Defining Chinese lexicography: an overview of the 1990s debate on its terminology and academic status

In 1990, in the context of an unprecedented growth for lexicography in China, the authoritative academic journal Lexicographical Studies (Cishu yanjiu 辞书研究) launched a special column, intended as a discussion forum through which lexicographers and scholars on the subject could contribute to the development of the theory of Chinese lexicography. In response to the editors’ call, in the following years, many contributions were published on the topic, giving rise to an academic debate cantered on some unresolved fundamental theoretical and terminological issues which needed to be tackled to ensure the development of the discipline in China.
Mainly relying on contributions written by Chinese scholars in the 1990s, the present paper focuses on this debate and provides an overview of the most representative views and positions. Specifically, two fundamental and interwoven issues are addressed: the need for scholars to standardise the basic terminology of Chinese lexicography and achieve consistency in its scholarly usage, and the relationship that lexicography entertains with linguistics as a discipline. Moreover, the paper discusses the matter of lexicographical terminology from the perspective of translation.