Speaker
Description
This paper combines insights drawn from the ongoing linguistic and ethnographic work in the Americas and Micronesia with lessons from Lichtenberk’s (2003) work on creating dictionaries for languages in transition to explore the utility of biolexicography and other topical lexicographic approaches. Particular attention is given to key features of biolexicography – including biolexica, the role of communities of practice, the use of ethnographic methodologies, considerations of identity, and linguistically-mediated ecological engagement – and to the relevance of this and other topical lexicographic approaches for languages in transition and their speakers. The ways in which these approaches are shaped by the lexicographic inheritance and by engagements with languages experiencing attrition or change are also considered. This discussion illustrates that the utility of biolexicography is rooted in the linguistic and sociocultural significances of biolexica in ways that integrate of lexicographic products into broader cultural and linguistic systems and center speaker communities in the lexicographic process.
