Differences in the Inclusion and Treatment of Terminology in OALD3, OALD4 and OALD8*

This article deals with the inclusion and treatment of scientific and technical vocabulary in the third, fourth and eighth editions of Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. The comparison of these editions is based on a random sample of 50 pages from OALD8 from the lemma foot to gimmick. The same lemma range was also studied in OALD3 and OALD4. First, different ways of indicating terminology were identified: i.e., subject-field labels, definitions and short cuts. Then all the lemmata or their senses marked with a subject-field label were found and a list of all subjectfield labels used in this lemma range was compiled to see similarities and differences between individual editions. The comparison showed that the number of subject-field labels in all three editions is almost identical, but the subject-field labels differ from edition to edition. The issue of overly specific labels (e.g., 'anatomy', 'phonetics') and labels that are too broad (e.g., 'science', 'technical') is addressed. The next part of the article is devoted to the changes in the treatment of LSP lexical items in these three editions of OALD, from missing labels to changes in labels and ways of indicating terminology by means of definitions and/or short cuts. The conclusion suggests improvements in the subject-field labels themselves, a more consistent way of including subjectfield labels even when the definitions indicate the subject field and an improved use of short cuts when the reference is to a certain subject field.Keywords: definitions, general dictionaries, lemma, monolingual learner's dictionaries, oald3, oald4, oald8, scientific vocabulary, sense indicator, short cuts, subject-field labels, technical vocabular

The inclusion of word formation in OALD8: The case of undefined run-ons

The study presented in this contribution aims to investigate whether the print edition of OALD8 still sticks to the tradition of including many derivatives as run-on entries. For the purpose of the study, a database was compiled consisting of 1,200 lemmata with full entry status, and in this lemma range, 145 run-ons were found. The parts of speech of the lemma under which a runon could be found were closely studied, and so were the illustrative examples. Nouns are most commonly included as run-ons, followed by adverbs, adjectives and verbs. The problem of polysemous entries at the end of which undefined run-ons can be found is also discussed. When it is difficult to draw parallels between the sense(s) of the lemma and the run-on deriving from it, it would be much better to include the run-on as the lemma and to define all its senses separately or to include undefined run-ons at the end of each individual sense of the lemma. Finally, it should be clear to the user when and why a certain word is included as a run-on and not as a lemma, and how s/he can establish a relation between the meaning of the lemma and the run-on.Keywords: Monolingual learner's dictionaries, OALD8, lemmata, secondary lemmata, undefined run-ons, proportion of run-ons to entries, examples of use, derivatives, suffixes, part-of-speech labels, grammatical informationDie insluiting van woordvorming in die OALD8: Die geval van onverklaardesDie studie waaroor daar in hierdie artikel berig word, probeer vasstel of die gedrukte weergawe van die OALD8 die tradisie handhaaf om baie afleidings as onverklaarde lemmas op te neem. Vir die doel van hierdie studie is 'n databasis saamgestel van 1,200 lemmatamet volle artikels en tussen hierdie lemmata is 145 onverklaarde lemmas gevind. Die woordsoort van die lemmas waaraan onverklaardes geheg is, is noukeurig nagegaan asook die voorbeeldmateriaal. Naamwoorde tree die algemeenste as onverklaardes op, gevolg deur bywoorde, adjektiewe en werkwoorde. Die problem van polisemiese inskrywings waaraan onverklaardes geheg word, word ook bespreek. Wanneer dit moeilik is om die verband tussen die betekenisonderskeidinge van 'n lemma en die voortspruitende onverklaardes te lê, sal dit beter wees om die onverklaardes as volle lemmata op te neem en die onderskeie betekenisonderskeidinge te verklaar, of om die onverklaardes aan die einde van elke verklaring van 'n betekenisonderskeiding te heg. Dit moet vir die gebruiker duidelik wees waar en wanneer 'n woord as onverklaarde opgeneem word en nie as volle lemma nie en ook hoe die verband tussen die betekenis van die lemma en die onverklaardevasgestel kan word.Sleutelwoorde: Eentalige aanleerderwoordeboek, gebruiksvoorbeelde, grammatiese inligting, lemmata, OALD8, onverklaardes, sekondêre lemmata, suffikse, verhouding van onverklaardes tot inskrywings, woordsoortetikett

Oris slovarjev in priročnikov za učenje angleščine slovenskih izseljencev v ZDA v obdobju 1895–1919

V članku je na kratko predstavljena zgodovina slovenskega priseljevanja v ZDA. Sledi analiza šestih slovarjev in priročnikov, objavljenih med letoma 1895 in 1919, ki so bili slovenskim izseljencem v ZDA v pomoč pri učenju in razumevanju angleščine ter pri prilagajanju novemu kulturnemu okolju. Avtorice v raziskavi ugotavljajo, katere vrste informacij so bile izseljencem na voljo v preučevanih slovarjih in priročnikih (npr. razlaga izgovora angleških besed, razlaga angleške slovnice, koristni pogosti komunikacijski obrazci, navodila za naturalizacijo, pojasnila o poimenovanju in vrednosti ameriških kovancev in bankovcev, različni oglasi)

Pot, kettle: Nonliteral titles aren’t (natural) science

© 2020 The Author. Published by MIT Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00078Researchers may be tempted to attract attention through poetic titles for their publications, but would this be mistaken in some fields? Whilst poetic titles are known to be common in medicine, it is not clear whether the practice is widespread elsewhere. This article investigates the prevalence of poetic expressions in journal article titles 1996-2019 in 3.3 million articles from all 27 Scopus broad fields. Expressions were identified by manually checking all phrases with at least 5 words that occurred at least 25 times, finding 149 stock phrases, idioms, sayings, literary allusions, film names and song titles or lyrics. The expressions found are most common in the social sciences and the humanities. They are also relatively common in medicine, but almost absent from engineering and the natural and formal sciences. The differences may reflect the less hierarchical and more varied nature of the social sciences and humanities, where interesting titles may attract an audience. In engineering, natural science and formal science fields, authors should take extra care with poetic expressions, in case their choice is judged inappropriate. This includes interdisciplinary research overlapping these areas. Conversely, reviewers of interdisciplinary research involving the social sciences should be more tolerant of poetic licens

The lexicographer’s dream audience

Interviews with undergraduate students from the University of Ljubljana, who are majoring in English and can be considered language specialists, investigated habits of dictionary use, look-up abilities, and perceptions of the utility and quality of definitions and illustrative examples. This contrasts with a parallel study (Farina et al. 2019) with undergraduates majoring in business and economics. Like the parallel study, this study was based on fourteen questions and nine contexts containing a clearly-marked common word used in an infrequent senseparticipants had to locate the sense in a dictionary that, at the time of the studies, was the online Merriam–Webster Learner’s Dictionary, rebranded today as The Britannica Dictionary. Participants were asked to think aloud as they looked up words. Among other results, the study revealed that its participants, while they were linguistically-educated and experienced, did not fully grasp the complexity of presenting dictionary information online

Who is sharpest at looking up sharp?

This article is a comparison of two previous research studies (Farina et al. 2019Vrbinc et al. in press), both of which examined the dictionary look-up behaviors of two very different cohorts of undergraduate students from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. At the time the two original and parallel look-up studies were carried out, one cohort was majoring in business and economics in the School of Economics and Business and the other was majoring in English in the Faculty of Arts. The previously published work reports on how, in both groups, participants were given nine contexts containing a clearly marked common English word used in an infrequent and often unknown sensethey had to locate the relevant sense related to a given context in an unknown-to-them learner\u27s dictionary, The Britannica Dictionary. The participants were asked to think aloud as they looked up wordsthe researchers observed and recorded their approaches and problems. Prior to, during, and after the look-up process, the members of these two cohorts responded to fourteen questions about their habits of dictionary use and their perceptions of the utility and quality of definitions and illustrative examples that they encountered. This article contrasting the two studies indicates that the look-up proficiency of the two groups differed significantly

Die negatiewe en positiewe van woordeboekmaak

This contribution presents the second and final report on a study that set out to gain a greater understanding of what general modern Slovenian lexicography is. The full study focused on the philosophy, accomplishments, daily practice, and dictionary projects of seven prominent members of the Slovenian lexicographic community, all of whom were interviewed at length. An open-ended interview script allowed study participants to both reflect on their practice and portray their vision of what lexicography or terminography is. Part 1 (Vrbinc, Farina and Vrbinc 2018a2018b) reported on whether the lexicographers saw their work as drudgery and what they saw as the nature of their role in the society. Here, in Part 2, the emphasis is on the day-to-day concerns of the participating Slovenian lexicographers. They discuss both the technological and the human resources that drive their work. This second report also includes a brief survey of the historical development of Slovenian lexicography as the necessary backdrop for the interpretation of the modern situation.Hierdie bydrae stel die tweede en finale verslag van \u27n studie wat daarop gemik is om \u27n beter begrip van die algemene moderne Sloweense leksikografie te verkry, bekend. Die volledige studie het gefokus op die filosofie, prestasies, daaglikse praktyk, en woordeboekprojekte van sewe prominente lede van die Sloweense gemeenskap met wie almal indringende onderhoude gevoer is. \u27n Oop onderhoud het deelnemers aan die studie toegelaat om na te dink oor wat hulle doen en om ook weer te gee wat hul visie van die leksikografie of terminografie is. Deel 1 (Vrbinc, Farina en Vrbinc 2018a2018b) het verslag gedoen oor of leksikograwe hul werk as sleurwerk ervaar en wat hulle as die aard van hul rol in die gemeenskap beskou. Hier, in deel 2, is die klem op die daaglikse probleme van die deelnemende Sloweense leksikograwe. Hulle bespreek beide die tegnologiese en menslike hulpbronne wat as dryfkrag vir hul werk dien. As noodsaaklike agtergrond vir die interpretasie van die moderne situasie bevat die tweede verslag ook \u27n kort oorsig van die historiese ontwikkeling van die Sloweense leksikografie