Book Report
— English Dictionary for Foreign Language Learners: A History
王 静
Ⅰ. Introduction
The author of this book is A.P.Cowie who is a world well-renown
lexicographers. He is the person in charge of the Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary (the third and fourth edition). At present he is the
editor of “International Lexicographical Magazine” and the honourary
professor of the University of Leeds in Britain. He was the committee
member of the British Council’s ELT.
The book English Dictionaries for Foreign Language Learners: A
History published in 1999 deserves great popularity. It is the first book
concerning with the history of learners’ dictionaries so far, and the first
monograph on the systematic study in the field.
The book is on sociology, as a result it is arranged both in a
chronological and thematic structure. Three of its six chapters deal in the
historical sequence and the last three chapters deal with praseology,
computers and corpus linguistics and research into dictionary users. The
aim is to prompt the development of the learners’ dictionary-compiling
and researches through describing the development of the learners’
dictionaries from 1920s to the end of 1980s.
Ⅱ. Summary
The first three of its six chapters deal in historical sequence aiming
to introduce the origin of the learners’ dictionaries based on the three
regards, they are, the pioneers of the English pedagogical dictionaries, the
three movements in which the original learners’ dictionaries have derived
from and developed, and the birth of the first generation learners’
dictionaries.
First Part
1. The Pioneers and Three Movements
The monolingual EFL dictionaries begin with the pioneering works
of Harold E. Palmer, Micheal West and A.S.Hornby. They are reputed as
the fathers of applied linguists in the 20th century.
Without doubt Harold Edward Palmer achieved such eminence both
as a linguist and as an authority on language teaching. In 1915 he was
invited to give lectures on language teaching in London. During this
period he became the first to put forwar category definiton , which later
was developed into the vacabulary control theory. Also produced during
the London period was A Grammar of Spoken English (1924) in which he
said grammar was a manifestation of language phenomenon rather than
logic. His publication of A Grammar of Englissh Words (1938) was the
second innovative foreign learners’ dictionary following Michael Philip
West’s.
The great success of Michael philip West was his contribution to the
prominence of the vocabulary limitation. In 1934 on the initiative of West
the first conference of vocabulary limitation was opened. Under the
guidance of vocabulary limitation he and J.G.Endicott published the New
Method English Dictionary (1935). With West’s help some vocabularylimited-influenced glossaries and
New Method Readers were published
which were the foundations of dictionary-making.
A.S.Hornby published Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary
(1942) later named as Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. He found the
magazine English Language Teaching (1946) in London. In 1954 Hornby
published A Guide to Patterns and Usage in Enlish.
The three pioneeres devoted themselves to the innovation of the
foreign learners’ dictionaries. They pioneered the three prestigious
movements: the vocabulary control movement, the phraseological study
as well as the pedagogical grammar movement. All the three studies had
influenced the dictionary-compiling deeply.
The vocabulary control was to cater to the needs of teaching. The
two approaches were the objective quantitaitve approach represented by
Edward L. Thorndike and the subjective approach represented by Palmer
and West. Palmer held the compilation should be taken account of the
personal judgment and teachers’ experience instead of the objective
statistics. On the vocabulary selection and grading , Palmer debated that
the foreign learners should grasp the basic vocabularies in different stages.
Palmers’ another achievement was “thousand-word” English.
In 1935 West and Palmer compiled the General Service List (GSL)
and published in 1953. The GSL was the most authorative glossary which
had its microstructure. The characteristics were that all the headwords
were alphabetically arrranged. The derivational forms were numbered.
Examples were given which enriched the glossary. Also West was
successful in using 1,490 words to explain 23,898 words in NMED. In
the same year he published Definition Vocabulary aiming to explain the
words as to how to choose and exam.
The second influential research was pedagogical grammar. Palmer’s
contribution to the classification of words were acceptable from the four
lines. First, he was first to distinguish the countable noun and the
uncountable noun in GEW. Second he put forward the notion of “zero
determiner”. Third, he summarized the 24 forms of the anomalous finites.
Finally, he started a systematic research on the construction-pattern.
Besides Hornby diviede the whole verbs into the trasitive verbs and the
intransitive verbs.
On the phraseology, Palmer was the sponsor of the study. His
contributiions mainly were as follows. First, he defined the term
collocation from the teaching point of view. Second, he and Hornby had
collected a lot of idioms and collocations which bbecame the composition
of GSL. Third, through Palmer and Hornby’s effort collocations were the
conspicous feature of ISED. All the effrots prompted the birth of the first
generation of leasrners’ dictionaries.
⒉ The First Generation of Leraners’ Dictioanries
The first generation of leaners’ dictionaries included the NMED,
GEW and ISED. They had their own special emphasis. The NMED
compiled by West was designed for the middle-grade foreign language
learners purposely to read. West used the limited 1,490 words to explain
the 23,898 entries in NMED. The GEW (second edition) was published
by Palmer in 1938. GEW embodied lots of core vocabularies, and ISED
was compiled for the advanced Japanese learners by Hornby. He layed
special emphasis on the encoding function.
Second Part
The second part of this book is focused on the later development of
the learners’ dictionaries. This part was involved in the following aspects,
they are, the second and third generations of learners’ dictioanries, the
role of the computer in lexicography as well as the focus on the
dictioanry users.
1. The Second and Third Generations of Learners’ Dictionary
The second generation of learners’ dictionaries are the advanced
Learner’s Dictionary (second edition), the Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary (third edition) as well as the Longmaan Dictioary of
Contemporary English (first edition).
The ALD2 changed a lot on the microstructure, such as, the
transcription of the compounds, the definitions, the arrangement of the
idioms, the verb transcription, and so on. What was most typical of the
LDOCE1 was its usage of limitede 2,000 frequency words to denote the
definitions.
The third generation dictioanries appeared in the 1980s. Learners’
dictionaries in this period were brand – new under the influence of
computer technology. First, with regard to the macrostructure the
LDOCE2 inserted the similar derivations into the paragraphs of the roots,
and set the verb phrases into the verbal entries. On the microstructure, it
set the homographs as separate headwords. Second, the LDOCE2
resorted to the acceptable labels, such as, [T] representing transitive verbs.
Third, the LDOCE2 omitted some out-of-date proper nouns. Next, the
LDOCE2 added more labels, such as, regional use, style,register and
attitude. Finally, the LDOCE2 embodied the synonyms and antonyms.
2. Computer
However, computer played an impportant role in dictionary-making.
ALD3, LDOCE1 and COBUILD1 were such dictionaries. The computer
corpus was useful to lexicographers. They were able to search it quickly,
find instances of a particular word or phrase and sort the examples
systematically. COBUILD1 was the result of computer corpus. It was
included the frequently used words and authentic examples from the
corpus.
Dictioanries over the past twenty years in particular have been
increasingly user-driven. In this book A.P.Cowie listed six kinds of
investigations of the dictioary users, which revealed the several aspects of
the pedagogical users, they are, the learners’ attitude, expectation and
criticism, the relation between the study activities and dictioanry-using,
the users’ reference skills, the investigation on the bilingualized learners’
dictioanries as well as the dictioanry-using in teaching.
III. Comment
This book illustrates the origin and innovation of the foreign
language
learners’ dictioanries,
especially
introduces
the
novel
characteristics of the typical learners’ dictionaries in different generations
in the final part. The authoer lists the user-related researches aiming to
draw attention to the practice of the user-driven dictioanry-compiling.
The most important merit of this book lies in its predicability. In fact
readers can predict the tendy of compiling the learners; dictioanries. First,
the leaners’ dictioanries are tend to embody the core words to satisfy the
readers’ needs of expression and comprehension. Second, using about
2.500 words to give the definitions. Third, computer-corpus based
examples and entries are more acceptable. Next, the learners’
dicrtionaries
are
user-friendliness.
Finally,
dictioanry-compiling
encourages the collobration among the lexicographers, linguists and
corpus linguists.
Another merit is that the author resorts to the analytical and
comparable method in writing. For example, the author picks out the
representative dictionaries in each generation and analyses their
innovative factors by comparing with the previous versions.
The last one, still very important, is that the autjor compiles the
chapter of user-related researches. It is further a manifestation of the
author’s theme: the practical dictionary is demanded. The results of the
investigations also can be seen as the reference to the lexicographers or
students of lexicography.
On the readers’ part, they’d better pay attention to the innovative
features of the dictionaries of each generation and the theretical reasons
behind. It is also necessary to know the three important theories put
forward by the pioneers in the first part.
Over the seventy-year development, learners’ dictionaries are more
and more practical and user-driven. Under these guidance the dictionary
will be more acceptable.