PURE OR HYBRID? THE DEVELOPMENT OF MIXED DICTIONARY GENRES

This paper explores 'hybrid' genres of dictionaries and other reference works. Against the tradition of general dictionaries becoming ever more specialised, there has also been a growing trend of mixing two or more 'pure' dictionary types for achieving specific purposes, e.g. the combination of alphabetic and thematic dictionary,general dictionary and technical glossary, dictionary and thesaurus, dictionary and encyclopedia, monolingual and bilingual dictionary, etc. Examples of these various sub-types are discussed (admitting that dictionary research has neglected their study),with the aim of determining overall trends and implications, particularly with regard to the possibility of their further development with the means of information technology.