ABSTRACT
Lexicography techniques are often understood as the application of technologies and methods in the development of dictionaries. However, metalexicographic studies have rarely examined all the non-alphabetically ordered components that make up a paper dictionary, such as: forewords, user guides, appendices containing grammatical information, illustrations, etc. Lexicographic texts are subject to a rigorous and immovable linearity from A to Z, but this linearity is broken by the insertion of theme-based complementary explanations. Furthermore, the items that form the interior design (typographic families, text column layout, guide word use, etc.) of a lexicographic repertoire provide important complementary information but are, nevertheless, seldom studied.
In this chapter, we start by describing the dictionary as a book in which each component is more or less identified as a continent for the various types of lexicographic content.
Then, once we have reviewed the traditional lexicographic paper edition conventions, we will discuss which of these remain relevant in today’s digital lexicographic world.
