What Should a Learner's Dictionary Include?

VI. Conclusion and Recommendations:

VI.I. Conclusion:

This study has been concerned with three dictionaries: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary and Cambridge International Dictionary of English. A set of methods has been set up in the form of a heuristicchecklist and twenty six words have been randomly chosen to form the corpus of the study. The corpus has been examined with respect to three major domains: Semantic Component, Grammatical Information and Ancillary Information. The findings have been organised and provided in the appendices of this study.

The findings of the present piece of research have proved useful in evaluating how much the learner learns in consulting any of the three dictionaries named above. In other words, the ultimate goal of our discussion is to arrive at a point where we can understand whether the learner’s knowledge with respect to a word has been enhanced or not. Following is an overall analysis and evaluation of the three dictionaries:

1-Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English

OLDCE has proved to be somehow insufficient and inefficient in the three domains of the heuristicchecklist. Paraphrase is rather concise, illustrative examples are limited and restricted to fragments and phrases instead of clauses and sentences. Lexical relations are also rare (23.08%). There are, however, a few examples illustrating the use of words, though these examples are in the form of fragments and phrases rather than full sentences or clauses. These illustrative examples are also poor in collocations and fixed expressions.

In the syntactic standpoint, OLDCE pays attention to all verbs of the corpus in terms of their argument structures. This is a good advantage, yet OLDCE needs to revise the nature and positions of symbols in this regard. These symbols have proved to be difficult to understand by the learner, and should be placed on the margin of every sense so they can be clearly and easily identified. ‘Stative” and “Dynamic’ labels should also be taken into account.

OLDCE still needs to further its presentation in terms of noun countability and adjective classification (gradable and non-gradable, attributive or predicative).

It is optional for OLDCE to enter the variation of usage in international English as a new feature or method of defining a word. Also, it is not obligatory for it to display the pronunciations of British English and American English simultaneously.

2-Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary

On the semantic level, this dictionary has been satisfactory in providing a good paraphrase of words, lexical relations including synonyms, antonyms and superordinates. Formality and technicality have been observed in 42.31% of the words, but what gives CCELD advantage over other dictionaries is its use of illustrative examples with respect to all the twenty six words of the corpus. CCELD has passed the efficiency test we have previously posited for examining this use against the question: “How much do these illustrative examples provide for collocations and idioms?” The result is amusing, 64 collocations and expressions could be learnt from the twenty six words definitions.

On the syntactic level, CCELD has been keen in providing all argument structures of each single sense of the 6 verbs incorporated in the corpus. Noun countability has been fully observed, but the dictionary needs to specify explicitly the gradability of adjectives. The illustrative examples should be reviewed in a manner that they would contain much syntactic information of the word when it comes in a clause or a sentence.

CCELD has well observed, as well, the derivational and inflectional forms of the majority of words concerned. CELD states its main interest in the introductory as the target learner of British English. In view of this, it would not be obligatory that CCELD observes the variations of spelling, pronunciation and lexical usage among the various English varieties. It has however, in some cases, provided for information on specific expressions used only by the American English speakers.

3- Cambridge International Dictionary of English

The dictionary on the whole is interesting and satisfactory, with some reservations on the style of presentation. CIDE, nevertheless, is characterised by the organisation of its word-senses and labeling each sense with a “Guide Word” that facilitate the process of looking up a word. Syntactic information and rules are also made available in the front matter as well as in the body (where appropriate). Illustrative examples are also efficiently utilised. These provide the learner with some syntactic and semantic features of the word concerned. Collocations, idioms and expressions exist. CIDE, moreover, has the following unique features:

1- It pays attention to the pronunciations of other varieties of English, such as American English and Australian English in addition to British English.

2-It warns the learner of using false friends. This will help reduce the interference of the learner’s mother tongue in his learning of English.

3-It keeps the learner aware of the semantic differences in using words by various English varieties. An example has been noted in the above discussion, when CIDE states that while British English uses ‘awning’, American English uses ‘sunshade’ and Australian English uses ‘sunblind’ to refer to the same meaning.

CIDE is on the whole presentable, meaning that is comfortable to use, yet it needs a re-arrangement of its symbols regarding the verb argument structure features and other ones pertaining to other classes of words such as adjectives, nouns, prepositions, etc.

VI.2. Recommendations

"What should a learner's dictionary include?" This question, the title of the paper, should be answered by both the learner and the lexicographer. On the one hand, the learner should define his needs and know exactly whether a dictionary he has bought fulfills his needs in learning a foreign language. On the other hand, the lexicographer should be aware of the real needs in all the fields according to the heuristic checklist devised in this paper.

We recommend also that further studies touch on some areas not covered in this paper such as: overall presentation, cultural information necessary for understanding a word or one of its senses, word etymology, false friends, computerized versions of learner's dictionaries.

The learner's dictionary is in fact not a book of syntax or morphology, i.e. such pieces of information should not be very elaborate in the dictionary, but it should be satisfactory when the learner learns a word or one of its senses.

As far as ancillary information is concerned, it is recommended that a dictionary provides such information as: tables that shows frequency of words, irregular verbs, colors and words ending with certain suffixes like –logy, -ism, etc.

Bibliography

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4- Cowise, Anthony (ed.). 1995. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Oxford. Oxford University Press.

5- Hamdan J. and Fareh, S.1997. “Dictionaries as a potential Source of Error for Arab EFL Learners: Evidence from verb Argument Structures” Studia Anglica Posaniensia, XXXII, pp. 21-41

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11- Sinclair, J. et. al. 1990. Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. London. Williams Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.

Online References:

1- Abu-S’Eleek, Ali. The Syntactic Consequences of Differences in American and British English Usage in Longman Dictionary of English Language And Culture. Retrieved from: http://alifarhan11.tripod.com/1.htm on January 1, 2001

2- Gethin, A. and Gunnenmark, Erik. Learning Vocabulary1. Retrieved from: http://www.geth.demon.co.uk/voc.html

3- Meho, Lokman. DICTIONARIES: Outline of Significant Points. Retrieved from: http://www.albany.edu/~meho/isp605/dictionaries.html 4- Szynalski, Tomasz and Wojcik, Michal. Review of the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners Retrieved from: http://www.antimoon.com/how/cobuild-review.htm on January 20, 2003