Expertise in defining word "senses" as contested professional turf

How language materializes connections between individuals and groups is a fundamental sociological issue. White posits that talk constitutes the links in social networks and theorizes ambiguity as sparking creation of socio-cultural forms aiming toward ever-elusive shared meanings (not necessarily agreement).(White, 2003; Godart & White, 2010) Certain linguists (Bakhtin, Vygotsky cited in Emerson, 1983) also highlighted the unique variety of semiotic associations (i.e., meanings) individuals bring to words.

              Therefore, "definitions" (assigned meanings) as constructed and caged in dictionaries, are necessarily hegemonic, to varying degrees (Kirchner, 2009). Dictionaries themselves can be viewed as negotiated cultural efforts to impose "definitions" (reduce ambiguity) on variant, always-changing usages. Indeed, for professionals whose work is writing dictionaries, i.e., Lexicographers, the core challenge concerns handling "senses" that shadow all words. Decisions abound: What is a "sense of a word" vs a separate word vs. an ignorable variant? How many senses should be specified? In what order? What if the senses of different words seem to overlap in meaning – i.e., when should they be considered "synonyms"? Are synonyms possible?

              Abbott's theory of professions (1988) as competing ways of organizing expertise, and claiming mandates over tasks in that domain (turf). provides a useful frame for analyzing the influence of digital technologies on contested control over language. This paper extends prior work (Kirchner, 2011) on the turf of  "Word-Sense Disambiguation," emerging as the site of competing claims by "Computational Linguistics" (CompLing) and traditional Lexicographers, In-between, the small specialty of "Computational Lexicography" (CompLex) mediates the differences. It is too soon to tell whether CompLex will help seal the demise of traditional lexicography, overwhelmed by CompLing; or will become the mechanism by which a modernized Lexicography constrains CompLing's turf-spread. Implications for participatory dictionary-making (e.g., Wiktionary and the wider "WikiWorld") are considered.