Dictionary of Public Life Terms: Notion, Preparation and Execution

Abstract

The Dictionary of Public Life Terms in Jordan has been an important step in the development of Arab lexicology, which derives its significance from following the documentary approach based on a direct recording of a particular language expressions used in Jordan. It gains further significance from the uniqueness of its use of the term “Public Life Terms”, its difference from the use of the term, “Colloquial Terms” as well as from its consistency with the use of the term “The Language of the Elite”. This research has, therefore, endeavored to explore this new direction in Arab lexicology and to analyze it systematically and in accordance with the general theory of human languages lexicology. It has highlighted both the positive and the negative aspects as part of an attempt to produce a critical reading that calls for the need for a lexicological methodology that would be free of semantic and dialectical interfusion, the duality of organization, negligence, arbitrary use of Arabized and standard Arabic terms, neglecting of the lexical etymology of some words and the subjective view of lexical definitions.