Choose a dictionary you are familiar with. Then . . .

Types of Dictionary

1. the dictionary’s language(s):is it . . .

a.monolingual

b.bilingual: if so, is it . . .

(1) unidirectional (A unidirectional bilingual dictionary, as the name implies, goes ‘one way’: a bilingual English-French dictionary contains a single text in which the source language (SL) is English and the target language (TL) is French)

(2) bidirectional (A bidirectional bilingual dictionary contains two texts and works ‘both ways’: in a bilingual English-French dictionary there is one text in which the SL is English and the TL is French, and a second text where the SL is French and the TL is English)

c.multilingual (but we don’t want to go there in this book)

2. the dictionary’s coverage:is it . . .

a.general language

b.encyclopedic and cultural material

c.terminology or sublanguages (e.g. a dictionary of legal terms, cricket, nursing)

d.specific area of language (e.g. a dictionary of collocations, phrasal verbs, or idioms)

a. Pronouncing

b. Spelling

c. Etymological

d. Of Synonyms and Antonyms

e. Rhyming

f. Of Phrases

g. Of Usage

h. Of Difficult Words

i. Of New Words

j. Of Obsolete Words

k. Dialect

l. Of Slang

m. Of Names

n. Of Abbreviations

o. For Children

p. For Crossword puzzlers

q. For foreigners

3. the dictionary’s size:is it a . . .

a.standard (or ‘collegiate’) edition

b.concise edition

c.pocket edition

4. the dictionary’s medium:is it . . .

a.print

b.electronic (e.g. DVD or handheld)

c.web-based

5. the dictionary’s organization:is it . . .

a.word to meaning (the most common)

b.word to meaning to word (where looking up one word leads to other semantically related words)

6. the users’ language(s):is the dictionary meant for . . .

a.a group of users who all speak the same language

b.two specific groups of language-speakers

c.learners worldwide of the dictionary’s language

7. the users’ skills:are they . . .

a.linguists and other language professionals

b.literate adults

c.school students

d.young children

e.language learners

8. what they use the dictionary for: is it for one or both of the following . . .

a.decoding, which is . . .

– understanding the meaning of a word

– translating from a foreign language text into their own language

b.encoding, which is . . .

– using a word correctly

– translating a text in their own language into a foreign language

– language teaching

User Profiling

Types of user

Which of these groups do you expect them to belong to?

_ adults, young children, or older children

_ native speakers (of the language of the dictionary) or language learners

– if learners, are they beginners, intermediate, or advanced?

_ general users or specialists

– if specialists, what field are they working in?

_ using the dictionary in an educational, domestic, or professional setting

Types of use

Which of these tasks do you expect them to use the dictionary for?

_ general reference purposes, such as

– understanding unfamiliar words

– checking spellings or pronunciations

– doing crosswords

_ studying a particular subject

_ learning a language

_ translating text from one language to another

_ writing essays or reports

– in their first language

– in a language they are learning

_ preparing for a written or oral exam

Users’ pre-existing skills

What skills and knowledge will they have?

In particular, can you rely on . . .

_ their linguistic knowledge:

– How proficient are they in the language(s) used in the dictionary?

– Do they know (or need to know) what is meant by terms like ‘noun’, ‘present participle’, and ‘transitive’?

– Can you assume they know regular morphology, or should you give information on all inflections?

_ their familiarity with ‘standard’ dictionary conventions:

– Do they understand abbreviations like adj?

– Do they understand linguistic labels such as informal or derog.?

– Do they understand grammatical codes, or cross-references to other entries?

– Do they know how words are pronounced, or will you need to provide pronunciations? If so, will they know the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), or will you need to show pronunciation in some other way?

Content

_ Which headwords (and which meanings) should the dictionary include? Other questions in this area:

– How many headwords does the dictionary need to contain?

– Will users want to look up literary, dated, or obsolete words?

– Should the dictionary include dialect words?

– Should it cover specialist terms, and if so, which domains are most relevant to users?

_ And, for each headword, which information categories are most important? Here, too, other questions arise:

– Do your users know about (or need to know about) how words combine grammatically?

– Do they need information about pronunciation or the stress patterns of phrases?

– Do they already know how regular verbs inflect, or will you need to tell them this?

– Do they need to know about typical contexts of the headword?

Presentation: metalanguage

_ What linguistic skills can you expect your users to have? Other questions that follow from this one:

– Will definitions need to be written in simplified language?

– Can we use IPA to show pronunciations?

– Are users familiar with terms relating to transitivity, countability, and collocation?

_ What reference skills can you assume in your users? Here we ask:

– Will they understand ‘standard’ abbreviations (such as adj, phr vb, or AmE)?

– Can you use ‘codes’ to indicate syntactic behaviour, or should this information be carefully spelled out?

Presentation: design and layout

_ What is the best way to set out the material so that the dictionary is easy to use but still contains enough information?

Exercise

Choose a dictionary you are familiar with. Then . . .

1. Describe the dictionary in terms of its properties:

_ Make a list of the properties.

_ Which dictionary type best matches your list of properties?

2. Draw up a user profile for this dictionary in terms of the following:

_ types of user

_ ways in which they will want to use the dictionary

_ the skills they bring to the task

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 905