Reinhard Hartmann - Career

Career

Reinhard Hartmann was born on 8 April 1938 in Vienna, Austria, as the son of Walther and Gerta Hartmann. He obtained a degree at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, where he later wrote a doctoral dissertation on public economy control and auditing, studied at the University of Vienna, where he was awarded a diploma in English translation, and was a postgraduate student at Southern Illinois University, where he received an M.A. in international economics.

In 1964, Hartmann moved to Manchester where he married Lynn Warren and where their children Nasim and Stefan were born. He started his career with an appointment as lecturer in modern languages at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. This was followed in 1968 by a lectureship in applied linguistics at the University of Nottingham. From 1974 onwards, Hartmann held senior posts in the Language Centre and the School of English at the University of Exeter, where he also organised a number of influential conferences, such as LEXeter ’83 which led to the creation of the European Association of Lexicography (EURALEX), the International Journal of Lexicography and the book series Lexicographica Series Maior (of which he was one of the co-editors from 1984 to 2008, during which period 134 volumes were published). He attended 12 of the 13 biennial congresses that have been held since 1983, contributing papers at half of them and acting as first secretary and fourth president.

Hartmann has also been involved in the founding of AFRILEX (Johannesburg 1995) and ASIALEX (Hong Kong 1997). Other conferences he hosted at Exeter include one on the history of lexicography (Hartmann 1986), which demonstrated that lexicographic traditions differ considerably by dictionary types and languages, and one on lexicography in Africa (Hartmann 1990). He has acted as a consultant to a number of bodies, received a number of grants and fellowships to spend time abroad and to participate in various initiatives to promote the discipline. He also welcomed several visiting scholars for periods at Exeter University. His achievements have been recorded in several international directories, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

While at Exeter, Hartmann supervised over 45 M.A. and 30 Ph.D. dissertations, specialising on such aspects as dictionary criticism (evaluating their many different features), dictionary history (tracing their varying traditions), dictionary typology (classifying their different genres), dictionary use (observing the reference skills needed to access information), contrastive linguistics, translation and bilingual lexicography.

Upon his retirement in 2001, the Dictionary Research Centre that Hartmann had established at the University of Exeter was transferred to the University of Birmingham where he was awarded the title of Honorary Professor of Lexicography in the School of English. Since 2007, Hartmann has been consolidating his various lists of conferences, institutions, dictionary projects, dissertations, and periodicals into an International Directory of Lexicography Institutions.