Capturing phraseology in an online dictionary for advanced users of English as a second language: a response to user needs

Abstract Students reading in a second language often have difficulties finding the right meaning for unfamiliar words or phrases in their dictionaries. Culture- and domain-specific words, inflected forms and discourse markers can all pose special problems. Writing fluently in a second language requires knowledge of the conventional contexts and collocations surrounding a word. While this information may be presented implicitly in dictionaries geared to advanced ESL learners, many students do not have the dictionary savvy to extract it. In response to these difficulties, the authors propose a new type of dictionary—electronic in form, presenting typical phraseology rather than words in isolation. Online, without the constraints of space and linear organization, the dictionary can treat the multi-word lexical units and common collocational patterns that cohere around a node word and illustrate them fully with sentence examples. The most innovative aspect of this dictionary is its search system. Words and expressions in the headword list are hyperlinked to topic words and basic English synonyms so that, by using nested computer searches, the advanced ESL writer can home in on phraseology appropriate to a target context.

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