Non-professional dialect dictionaries: specifics of their Internet-functioning

The article is devoted to dabbler dialect dictionaries available on the Slovak Internet. It shows how the specifics of the global network affect the functioning of dabbler dictionary, given the fact that the Internet blurs the boundaries between the author and the collective, the professional and the amateur. Compared to offline, online dictionaries make part of a broader, semiotic and communicative context. The Internet-specific characteristics of online dictionaries are the ways of access to them: placement and categorization, which refer to the dictionary for a specific portal. Global portals most often place dictionaries which include all the words that users feel as locally marked. Another group of pages is a transitional type between the global and the local: dictionaries which describe idioms of relatively isolated ethnic groups, as well as being portals of public or commercial organizations. Regional webpages which contain dialect dictionaries often represent official portals of the settlement, dictionaries here are placed in the historical and cultural information block. Authors' features include the anonymity of the dictionary or the presence of a fixed author, in case of the existence of information about the author, the character and scope of this information. In most cases, authors are anonymous, but authors of more extensive dictionaries may be specified. Relevant are the origin and place of residence of authors, but not their education, family members of authors who assisted them in their work can also be given. A separate issue is the distinction between dictionaries and phrasebooks: in practice these concepts are often mixed. From the actual dictionary characteristics relevant are their principle of construction and the total volume. By volume, they are divided into three groups: 1) about 50 words; 2) about 150 to 200 words; 3) about 500-600 words. Dictionaries of larger volume attempt to explicate the meanings of the words. In the Slovak fragment of the Internet, along with the memorative orientation, compilers show the trend to present their region as having certain cultural and linguistic specifics. In addition to the author, an important role in the functioning of a dialectal dictionary belongs to the support of the appropriate network resource. The questions of the relationship between the lexemes presented in online dictionaries and actual speech practices of the originator remain debatable. Outside the article is the question of the differential / integral nature of dictionaries and their interactive properties.

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