Abstract

The functional dictionaries are considered to be part of the general dictionaries that deal with concepts and language terminologies in a field of knowledge or an art, and arrange the language entries in a systematic way . This topic is so important and therefore, I would like to conduct an objective, descriptive, and analytical study using the entries and concepts approved in the lexical science . This study adopts two main entries of studying the dictionary: definition, and arrangement. These two main entries are the ones that determine the identity of the dictionary. A given dictionary would never include entries that are not arranged and outlined in any specific and systematic order that the author would like their dictionary to be based on and are not defined in accordance with the definitions used in the dictionaries (Bin Murad, 1993). When a dictionary lacks one of those two main entries, it would probably be given another name rather than a dictionary, such as nomenclature, or glossary (Bin Murad, 1999) This study is based on a methodology that compares between two types of functional Arabic dictionaries; the first one is specialized in general arts definitions, including the two books of Sharif Ali Al Jarjani "Definitions of Arts" and "الفنون اصطالحات افَكش "of Tahanwi. The other one is pertaining to a specific art the art, namely the Dictionary of Rhetorical Terms And their Development by Ahmed Matlob, and The Phonetics Dictionary by Rashid Abdul Rahman AlObaidi. The study focuses on the methods and entries of arrangement and in the four Books, as well as the techniques of the definition and proving examples that have been used in those flour dictionaries. The study also uses some other functional dictionaries to draw a comparison in order to identify the rules that govern arrangement and definitions in the dictionaries in general and more specifically in those four dictionaries. The study aims to reveal the rules that govern the arrangement and definition in those books and critique those methods and then propose a general framework for functional dictionaries' structure that the educators and researchers would easily use.