Interim Report on the EURALEX/АILА Research Project Into Dictionary Use

This paper outlines a project designed to assess how effectively dictionaries serve the purpose for which they are intended. A detailed study was made of the use of dictionaries by students of English as a foreign language, native speakers of French, German, Italian and Spanish, over 1100 responses being received from seven coun­ tries. The resultant figures are still being analysed; this paper simply offers an initial taste of the results, which are held in a database at the University of Aston. Sugges­ tions are made for ways in which this database, now a E U R A L E X resource, may be enriched and exploited by other E U R A L E X members, both by further analysing these results and their implications, and by developing other lines of dictionary use research.