euralex
EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FOR LEXICOGRAPHY

EURALEX NEWSLETTER

Winter 1998

Editors: Carla Marello and Rosamund Moon. Address for correspondence and contributions:
Carla Marello
Corso Unione Sovietica 115
I-10134 Torino
Italy
E-mail: marello@cisi.unito.it and rosamund@cobuild.collins.co.uk

The EURALEX Newsletter

This quarterly Newsletter is intended to include not only official announcements but also news on EURALEX members, their publications, career moves, and (it is hoped) their opinions. Please try to support this by sending newsletter contributions to Carla Marello at the above address.
The annual deadlines
winter (December)15 September
spring (March)15 December
summer (June)15 March
autumn (September)15 June

The EURALEX Web Site

The URL of the EURALEX web site is http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/euralex.

Contents

Morton Benson (1924-1998)

Professor Morton Benson was a Slavonicist, a lexicographer, and a friend of mine. His Dictionary of Russian Personal Names (3rd edition 1992, Cambridge University Press), his dictionaries of English and SerboCroatian (latest editions Prosveta and Cambridge University Press ), and his Russian-English Dictionary of Verbal Collocations (written with his wife Evelyn and published by John Benjamins) are justly celebrated. His Lexicographic Description of English, BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations, and Using the BBI (all published by Benjamins, all written with Evelyn and me, the last with Richard Young as well) show him as a lexicographer keen not only to understand the discipline he taught at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere but also to use it to help people learning and teaching English.

Morton combined the ability to apply ideas practicably with the resilient energetic optimism required to get a project off the ground. Working in the great tradition of Igor Mel'cuk and Franz Josef Hausmann, he realized the importance of lexical and morpho-syntactic combinations, focussed on some of the most useful types, understood where best in a dictionary to display them, enlisted the help of enthusiastic colleagues to create the corresponding dictionaries - and then had the guts to fight for the publication of the results against the short-sighted entrenched self-serving conservatism of so much of today's reference-publishing establishment, who would have told Murray, Grimm, Littré, Girard, Roget, and Hornby to cool their heels. If since it was `highly commended' by the English-Speaking Union in 1987, BBI can have come to be regarded today as `a traditional collocational dictionary' (Fontenelle, IJL (1997) 10/4, 281), I cannot forget that but for Morton's ceaseless championing of it and the Benjamins' understanding, it might well never have been published at all!

Morton inspired me to keep fighting, too. It is a privilege to have known him and worked with him.

Robert Ilson

Return to contents

Minutes of the EURALEX Biennial General Meeting,
held in Liège on August 8, 1998

The President, Henri Béjoint, opened the meeting, which was attended by approximately 40 members. The president welcomed all present.

The following agenda was agreed:

  1. Minutes of the 1996 General meeting and matters arising from these minutes
  2. Reports
  3. Membership fees 1999-2000
  4. Next congress(es)
  5. IJL
  6. Elections to the Executive Board (1998-2000)
  7. Appointment of auditors
  8. Comments and suggestions to the Board
  9. Date and place of next meeting

  1. Minutes of the 1996 General Meeting (Göteborg)

    The minutes were published in the EURALEX Newsletter Winter 1996 (IJL 9/4). They were approved without amendments or comments.

  2. Reports

    1. President's Report

      The President reported good news, since the membership had increased by 11 people. The web site and the mailing list (euralex@ims.uni-stuttgart.de), the creation of which had been agreed in Göteborg, have now been fully operational for two years thanks to Ulrich Heid and his collaborators in Stuttgart (Oliver Christ and Anja Hofmann). Membership leaflets have been produced by Rosamund Moon and are distributed at conferences. They will soon be translated into French, German, and Czech, and made available on the association's web site.

      The President informed the audience that EURALEX had given support to three events: the Third International Symposium on Phraseology in Stuttgart (April 1998), the First International Conference on Language Resources (LREC) in Granada (May 1998), and the SENSEVAL workshop (Sussex, September 1998). Members are reminded that EURALEX can give moral support to relevant initiatives in the field of lexicography, and also financial support in the form of seed money which is paid back after the event. If possible, EURALEX sponsorship should be publicized more widely.

      The President announced that a select Bibliography of Phraseology had been compiled and made available on the EURALEX web site by Rosamund Moon on the basis of Tony Cowie and Peter Howarth's bibliography (with an appendix by Gloria Corpas Pastor) published in IJL (9/1, 38-51), with additional material and input from Frantisek Cermák, Attila Cserép, Dmitrij Dobrovol'skij, Thierry Fontenelle, and Rosamund Moon.

      The President was pleased to announce that closer links had been recreated with the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA). The President of the DSNA, Edward Gates, had attended the congress in Liège and DSNA publications had been displayed at the book exhibition. In return, it had been agreed that EURALEX would also be allowed to display material at the next DSNA meeting in Berkeley in May 1998.

      It was announced that proceedings of previous congresses were still available and that the web site would contain information about how to buy such copies. A proposal was also made by the President to offer a EURALEX scholarship to young scholars/researchers, which would for instance enable them to attend EURALEX conferences (the details will be clarified and announced later).

      The President acknowledged the birth of another sister association, ASIALEX, whose secretary, Ami Chi, had attended the Liège congress.

      The President then informed the audience that sadly Morton Benson had passed away in June 1998. An outstanding lexicographer, Morton Benson was especially famous for his contribution to the BBI Dictionary of English Collocations. The President offered EURALEX's condolences to his family and friends. [See obituary in this newsletter -- Eds.]

      Le Président prit ensuite la parole en français pour rappeler qu'une de ses ambitions avait été d'attirer plus de représentants français à EURALEX. Il devait constater qu'avec une douzaine de participants français, le succès n'était que mitigé, en dépit des efforts faits par les organisateurs d'EURALEX '98 pour informer la communauté lexicographique française (circulaires et informations en français, université francophone...). De nombreux efforts seront encore nécessaires afin de sensibiliser les intéressés de la francophonie à l'existence d'EURALEX et de ses congrès où le français est une langue officielle bienvenue, comme en témoignent la dizaine de présentations faites dans cette langue à Liège.

    2. Secretary-Treasurer's Report

      Krista Varantola, the Secretary-Treasurer, reported on the situation of EURALEX's finances. Membership has increased by 11, which means that the Association now has 290 ordinary members. There are currently 20 International Friendship Fund members (15 in 1996, 16 in 1997) and more applications have been received, which, it is hoped, will encourage regular members (and others) to contribute to the IFF initiative. The breakdown looks as follows:

      EURALEX MEMBERS

      Copies of the IJL
      1995 1996 1997
      358 335 349
      Membership 1996 1997
      Ordinary members 279 290
      Institutional members (2 copies) 20 21
      IFF members 15 16
      Honorary members 1 1

      IFF members per country
      1997 1998
      Albania 2 2
      Bulgaria 1 1
      China 1 1
      Czech Republic 1 1
      Estonia 1 1
      Hungary 2 2
      Latvia 1 1
      Lithuania 1 1
      Russia 5 7
      South Africa - 2
      Yugoslavia 1 1
      Total 16 20

      EURALEX Accounts and Balance 1997

      Currency: FIM (8.5 FIM = 1 GBP)
      PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT

      Revenues
      Membership fees 21,897.16 FIM
      Other revenue -
      Interest 1,955.92 FIM
      ----------------
      23,853.08 FIM

      Expenses
      Board meetings 12,372.35 FIM
      Administration 14,541.49 FIM
      OUP: IJL - FIM
      Sponsorship - FIM
      Congress 1998 15,724.00 FIM
      ----------------
      42,637.84 FIM
      Profit/loss preliminary 18,784.76 FIM
      Currency adjustment 14,589.24 FIM
      ----------------
      Profit/Loss adjusted 4,195.52 FIM

      BALANCE SHEET 31.12.1996 31.12.1997
      Assets
      Lloyds Bank (1) 84,357.61 FIM 100,638.64 FIM
      Lloyds Bank (2) 21,614.60 FIM 6,959.63 FIM
      Merita Bank 29,614.56 FIM 21,377.17 FIM
      Outstanding accounts - 1,075.29 FIM -1,075.29 FIM
      ------------------ ------------------
      134,511.48 FIM 127,900.15 FIM
      Liabilities
      Verbatim Award 7,624.62 FIM 9,079.02 FIM
      IFF 23,200.00 FIM 7,586.19 FIM
      EURALEX Net Capital 103,686.86 FIM 111,234.94 FIM
      ----------------- -----------------
      134,511.48 FIM 127,900.15 FIM

      As can be seen, the EURALEX net capital has increased. Expenses are mainly due to the seed money, which was provided to the Liège congress organizers but will be paid back after the congress (this accounts for the difference in the Lloyds Bank (2) account between 1996 and 1997). One other thing to note is that the money received from the Hornby Trust - to help people who had financial problems with attending the Göteborg congress - had been given to EURALEX before being transferred to the organizers (see difference for the IFF account between 1996 and 1997). The situation will be different in the next report since in 1998 the Hornby Trust sponsorship was given to the Liège organizers directly. The administration costs in the table above reflect the production costs of the membership leaflets as well as the creation and maintenance of the web site. Fluctuations in the value of the pound also account for differences in the figures given in FIM (e.g. the Lloyds Bank (1) account in 1996 and 1997). The accounts were audited by Raija Kaila before being presented to the General Meeting. They were approved unanimously.

      The Secretary-Treasurer also reported on the Thematic Network Programme (TNP) funded by the European Language Council (ELC). One of the sub-groups of the TNP is of special interest to EURALEX since it is concerned with dictionaries and is chaired by Reinhard Hartmann (Exeter). The underlying idea is to promote dictionary awareness in language institutions and the President of the sub-committee is currently collecting information on universities and institutes which provide courses on dictionary use. A status report on lexicography in the various participating countries has been drafted and evidence on best practice in dictionary skills has been collected. The aim is to compile a final report which will contain recommendations. A conference was organized at the University of Lille to present preliminary results and another conference will be organized in Finland at the end of this 3-year project.

  3. Membership fees 1999-2000

    The Secretary-Treasurer reminded the audience that, in 1996, the General Assembly had decided to bear the increase in rates for the International Journal of Lexicography and that membership fees had remained unchanged for 1997-1998 (£30 for ordinary members). This meant that EURALEX had to pay £24.50 instead of £22 to provide its members with a subscription to IJL. However, because administration costs for highly specialized journals keep rising, OUP has now decided to increase the subscription price to £28.50 for ordinary members, which means that EURALEX would start making losses if the membership fee remained unchanged. The Executive Board therefore proposed increasing membership fees to £34 (US $56) for ordinary members and to £83 (US $138) for institutional members (who receive two copies of IJL). This suggestion was approved unanimously.

  4. Next congresses

    The President announced that the next (9th) international congress of EURALEX will take place in Stuttgart. An offer has been received from Reinhard Hartmann, who was also the founding father of EURALEX, to organize the 10th congress in Exeter in 2002. Ulrich Heid, the organizer of the 2000 congress, gave a few details about the congress in Stuttgart. It will run from 8 to 12 August 2000, immediately after the COLING congress to be held in Luxembourg. An e-mail address will soon be available, and the EURALEX web site will be used to host all the details relating to the congress. Topics will include the traditional domains covered at EURALEX congresses: that is, dictionary use, the dictionary-making process, phraseology, etc. A number of topical forums and pre-congress workshops might be organized to address specific issues such as phraseology, the creation of NLP lexicons, tools for corpus lexicography, the creation of historical dictionaries, and the teaching of monolingual lexicography. Members should contact the organizers if they wish to put forward proposals.

  5. International Journal of Lexicography

    The President thanked Robert Ilson for his work in making IJL a successful, high-quality journal, and he thanked Tony Cowie, the new editor, for taking over, wishing him well with his new mission.

  6. Elections to the Executive Board (1998-2000)

    The President briefly explained the system:
    1. list all nominations, with proposers and seconders
    2. vote by show of hands if only two candidates for a post, by written ballot if more.
    All members of EURALEX are eligible to be nominated, provided they have expressed their willingness (in person or in writing), and only EURALEX members are allowed to vote. The following elections were made:
    President: Ole Norling-Christensen
    (nominated ex officio in capacity as Vice-President)
    Vice-President: Krista Varantola
    Proposed: H. Béjoint; Seconded: U. Heid
    Secretary-Treasurer: Thierry Fontenelle
    Proposed: O. Norling-Christensen; Seconded: R. Moon
    Ass. Secretary-Treasurer: Ulrich Heid
    Proposed: K. Varantola; Seconded: M. Gellerstam
    Henri Béjoint's appointment to the 1998-2000 Board, ex officio as retiring President, was announced. The following nominations were made for the five remaining places on the Executive Board: Frantisek Cermák
    Frantisek CermákProposed: V. Schmiedtova; Seconded: R. Blatná
    Marie-Hélène Corréard P: A. Kilgarriff; S: R.E. Allen
    Martin Gellerstam P: R. Moon; S: C. Marello
    Carla Marello P: Th. Fontenelle; S: O. Norling-Christensen
    Rosamund Moon P: F. Cermák; S: Th. Fontenelle
    Petek Kurtböke P: T. Magay; S: J. Williams
    The results of the vote were: Cermák 28, Corréard 26, Gellerstam 25, Marello 33, Moon 35, Kurtböke 13. Cermák, Corréard, Gellerstam, Marello, and Moon were duly elected to the Board.

  7. Appointment of Auditors

    Krista Varantola suggested keeping the same auditor since the Treasury will provisionally stay in Finland. It was unanimously agreed to appoint Raija Kaila to review the accounts officially.

  8. Comments and suggestions to the Board

    Tamás Magay asked whether it would be possible to hold the General Meeting in the middle of the conference, instead of organizing it at the very end of the congress, on Saturday afternoon, as had always been the case so far. This would allow and encourage more people to participate. The next organizer will investigate this possibility. Liz Potter suggested that a questionnaire could be circulated to ask participants for feedback. Alternatively, an announcement could be circulated, e.g. via the mailing list, to ask for suggestions for the next congress. The Executive Board announced that it had received an offer from Tim Gluckman (Köln) to set up a newsgroup for lexicographers on his own web site. It was decided that this offer would be examined at the next Executive Board meeting, but that efforts should not be duplicated since EURALEX already has an operational mailing list (to be moderated by Ulrich Heid) and an official web site. Ilan Kerneman suggested working with sister associations to set up a big international project to promote the use of dictionaries in schools. Cooperation with sister associations such as AFRILEX and ASIALEX is rather limited, however. Ulrich Heid promised the EURALEX Web site would be updated to include links to the AFRILEX site (there are already pointers to the AUSTRALEX and DSNA web sites). Patrick Hanks asked whether the Board could encourage the development of shared resources, especially since, even though English is well served in this respect, other languages are much less well served. He therefore suggested an active cooperation with funders to share lexical resources, especially corpora. Henri Béjoint pointed out that EURALEX had not been inactive in the field and that several of its Board members actively participated in initiatives such as the TNP project (Krista Varantola), the TELRI association which developed parallel corpora in 15 languages (Frantisek Cermák), or the EU-funded PAROLE/SIMPLE projects which develop corpora and lexica for all official EU languages (Ole Norling-Christensen). Ulrich Heid also reminded the audience that the Web site contained pointers to available resources.

  9. Date and place of next meeting

    The next Biennial General Meeting of the Association will take place in Stuttgart, Germany, during the Tenth International Congress (8-12 August 2000).

    Henri Béjoint then closed the meeting by thanking the local organizers, the Programme Committee, the referees, the chairs, the people in charge of the tutorials (Michela Clari, Jeremy Butterfield, Alain Reichling), the plenary speakers (Marie-Hélène Corréard, Tony Cowie, Gregory Grefenstette), the publishers who had participated in the book exhibition, the sponsors (the European Commission (DGXIII), the Hornby Trust, which helped a number of people from East-European countries to attend the congress by donating £2,000, Cambridge University Press, the University of Liège and its `Interface Université-Entreprise', le Cercle Belgo-Néerlandais, le Service de la Langue française du Ministère de la Communauté française de Belgique), the university staff, and the students who had provided the organizers with most valuable help, and, of course, all those who had read papers or simply attended the congress.

    Thierry Fontenelle, Minutes Secretary

Return to contents

Forthcoming events

February
5-6, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: symposium `Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies: Empirical Approaches'. Topics include: contrastive lexicology (in particular, contrastive phraseology), bilingual/multilingual lexicography, contrastive semantics, contrastive syntax, contrastive pragmatics, compiling and exploiting bilingual/multilingual computerised corpora, software tools for the analysis of bilingual corpora, bilingual corpora and automatic/computer-aided translation. Info: Sylviane Granger, Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Blaise Pascal 1, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. E-mail: granger@lige.ucl.ac.be
Web site: http://www.fltr.ucl.ac.be/FLTR/GERM/ContraEngl.htm

April
14-17, Newcastle upon Tyne, England: 2nd International Symposium on Bilingualism. Info: Mrs Gillian Cavagan, ISB Organising Committee, Department of Speech, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK. Fax +44 191 2226518, E-mail: gillian.cavagan@newcastle.ac.uk Web site: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~nspeech/isb2.htm.

May
27-29, Berkeley, USA: XIIth Biennial Meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America. Info: DSNA 1999, Department of Linguistics, Dwinelle Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. E-mail: dsna@trill.berkeley.edu. Web site: http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html.

August
2-6, Tokyo, Japan: 12th World Conference of Applied Linguistics (AILA '99). Web site: http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jacet/AILA99/.

6-10, Mons-Hainaut, Belgium: XV World Congress of the International Federation of Translators (FIT). Web site: http://fit.ml.org/congress/index.html.

30-3 September, Bolzano-Bozen, Italy: 12th European Symposium on Language for Special Purposes (LSP '99), `Perspectives for the new millennium'. Organized by the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen in co-operation with the recently-founded University of Bolzano/Bozen and the AILA Scientific Commission on Language for Special Purposes. Info: LSP '99, Section `Language and law', European Academy, Via Weggenstein 12/a, I-39100 Bolzano-Bozen, Italy. E-mail: LSP99@eurac.edu. Web site: http://www.eurac.edu/LSP99.

September
9-11, Lincoln, England: 2nd International Conference on Major Varieties of English (MAVEN II). Info: Conference Secretary/MAVEN II, Faculty of Arts and Technology, Lincoln University Campus, Brayford Pool, Lincoln LN6 7TS, England. E-mail: pnayar@ulh.ac.uk.

14-16, Ivanovo, Russia: Third International School in Lexicography `Dictionaries in the Contemporary World'. Topics will include: Is lexicography a linguistic discipline?; Homonymy, polysemy and vagueness as lexicographic problems; Plagiarism, criminality, and ethics in lexicography and dictionary-making; and Lexicography and language ideology. There will also be sessions on historical lexicography, learners' dictionaries, dictionaries for special purposes, and new dictionary projects. Info: Ludmila Ivanova, Secretary of Organization Committee, Third International School in Lexicography, English Philology Department, Ivanovo State University, Ermak street, 39, Ivanovo, 153025, Russia. Tel: +7 932 30 02 91. Fax: +7 932 32 66 00. E-mail: karpova@ivgu.ivanovo.su.

November
11-13, Beirut, Lebanon: 6e Journées scientifiques, Le Réseau Lexicologie, Terminologie, Traduction de l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUPELF-UREF), sur le thème `L'éloge de la différence: la voix de l'Autre'. Les Journées seront précédées, du 8 au 10 novembre 1999, par un Séminaire sur Sémantique et Automatisation, animé par Georges Kleiber (Université de Strasbourg), Gaston Gross (Université de Paris-Nord) et Franz Guenthner (Université de Munich). Info: André Clas, GRESLET, Département de linguistique et de traduction, Université de Montréal CP. 6128, Succursale: Centre-ville Montréal, Canada H3C 3J7. Tel: +1 514 343 7047. Fax: +1 514 343 2284. E-mail: clasand@ere.umontreal.ca.

2000

April
26-29, Maastricht, The Netherlands: 3rd International Maastricht-Lodz Duo Colloquium, `Translation and Meaning', Maastricht session. Info: Drs Marcel Thelen, School of Translation and Interpreting, Hogeschool Maastricht, P.O. Box 964, 6200 AZ Maastricht, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 43 3466 471. Fax: +31 43 3466 649. E-mail: m.m.g.j.thelen@ftv.hsmaastricht.nl. Web site: http://ftvmaastricht.congress.nedweb.com.

August
8-12, Stuttgart, Germany: 9th EURALEX Congress. Web site: http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/euralex.

September
21-24, Lodz, Poland: 3rd International Maastricht-Lodz Duo Colloquium, `Translation and Meaning', Lodz session. Info: Prof. Dr habil. Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Department of English Language, University of Lodz, Al. Kosciuszki 65, 90-514 Lodz, Poland. Tel: +48 42 36 63 37. Fax: +48 42 36 63 37, +48 42 36 63 72. E-mail: duoduo@krysia.uni.lodz.pl. Web site: http://ftvmaastricht.congress.nedweb.com.

Return to contents