陈国华教授指点迷津谈字典6

Now, next, English dictionaries for foreign learners.
2.3 English dictionaries for foreign learners

Apart from the Oxford Collocations Dictionary, all the dictionaries I have mentioned are designed for native English speakers. Unless bilingualized, such dictionaries are useful only to fairly advanced learners of English as a last resort, 最后一个，没有办法，as a last resort最后一个途径, because in the first place, the definitions are too difficult to understand, too difficult for foreign learners to understand, sometimes too difficult for native speakers to understand. And also there are few examples. I will give you a riddle. One English word is defined in Concise Oxford Dictionary as …one… native language dictionary. The first definition is given in Concise Oxford Dictionary. You can guess what it is: It is an umbelliferous plant, Daucus carota, with a tapering orange-colored root. This is one definition; one A; second definition: this root is a vegetable. You know what it is? Some of you have guessed it - carrot. But it’s difficult to be sure, right?
This definition, although very precise and scientific, is very difficult to understand. It contains two very difficult words one is umbelliferous伞形花的; the flower is like an umbrella, and tapering锥形的, plus the Latin name Daucus carota,  - carota -which most native speakers even don’t understand. To make monolingual dictionaries understandable or easily accessible to foreign learners of English, a famous lexicographer, by the name of Michael West, hit upon the idea of controlled defining vocabulary,有控制的释义词. He taught English in Japan in the 1930s. In 1935 he published the first English learner’s dictionary called The New Method English Dictionary, 《新方法英语词典》。What is new? The dictionary is new in that it defines all the 23,898 words using just 1,490 words. Because at that time, people believed that learners of a foreign language should use the foreign language only. Teacher should use the foreign language only. It is called direct method(直接教学法). Students should be thrown into the swimming pool of foreign language and be immersed in the swimming pool of foreign language. So he should be cut away from his native language. But with a dictionary like the Concise Oxford Dictionary, no foreign learners can understand the definitions. So what to do? Ok, use a very limited vocabulary to define each word.

Now today most learner’s dictionaries define their headwords by using between 2,000 to 3,000 words. This is an important feature of learner’s dictionaries. In theory, if you have learned these 2,000-3,000 words, you should be able to use a monolingual learner’s dictionary. In fact it’s not as simple as that. In the first place, some of the examples contain more English words than the 2,000 to 3,000 words. And also sometimes if you use simple words, you have to define things in a roundabout way. For example the word volcano, to define the word volcano, then you have to say a mountain with a big hole on the top. This is not very precise. And sometimes, you have to guess what kind of mountain is that. You may not immediately think it is a volcano. But if we compare the definition of Concise Oxford Dictionary with the definition of the same word given by a learner’s dictionary, such as the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary – Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the latest edition is the 6th edition, published in the year 2000, the advantage of a controlled defining vocabulary to a learner is very clear. The learner’s dictionary defines it as very simply “a long pointed一头是尖的 orange root vegetable. 

The words are familiar to you. But sometimes you may still have to think it for a while. I think it is like a riddle,像一个谜语. Apart from Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary there are currently four other major learner’s dictionaries on the market. These are: Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (3rd Edition, the latest one is published in the year 2001) and Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (published in the year 2002), and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (4th edition. published in the last year) and Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (also published last year.) These four … these five are all designed for foreign learners and advanced learners. All of them use a controlled vocab-.. defining vocabulary of no more than 3,000 words. At first Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary used a controlled vocabulary of 3,500 words. Under the pressure from other dictionaries, the latest edition limits it to 2,000-3,000 words.

In terms of their macrostructure 宏观结构, the kind of headwords contained in the dictionary, these learner’s dictionaries are also general-purpose dictionaries通用词典. Anyone can use them. In terms of their microstructure微观结构, what is contained within one entry, these dictionaries have some distinctive features. So in addition to a controlled defined … defining vocabulary, these dictionaries have the following features. First, detailed grammatical information. Normally we say we use dictionaries for two purposes. One is decoding解码. When you read you have to decode. The other is encoding编码. When you write or speak, you have to encode words into discourse, into text. So to encode English, you need grammatical information. Second, attention to collocation, the importance of collocation, I’ve already told you about. Three, rich examples. And four, information about word frequencies. This has something to do with the controlled vocabulary movement. And lastly, explanatory notes, usage notes, language notes, grammar notes and so on. Various notes. These are the most important features of learner’s dictionaries. Let’s look at them one by one.