The aim of this thesis is to describe how corpus-based Setswana dictionaries should be compiled. The challenge to the modern Setswana lexicographer is to compile very practical descriptive and user-friendly dictionaries. A detailed evaluation of existing Setswana dictionaries will be performed in terms of the macrostructural and microstructural aspects: <ul><li> Coverage of frequently used words. </li><li> Effective use of dictionary space. </li><li> Use of standard dictionary conventions. </li><li> Choice, ordering and composition of translation equivalent paradigms. </li></ul> The focus will be on material collection and corpus building. Informants will be used to compile an oral corpus of 100,000 tokens. All ethical requirements such as informed consent requirements (See Appendix 1) will be honoured. Since the text corpus is an organic corpus, thus not a designed corpus aimed at balance and representativeness, the oral corpus will be constructed in the same way i.e. only basic selection criteria: <ul><li> Mother tongue speakers of Setswana. </li><li> Adults (to be on a par with authors of the written sources in the text corpus). Age: ranging from 20-60 years. </li><li> Male and female. </li></ul> Critical analysis of all currently available Setswana dictionaries will be done with special reference to the dictionaries of Brown (1987) (SESD), Snyman, et al. (1990), Matumo (1993).(MSED), Kgasa (1976) (THAND) and Kgasa and Tsonope (1995).(THAN) In all these cases the strategy would be in terms of the theoretical criteria and best practices in terms of a broad theoretical survey of core aspects of dictionary compilation. Finally, the study will be concluded with an analysis of corpus integrity and stability of Setswana corpora based on the model introduced by Prinsloo and De Schryver (2001a). / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / African Languages / Unrestricted

Although, to a great extent, research has been done on pictorial illustrations in other text types, research into their use in dictionaries has been relatively limited. This study looks at the inclusion of pictorial illustrations in dictionaries with a special emphasis on African Language dictionaries. Ostensive addressing is an important lexicographic tool as it aids the lexicographer in conveying all the necessary details of the lemma and thus go a long way in making the dictionary a useful resource. In African Language dictionaries in particular, this is a good technique to express several of the concepts that probably do not have an equivalent in another language or are culture-specific. This can be attributed to the fact that the use of illustrations not only saves much needed space but also aids the lexicographer in defining the lemma thus leaving little room for misinterpretation. A survey of the African language dictionaries reveals that very few of these dictionaries do actually employ pictorial illustrations. This study argues that lexicographers need to consider this technique as an important element of dictionary compilation. / Thesis (MA (African Languages))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / African Languages / unrestricted