2. Some of the well-known English learner’s dictionaries

A real beginning of modern pedagogical lexicography is associated with the publication in 1963 of the second edition of the Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English by A. S. Hornby. This had enormous impact on English language teaching and brought about a truly revolutionary change: there was a reliable learning tool providing access to the English language and enabling learners to address the world of this language.

The uniqueness of Hornby’s dictionary for teachers and learners of English is connected in the first place with the fundamental principles which make learner’s dictionaries different from all others. Among them is the principle of user-orientation (sometimes also referred to as user-friendliness). As R. Hartmann puts it, “the first and foremost designing feature of learner’s dictionaries is that language coverage and mode of presentation are less important than didactic effectiveness” (Hartmann, 1984).

The notion of user-orientation is realized in a number of characteristic features proper to all contemporary learner’s dictionaries, such as:

1) careful control over the language of definitions (to make it easier for learners to identify and recognize the words’ meanings);

2) the provision of information on the grammar of words (starting with Hornby’s dictionary, it is now a feature of any good learner’s dictionary);

3) greater attention to lexical collocation: the learner’s dictionary should supply information about the contexts and environments in which words tend to appear most regularly. They give an account of what is typical, rather than describing what is simply possible (the feature of the native speaker’s dictionary);

4) the development of strategies for aiding appropriate word choice (through usage notes, synonym sets or information about pragmatics).

As we have a look at these fundamental features, we may become enlightened on the question of how learner’s dictionaries provide a key to language reality. Thus, the defining vocabulary used in such dictionaries presents considerable interest from the point of view of its didactic and conceptual value. For example, the very name of A. S. Hornby’s dictionary Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English suggested that the variety of English advanced learners are after could be obtained by having a look at the author’s own words, those chosen to be used in definitions and giving access to the rest of lexical items registered in the dictionary. Professor O. S. Akhmanova used to describe the defining lexicon in this dictionary as “the indispensable foundation of English vocabulary”.

The idea of introducing a restricted number of words used in definitions of all other items goes back to what has come to be called the vocabulary control movement. Already in 1930s C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards came up with the idea of Basic English limiting the number of words to 850. The questions asked by the originators of this movement included the following: “How many words provide a working vocabulary in a foreign language? What are the best words to learn first? What are the words that are more useful than others?” The project of Basic English was aimed at providing the basic minimum vocabulary in English. However, registers of Social English did not appear in this system, which together with other deficiencies made it difficult to use it in actual communication.

The General Service List compiled by Michael West was published in 1953. This vocabulary selection including 2,000 words developed very much along the same lines as Basic English. The main criteria used to single out this limited variety of items, supposedly giving access to 80 per cent of words in any written text, were: the frequency of words in written English, their relative prominence and usefulness in terms of definitional value. West’s notion of defining vocabulary is still one of the design principles of LDOCE.

With all the changes added to the 7th edition of OALD its key vocabulary still remains more extensive as compared with other learner’s dictionaries: here we have 3,000 words as against 2,000 items – the traditional size of the word-list used in definitions. It can be suggested therefore that it provides a better start for learners in dealing with ‘vocabulary at large’.

Lexicographic definitions serve a particular purpose – they are logical descriptions of the semantics of the word. In working out definitions of words the lexicographer abstracts himself from the niceties of a given national expression and conceives a given object or phenomenon from the point of view of what it essentially is.

Definitions of words as presented in dictionaries sometimes look odd because of the discrepancy between the simple nature of an object or phenomenon and its intricate and perplexing definition. For example, when a word like rain is defined as ‘condensed moisture of the atmosphere falling in separate drops, fall of such drops’, one cannot help wondering why there should be a clash of a simple word which is intuitively clear to everybody and the formal-logical register of its definition bringing about circumlocution. It should be said, however, that in the latest editions of learner’s dictionaries most definitions are put in ‘plain words’ and made more ‘user-friendly’:

Rain is water that falls from the clouds in small drops.

(Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary)

Definitions also reflect culture and traditions of their authors. Our World Knowledge reveals itself to a great extent through the language we speak, and the language in its turn is embodied and codified first and foremost in the dictionary. That is why we can say that lexicography plays a prominent role as a component of culture. A dictionary can select the information and the order of introducing meanings of words depending on the cultural pattern that is shared by its users. For example, if you look up London in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, you will see that the first meaning of the word is:

1. city Canada in South-East Ontario, on the Thames;

and only the second meaning gives reference to the capital of the United Kingdom:

2. city and port South-East England formerly constituting an administrative county; capital of United Kingdom

Similarly Paris and Moscow are treated in this peculiar (for a European person) way:

Paris

1. city in North-East Texas;

2. capital of France on the Seine

Moscow

1. river 315 miles in Western Russia, Europe, flowing East into the Oka;

2. capital of Russia on Moscow river

As can be seen from the definitions, the dictionary aims at presenting the familiar, well-known and recognizable information first, even if this is the case only with American users.

In dictionary entries definitions are followed by the illustrative material. This comprises philological citations and illustrative phrases. The former include contexts registered in the literary tradition, while the latter present all the varieties and genres of speech events which have been specially chosen to give the reader a clear idea of how the word is used. General-purpose and learner’s dictionaries are quite different in this respect.

Thus, if we turn to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (COD) edited by Fowler brothers, we shall see that for the most part it contains quotations from standard authors that are added to definitions of words. Although the volume was meant as ‘a living dictionary treating English at last as a living language’, the illustrative part in it is not great. The difference between COD and an up-to-date learner’s dictionary becomes clear the moment we turn to dictionary entries. For example, the verb to decide is explained in LDOCE in the following way:

to decide 1) to arrive at an answer or way out that ends uncertainty or disagreement about: the question /where to go/where they should go; 2) to come to hold or declare a stated belief: She decided to go/that she should go; 3) to bring to a clear or certain end: One blow decided the fight; 4) to cause to make a choice: Your words have decided me (to help you); 5) to make a choice or judgment: I’ve been waiting all day for them to decide! They decided in favor of him and against me. They have decided about it.

The core meaning of the word (1) is illustrated by an open-ended set of examples, which present the free combinability of the word. Other meanings, some of them being metaphoric (3), are also provided with clear and unambiguous illustrations.

COD shows a different picture. The very definition seems to depart from the established pattern: to decide – settle question, issue, dispute by giving victory to one side, give judgment, bring to a resolution. This is followed by no material that could explain the actual use of the word from the point of view of illustrative phraseology.

The problem of illustrations still remains because in learner’s dictionaries philological connotative utterances cannot always serve as examples proper for they are rather specific individual uses giving a loose idea of what more common senses of the word are. For example, Lord, love you! (to love); He lived as he narrated (to live) etc.

For illustrative phraseology the important thing is the openness of a series of pragmatic samples. This can be best achieved in demonstrating the primary literal meaning of the word, which is most often its ‘free’ meaning. It is different from other lexical-semantic variants because it enables the speaker to generate collocations proceeding from the semantic features of a given lexical unit. Other types of the word’s meaning are often determined by a number of phraseological and collocational patterns, and can no longer be regarded as ‘free’.

For example, not all patterns with the noun fashion can serve as the basis for an extended series of pragmatic illustrations: to be the fashion, to come into fashion, to go out of fashion, the latest fashion – are instances of lexically fixed combinations of limited productivity. The elements of these combinations cannot be freely replaced by other items: their substitutability is restricted.

In Paris fashion we have a different pattern where fashion is associated with style in clothes. Here again there isn’t much freedom of choice because if we extend the series of attributes, we might have a new meaning: Moscow fashion or Tokyo fashion can also mean ‘a way of doing something’.

At the same time the pattern the latest fashion in smth gives us a good chance to develop an open set of illustrations: the latest fashion in hats, boots, skirts, bags, gloves, clothes, cars, furniture etc.

Similarly we may have this kind of extensive phraseology in the case of fashions for men, women, children, the young, big and fat etc.

Another example. The verb to manage has a number of meanings. That is why we should proceed from a certain colligational (morpho-syntactic) pattern.

Colligation 1 – ‘manage smth that requires knowledge or organization skills’ can be illustrated by an open thematic set of examples: to manage a shop, factory, administration, house, one’s family affairs, business etc.

To manage another slice of cake, however, will be different because this use is connotative.

Colligation 2 ‘manage smb. who requires control’ can also be developed on the basis of the open-choice principle: to manage a difficult person, a naughty child, horse, dog etc.

The verb to introduce in the colligation to introduce smth (what can be mentioned for the first time in one’s speech or writing) can be combined with quite a number of nouns: to introduce a name, concept, word, notion, subject, term, method, category, dichotomy etc.

Let us now have a look at the adjective rich. It is not easy to illustrate the free combinability of this word. Here we come across either phraseological combinations like the rich and the poor or established collocations of idiomatic character reflecting a rather limited and selective combinability of the word. Thus, for the colligation rich in/with smth we have contexts, such as:

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English

Oranges are rich in vitamin C. a play rich in humour a fertilizer rich in nitrogen

Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary

The seabed is rich in buried powdered minerals.

The story is rich in comic and dramatic detail.

This land is known to be rich with oil, gas, coal, and diamonds.

LDOCE does not illustrate this pattern at all.

Rich is also used of food, colors, sounds. But in most such cases we have the realization of different (or slightly different) senses of this ‘broad-meaning’ word rather than an open (unrestricted) set of examples. This can be confirmed by turning to the translation of word-combinations, for example: rich food – жирная пища, rich colors – яркие цвета, rich voice of the baritone – густой баритон, rich joke – колоритная шутка, rich experience – большой опыт.

The adjective rich seems to be determined by its conventional uses, and it is not always clear what comes over and above the well-established set of traditional examples to account for the ‘free’ collocability of the word.

One more type of illustrative information should be mentioned in this connection – the register-oriented examples. We may concern ourselves here with languages appropriate to various occupational fields. In working out this register we shall be interested in certain types of illustrations rather than others. For instance, in a Language for Specific Purposes Dictionary (LSP) aimed at philologists, the verb to cover will be highlighted in its pragmatically oriented uses like Prof A’s lecture has covered the subject thoroughly; His research covers a wide field; Do the rules cover all possible cases? – rather than in illustrations, such as Cats are covered with fur.

At present much attention is being given to the language of science, but this aspect of lexicographic work still remains to a great extent neglected. There are dictionaries of terms at our disposal, but terms cannot make up for the whole of language: they are used in contexts provided by words of general and general scientific vocabulary. Pragmatically oriented learner’s dictionaries are still required by specialists who try to achieve really good results in learning foreign languages. This trend was developed in works by some authors who focused on graded introduction to language vocabulary, specification of lexical syllabuses, constructing like R. Quirk, for example, core or nuclear Englishes for language learning purposes.

To provide most up-to-date information about the language learner’s dictionaries use corpora as sources of usage and illustrative material.