Department of Applied English
Southern Taiwan University of Technology
Advisor：蔡清元 (Ching Yuan Tsai)
A Comparison Between Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English and Collins
COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
Group Member(s)：
謝博任 (Po Jen Hsieh) 495C0026
林晉褘 (Jin Huei Lin) 495C0039
January, 2010
LDOCE and COBUILD
Table of Contents
摘要…………………………………………………………………......03
Abstract………………………………………………………………….03
1. Introduction
1.1About LDOCE
COBUILD……………………………………04
1.2Purpose………………………………………………………….05
2. Aspects of Evaluations
2.1Definition……………………………………………………….07
2.2Examples………………………………………………………..10
2.3Grammar………………………………………………………...14
2.4Pronunciation…………………………………………………...17
2.5Illustrations……………………………………………………...20
2.6Layout…………………………………………………………...23
2.7CD………………………………………………………………27
2.8Appendix………………………………………………………..29
3. Conclusion…………………………………………………………...33
References………………………………………………………………35
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LDOCE and COBUILD
摘要
這篇研究報告的目的在於以英文為第二外語的學習者的角度去分析比較不
同的學習者專用字典。這兩本字典分別是朗文當代英文字典第五版﹝Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English 5th edition, LDOCE5 ﹞ 以 及 柯 林 斯
COUBUILD 第五版﹝Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 5th edition,
COBUILD5﹞。我們分別從以下八個項目：定義、例句、文法、發音、插圖、排
版、附贈 CD 以及附錄分析比較。我們發現整體上來說，LDOCE5 在定義、例句、
文法、音標、插圖、附贈 CD 以及人性化編排方面表現比較傑出；然而，COBUILD5
擅於提供詳細的文法資訊以及列出符合母與人是習慣的例句。
Abstract
The purpose of doing this research is to analyze and compare the features of the
two learner’s dictionaries from the viewpoint of ESL students.
These two learner’s
dictionaries are Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 5th edition (LDOCE5)
and Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 5th edition (COBUILD5). We
study these eight aspects in the two dictionaries: definition, example, grammar,
pronunciation, illustration, layout, CD, and appendix.
We find that LDOCE5 is
generally better in the aspects of definition, clarity of examples, pronunciation,
illustration, layout, CD, and general user-friendliness, while COBUILD5 is good at
providing detailed grammatical information and giving authentic examples.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
Introduction
Dictionaries play an important role in shaping human cultures and they are an
important tool in understanding and learning languages, especially for second
language learning. Béjoint (2000) mentioned that “Sumerian lists dating back to the
third millennium BC have been found that can be considered as the ancestors of our
dictionaries (Boisson et al. 1991 : 263).”
Learner’s dictionaries are specially designed for language learners. This kind of
dictionary is now becoming more and more popular because of the globalization.
Many people now start to learn foreign languages. The EFL/ESL dictionary industry
is a phenomenon of the 20th century of which the general public worldwide is largely
unaware (McArthur, 1988). The first monolingual learner’s dictionary was The New
Method English Dictionary, complied by Michael West and James Edicott (Cowie,
1999).
1.1 About LDOCE & COBUILD
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (hereinafter referred to as
LDOCE), which was first published in 1978 by Pearson Longman. This dictionary is
classified as a learner’s dictionary. It’s designed for learners, especially for those
advanced learners who are acquiring English as their second language. LDOCE is
available in many kinds of formats: paper with a CD-ROM or online free version.
Now users can even use LDOCE on their i-Pods or i-Phones. This advanced learner’s
dictionary uses a limited vocabulary to define English words to help non-native
speakers learn new vocabulary more easily. The online free version was released on
August 25th, 2008. This online version provides searching function with spelling
feature, definition, collocations, examples and pictures.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
COBUILD
is
the
abbreviation
of
Collins
Birmingham
University
International Database. COBUILD is a British research facility set up at the
University of Birmingham in 1980 and funded by Collins publishers. The facility was
led by Professor John Sinclair. The most important achievement of the COBUILD
project has been the creation and analysis of a corpus of contemporary text (the Bank
of English), and the production of the monolingual learner's dictionary Collins
COBUILD English Language Dictionary (1987; 2nd edition, 1995; 3rd edition, 2001;
4th edition, 2003; 5th edition, 2006), based on the study of the COBUILD corpus.
The latest edition of Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is the
6th edition, and was available at the end of year 2008. The Szynalski (n.d.)
commented that “the content is almost identical to the 4th and 5th editions.”
He pointed out that the 6th edition has the following differences:

Some illustrations next to entries (the previous edition only had illustrations in
a separate section)

For some words, there are "Word Partnership" boxes which give common
phrases (collocations) with the word.

There are also occasional "Thesaurus" boxes (with synonyms) and "Word
Web" boxes (short paragraphs which discuss a topic, e.g. pollution, using many
different words related to the subject).
1.2 Purpose
Our purpose of studying these two dictionaries is simply because we hope to
find a good dictionary to help us make good progress when we study English and we
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LDOCE and COBUILD
also hope that in the process of evaluating dictionaries, we’ll learn more about how to
make good use of dictionaries. Most of the research papers we find in the periodicals
are done by researchers most of who are native speakers or ESL researchers. Their
papers are well presented, but we think since they are native speakers or scholars, they
may nor be able to look at the dictionaries from the viewpoint of EFL (English as
foreign language) learners. It is for this reason we try to evaluate the dictionaries
which are important to learners but neglected by natives speakers or scholars
researchers.
To do this research, we will first try to figure out what the intended users are,
and how the dictionaries meet their needs. Second, we will try our best to use our own
words to account for the structure of this dictionary. The definition and the
organization between words and illustrations will also be an important aspect in this
research paper.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
Aspects of Evaluations
The dictionaries can be evaluated in terms of many different aspects. Aspects
such as cross reference, total number of entries, inclusion of new words, and
pragmatic information are important, but because of the limitation of space and their
bing relatively less used by or unknown to learners, to our regret we will have to put
them aside in this paper.
In this paper, we will focus only on those aspects which we think are more
important to us as foreign learners. These aspects are: 1. definition, 2. examples, 3.
grammar, 4. pronunciation, 5. illustration, 6. layout, 7. CD, and 8. appendix, and they
will be presented respectively in section 2.1 through 2.8.
2.1 Definitions
Dictionary definition is almost the most important part in learner’s dictionaries.
“A learner’s dictionary should reflect the average native speaker’s linguistic
competence- no more, no less.” Hausmann and Gorbahn (1989). The definition should
not only present accurate meaning of one word but also reflect native speaker’s
thinking about the word. Generally speaking, if you ask one hundred native speakers
about the definition of a word, probably you will get one hundred different answers.
Because whether it refers to a concrete thing or discrete one, the word is a
representation of vogue concept in our mind. Additionally, since English is a widely
used language, the details of word definitions would vary from region to region.
Therefore, what dictionary needs to provide is a broad and universal definition.
Word Definition of LDOCE, fifth edition
In the LDOCE, fifth edition, the compilers use about 2,000 common words to
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LDOCE and COBUILD
explain each head word in the dictionary. LDOCE has listed all of these defining
words in the appendix. These words have been chosen carefully to assure that the
definitions are clear enough to readers. The choice was based on Longman corpus
network. Also, these words used in the definition are generally easier than the word
being defined. This is an important indication for those prospective learners whose
English were below intermediate level.
Ways of defining headword
Generally speaking there are two ways of defining words. The first one is
sentence definition. This way puts the headword into a sentence to show readers how
this word means. The second way is using simple or synonymous words to give words
definition. LDOCE has included these two ways.
Example:
LDOCE
academic
Sentence definition
1. If a discussion is academic, it is a waste of time because the speakers
cannot change the existing situation
Simple or synonymous words definition
1. Relating to education, especially at college or university level.
2. Concerned with studying from books, as opposed to practical work
3. Good at studying
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LDOCE and COBUILD
COBUILD
On the other hand, COBUILD insists on using sentence definition for all its word
entries.
Example:
academic
Academic is used to describe thing that relate to the work done in
schools, college, and universities, especially work which involves studying
and researching rather than practical or technical skills.
If we compare the definitions in LDOCE with the ones in COBUILD, we can
see that COBUILD uses only sentence definition which is more understandable.
However, the defect is that advanced reader might find it somehow too tedious a
process to comprehend a word. Also, using sentence definition only might take up
more space and thus makes the dictionary bigger than usual.
Therefore, we think LDOCE is more flexible and is suitable for both advanced
and high-intermediate learners.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
2.2 Examples
A good dictionary needs a lot of good examples to make its users understand
how to use a word. To know what exactly a word or a phrase means, we need a good
definition; however, we need to learn how to use a word or phrase by consulting some
good examples. Examples are very important to students who are learning English,
especially for those who are English as foreign language (EFL) students. Several
empirical studies (e.g. Summers, 1988; Laufer, 1993) have corroborated that the
explanatory pattern of “definition+example” is more beneficial to users than that of
“definition only”, particularly in production (Xu 2008). Hausmann and Gorbahn
(1989) mentioned that “any learner’s dictionary stands or falls by the number and
quality of its examples, for it is the examples above all which help the foreign learners
to understand a word (decoding function), learn it (learning function) and use it
(encoding function).” In our opinion, a good example doesn’t have to be a complete
sentence, and it should avoid complex grammatical structure. Too many conjunctions
in the sentence will make users get confused or even misunderstand the meaning or
the usage of that word or phrase. A good example should not have some tough words
or big words, either. Otherwise, learners might have to look it up somewhere else in
the dictionary if that is a key word of that example sentence. It will take more time on
checking dictionaries, not learning.
In the following part of this topic, we will list two words we choose from
LDOCE and COBUILD, including part of their definitions and example sentences.
region
LDOCE
2. A particular part of someone’s body: the lower part of back region | [+of] a region
of brain
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LDOCE and COBUILD
3. (somewhere) in the region of sth used to describe an amount of time, money etc
without being exact: a grant somewhere in the region of £2,500
COBUILD
3. You can refer to a part of your body as a region. Ex. the pelvic region
4. You say “in the region of” to indicate that an amount that you are stating is
approximate. Ex. the scheme will cost in the region of six million pounds.
sympathy
LDOCE
1. the feeling of being sorry for someone who is in a bad situation: [+for] I have a lot
of sympathy for her; she had to bring up the children on her own. | I have absolutely
no sympathy for students who get caught cheating in exams. | Our sympathies are
with the families of the victims.
2. belief in or support for a plan, idea, or action, especially a political one: in
sympathy with sth Willard is in sympathy with many Green Party issues. | Her
sympathies lie firmly with Conservative Party. | Communist/Republican/left-wing etc
sympathies Matheson is known for his pro-socialist sympathies. | [+with/for] Sullivan
expressed sympathy for the striking federal workers.
COBUILD
1. If you have sympathy for someone who is in a bad situation, you are sorry about
them, and show this in the way behave towards them. Ex. I have had very little help
from doctors and no sympathy whatsoever…. I wanted to express my sympathies on
your resignation.
2. If you have sympathy with someone’s ideas or opinions, you agree with them. Ex. I
have some sympathy with this point of view…. Lithuania still commands considerable
international sympathy for its cause…. She has frequently expressed republican
sympathies.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
From the examples listed above, we can see clearly that example sentences in
LDOCE are easier than the COBUILD one. In the examples of the word region we
find out that LDOCE uses “the lower part of back region” instead of “pelvic region”
in COBUILD. From the definition we know that both “back” and “pelvic” refer to a
part of our body. However, “pelvic” is much more complicated than “back”. Almost
everyone knows what “back” means, but there are many people who don’t know what
“pelvic” means. Therefore, they have to spend more time to look up for the meaning
of “pelvic”. Also, we realize that COBUILD doesn’t mention the usage of [+of], but
LDOCE does.
In the second example word sympathy, we can also see very clearly that LDOCE
mention the usage of “sympathy for”, but COBUILD doesn’t. The sentence structure
and meaning in LDOCE are also easier for a foreign learner to understand. In the
second definition of sympathy, LDOCE shows us that there is a phrase called in
sympathy with sth. It also tells us if sympathy is used to describe somebody’s belief in
or support for a plan, idea and so on, it is mostly used for a political issue. In the last
part of definition 2 of sympathy, LDOCE teaches us that we can use sympathy
+with/for to express the same meaning as in sympathy with sth. However, in
COBUILD, we don’t see those phrases and usages. All we see are the definition and
example sentences, even without mentioning it’s often uses in political issues.
Although COBUILD uses “sympathy +with/for” in example sentences, learners may
not notice it because COBUILD doesn’t emphasize it.
Often the corpus can provide suitable examples or at least suggest an
appropriate context (Landau, 2001). These two publishers have their own corpus.
However, there are still some differences. Longman Learner’s Corpus is a 10 million
word computerized database made up entirely of language written by students of
English. Every nationality, every language level is represented in the corpus and this
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LDOCE and COBUILD
provides an unprecedented insight into learner English (the Longman Learner’s
Corpus). This corpus is a part of Longman Corpus Network—a huge database of 330
million words from a wide range of real-life sources such as books, newspapers and
magazines(Longman Corpus Network). According to the introduction page of
COBUILD, it mentions that the basis for the authority of COBUILD is the Bank of
English, part of Collins Word Web, still the largest collection of data of its kind in any
language, and now containing 645million words.
In conclusion, we discover that LDOCE uses easier words and grammatical
structures in examples. It also puts more emphasis on phrases or grammar usages that
are related to the word you want to know. This would make learners get more
information about the word so that they can learn how to use the word correctly and
use it in the right place. In contrast with LDOCE, COBUILD provides less
information about the world. Definitions in these two dictionaries are quite similar;
however, the examples and other details are not so similar. In other words, we can say
that LDOCE is more suitable for high-intermediate learners and COBUILD fits for
advanced learners or even EFL English language teachers.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
2.3 Grammar
Grammatical information can be divided into many aspects: it can show readers
a word’s formations, synonyms, antonyms or indications to show readers how a word
would be used or to put in a certain location of a sentence. Mostly this information
appears in front of word definition.
Grammatical information is shown more in the ESL learner’s dictionary.
However, dictionaries designed for those native speakers would usually present only
simple grammatical information. This is due to that ESL learners need to receive
detail and accurate knowledge about grammar.
COBUILD has a great collection of grammatical information. Its list of symbols
and entries contains 96 codes and special entries. Even the noun can be divided into
sixteen different parts. In our opinion, even though the readers have acquired English
ability of advanced level, it is still too hard to digest all of these codes. The editor
apparently assumed that users of this dictionary have acquired enough knowledge of
morphology to make good use of the dictionary.
Conversely, in LDOCE the grammatical information is simpler and easier to
understand, and there are extra columns of collocation, register note and thesaurus
Register
In LDOCE, there are hundreds of register notes that can help readers
understand how a word would be used in formal or casual situation. In spoken
situation formal words might sound unnatural. For instance, in ordinary life if you use
insinuate instead of imply, it would sounds weird because the word insinuate is very
formal compared with imply. Native speakers would use words imply or suggest in
everyday English conversation, even though the meaning of these two words are the
same.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
This special section also shows readers the functions of certain words and
phrases like ways of disagreeing with someone or ways to thank someone.
Additionally, this column contrasts words to show readers which word will be more
appropriate in written or spoken English.
Collocation
This section is said to be the key feature of LDOCE 5th edition. This section
displays some words that are typically used together. Often reading this section,
readers can thereby improve their listening and reading ability at the same time.
Thesaurus Notes
The word thesaurus means synonym dictionary or encyclopedia. By adding this
column, LDOCE makes itself more comprehensive and authoritative. Since English is
a kind of language that incorporates several words with the same meaning. A good
dictionary should not only provide synonymy of certain words, it should also tell
readers how these words are different in detail.
These three columns can help readers understand certain usage of a word and
extensively build up their vocabulary.
Usage of Symbol and Grammar Codes
Compilers of LDOCE have printed all of its grammar code and pattern in the
front page of the dictionary. It also involves using symbols to explain certain usage of
grammar in the text that would be more concise. In the “how to use the dictionary”
column, it informs readers where these grammatical information located and also
explain symbols that are used in the dictionary. Additionally, among dictionary text,
there are grammar notes that provide information about common mistakes when a
word is used. This information is based on research from the Longman learner’s
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LDOCE and COBUILD
corpus. The information is especially important for users who are eager to improve
their English.
Grammatical codes Examples from LDOCE:
s1, s2, s3-indicates that the word is one of the 1000/2000/3000
most common words in spoken English.
w1, w2, w3-indicates the word is one of the 1000/2000/3000 most
common words in written English.
ac-academic
Syn-synonymous
Opp-antonyms
Though the quantity of grammatical information is very important, the clarity of
it is also very essential. We believe that the quality should hold a higher status than
quantity. Before compilers invent grammatical codes, they should consider how clear
the code is. Otherwise it would be just a pile of meaningless symbols to readers.
Compare with dictionaries in the past, generally speaking, the usage of symbol
is now more understandable than before. But there are still difference of grammar
usage between LDOCE and COBUILD.
In terms of grammatical information, we find that LDOCE is more user-friendly,
because its grammatical codes are closer to the original spelling of certain words, thus
clearer and easier to understand.
In these aspects, theoretically COBUILD is designed for ESL learners, but in
practical terms, considering the editorial craft, its layout and these special columns we
discussed above, we believe that LDOCE is more suitable for both learning and
teaching. But for readers who have enough English knowledge, they might prefer
COBUILD, because it provides comprehensive grammatical information and word
usages.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
2.4 Pronunciation
The words of a language could have many different pronunciations in many
different countries or regions. There are three most common pronunciations we know
about English. They are British, American and Australian. Dictionaries such as
LDOCE and COBUILD provide us both British and American pronunciations. These
two dictionaries both use International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) system.
IPA was founded by a group of French and British language teachers, led by the
French linguist Paul Passy in 1886. The original alphabet was based on a spelling
reform for English known as the Romic alphabet, but in order to make it usable for
other languages, the values of the symbols were allowed to vary from language to
language. According to Landau (2001), IPA is used in virtually all British
monolingual dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries, because IPA symbols are
phonetically based. Landau (2001) also said that IPA is a system based on the area and
manner of articulation so that it can be used to produce the sounds of any language,
even a language which is totally unfamiliar. The use of IPA was limited to the
learner’s dictionary for several decades. General-purpose dictionaries for native
speakers, both in the USA and in Great Britain, used all sorts of codes for the
indication of pronunciation that were supposed to be easier to use for the average
reader. The trend is now back to IPA in Great Britain—not in the USA—with even
new OED using it (Béjoint, 2000).
Both LDOCE and COBUILD use IPA symbols; however, there are still some
differences. LDOCE contains some special signs which are not included in the IPA
symbols. For example, LDOCE uses the symbol “$” to separate British and American
pronunciations. These two dictionaries both show the British pronunciation first, then
the American one. The position where they put this IPA symbol form is also different.
Longman put this form in the first page of this dictionary, and COBUILD put it in the
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LDOCE and COBUILD
introduction part, page xxiii. It will be more convenient for users to use and find this
IPA form if it is put in the first page of a dictionary.
Now let’s take a look at three examples from the dictionary:
disputation
LDOCE
/ dɪspj ‘teɪ∫ən/
COBUILD
/ dɪspjʊteɪ∫ən/
process
LDOCE
/ ‘pr
ses $ ‘pr
-/
COBUILD
/ proʊses, AM pr
ses/
probationer
LDOCE
/prə’beɪ∫ənə $ proʊ’be ɪ∫ənər/
COBUILD
/prəbeɪ∫ənər, proʊ-/
From these three examples we can discover that even the two dictionaries use the
same phonetic alphabet, there are still some differences. In the first example we can
clearly see that LDOCE provides us with two possible pronunciations, /jʊ/ and /jə/;
however, COBUILD only has /jʊ/. Learners who use LDOCE can learn two different
kinds of pronunciation. The second example in these two dictionaries shows the same
pronunciation. The third example shows that LDOCE considers / proʊ’be ɪ∫ənər / as
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LDOCE and COBUILD
American style pronunciation, but COBUILD regarded /prə/ and / proʊ/ as British
style pronunciation.
We also find out the way LDOCE and COBUILD express the stressed syllable
are totally different. LDOCE uses symbols before the stressed part. COBUILD
underlines the stressed vowel. By using the method in COBUILD, users can see
which vowel should be stressed very clearly. However, most of the learners have
already got used to the traditional way used in LDOCE. Theoretically speaking, the
COBUILD way is better, but in practice, the method used in LDOCE is highly
accepted by most of learners.
The way they separate British and American pronunciation are different as well.
LDOCE uses “$” and COBUILD uses “AM”. It is easier to understand that the part
after “AM” is American pronunciation. However, “$” is not so clear. If readers didn’t
check the IPA and special signs in “How to use” page of this dictionary, they might
get confused or even couldn’t understand what “$” means.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
2.5 Illustration
Stein (1991) commented that “Of the five senses sight plays a dominant part in
the cognitive and linguistic development of the human mind”. From recent year’s
language teaching experience, it is true that language teaching would be more
efficient with the aid of any visual material.
The function of illustration is to help readers to better understand some idea that
can hardly explain by only words, like some abstract idea or some complicated shape
of objects, actions, etc. Also, in linguistic theory, it is said that if we learn language
with the aid of pictures, it would be more efficient. Therefore, illustrations in
dictionaries become a special field worth studying.
Genre of Illustrations in Dictionaries
To be concise, there are two dominant kinds of illustrations. They are graphic
illustrations and pictorial illustration. Graphic illustrations are often used in periodical
or encyclopedia with engineering or scientific issues, like statistic of population or
formula forms about chemical elements.
Pictorial illustrations in dictionary or encyclopedia can be also divided into four
types (Stein, 1991):
1. Illustrations that show common objects like appliance, furniture, animal and so on.
2. Illustrations that can’t be simply understood by only word expressions, like shapes,
sequence of actions or some different abstract ideas between word and word.
3. Illustrations describing groups of related objects that differentiate little
disparateness between certain words.
4. Illustrations showing “ the basic or physical meaning ” for indication of some
abstract ideas.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
Comparison of Illustrations Between LDOCE and COBUILD
COBUILD uses less illustration in the whole dictionary. There are only one or
more pages in the back cover presenting ordinary life utensil. It might sound
incredible that in the former edition, it even completely dispensed the usage of
illustration. We assume that it is due to the convenience of editorial consideration, for
it can omit the procedure of placing illustrations in certain location.
Illustrations in LDOCE have increased in the fifth edition. In this edition,
pictures are no longer just means of enlarging reader’s vocabulary or illustrating
semantic word field. It is now more likely a supplement for definitions like some
complicated action or movements.
Examples:
A. pounce
B. pour
With the help of these two pictures, readers can more clearly understand what
these two actions represent and can also strengthen their impression about these two
words at the same time. By the way, since LDOCE widely uses pictures with full
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LDOCE and COBUILD
colors, the dictionary thus looks more vivid and easier to read.
In issues of illustrations about both LDOCE and COBUILD, inasmuch as the
lack of illustration in COBUILD, we strongly recommend LDOCE for readers who
are bellow intermediate level, for its numerous and colorful pictures can be a great
help to learning English.
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LDOCE and COBUILD
2.6 Layout
In this part, we are going to discuss the layout of these two dictionaries. How
the editors arrange pages in the dictionary is very important to the users. Dictionaries
not only have to provide us a lot of useful information, but also they need to provide
us an efficient way to find what we want. Layout can also affect learners’ feeling
toward a dictionary. If a dictionary uses too many colors, it might become distracting;
however, if a dictionary all printed in black, learners may not find certain information
they want immediately. In the following parts we will analyze and compare the
headwords, collocation, thesaurus, and the position of appendix.
2.6.1 Headwords
The headword is the word highlighted at the beginning of an entry. Tsai (2000)
mentioned that, the headwords show us three kinds of information: the first one is the
order between headwords, the second one is spelling, and finally, the syllabification.
The order of headwords, of course, is alphabetical. However, in some situations it
may become more complex. For example, if the headword is a compound word and
there is a space in it, it will have two different kinds of orders. Take letter of credit,
lettering, and lettuce for instance. (see table 1)
lettering
letter of credit
letter of credit
lettering
lettuce
lettuce
Table 1
From the table above, we can see that the order in the left column ignores the
space. The entry letter of credit is considered to be one word “letterofcredit”, so it’s
behind lettering. However, the order in the right column ignores of so letter of credit
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LDOCE and COBUILD
is placed before lettering. In our opinion, the way we mentioned in the left column
will be more convenient for users to search some certain words because most
dictionary editors use this kind of method to compile their work. Not only can we see
this kind of order in LDOCE and COBUILD, but we can also see the same order in
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD) and Webster’s New World College
Dictionary.
Headwords in LDOCE and COBUILD are both highlighted in blue. LDOCE
colored some frequently used words in pink, such as daughter, date, day, and so on. It
also tells us how common these words are used. LDOCE divide the frequency into
classes (See in “How to Use Page” in LDOCE) and put a special label between these
headwords and their pronunciation symbols. COBUILD provides learners the
frequency of a word by using rhombic symbols marked in the same line as the
headword.
2.6.2 Collocation
A lot of English words have other meanings or usages when combined with
other words or prepositions. Dictionaries, especially learner’s dictionaries, of course,
have to tell their user about these special meanings or usages, because those ESL and
EFL students are not so familiar with this language. Landau (2001) also said that
collocations play an important role in ESL and bilingual lexicography, where readers
are unfamiliar with the common associative patterns of the language they are trying to
learn.
24
LDOCE and COBUILD
LDOCE puts great emphasis on
collocations. If a word doesn’t have
many collocations, the collocations will
be shown in bold in the entry part.
However,
if
there
are
too
many
collocations, then they will be listed in a
box at the end of the entry. Just like what
you can see in Fig. 1. In this box,
collocations are divided into classes
based on their part of speech. In contrast,
COBUILD pays less attention than
Fig. 1 Collocation box in LDOCE
LDOCE to the collocation part. Collocations in COBUILD are also shown in bold
letters, but they don’t have a special box to give more details. It may save space;
however, it provides less information. Let’s take cause for instance”. The collocation
box in LDOCE mentions the root
cause but COBUILD doesn’t.
Although it’s an easy phrase for most
of the advanced learners, still some
students may not know the meaning of
this phrase.
2.6.3 Thesaurus
Different from synonyms, the
thesaurus in LDOCE explains the
Fig.2 Thesaurus box in LDOCE
25
LDOCE and COBUILD
difference between words which are similar in meaning and gives examples to show
how they are used in different ways, according to page xiii. In LDOCE, we can find
that words or phrases in the thesaurus box are not alphabetically ordered, however;
they are ordered conceptually. Take genuine and its thesaurus box (see Fig 2) for
example. In the picture, we can clearly noticed that if the word in the box have a
closer meaning to genuine, then it shows up at the top. So learners can infer that the
word in a lower position has less relationship to genuine.
COBUILD doesn’t list any
information about thesaurus because they have another dictionary called Collins
English Dictionaries & Thesaurus. It provides more details than thesaurus box in
LDOCE. The advantage is that you can get more
information beyond your imagination, but the disadvantage is that you have to buy
another dictionary because this dictionary doesn’t provide much grammatical
information, pronunciation and example sentences. It mainly focuses on the definition
and thesaurus.
2.6.4 The Position of Appendix
COBUILD puts all of appendices at the back of the dictionary. However,
LDOCE puts appendixes in two different positions. One is at the end of letter “M”
and before the beginning of letter “N” and the other one is the same as COBUILD.
Most of people have already known that the appendix parts are always put at the end
of the book, so we think if LDOCE can put all its appendices in the last few pages, it
would be better. We will have more discussion about appendix in section 2.8
26
LDOCE and COBUILD
2.7 CD
Both LDOCE and COBUILD offer a free CD or DVD for everyone who buy
their dictionary. This is a very useful CD. You don’t have to bring a heavy dictionary
with you all the time. Users can check up some words whenever they have a computer
with them. Also, this CD contain information that can not be found in the dictionary.
Fig. 3 DVD version of LDOCE
Fig. 4 CD-ROM of COBUILD
27
LDOCE and COBUILD
From Fig. 3 and Fig.4 we can see that the DVD of LDOCE has more functions
than that of COBUILD. Besides the dictionary, LDOCE also has some assistant
functions for learners (students) and “teacher resources” for teachers. However,
COBUILD only provides dictionary function.
In the DVD version of LDOCE and CO-ROM version of COBUILD,
information about spelling, examples and pronunciations are quite similar to the
printed version. LDOCE still has collocations and thesaurus in the DVD version. In
addition, there is one part called “word origin”, which is very useful, especially to
advanced learners. Word origin provides learners etymological information. In order
to memorize vocabulary longer and more efficiently, advanced learners can memorize
words better by reading the etymology. We think it’s very important that advanced
learners dictionaries should provide etymological information. Although LDOCE
doesn’t have this kind of information in the printed version, the DVD version does
include it. However, COBUILD doesn’t have this part.
COBUILD has a convenient part that doesn’t exist in LDOCE, which is called
“My Dictionary”. In “My Dictionary”, users may put in some new words that they
cannot find in this dictionary. By using this function, users can type in a new entry
and its definitions and examples (see Fig. 5).
28
LDOCE and COBUILD
Fig. 5 “My Dictionary” on COBUILD CD-ROM
2.8 Appendix
The appendix in a dictionary can be divided into front and back matter. For ESL
dictionary users, the front-matter guide or separately printed students’ workbook and
guide is basic to the understanding and use of the A-Z material (Landau, 2001). In the
back-matter of a learner’s dictionary, the appendix always not merely includes
irregular verb forms,
it may also contain more grammatical information or common
words, such as “Longman Communication 3000” in LDOCE.
29
LDOCE and COBUILD
In practical term, COBUILD not only provides grammatical information, it also
contains some useful encyclopedic information related to housing, cars, tools, and so
on. In this section, COBUILD uses pictures to illustrate these items. This section is
suitable for intermediate level learners because these things sometimes are not easy to
understand by just looking up the entries for the verbal explanations. LDOCE puts all
these illustrations together with entries. LDOCE also has some pictures to illustrate
some difficult verbs and nouns.
The second part in COBUILD is called prefixes and suffixes. This section can
help learners build up their vocabulary. By memorizing these prefixes and suffixes,
learners can memorize vocabulary faster and retain their meanings longer. They can
also learn a lot of new words by memorizing derivatives of these prefixes and suffixes.
COBUILD lists 70 most frequent prefixes and 56 most frequent suffixes, and of
course, with explanations and examples. In LDOCE, there isn’t a specific part called
prefixes and suffixes. However, there is a similar part called “word formations”. The
most common word formations are listed here, with examples. This is a useful
information too, but if LDOCE can provide prefixes and suffixes, that would be even
better. In our opinion, it would be better if these two dictionaries can contain
information about word roots.
Both LDOCE and COBUILD have a section about “frequent words”. In
LDOCE, they called “Longman Communication 3000”. According to the illustration
in the dictionary, The Longman Communication 3000 is a list of the 3000 most
frequent words in both spoken and written English, based on statistical analysis of the
390 million words in the Longman Corpus Network. This is a very useful part of this
dictionary. It can let learners know which word is worth learning. This information
benefits many learners, especially those intermediate EFL learners, such as
junior-high school students in Taiwan. The frequent words in COBUILD are words of
30
LDOCE and COBUILD
frequency. In COBUILD, the frequency of words are divided into three different
levels. They are shown by blue diamonds in the “Extra Column”. The most frequent
words have three diamonds, the next most frequent have two, and so on. Only the
three-diamonds words are listed in this part. In this section, 654 words are listed here.
However, we discover that even the one-diamond or two-diamonds words are often
being used in spoken or written English. So we think that COBUILD can also include
those one-diamond and two-diamonds words in this section.
In LDOCE, there is a special part called “Longman Defining Vocabulary”. In
this section, LDOCE collects around 2000 common words that have been used in the
dictionary to write the definitions. This part, actually, is not so necessary because
most of these 2000 words are included in the “Longman Communication 3000”.
The next part we are going to discuss is mainly about how to teach learners to
use the right words or phrases at the right time and right place. The two dictionaries
contain quite different information. LDOCE calls it “Formality in spoken and written
English” and COBUILD calls it “Access to English”. We can see how different they
are from the table below.
LDOCE
COBUILD
Agreeing
Disagreeing
Apologizing
Opinions
Requests
Essay written
Giving presentations
The telephone
Correspondence
Job applications
Suggestions
Hello
Goodbye
Thank You
Table 2
The table above shows that these two dictionaries provide users with different
kinds of information. LDOCE’s information is more related to our daily life than
31
LDOCE and COBUILD
COBUILD. However, COBUILD provides its users with some information about
academic writing and business-related skills. These two kinds of information they
provide are both very useful. They benefit two different groups of learners. LDOCE is
good for learners who are intermediate or high-intermediate learners. It tells learners
the difference between everyday English and formal English. These are all very
common and important conversations in our daily life. However, COBUILD provides
us with something more academic. The “essay written” here related to academic
writing at school. This kind of information is good for college students. It’s hard to
define which one is better. All we can say is that they are suitable for different levels
and groups of learners.
The last part only exists in LDOCE. This part contains some geographical
knowledge, numbers, and weights and measures. In the geographical part, LDOCE
provides the map of United Kingdom, North America, Australia and New Zealand.
These countries are all English-speaking countries. After these maps, there are some
geographical names. Countries all over the world are listed here. You can see both the
noun and adjective forms of a country. LDOCE mentions that this list is to help
advanced students in their reading of contemporary newspapers and magazines.
Numbers and measures tell us how numbers are spoken and the relationship between
different measure units.
All the information in these appendixes has their own value. Different users
need different kind of information. LDOCE contains a lot of useful and basic
information and COBUILD provides us with some information that is useful to our
academic learning. Take me for an example. I prefer the “access to English” part in
COBUILD to Longman; however, I also need the geographical names in LDOCE.
Generally speaking, the best way to access all the information is to buy both of these
two dictionaries.
32
LDOCE and COBUILD
Conclusion
From all of the aspects we present from the former pages, we agree that
LDOCE is a better one for high intermediate learners. In the definition respect,
LDOCE uses both sentence and word definition in the whole dictionary, which is
more flexible for readers. Additionally, the defining vocabulary of LDOCE is more
useful and common in use. Therefore, readers can look up unfamiliar word and
strengthen their basic vocabulary at the same time.
In example, LDOCE uses easier words and grammatical structure, when
COBUILD insists on using genuine phrases or sentences from their copra. We think
that LDOCE has taken into consideration the difficulties learners may encounter in
consulting monolingual dictionaries. In their aspect, therefore, learners may benefit
more from using LDOCE if they are looking for examples to understand how words
are used.
In grammatical information, LEDOCE provide miscellaneous extra information
for readers, like thesaurus, collocation or register notes. These special columns can
help learners understand certain word formations and build up their vocabulary
extensively. Also, the grammatical codes of LDOCE are easier to digest than the one
in COBUILD. Therefore, LDOCE is more recommendable for high intermediate
learners.
Both LDOCE and COBUILD use IPA system, but there are still little
differences between them, but these differences won’t affect the whole learning
process.
For issues about illustration, since COBUILD uses very little illustration in the
whole dictionary, we pay more attention to the LDOCE illustration. LDOCE uses both
graphic and pictorial illustration to show reader some words with complex idea, for
33
LDOCE and COBUILD
fear that learner might hardly understand the meaning of the word by just reading the
definition. For this part, we agree that compilers of LDOCE did a good job. Because
by adding more pictures, the dictionary would become more friendly to learners and
also easier to read.
We may conclude that LDOCE do a better job in providing easier definitions
and examples, more colorful illustrations, user-friendly layout and a multifunctional
CD; however, COBUILD provides more detailed grammatical information and
authentic examples. For users who need easier definitions and examples, they can use
LDOCE. For those users who prefer detailed grammatical information, authentic
examples, and sentential definitions, they can choose COBUILD.
34
LDOCE and COBUILD
References
Books and Journal Articles
Béjoint, H. (2000). Modern Lexicography: An Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Boisson, C., Kirtchuk, P., and Béjoint, H. (1991). Aux origins de la lexicographie: les
premiers dictionnaires monolingues et bilingues. International Journal of
Lexicography. Vol.4 No.4: 261-315.
Cowie, A. P. (1999). English Dictionaries for Foreign Learners: A History. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Hausmann, F. J., and Gorbahn A. (1989), COBUILD and LDOCE II, A comparative
review, International Journal of Lexicography, Vol. 2 No. 1, 44-56.
Landau, I. S. (2001). Dictionaries : The Art and Craft of Lexicography, 2nd ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Laufer, B. (1993) The effect of dictionary definitions and examples on the use and
comprehension of new L2 words. Cahiers de Lexicologie, 63.2: 131-142.
McArthur T. (1998) Living Words: Language, Lexicography and the Knowledge
Revolution. New York:
University of Exeter Press.
Stein, G. (1991). Illustration in dictionaries, International Journal of Lexicography,
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Summers, D. (1988). The role of dictionaries in language learning. In R. Carter and M.
McCrathy (eds.), Vocabulary and Language Teaching. London: Longman,
111-125.
Tsai, C. Y. (2000). Structure of dictionary entries. Unpublished paper.
35
LDOCE and COBUILD
Xu, H. (2008). Exemplification Policy in English Learners’ Dictionaries.
International Journal of Lexicography, Vol.21 No.4: 395-417.
Electronic Sources
COBUILD. Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBUILD
International
Phonetic
Alphabet.
Retrieved
November
5,
2009,
from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet.
Szynalski, Tomasz P., Review of Collins COBUILD English Dictionary. Retrieved
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Learners'
Corpus.
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December
20,
2009,
from
http://www.pearsonlongman.com/dictionaries/corpus/learners.html.
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Agnes, E. M. (1999). Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th ed. California:
IDG Books Worldwide.
Mayor, M. (2009). Longman English of Contemporary English, 5th ed. Harlow, Essex:
Pearson.
Sinclair, J. (2006). Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary, 5th ed.
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West, M. P., and Endicott, J. G., (1935). The New Method English Dictionary.
36