in the International Journal of Lexicography from 1988 to 2014 are almost all between English MGPDs. There are few comparative studies between English and other MGPDs in other languages and no comparative studies between English and Chinese MGPDs. On the other hand, comparative studies between English and Chinese MGPDs are also rare in China, and moreover, they are unsatisfactory in terms of breadth and depth (p. 4). The book A Comparative Study on the Microstructures of Chinese and English Monolingual General-purpose Dictionaries (2021) by Professor Pingfang Yu and Professor Jinchun Tan is born out of this context. Professor Yu works at the Faculty of Chinese Language and Culture in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, she is an expert on comparative lexicography. In recent years, she has published many monographs on comparative studies of various dictionaries as the first author (Yu and Du 2010; Yu 2016; Yu et al. 2014, 2020). Professor Tan works at the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and he serves as the vice president of the Chinese Association for Lexicography. He has participated in the revision of Modern Chinese Dictionary (MCD)1 editions 4 to 7, and he is one of the chief editors in charge of the revision of the 6th and 7th editions of MCD. The book under review is the result of the work of the two authors in the field of comparative lexicography as well as dictionary compilation and revision.