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A STUDY of DEFINITION DIFFICULTY Peter Macfarquhar OCCASIONAL PAPER #8 1985 ESL LEARNER DICTIONARIES: A STUDY OF DEFINITION DIFFICULTY Peter MacFarquhar ESL teache=s,frequently recommend dictionaries to their sz~dents , and nearly every learner oms one. Although many dictionaries may seem much alike, there are differences in the defining styles and techniques they employ that may considerably influence how useful learners will find them. However, just what sort of definitions and explanations learners actually find most helpful and understandzble is little understood. To investigate this question, ESL students at the University of Hawaii were asked to evaluate a sample of entries illustrating different defining practices commonly used in English dictionaries. The entries were taken from tuo well known learner's dictionaries, the Oxfor& Advanced Learner's Dictionary and the Longman Dictionary of Conzenuorary English, and a widely used dictbuary for native speakers, Webster's New World Dictionary. A significart majority of these learners consistently preferred entries from Longman. Possible factors contributing to this preference, and Implications for other learners, ESL teachers, and lexicographers are discussed. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS < 4 < ABSTXACT ............................. A&- LIST OF TABLES .......................... v CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ...................... 1 CHAPTER 11. LANGUAGE LXARNERS' USE OF DICTIONARIES ....... 5 CHAIPTER 111. DEFINING IN BILINGUAL. AN3 MONOLIXGL'AL DICTIONARIES . 13 CHAPTER IV. MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARIES FOR ESL LEARNERS ...... 21 CHAPTER V. IETEODS AND MATERL4I.S ................ &O CHAF'TER VI. RESULTS ....................... 48 CHAF'TER VII. CONCLUSION ..................... 57 APPENDn A. TEST IiORDS ..................... 61 APPENDIXB. SAIPLECARDS .................... 62 APPENDIX C. PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS ............... 63 BIBLIOGWHY ........................... 65 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1 1 Number of Entries from Each Dictionary Chosen in Each Class . 49 2 Reasons Given for Choice of Entries . 51 3 Entry Selection in the Kighest and Lowest Classes . 54 1 4 Entry Selection and TOEFL Scores . 55 5 Entry Selection and Habits of Dictionary Use . 56 1 The Problem Nearly every ESL student buys a dictionary. Given the considerable range of bilingual, native speaker, and learner varieties available, what sort of dictionaries will learners find wst helpful? Research sbws (1) that most learners are primarily concerned with dictionaries for findiag the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases, and ake far less use of the pronunciation, syntactic, and other kinds of information that dictionaries often contain; and (2) that many learners find monolingual dictionaries more helpful for this purpose than bilingual ones (Tomaszczyk 1979:112, Bejoint 1981:217). Although many mowlingual dictionaries now on the market may seem much alike to the casual observer, with closer scrutiny it becomes clear that there are numerous differences between them that may affect how useful learners will find them. These differences occur in both the range of infomation that these dictionaries contain as well as in how it is presented. They include such things as the words incp~cfed, the defining styles and techniques used to explain these words, the use of illustrative phrases and examples, entry format, the treatment of idioms. Some of these differences aay be wre important than others for comprehension purposes. For example, there is frequently a great deal of agreement between the word lists in dictionaries of similar size. And the effective use of features that influence the finding of words, such as entry format and cross referencing, is often a natter of 2 reading the introduction to the dictionary. Differences in defining styles and the use of verbal illustration may be more important. For even if a learner can locate the entry for a word, it will be of Little help if the explanation cannot be understood. Many lexicographers feel that dictionaries should be designed to suit the needs of the audience they are intended for (Householder and Saporta 1962:279, Cowie 1979:82). They also readily admit, however, that relatively little is kmn about which lexicographic practices and methods learners consider helpful, and which they do not (Bejoint 1981, Tomaszczyk 1979). In view of their primary concern with finding meaning, and their limited English abilities, it seems likely that ESL learners may be particularly sensitive to differences in defining style and definition complexity. However, just what sort of definitions and explanations learners actually find most helpful and easy to understand is not very well understood. The Need for the Study This questLon has been partially addressed in critical reviews in the professional literature that evaluate, compare and recommend various dictionaries. However, there are differing opinions reflected in these articles, and virtually all of them are written from the point of view of linguists, lexicographers, and ESL educators. Also, since selecting dictionaries for learners is an hportant and recurrent concern, ESL teachers are regularly exposed to conflicting publishers' claims designed to influence these decisions. &re attention needs to be given to the actual learners' point of view. How helpful and understandable do the learners themselves consider the definitions and explanations in the sorts of dictionaries being recomaended to them? It has been suggested that dictionaries might be improved by feedback supplied by wn-expert native speaker info-ts from the rank of their potential users (Bejoint 1979). Similarly, ESL learners nay be able to provide valuable insights about which methods of defining and explaining words are &st helpful for them. The Scope of the Study This paper is an attempt to explore this little horn area of learners' perceptions and assessments of definition intelligibility. Chapter 11 sumeys the findings of research on dictionary use amng language learners, and considers some possible insights they may provide on the role of definitions and explanations. Chapter I11 presents an introductory overview of defhing in lexicography and examines how defining styles and techniques may affect the usefulness of bilingual and monolingual dictionaries for finding meaning. Chapter IV discusses some different defining policies followed by various kinds of monolingual dictionaries that ESL learners might use, and identifies some reasons and issues behind adopting these policies. .The next section, Chapter V, describes a study which was undertaken to determine the intelligibility of a sample of definitions from three widely used English dictionaries. And the last parts, Chapters VI and VII report and discuss the results, conclusims, and implications of this study. It is hoped that.this research will compliment the existing literature on dictionaries for ESL learners, put relevant publishers' claim in perspective, and help ESL instructors and program directors 4 in deciding what dictionaries to recommend to their students. This 1 study may also be of interest to lexicographers writing definitions 1 with the needs and abilities of foreign language learners in mind. I I 1 I 1 I 1 I I I I 1 I I 1 1 CWTER 11 LANGUAGE L?URNEXS1 USE OF DICTIONARIES In contrast to the vast numbers and varieties of dictionaries produced and sold around the wrld, there are strikingly few published studies of how the people that buy them actually use them, or of their attitudes and expectations about them (Tomaszczyk 1979:103). Xejoint (1981:207) suggests that dictionary publishers may have undertaken such studies, but for commercial reasons they do not generally release them. The earliest of the few studies of this sort that are available explored dictionary use among native speakers. Only in the last few years have studies been done on dictionary use among foreign language learners. The former are important because they served in part as models for the latter (Bejoint 1981:207). Xarnhart (1962) investigated dictionary use among college students in the United States. He asked teachers in 99 dffferenc colleges to rate six types of information usually contained in collegiate dictionaries in order of their importance to college freshmen. Fiis results showed that college freshmen use their dictionaries mosc often to look for meaning, followed closely by spelling.. Pronunciation was ranked third, and synonyns, usage, and etymologies were considered far less important (Xarnhart 1962:162). It is interesting to note that it was the teachers, and not the users themselves, who supplied the data in this case. Quirk (1973) studied what uses native English speaking British university students made of mnolingual English dictionaries. His subjects were 220 first year students at University College London, 6 about equally divided between science and humanities majors. In addition to a wide range of questions about what dictionaries they omed and how frequently they consulted them, these students were as'ked to indicate how useful and important various kinds of dictionary information were to them. Eere as well, the great majority of the respondents considered meaning by far the most frequent and important infomtion sousht after in dictionaries. Spelling was ranked second, but considerably lower than meaning. Synonyms, etyimlogies, usage, pronunciation, and parts of speech were considered less important (Quirk 1973:SO-81). An overall view of Quirk's results indicated that native speakers use their dictionaries ahst exclusively for decoding, rarely for encoding
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