ABSTRACT
Drawing on methods of critical discourse analysis and focusing on the demystification of ideological patterns through close textual analysis, this chapter explores the construction of the implied child reader in three nineteenth-century children’s dictionaries, and the ways in which the adult speaker/narrator addresses the child addressee in entries related to play and gender. Contrary to the assumption that children’s dictionaries are twentieth-century phenomena, there were actually several dictionaries specifically for children in the nineteenth century. The aim of these works was not simply to define words but also to socialize children. Definitions of words related to play were often strongly didactic in setting parameters for acceptable (and unacceptable) fun for children. This moral didacticism was also part of an ongoing construction of gender identities. Entries related to play in children’s dictionaries further reinforced this gendered socialization. Moreover, lexicographers’ personal positions also influenced the dictionaries. For instance, Edgeworth’s and Murphy’s dictionaries contested some of the limitations commonly placed on girls.
