Abstract

Lexicography is the discipline that deals with dictionaries and other reference works designed to be consulted in order to retrieve information. Although there is general agreement in the community about this short definition, much more controversial is the disciplinary status of lexicography. This is not surprising in a discipline based on a millenary cultural practice which has created works of very different types and covering almost all spheres of human activity and thinking. Hence, if we take the two words included in the title of this contribution (i.e. independent and science), the different opinions on whether or not lexicography can be regarded as independent (in relation to other disciplines) and a science can, roughly speaking, be divided into four big groups with no sharp dividing lines and much overlapping.