One aspect of this research is quantitative. The web is of course part of the next big step.Ĭorpus analysis is an area of research that has broadened the scope of a number of different fields of language analysis. After the monolingual Portuguese dictionaries had put their content on a CD-rom, bilingual dictionaries started experimenting with new media and are likely to set new trends in years to come. Bilingual dictionary publishers, on the other hand, only started functioning seriously around the year 2000, but were applying more modern working standards and are now clearly at the cutting edge.
Afterwards this branch seems to have largely run out of steam, either out of complacency or for want of new ideas. When one looks at Brazilian dictionary production these last forty years, one finds there was a surge in monolingual dictionary making at the beginning of the seventies which lasted till 2002 approximately.
Few publishers have targeted the potential of French, Italian or German audiences of language learners. In comparison, bilingual dictionary production is of a more modest range in terms of numbers and clearly concentrates on English. Rather astonishingly, Brazil has four fully-fledged national dictionaries presently in print. Being a so-called ‘emerging economy’ at the cultural periphery of the Western world, Brazilian dictionary landscape shows a few peculiar features.
This article aims at analyzing the cross-roads at which Brazilian dictionary production stands as the result of a specific geographical, sociological and historical situation.
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