Kaufmann, U. and H. Bergenholtz et al. (1998): Encyclopedic Dictionary of Gene Technology, vol. 1, English (with Spanish equivalents), 385 p. vol. 2, Spanish (with English equivalents). Toronto, Lugus Libros, 411 p.

Four years is a long time to wait for the review of any dictionary, especially one dealing with a field as new and as rapidly developing as gene technology. One of the banes of specialised lexicography is that dictionaries are often put out by small publishers who have no means of promoting them, with the result that useful work too often goes unnoticed. This seems to be the case of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Gene Technology, as the present reviewer has no knowledge of any mention being made in the major lexicography journals. In spite of the delay, it is still worthwhile to present this dictionary since it incorporates several original features, which its authors claim to be important lexicographical innovations. The present English-Spanish dictionary is in fact an adaptation of a previous Danish-English dictionary, put out by the principal authors in 1992, and which created quite a sensation at the time in Denmark. The Danish dictionary was presented as a prototype of the way that specialised lexicography should perform according to the precepts laid down by Bergenholtz and Tarp (one of the co-authors of the English-Spanish version). Part of the polemics concerned the claim that specialised lexicography was user-centred, whereas terminology was subject-centred, and thus less easily accessible. In the Danish dictionary, great pains were taken to define the potential users and their needs, with some unusual though perfectly justified results. One of these was the use of the two languages: since the user was assumed to be a Danish and not an English speaker, encyclopedic information was given exclusively in Danish, though English figured not only in equivalents, but also in many collocations, designed to help Danes who wanted not only to read English-language texts on the subject, but also to write in that language. This unbalance of languages is not present in the English-Spanish dictionary, or at least not in the same form, but most of the other original features are. One of these features is the basic structure of the dictionary itself. In addition to a preface and a section giving information on how and why the dictionary was made, there is a particularly important “Guide to the Use of the Dictionary” and a comprehensive introduction to molecular biology which precede the alphabetical core, consisting of some 4,500 headwords in both languages, which compares favorably to the 6,000 entries of a monolingual specialist dictionary. The preface lays out the basic objectives of the dictionary, underlining its interdisciplinary nature (the two main authors are respectively a biologist and a lexicographer). “Background Information” lists targeted user groups and needs to which the dictionary is intended and explains how it came into being and what corpora were drawn on. The sources appear in the form of an exhaustive bibliography. Many dictionaries contain guides or instructions for use, though most authors are under little illusion about how many users actually read them. The Gene Technology Dictionary sets out the structure of the dictionary, and in passing justifies some of the lexicographical choices made. For example, under “Encyclopedic notes” the authors state: “This heading refers to the part of the dictionary article which is also called definition. However, the term “definition” presupposes a far more exact and detailed description than is possible in a specialised dictionary for non-specialists. Thus, we prefer the term “encyclopedic note”, which usually consists of whole sentences in this dictionary.” The qualification of encylopedic is justified by extensive development in some of the articles. The use of examples and collocations is also explained: the latter are particularly abundant and contain many verb phrases, too often omitted …