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Some remarks on present-day phraseography in German

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2016

Abstract

Among linguists, there is a lively interest in phraseology that is still a relatively young branch of linguistics. However, its basic descriptive application, phraseography, of which the task is to collect and describe phraseological expressions of a given language, keeps on being a rather neglected area, at least in terms of implementation of theory into practice.

In this paper, two relatively modern phraseological dictionaries of German are examined and the question of their userfrendliness is taken up. Against the backround of František Čermák's conception of phraseology, the notion of phraseme in these dictionaries is scrutinized.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that both dictionaries need substantial improvements to become really effective tools for solving language problems, the genuine function of the very most dictionaries. Nonetheless, some special features of Deutsche Idiomatik by Hans Schemann are due recognition and make the dictionary to stand out by reason of which a need for a discussion of Schemann's phraseographical works within the Czech linguistics, or, more precisely, within the Czech phraseography, is voiced here.

In addition, we comment on DUDEN 11: Redewendungen. Wörterbuch der deutschen Idiomatik as probably the most popular German dictionary of this type as well.