Figurative, Transferred or Extended use? The Use of Semantic Labels in the First Edition and the Revised Version of the Swedish Academy Dictionary

In this paper, a doctoral study on the description of semantic change in the Swedish Academy Dictionary (SAOB) is presented. The starting point for the study is semantic labels like figurative and in extended use. Five such labels in SAOB are examined, mainly with methods from the cognitive linguistic framework. The results show, among other things, that the most labelled mechanism is metaphor, that metaphor and metonymy often co-occur and that such co-occurrences often are expressed and explained in the dictionary with combined
or modified labels. Furthermore, there seems to be a certain overlap between some of the labels in use, and one could question if all five labels are needed. Since the first volume of SAOB was completed in 2023 and a revision project now is launched, it is possible to make practical use of the results of the study in the dictionary. Therefore, some practical outcomes and applications that are either planned or already started are also presented in this paper.