Defining with Simple Vocabulary in English Dictionaries

"This book investigates an important but under-researched aspect of dictionary making: the use of a controlled vocabulary in definitions. The main concern of the author is the role of a definition vocabulary in how foreign learners understand and perceive dictionary definitions. The author takes the reader through a detailed historical account of controlled vocabularies and examines definitions in a range of English dictionaries with respect to their vocabulary loads. He performs a series of experiments with university students to reveal merits and shortcomings of restricted vocabularies. This monograph has been written with the aim to fill a gap in the literature on defining vocabulary. It is intended for lexicographers, dictionary editors, course designers, teachers, and students, as well as anyone who wishes to explain words in an intelligible way"-- Provided by publisher TLRP 22 Defining with Simple Vocabulary in English Dictionaries 2 Editorial page 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Table of Contents 6 List of Tables 10 List of Figures 12 Abbreviations used in the text 14 Acknowledgements 16 Introduction 18 1. Historical background and issues 18 2. Research questions 22 3. Studies presented in the book 24 1. Pioneering research on vocabulary control 28 1.1 Early interests in vocabulary control 28 1.2 The objective approach to vocabulary selection 30 1.2.1 Edward L. Thorndike 31 1.2.2 Ernest Horn 32 1.2.3 Lawrence Faucett and Itsu Maki 32 1.2.4 The strengths and limitations of statistical word-counts 33 1.3 The subjective approach 35 1.3.1 Harold Palmer 36 1.3.2 Michael West 40 1.3.2.1 West’s defining vocabulary 42 1.4 The logical approach 45 1.5 The General Service List: Confrontation of the competing approaches 50 1.5.1 The Carnegie Conferences 50 1.5.2 The General Service List 51 1.5.3 Criticism of the GSL 59 1.6 Summary 62 2. Other major projects on vocabulary control 64 2.1 Word-lists for pedagogical purposes 64 2.1.1 The American Heritage Word Frequency Book (1971) 65 2.1.2 The Threshold Level English (1975) 65 2.1.3 The Cambridge English Lexicon (1980) 66 2.1.4 Word-lists from popular corpora: the Brown (1967), the LOB (1978), the Bank of English (1991), and the BNC (1990s) 67 2.1.5 The University Word List (1984) 70 2.1.6 The Academic Word List (2000) 72 2.1.7 The Common Core Vocabulary (2002) 73 2.1.8 A New Academic Vocabulary List (2013) 74 2.1.9 A New General Service List (2013) 75 2.2 The GSL against other word-lists and corpora 76 2.3 Controlled vocabularies for professional and human-computer communications 79 2.3.1 Controlled English for writing service manuals 79 2.3.2 Text production for machine translation 83 2.4 Identifying a core vocabulary 86 2.5 Wierzbicka’s Natural Semantic Metalanguage and relevant projects 95 2.5.1 Natural Semantic Metalanguage 95 2.5.2 A primitive-based dictionary 99 2.5.3 Minimal English 102 2.5.4 Defining with primitives for cross-linguistic comparison 102 2.6 Summary 104 3. Defining with a controlled vocabulary: Preliminary insights 106 3.1 What is the dictionary definition? 107 3.2 Defining in plain English: A historical overview of native-speaker dictionary tradition 110 3.3 Defining in learners’ dictionaries between 1935 and 1986 121 3.3.1 Early learners’ dictionaries: NMED and ISED 122 3.3.1.1 NMED (1935) 122 3.3.1.2 ISED (1942) and ALD1 (1948) 123 3.3.1.3 Conclusion 126 3.3.2 Revisions of ALD and emergence of new competitors: 1963–1986 126 3.3.2.1 ALD2 (1963)–OALD3 (1974) 127 3.3.2.2 LDOCE1 (1978) 128 3.3.3 Conclusions 134 3.4 Review of previous studies of defining vocabularies 134 3.4.1 Summary of previous studies and implications for the current research 147 3.4.2 Research hypotheses 151 4. Quantitative analyses 154 4.1 Research design 154 4.1.1 Materials 154 4.1.2 Data selection 155 4.1.3 Research tools and reference lists 159 4.1.4 Data analysis 162 4.2 Analysis of receptive vocabulary load and other quantitative comparisons 165 4.2.1 Receptive vocabulary load of definitions 165 4.2.1.1 Coverage of definitions by Base Lists: learners’ dictionaries 165 4.3 Similarity of content 174 4.3.1 Size of the lists 174 4.3.2 HCA: Similarities between the lists 176 4.3.3 Overlapping and unique items 177 4.3.4 The Core Defining Vocabulary 180 4.3.5 Multiword items 183 4.3.6 Word-building elements 184 4.4 Conclusions 185 5. Qualitative analysis 188 5.1 Research materials and methodology 188 5.1.1 Materials 188 5.1.2 Data selection 189 5.2 Learners’ dictionaries (1987–2015) 192 5.2.1 LDOCE2 (1987)–LDOCE6 (2014) 192 5.2.2 OALD4 (1989) – OALD9 (2015) 202 5.2.2.1 The DV of OALD5 (1995) and subsequent editions 204 Derivatives 233 Combinations of words 233 Restrictions on meaning 234 5.2.3 COBUILD1 (1987) – COBUILD8 (2014) 213 5.2.4 CALD1 – CALD4 (1995–2013) 219 5.2.5 MEDAL (2002–2007) 224 5.2.6 MWALED (2008) 228 5.2.7 DV in digital dictionaries 230 5.2.8 Summary and conclusion 232 5.3 Native-speaker dictionaries (1984–2011) 234 5.3.1 Analysis 235 5.3.2 Conclusions 242 6. The defining vocabulary and the user 244 6.1 Design of the experiment 244 6.1.1 Subjects 245 6.1.2 Materials 245 6.1.3 Procedure 248 6.2 Results 249 6.2.1 Comprehension of dictionary definitions 249 6.2.2 Comprehension of invented definitions 252 6.2.3 Other factors affecting comprehension score 254 6.2.4 Perception of definitions 257 6.2.5 Summary of the results 258 6.3 Discussion 258 6.4 Conclusions 261 7. General conclusions 264 1. Main findings 264 2. Implications for definition writing and DV design 266 3. Further research 269 Appendix 1. The Core Defining Vocabulary (CDV) 270 Appendix 2. Word Familiarity Page 280 Task 1, version 1 (with LDOCE6 definitions) 281 Task 1, version 2 (COBUILD-8) 285 Task 1, version 3 (ODE-2) 289 Task 1, version 4 (Chambers-12) 294 Task 2, version 1 (all the dictionaries) 298 Task 2, version 2 (all the dictionaries) 305 References 314 Dictionaries 314 Printed dictionaries 314 Dictionaries on CD-ROM/DVDs 317 Online dictionaries 318 Other literature 318 Index 342