(Re)shaping Cultures: The Politics of Lexicography with Reference to Ambrose Bierce's the Devil's Dictionary

Abstract

The paper focuses on how lexicography acts as a hegemonic practice in propagating and devaluing distinct ideologies. This process of compilation or in other words, the process of "meaning-making” involves a wide range of ideological manipulation. A scan through the canonical lexicons reveals a desire in the compiler to "control” language and consequently incorporate the biases and prejudices of the times. Lexicons by and large tend to fix and standardize meanings and hegemonise society by establishing itself as an unquestionable canon. The paper attempts to position Ambrose Bierce's the Devil's Dictionary as a counter-text in the genre of lexicography. The Dictionary deconstructs the canon by subverting meanings that prompt a re-reading of the dominant cultural values. Bierce's definition of dictionary itself presents the inherent playfulness of language which got cramped by the existing canon of lexicography: "a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of language and making it hard and inelastic” ("Dictionary” def.1).

The paper further investigates the politics of dictionary-making with reference to ideologies of class, race, religion, etc which pave way for power dynamics to function. By ratifying The Devil's Dictionary as a counter-hegemonic text, the paper will throw light on the various processes of manipulating cultural ideologies and the politics involved in meaning and canon making. Meanings constructed in relation to race, class, gender, and religion will be analysed deploying the theoretical inputs from Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams, Michel Foucault and Terry Eagleton.