ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by reconsidering a neglected class of texts that I have elsewhere termed ‘colony’ texts (Hoey, 1986). It was suggested in passing in that paper that the components of such texts might form strong semantic relations at a distance from each other. Although this claim has been tested on criminal statutes, it has never been tested on dictionaries, even though the claim was originally illustrated with a pair of dictionary definitions. This chapter seeks to show that the claim indeed holds for dictionaries as for statutes. In doing so, however, it uncovers a systematic bias in the dictionary definitions in preference of men, a bias that has arisen despite the explicit intentions to the contrary of the dictionary makers. It is argued that this is the result of their having worked with a corpus of the contemporary English language that gives undue representation to the male voice. The dictionary in this way not only reflects bias but also helps to perpetuate it.
