A course In Modern English Lexicology

§ 14. Main Characteristic
Features le
xicography is given great attention to, espe-
of Learner’s Dictionaries ci
ally in our country. Lexicographers, lin-
guists and methods specialists discuss such problems as the classification of learner’s dictionaries,1 the scope of the. word-list for learners at different stages of advancement, the principles of word selection, etc.
In the broad sense of the word the term l e a r n e r ’ s d i c t i o n a r -
i e s might be applied to any word-book designed as an aid to various users, both native and foreign, studying a language from various angles.
Thus, we might refer to this group of word-books such reference books as Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon by H. Sweet, the numerous school-level or college-level dictionaries for native speakers, the numerous spelling-books, etc. By tradition the term is confined to dictionaries specially compiled to meet the demands of the learners for whom English is not their mother tongue. It is in this sense that we shall use the term further on.
These dictionaries differ essentially from ordinary academic dictionaries, on the one hand, and from word-books compiled specially for English and American schoolchildren and college students, on the other hand.
Though foreign language learners and children speaking the same language as their mother tongue have both imperfect command of English, it is obvious that the needs and problems of the two groups of dictionary users are altogether different. A foreign adult student of 1 See, e.g., the discussion “What should a learner’s dictionary be like?” on the pages of the magazine «Русский язык за рубежом», also «Вопросы учебной лексикографии»
под ред. П. Н. Денисова и Л. А. Новикова, М., 1969.
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English even at a moderately advanced stage of learning will have pitfalls and needs of his own: among the other things he may have difficulties with the use of the most “simple” words (such as play, wipe), he may not know the names for commonest things in everyday life (such as oatmeal, towel, rug) and he will experience in this or that degree interference of his mother tongue.
On the one hand, we have users who for the most part have command of the language, who have fluent speech habits, since this language is their mother tongue; they need guidance as to which of the usage they come across is correct. On the other hand, we have users that have a limited vocabulary and no speech habits or very weak ones and who have stable speech habits in another language which is their native tongue and these native speech habits interfere with the foreign ones. That is why these users must be given thorough instruction in how the words are to be used and this instruction must be given against the background of the learners’ native language.
That is why the word-lists and the sort of directions for use for the benefit of the foreign adult learners of English must differ very widely (if not fundamentally) from those given to English or American schoolchildren.
Hence the word-books of this group are characterised by the following features:
1) by their strictly limited word-list, the selection of which is based on carefully thought over scientific principles;
2) the great attention given to the functioning of lexical units in speech; 3) a strong prescriptive, normative character;
4) by their compilation with the native linguistic background in view.
Learner’s dictionaries may be classified in
§ 15. Classification accordance with different principles, the main of Learner’s Dictionaries
of which are: 1) the scope of the word-list and 2) the nature of the information afforded.
From the point of view of the scope (volume) of the word-list they fall into two groups. Those of the first group contain all lexical units that the prospective user may need, in the second group only the most essential and important words are selected. To the first group we can refer A. S.
Hornby’s Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (50,000 lexical units) and M. West’s International Reader’s Dictionary (about 24,000 units); to the second group — A Grammar of English Words by H. Palmer (1,000
words), and The English-Russian Learner’s Dictionary by S. K. Folomkina and H. M. Weiser (3,500 units).
As to the information afforded by learner’s dictionaries lexicographers and methodologists seem to have agreed that there should be a whole series of them. There must be a group of dictionaries presenting different aspects of the vocabulary: showing mainly the semantic structure of words (explanatory), presenting the syntagmatic relations between words (dictionaries of collocations), providing information: about the word’s structure (derivational), supplying synonymous and antonymous words, etc.
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Another grouping of dictionaries reflects the practice of teaching different aspects of speech. The word-books having as their goal the ability to read scientific and technical literature in a foreign language will need a vast word-list ensuring adequate comprehension of written speech. Teaching oral speech habits requires a dictionary that contains a selected list of a c t i v e words explained from the point of view of their use.
Since learners of different linguistic background will have different pitfalls in mastering the same language, will need different directions for use, different restrictive remarks, each pair of languages requires its own dictionaries, dictionaries based on a contrastive study of the learner’s native tongue and the language to be learned.1
In this connection it must be said that Hornby’s dictionary, with all its merits and advantages, has an essential demerit — it does not take into account the user’s linguistic background, so it cannot foresee and prevent the possible language problems of this or that national group of English learners.
Not long ago Soviet lexicographers came to the opinion that separate reference books are called for teachers and learners. As far as dictionaries of English go, perhaps the first attempts at producing dictionaries for teachers are the reference books Adjectival Collocations and Verbal Collocations.
Those are the main types of dictionaries considered necessary to ensure the process of foreign language teaching. As to the present state of learner’s lexicography, it may be characterised as just coming into being, as the already existing dictionaries are few in number and they do not make a system, rather some separate links of a system.
As to the information they provide they may be divided into two groups: those giving equal attention to the word’s semantic characteristics and the way it is used in speech (these may be called learner’s dictionaries proper) and those concentrating on detailed treatment of the word’s lexical and grammatical valency (dictionaries of collocations).
To learner’s dictionaries proper issued in English-speaking countries we may refer, for example, The Progressive English Dictionary and An English Reader’s Dictionary by A. S. Hornby and E. С Parnwell designed for beginners, as well as Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English by A. S. Hornby and The New Horizon Ladder Dictionary of the English Language by J. R. Shaw with J. Shaw for more advanced students.