Longman used a computer to check that all the words in LDOCE's definitions were ... to carry to class today, but tomorrow a laptop or notebook computer may be ...
Learners dictionaries: development and diversity Ramesh Krishnamurthy, COBUILD, University of Birmingham, 19.11.96 Learners dictionaries are comparative newcomers on the English lexicographic scene. The first bilingual dictionaries appeared in the 16th Century and monolingual dictionaries in the early 17th, but the first dictionary designed specifically for foreign learners of English, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD), did not appear until 1948. OALD claimed that it combined `the traditions of the Oxford Dictionaries' with the `languageteaching skills' of its editor, A.S. Hornby and provided `the student and teacher of the English Language with the most practically useful and comprehensive record of the language as it is spoken and written today'. Certainly it has proved to be enormously popular (with new editions in 1963, 1974, 1989, and 1995). But what exactly is the difference between a `learners' dictionary and an ordinary (`nativespeakers'?) dictionary? Comparing the last few entries in Z in OALD (1974) and the Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) of roughly the same vintage (1976), one difference is immediately obvious. OALD has `zone, zonal, zoning, zonked, zoo, zoology, zoological, zoological gardens, zoologist, zoom, zoom lens, zoophyte, zucchini, and Zulu'. A fairly reasonable selection for a learner (except for `zoophyte'? Did the `traditions of the Oxford Dictionaries' cloud Hornby's judgment?). COD has all of these, but also many others: zonary, zonate, compounds of `zoo' from zoogeography to zootomy, and so on, plus numerous entries after `Zulu'. Coverage is not the only difference: OALD has illustrations and shows hyphenation points for headwords, COD does not; OALD uses IPA symbols for pronunciations, COD uses diacritical marks or respelling; OALD omits etymologies (as do most learners dictionaries - why?), COD includes them; OALD has far more examples (e.g. `take the children to the zoo') than COD. OALD has much more grammatical information, showing when a noun is countable in some meanings but uncountable in others ([C] and [U]), and giving detailed patterns for verbs (e.g `vi [VP2A, C]' for the verb `zoom' as opposed to plain `v.i.' in COD) - learners need to know not only that a verb is `intransitive', but also the type of clause that can follow it (-ing, to-infinitive, that, etc). And the definitions in OALD are usually simpler than in COD (cf `sudden upward flight of an aircraft' and `Aeroplane's steep climb'). For nearly three decades, OALD was the only learners dictionary. But in the 70s and 80s, several other publishers entered the market. This may have been due to the general boom in EFL and the success of other EFL publications (coursebooks, grammars, usage books, etc). It may also have been the result of changes in theory and methodology: Chomskyan linguistics and EFL structural teaching methods were giving way to more lexically-oriented models of language and language learning. The Collins (1974), Nelson (1977), and Chambers (1980) dictionaries are fairly similar, and not particularly remarkable. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE, 1978), although very similar in general appearance to OALD, introduced several important innovations: using a `controlled defining vocabulary'; using authentic data from London University's Survey of English Usage; providing Usage Notes in which close synonyms were disambiguated (eg `travel, journey, voyage'); greatly reducing the number of `embedded' items, making them headwords and thus easier for learners to find. LDOCE also used academic terminology (e.g. `phrasal verbs', `verb complementation', and `collocations' instead of OALD's
`verb with a particle or preposition', `verb patterns' and `words that the headword usually combines with'). In the 70s and 80s, several shorter or simplified editions of learners dictionaries were published, as well as new dictionaries that focussed on particular subsets of lexis such as phrasal verbs (Collins 1974, Oxford 1975, Longman 1978) and idioms (Longman 1979, Oxford 1983). The lexicographic profession also began to organize itself and create opportunities for discussion (e.g. the European association EURALEX was founded in 1983 and held a Seminar on Learner's Dictionaries in Leeds in 1985). Probably the biggest revolution in lexicography occurred in the 1980s, caused by rapid advances in technology. Computer-typesetting was already establishing itself. In 1978, Longman used a computer to check that all the words in LDOCE's definitions were part of its `controlled vocabulary'. The Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary (CCELD) published in 1987 was the first to make use of computers throughout its creation. A vast amount (c. 20 million words) of spoken and written English texts was assembled in a computer corpus, the language was analysed with the help of computer programs, the analysis was stored in a database and later extracted semi-automatically into computer files, which were edited online and used to typeset the dictionary. CCELD introduced several other major innovations: all the main forms of a headword were given in full (not abbreviated to `-tt-' to show doubling, or `-er' for comparative forms); definitions (now termed `explanations') were expressed in full sentences showing typical linguistic patterns and contexts (no longer `gallop, (of a horse) to run very fast' but instead `When a horse gallops, it runs very fast'); examples were taken straight from the corpus, not invented by lexicographers; meanings (or rather `uses') were ordered largely by frequency of occurrence; grammar and semantic relations were separated from the main text and printed in a separate column to the right. CCELD was clearly in touch with the technological mood of the times. When the 2nd edition was published in 1995, new editions of OALD and LDOCE and new learners dictionaries from Cambridge University Press and Chambers Harrap also appeared, and all of them now laid claim to being corpus-based. CCELD and LDOCE also indicated word frequencies in their new editions. Cambridge and LDOCE added semantic markers. Cambridge also raised every meaning of every word to headword status. In the past 50 years or so, then, we have witnessed the birth of a new type of dictionary and a substantial move from rationalism to empiricism (from intuition-based dictionaries to corpusbased ones), from a formal definition style to an informal, interactive style, and from using made-up examples to using authentic citations. Some of these changes are still the subject of heated lexicographic debate, but the questions have subtly changed. No longer `Why do we need a corpus?' but `How big a corpus do we need?' and `What should the corpus contain?'. No longer `What is wrong with made-up examples?' but `Should we use examples straight from the corpus, or edit them, or model them on the corpus examples?'. Some recent developments are more difficult to evaluate: in 1992, both Oxford and Longman published editions of their learners dictionaries enhanced by encyclopedic and cultural information; in 1993, Langenscheidt published a `German as a Foreign Language' learners
dictionary; several publishers have produced `semi-bilingual' versions of their learners dictionaries, with translation equivalents, or partly or wholly translated definitions. The influence of the innovations in learners dictionaries is also evident in corpus-based nativespeaker and bilingual dictionaries (e.g. the 1994 Oxford-Hachette French-English dictionary used a corpus of French as well as a corpus of English). One of the exciting areas of development in the near future is likely to be the new media (diskettes are already becoming obsolete, CD-Roms seem to be in fashion). And beyond that, online dictionaries. Cobuild has been making corpus data available for some time, first in printed form (the Concordance Samplers series), then on CD-Rom (a 5-million-word Word Bank forms part of `Cobuild on CD-Rom'; the Collocations CD-Rom contains 2.6 million corpus examples). Academic colleagues working in CALL (computer-assisted-languagelearning) are creating new software to make more use of corpus data. DDL (data-drivenlearning) is developing a methodology. As access to corpus data becomes easier and cheaper to obtain, it is likely that language students and teachers will have to radically alter their habits and ideas. Why be content with someone else's analysis when you can conduct your own? The information that can be squeezed into a printed dictionary is necessarily partial and limited by the skill of the lexicographers and the time allotted to them. A printed dictionary may be easier to carry to class today, but tomorrow a laptop or notebook computer may be better suited to the learners' needs.
