Abstract
The genealogy of lexicography represents an ideal standpoint to reveal how sign-making practices may shape cultural objects. In this paper I discuss the revolution that lexicography undertook during the nineteenth century, showing why this process required the availability of a specific set of concepts, and then how it led up to the emergence of new social techniques, to the coming into being of a new kind of people, and to the introduction of new practices of sign-manipulation. Finally, I confront the historical development of lexicography with the project of the dictionary of Newspeak that Orwell envisioned in 1984.
About the author
Marco Annoni (b. 1981) is a PhD student at the University of Milan 〈marco.annoni@ifom-ieo-campus.it〉. His research interests include semiotics, Peirce, meaning in medicine, and information design. His publications include “L'etica della terminologia in Giovanni Vailati e Charles Sanders Peirce” (2009); and “World report: The Peirce Edition Project” (2011).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
