ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we wonder how Spanish dictionaries are studied and what methods can be used to make such a study meaningful, and to describe the dictionary as rigorously as possible. Dictionaries were created to be consulted, not studied, and its enormous heterogeneity as a human product (historical, material, cultural and linguistic) makes it as suggestive as it is intricate. When approaching a dictionary analysis, it is not possible to use the regular methods of text analysis, because a dictionary is a very particular text (or set of texts). However, the specific methods that are required can be adapted from those that are standard in social sciences.
Thus, in the first place (section 2), we will address the general question of dictionaries as an object of study: why it is interesting to study them, what opportunities and limitations this exercise has and how it is situated in metalexicography. Then (section 3), we review some publications on Spanish lexicography in recent years, to observe what research methods have been used to study dictionaries. Thirdly (section 4), we offer some guidance for the systematic analysis of dictionaries that can contribute to solving some of the observed limitations. The chapter finishes (section 5) providing lines of future work in the area.
