Background Studies on Bilingual and Electronic Dictionaries

Many articles comparing various types of dictionaries may be found in the first fully annotated bibliographic review of studies in this broad field of lexicography (the making of dictionaries, whether print or electronic), entitled Pedagogical Lexicography Today by Dolezal and McCreary (1), under either the learner dictionary category or under traditional dictionaries designed for native readers.

Articles on learner dictionaries are grouped by their central focus, namely by whether they are mainly dealing with bilingual (giving first language or L1 translations), bilingualized (including both L1 and L2 information), or only monolingual (providing only English-to-English or other L2 to/from L2 definitions) explanations of target language (TL) vocabulary.

Laufer and Kimmel (2) described patterns of use, comparing a particular dictionary’s degree of accessibility versus difficulty for learners, finding that ‘‘Each learner was classified by his favorite look-up pattern.. .on the basis of these, we argue that the bilin- gualised dictionary is very effective as it is compatible with all types of individual preferences.’’ (p. 361) (for more information on computerized dictionary writing systems, see http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/dws06/).

Lexical computing is a field of most concern to language teachers, computational linguists, and lexicographers involved in making dictionary writing systems (DWS), software for writing and producing a dictionary. It might include an editor, a database, a web interface, and various management tools (for allocating work, etc.), operating with a dictionary grammar, which specifies the internal structure of the dictionary.

Robert Lew (3), whose dissertation provides a massive database for further research in this field, considered the receptive use of bilingual, monolingual, and semi-bilingual dictionaries by Polish learners of English, asking the most basic question for language teachers and dictionary designers (lexicographers) to consider, namely the question of which dictionary is best for whom?

Other studies have compared the use of various types of glosses, such as ‘‘(paper, electronic textual, electronic pictorial, electronic, and video) on reading comprehension, translation, the number of words looked up, time-on-task and satisfaction of dictionary users. Others investigated incidental vocabulary learning via computer glosses, as reported by Laufer and Levitzky-Aviad (4). Loucky (5-8) compared Japanese college students’ accessing speeds for portable devices with using software or mobile phone dictionaries.

Akbulut (9-11) compared the supposed advantage that adding various types of multimedia glossing might bring to language learners. Two crucial findings are well summarized in Chun (12): ‘‘.. .previous studies have found that L2 vocabulary is remembered better when learners look up picture or video glosses in addition to translations of unfamiliar words, but that when given the choice, learners tend to prefer and use the simple translation of words... In summary, research during the last ten years (1995-2005) has found that bilingual dictionaries and multimedia glosses have a more direct impact on vocabulary acquisition than on overall reading comprehension. ...’’ (pp. 78-81).

A history of lexicography and dictionary development in Japan may be found in Nakao’s (13)The State of Bilingual Lexicography in Japan: Learners’ English-Japanese/ Japanese-English Dictionaries. Other researchers who have examined the individual preferences, needs, and skills of dictionary users (both monolingual and bilingual) include Baxter (14), Tomaszczyk (15), Hartmann (16), Piotrowski (17), Atkins and Knowles (18), and Nuccorini (19).

Hulstijn and Atkins (20) suggested that use of electronic dictionaries be studied more systematically. Laufer and Hill (21) examined how users’ CALL dictionary look-up behaviors affected their retention. Those who design dictionaries for language learners, whether traditional text or electronic types of dictionaries, can gain much insight from more individualized, long-term studies done in countries where they have a consumer base.

Tomaszczyk (15), who first questioned foreign language learners regarding their preferences and dictionary usage, stated that the vast majority of his close to 450 Polish respondents ‘‘would like their dictionaries to give much more extensive treatment to every type of information... would like to have an omnibus dictionary which would cover everything anyone has ever thought of including in dictionaries and encyclopedias’’ (p. 115).

Today, Internet search engines seem to do just that, but are often far too broad, especially for limited English proficiency (LEPs) learners to use efficiently. One solution to this problem is to use the writer’s Virtual Language Learning Encyclopedia site at www.CALL4ALL.us. Providing instant links to most web dictionaries found on its Dictionaries (D) page <at http://www.call4all.us///home/_all.php?fi=d>, this site enables anyone to find vocabulary information for 500 language pairs systematically, by giving simultaneous instant free access to over 2500 online dictionaries.

Moreover, this online multilingual dictionary portal now integrates the many functions of Wordchamp.com’s versatile Webreader on each of its pages, thereby providing automatic glossing from English into over 100 languages for any website, including 40 online newspapers in 10 major languages.

Paper Versus Electronic Dictionaries. Electronic dictionaries are undoubtedly greatly gaining in popularity, so much so that they will soon dominate the dictionary scene (22-26). Lew (3) noted these recent trends stating:

It has been claimed that with the move from paper to online dictionaries, restrictions of space would disappear. That, however, is a simplification at best. While storage space may indeed become irrelevant, there are still severe restrictions as to how much information can be displayed at a time. In fact, even the best currently available display devices are still easily beaten by the old-fashioned printed paper in terms of visual resolution.

So space-saving issues will still be with for at least as long as the visual modality is primarily used for information transfer from dictionary to user.. .on-screen presentation of entries has much to offer.. .to the researcher by way of convenience, including a potential to log responses automatically, thus obviating the need for the laborious paperwork and keyboarding at the data entry stage, as well as allowing “unobtrusive observation’’. (p. 157)

The equivalence of on-screen and paper formats should not be taken for granted, as Laufer (27) found significant and substantial differences in word recall scores between marginal paper glosses and on-screen pop-up window glosses.