Abstract

The way in which monolingual dictionaries, understood as a discourse formation in their own right, construct realities is regarded as a critical research focus in the broader frame of critical discourse studies. In order to widen research in this area and to cultivate a critical public attitude towards the authority of dictionaries in questions of meaning, a toolbox for critical lexicographic research has been developed. The topic chosen for analysis is the production and negotiation of racism in the context of colonialism in modern monolingual German, Danish, and Swedish dictionaries.