Comparisons Two Dictionaries between COLLINS COBUILD LEARNER’S
DICTIONARY and WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY of American English from the
Views of Macrostructure and Microstructure
刘子辉
Nowadays, with the development of lexicography, there are quite a few English
dictionaries appearing in the bookstores, while, it is still hard to find a proper English
Dictionary for Learners’ themselves among the various dictionaries. They had better
adopt learner’s dictionary for their daily use and study, in order to learn English well.
Due to this reason, I have chosen two distinguished to make comparisons from their
compiling to evaluate which dictionary is more suitable for English learners.
1, from the view of macrostructure.
Macrostructure means the whole compiling structure of a dictionary. Roughly
speaking, macrostructure can include front and back matter, body. With regard to front
batter, some introductions should be involved, just like preface, or introduction, guide
to the use of the dictionary, and explanations of abbreviations and symbols, etc.
Through their respective introductions, the editors or compilers add merits of
dictionaries in order to attract readers’ interests. For instance, in COLLINS
COBUILD LEARNER’S DICTIONARY, compilers mentioned that dictionary was
compiled based on the corpus named the Bank of English, in addition, the examples
are all taken from this corpus, and represent real language in use; that is to say, each
example is a chunk of language that served a purpose in a real text or conversation,
and is not made up. It seems that with the help of corpus, examples adopted vividly,
from which we can acquire benefits. While, in WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY of
American English, compilers have list four advantages by using this dictionary to
learn American English. They are 1, improving learners’ vocabulary and learning new
words; 2, improving learners reading comprehension by making intelligent guesses at
the meanings of words; 3, avoiding common errors in English; 4, Knowledge of
idioms and verb phrases; 5, American English pronunciation and its relationship to
spelling.
As to the contents, in former dictionary, it includes grammar notations, introduction,
guide to the Dictionary Entries, grammar, dictionary A—Z, illustrations, geographical
names, compass points, numbers, dates, time, weights and measures, frequency list of
words in the dictionary and pronunciation. In latter dictionary, it includes
pronunciation symbols for the sounds of English, sounds of English, sample page,
guide to the dictionary, how to use this dictionary to learn American English,
abbreviations used in this dictionary, the dictionary A – Z, illustrations, irregular verbs
and nouns with irregular or alternate plurals. Generally speaking, the contents of two
structures are the same, with the illustrations, however, are not quite identical with
each other. Although the illustrations offer the vivid pictures of the words used in the
daily life, the positions of this part is not the same in two dictionaries. Such as in
former dictionary, the editors put this part in the back of dictionary, on the contrary, in
latter dictionary, the compilers list the illustrations inserted in the dictionary.
The readerships between two dictionaries are identical with each other. Both of
them have been specially compiled for students of intermediate level and above.
2, from the view of microstructure
I think it is easy to understand that microstructure is the inner structure of each
entry, which should cover IPA or standard pronunciation symbols, parts of speech,
grammatical information about word, idioms, example phrases and sentences, English
root, illustrations, and etc.
It is not a easy think to design the inner structure of each entry logically and orderly,
compilers pay a lot of attention to it to search a more reasonable method to order
various parts together in attempt to improve the efficiency of consulting words.
About the main entry, in the former one, the main form of the headword appears in
large bold face letters, starting in the left hand margin. Hyphenation points are
included, telling learners where it is acceptable to hyphenate the headword. Variant
forms or alternative spellings of a headword are given at the end of information about
the headword. While, in the latter one, the aim entry is printed in large boldface type
and extends to the left of the rest of the text. Main extries are listed in strict
alphabetical order, regardless of whether they are single words, compounds,
abbreviations, prefixes, or suffixes. Single-word entries have centered dots to show
where the word can be divided into syllables. This is a guide to where to add a hyphen
at the end of a line. Detailed rules for appropriate end-of-line hyphenation can be
found in most English style phenated main entries, individual words are also entered
at their own alphabetical places.
About the definitions, although two dictionaries explain word meanings in English,
the ways of explanations are quite different. Particularly, in COLLINS COBUILD
LEARNER’S DICTIONARY, the definitions are written in full sentences, using
common words and showing the common ways in which the headword is used. I
would rather like this way to explain word meanings. Because as a verb of an example,
the definition can tell learners what kinds of subject and object are used with the verb
in that meaning, and whether the verb is typically used in a particular structure. As
adjective words for anther examples, the definitions of them can tell learners what
other words are commonly used with it in that meaning, and whether it is more often
used before a noun or after a verb. From the common sense, we know that the
grammatical information should be embedded in the each entry, while still in this
dictionary, there adds extra column, which is the exclusive features. Due to extra
column, it includes two aspects, frequency, and grammar. Frequency: information
from the Bank of English about how important a word is. Grammar, the structural
patterns are explained. The extra column also contains information about pragamtics
and about style and register.
In WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY of American English, the exclusive features are
English roots and word families. With regard to English roots, this dictionary includes
as main entries several hundred common English roots, primarily from Latin and
Greek, which form the base of many words in English. These roots have a boldface
dash before and after them so the reader understands that they are not words, just parts
of words. A knowledge about the meaning of roots may help the learner to understand
the meaning of an otherwise unfamiliar word. Word families are related words formed
from the same root but having meanings that might be confused. They have different
parts of speech. Word families are discussed in notes at the end of selected entries in
the dictionary. These notes are preceded by the lable – Related words. Words
discussed in these notes may be separate main entries or run-on words.
To sum up, a dictionary plays a role as an assistant to help learners study English,
as matter of fact, more and more compilers concentrate on practical usages of
dictionaries, but there is still not a acceptable structure among dictionaries. But I think
this is a good thing for development of English dictionaries, because of its diversity,
learner has more choice to choose the proper dictionary. In addition, it is necessary for
editors to make sure the readership of dictionaries; thus, they are able to compile a
more useful and practical dictionary.