Von der Markierung zur Beschreibung: Besonderheiten des (Wort-)Gebrauchs in elexiko

Elexiko is a lexicological-lexicographic, corpus-guided German Internet reference work (cf. www.elexiko.de). Compared to printed dictionaries, in elexiko, restrictions on space disappear. Specific comments on the use of a word do not need to be given in traditional abbreviated forms, like the so-called field labels or usage. In this paper, I will show its advantages for the description of the particular pragmatic characteristics of a word: I will argue that traditional labelling such as formal, informal, institutional, etc. cannot account for the comprehensive pragmatic dimension of a word and that these are not transparent, particularly for non-native speakers of German. The main focus of the paper will be on an alternative approach to this dictionary information-as suggested by elexiko. I will demonstrate how narrative, descriptive and user friendly notes can be formulated for the explanation of the discursive contextual embedding or tendencies of evaluative use. I will outline how lexicographers can derive such information from language data in an underlying corpus which was designed and compiled for specific lexicographic purposes. Both, the theoretical-conceptual ideas and their lexicographic realisation in elexiko will be explained and illustrated with the help of relevant dictionary entries