Dictionaries for Learners of English

Special FeatureDictionaries for Learners of EnglishPaul Bogaards, Leiden University, Prins Hendriklaan 68,NL-2051 JE Overveen. Tel. +31 (0)235261488.Bogaards@R ULLET. Leiden Univ. NL

Abstract

Recently four new dictionaries for learners of English have been published. In the firstsection of this article some thought is given to the relationship between foreign languagelearning and dictionary use. The steps that a learner needs to take when reading orwriting a text in the foreign language are taken as a starting point for the discussion.This leads to a set of questions which are used in the subsequent sections for theevaluation of the new learner's dictionaries. Some twenty points concerning text recep-tion and text production in a foreign language are reviewed. In the concluding sectionan overall evaluation is given. Tables and Figures at end.

1. Introduction

1995 was a particularly fruitful year for the pedagogical lexicography ofEnglish, with the appearance of no fewer than four new dictionaries forlearners. Three of them are new editions of already existing dictionaries: thereis a second edition of the Collins Cobuild English Dictionary (henceforthCOBUILD), a third edition of the Longman Dictionary of ContemporaryEnglish (LDOCE), and a fifth edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner'sDictionary of Current English (OALD); the new one is the CambridgeInternational Dictionary of English.(CIDE). Table 1 gives some comparativeinformation about these dictionaries.

In order to be able to make a clear assessment of these new learner'sdictionaries, I would like to develop a set of criteria which are specific to thelanguage learning situation. This will be done in the second section of thispaper. After that I will use these criteria to describe and compare the dictiona-ries just mentioned, separately for their use for receptive purposes (section 3)and for productive purposes (section 4). I will conclude with a table presentingan overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the four dictionaries discussed,and a number of general observations.

2. Dictionaries and second or foreign language learning

Two questions come to mind when having to define the relationship betweendictionaries and second or foreign language learning (L2 learning). The first

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one is how can dictionaries be used in a language learning situation?, and thesecond one is who are the users? As will be clear in a moment, the answers tothese two questions are highly interrelated.

To begin with the second question, since the dictionaries we are talkingabout are all monolingual, the users cannot be absolute beginners. All usersshould be to some extent advanced learners, as is mentioned in the title or inthe introductory pages of the dictionaries. But what exactly is an advancedlearner? What exactly is (s)he supposed to know already? And at what stagedoes one finish being a learner? In other words, where are the lower and theupper limits for users of this type of dictionary?

But there is not only the question of the stage learners are at in the learningprocess: they can also be categorised according to different types of othercriteria, e.g. age, educational level (primary, secondary, higher), type of educa-tion (general or vocational), and objectives aimed at (reception or production,spoken or written language). It is obvious that an illiterate immigrant whospeaks his second language fairly well, and can therefore be considered to bean advanced learner, cannot use a learner's dictionary. And it seems unlikelythat children under twelve can do so, even if they are more or less fluent in asecond language.

As a matter of fact, the learner's dictionaries implicitly define their usergroups, as far as the lower limit is concerned, by making choices about anumber of features such as the devices used for explaining meanings and thetype of grammatical or other instructions for productive use. It is assumedthat the users have a certain vocabulary at their disposal and that they areable to correctly interpret all sorts of symbols, labels and abbreviations. Bydoing this, and by including or excluding certain (families of) words, thedictionaries make not only claims about who the intended users are and whatthey should know, but also about the needs they have.

At the upper level one could say that although a L2 learner will neverbecome a native speaker and so will always remain a learner, very advancedlearners will be able to use non-adapted monolingual dictionaries of the foreignlanguage and will find there all the words they need, especially the less frequentand the technical ones. It goes without saying that it will depend on the lay-out and the quality of these non-adapted monolingual dictionaries whetherthese very advanced learners will find all the information they need in orderto understand and to produce the other language.

Talking about the learners' needs brings us back to the first question formu-lated at the beginning of this section, i.e. the one about the role of learner'sdictionaries in L2 learning. One of the main tasks of advanced L2 learners isto accumulate more and more lexical knowledge. This task is best describedin terms of what Cruse (1986) has called the lexical unit. According to Cruselexical units are "the smallest parts which satisfy the following two criteria:

(i) a lexical unit must be at least one semantic constituent

(ii) a lexical unit must be at least one word" (p. 24).

They constitute "the union of a lexical form and a single sense" (p. 77).



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The lexical unit may be one particular sense of a polysemous word, amonosemous word or a multi-word expression. Thus, party as in 'politicalparty' and party in 'party in court' constitute two different lexical units. Bythe same token, the word hipsters, which has only one sense, and the fixedphrase pull a fast one are both lexical units in their own right (see also Bogaards1994, chap. 2 for more details).

As far as the lexical domain is concerned, L2 learners have to

a. learn completely new lexical units, i.e. new forms with unknown meanings;

b. learn new meanings for forms with which they are already acquainted,i.e. new senses of familiar words (e.g. party as in 'party in court' or as in'political party') or particular meanings of combinations of familiarwords, that is compounds, verbal phrases, idioms and the like (e.g. hotdog, go back on, bring home the bacon, etc.);

c. learn relations between lexical units, in terms of form (i.e. morphologicalrelations), but above all in terms of meaning: they have to learn todiscriminate between lexical units with approximately the same meaning,and to structure lexical fields;

d. learn the correct and appropriate uses of lexical units at the levels ofgrammar, collocation, pragmatics and discourse;

e. consolidate this knowledge;

f. develop strategies to cope with gaps in their knowledge.(See Augusto & al. 1995, Bogaards 1994)

A learner's dictionary should provide information for points a to d. However,as dictionaries do not constitute primary teaching or learning material (seeHausmann 1977: 145), they will tend to be used in the context of other learningactivities. Roughly speaking, they are used for either the production or thereception of texts in the foreign language. In most modern teaching contextsas well as in non-guided L2 learning, this means that advanced learners readand listen to authentic texts, and speak or write in order to get messagesacross. As it is well known that dictionaries are hardly ever used for spokencommunication (see Bogaards 1988), I will concentrate here on their use forreading and writing. With the notable exception of pronunciation, the pointsdiscussed in the rest of this article would not, however, have been fundamentallydifferent had speaking and listening been taken into account.

The process of looking up words in a dictionary has been described in somedetail in the literature. Bogaards (1993) presents a model which tries to isolatethe different steps. This model will form the background of the description ofwhat L2 learners do or should do when consulting dictionaries. In what followsa distinction will be made between the use of dictionaries for reading and fortext production.

While reading a text in the foreign language, learners may come across aword form they do not understand. In order to attach a meaning to this wordform they will have to find it in the dictionary. Although in most cases this



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form will be easily found in the alphabetical list, several problems may arisehere. First, the form may not be in the dictionary because its macrostructureis too limited. Then, the form may not be listed at its exact alphabetical placeor it may be part of an expression that is not mentioned under the word whereit is looked up. Finally, in cases where a form turns out to have severalmeanings or uses, there is the problem of finding the one which has the bestchances of corresponding to the meaning in the text. All these aspects have todo with findabiliry. Dictionaries contain different numbers of words and expres-sions and follow various policies for presenting them. In the following sections,I will analyse the dictionaries according to the following questions:

1. how many words and expressions are entered?

2. are all word forms easily accessible?

3. where can expressions be found?

4. what is done to guide the user in longer entries?

Once the learner has arrived at the place where he can find the informationhe needs in order to interpret the form he was confronted with, he has todecode the information given. As the form itself is unknown to him, otherelements should lead him to a clear understanding of its precise meaning.These may be definitions, illustrations, examples or any other devices whichcan help the learner understand the meaning. What is involved here may becalled comprehensibility. Again, dictionaries have different approaches formaking the meaning of words and expressions clear. They may have a restricteddefining vocabulary, different types of drawings or photographs or they maygive many simple examples. In the following sections I will analyse the newlearner's dictionaries in the light of the following questions:

5. how comprehensible are the definitions given?

6. what types of illustrations or other devices are used to make meanings clear?

7. how comprehensible are the examples given?

For text production there is again, first, the problem of findabiliry. One ofthe most problematic aspects of the use of monolingual dictionaries is theaccessibility of unknown words. How can a learner find the appropriate termfor a certain piece of cloth, an informal expression for a part of the body ora more flowery term for words that have already been used too often? It isinteresting to note that, whereas for receptive purposes the learner should beguided from unknown elements to familiar ones, for productive goals he shouldbe able to start from familiar words in order to find words which are new tohim. Another aspect of findability in a productive context is the difficulty ofchoosing between words which have approximately the same meaning.Dictionary makers have thought of all sorts of devices which can help learnersto use unfamiliar words and expressions or to choose the most appropriateone amongst a set of possible words; illustrations of concrete objects with thenames of different parts, tables of different types, all kinds of cross-references,



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notes, etc. The questions which will guide the analysis to be presented in thefollowing sections will be:

8. what devices are offered in order to allow users to find words and expressionsthey did not know?

9. what devices are offered in order to allow users to make a good choicebetween options?

Irrespective of whether the learner has found a word using one of thesedevices or was able to think of the right word himself, the next problem is toascertain its correct use. The correct use of vocabulary items entails not onlygrammatical features, but also involves questions of collocability, discourselevel and pragmatic appropriateness. The relevant criterion can be calledusability. Most of the information on use can be found in coded form andvery often different uses are illustrated by examples. The questions to be askedin this context are:

10. how clear is the grammatical information?

11. what other types of information on use are given?

12. how useful are the examples given?

The set of twelve questions formulated in this section will be taken as astarting point for an analysis of the learner's dictionaries that have recentlybeen published for English.

3. The use of learner's dictionaries for receptive purposes

3.1 Findability

3.1.1 Number of meanings explained. The first question in this context con-cerns what is often called the macrostructure of the dictionary: the total numberof entries. As may be seen from figures 1 to 4, the information about oneform, pocket, may be presented in a number of ways. COBUILD has oneentry presenting twelve uses, OALD has one entry for the noun and a subentryfor the verb, CIDE has two entries with one having two subentries, andLDOCE has three entries. So, what makes a comparison possible and whatreally interests us is not the number of entries but the number of meaningsexplained. Here again the concept of lexical unit as defined by Cruse (1986)will be useful.

Table 2 gives the full list of lexical units that may be found in the fourdictionaries for the form pocket (leaving out all compounds). As may be seenfrom that table, each dictionary makes a particular selection and presents adifferent number of lexical units. Because of variations in definitions andexplanations, the decision whether or not to put a + at a given place is notalways straightforward. COBUILD's definitions for pocket as a verb are noteasily compared to those given by the other dictionaries. Furthermore, isOALD's definition "3 a small isolated group or area" to be counted as one



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sense or as two, and CIDE's definition "a group, area or mass of somethingwhich . . . " as three? I decided not to go that far, but to follow the presentationof each dictionary. So for OALD and for CIDE, I noted one lexical unit inthis case. For LDOCE, however, I noted 4a ("small area . . . " ) and 4b ("smallamount . . .") as separate lexical units. "Be in each other's pockets" and "livein each other's pockets" have been counted as different lexical units, becausethey have different forms and it is forms the learner is confronted with in thecase of unknown elements in a text. Moreover, it may be considered (hatLDOCE giving "from your own pocket" as well as "out of your own pocket"is more generous than CIDE, which gives only the latter form. Especially forCIDE, counting the lexical units is a delicate matter because senses are notnumbered, many fixed expressions are given as examples with an explanationin brackets, and sometimes explanations are given for what does not seem tobe any sort of fixed expression or special meaning (e.g. patch pocket).

In the totals given in table 2, I have counted all lexical units which arementioned in each dictionary, and I have specified how many of them arepresented without an explanation ('m' in the table). As can be seen, the totalsare rather different for the four dictionaries. It is, however, far from clear towhat extent these totals, based as they are on one randomly chosen form, arerepresentative of each dictionary as a whole.

In order to get a fair view of the total content of the four dictionaries, Itook four samples of about four pages each and counted the lexical unitsaccording to the principles described above. Table 3 gives the results. Againthe total numbers are rather different, with CIDE constituting only about twothirds of the total number of lexical units found in LDOCE, and OALD andCOBUILD coming in between. Starting with the numbers found for theanalysed samples, I calculated an estimated total number of lexical units foreach dictionary by relating these numbers to the space they occupy (see table3). The numbers given are a slight overestimate of the real numbers, becausethey are based on the total numbers mentioned, including the cases of 'm'(mentions without explanations). As these 'm' cases sometimes refer to otherentries, as is the case for pick sb's pocket->PICK in OALD, some lexical unitsmay be counted twice. The outcomes must anyhow be interpreted with careand are not more than what they pretend to be: as exact guesses as possible.What they certainly indicate is that LDOCE is the most generous dictionary,presenting between 90,000 and more than 100,000 lexical units (which is morethan is claimed by the makers). The outcomes indicate also that there is nobig difference between OALD, COBUILD and CIDE, which cover each some70,000 or 75,000 items. For CIDE these numbers do not exactly correspondto the number of "words and phrases" claimed on the back cover.

It is difficult to say whether or to what extent the selection of lexical unitsby one dictionary is better adapted to the needs of the learners than the choicemade by another one. As far as findability for receptive purposes is concerned,it is clear that the more lexical units there are in a dictionary, the better arethe chances that a learner will find what he needs.

Analysing in a more qualitative way what distinguishes the four dictionariesfrom each other, one can see that part of the extra items listed in LDOCE



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concern old, old fashioned or literary words like orison, vamoose, oubliette orbuckler, whereas others are rather technical or specialised, e.g. bulgur, orielwindow or oriole. On the other hand, many derivatives are mentioned, mostlywithout an independent explanation: next to bullheaded one can find buUhead-edly and bullbeadedness; next to bullish, bullishly and bullishness, etc.; andwords like ordinal, orient or ground are also given as adjectives. One mightwonder whether these lexical units really add to the value of the learner'sdictionary when it is used to understand texts in the foreign language. Butthere are also many American English words and expressions which are men-tioned only in LDOCE, such as buddy-buddy, bull pen, grubstake or vanitytable. Finally, one can find many compounds like building contractor, groundsquirrel or vanity publisher. Even if some of these compounds might be consid-ered to be transparent, most of the supplementary vocabulary presented byLDOCE seems to be useful for L2 readers.

From LDOCE to OALD is not a big step, except for the total number oflexical units listed. Again there are some old fashioned, technical or rare wordslike vab'se, grudgeon or organ loft, but they are rather exceptional. The numberof derivatives is rather limited, and it is somewhat surprising to find e.g.groundlessly but not e.g. organisationally. It should be said, however, that noneof the dictionaries seems to be totally consistent in giving or not giving thistype of information about which derived forms are used in real language andwhich ones are mere theoretical possibilities.

COBUILD seems to have the lowest number of "own-words", i.e. wordsthat are in none of the other dictionaries, and to miss most "general words",i.e. words that can be found in the three other dictionaries. Technical, formalor old words and expressions like group captain, osprey, bulrush and evenorthography or orthopaedist do not occur. The number of derivatives is verylimited: forms like variegation or orthodontic are not given. There seems to bealso a relatively small American vocabulary: one searches in vain for varietystore, Oscar, grump or grungy. On the other hand, COBUILD does givecompounds like buffer state, bull whip and growing season, some of which arerather transparent. CIDE closely resembles COBUILD in presenting few "own-words" and in giving very few infrequent terms. Derivatives are relatively oftengiven but as a rule without a separate definition.

As to morphological tools which may help to decipher words which are notin the dictionary (or in any), LDOCE and OALD give a practically completeset of derivational suffixes like -ate, -ative, -dom, -isation, -ise, -ish, etc.;COBUILD and CIDE are less exhaustive. On the other hand, COBUILDpresents the most suffixes like -legged, -made, -organized, etc. and LDOCE theleast, the other two dictionaries being in between. All dictionaries give prefixeslike mis-, pre- and retro-, while only OALD gives ortho-, and OALD andLDOCE give meta-.

Adjectives derived from geographic names are given in the alphabetical listby three out of four dictionaries. CIDE only gives adjectives like Gaelic andGallic in the A-to-Z part, but presents a complete list of names of countries,inhabitants, languages and money under the heading NATIONS ANDNATIONALITIES on pages 940-942 at N. OALD also gives a complete list



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of names and adjectives, together with maps of the world, Canada and theUnited States, The British Isles and Central Europe on pages Cl to C8.COBUILD has most of these geographical adjectives in the A-to-Z section,but, like in OALD and LDOCE, the selection seems rather haphazard. Mostadjectives pertaining to European countries can be found, but those derivedfrom Gabon, Gambia, Guatemala, Guinea, Cambodia or Korea are missing.

A certain Euro-centrism appears also in the choice of religious vocabulary.Bishops, priests, imams and mullahs can be found in all dictionaries, butwhereas they all mention Christ, Messiah and Bible, they all miss one or moreof Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna and Koran. Taking into account the overallsize of the macrostructure of the dictionaries, there are no big differences asto the covering of abbreviations. The treatment of for instance chemical ele-ments is also rather similar, although OALD is the only one to give a fulltable (in Appendix 7).

3.1.2 Accessibility of single forms. The second aspect of findability for recep-tive use concerns the ease of access to the items that are in a given dictionary.The perspective adopted for present purposes is of the L2 reader who is tryingto understand the message of some text and feels the dictionary might helphim to make a particular point clear. As paying attention to a particular wordmay loosen the link with the text as a whole, especially when the searchprocedure takes some time, it is important for him that he can find an answerto his problem as quickly as possible. The simplest way of finding a word isto look it up in the alphabetical list. Whenever a form is not in its exactalphabetical place, the learner will have to step back from his text and wonderwhere he might find what he is looking for.

As can be seen from figures 1 to 4, the four dictionaries have differentpolicies for presenting meaning-related forms. LDOCE has the most straight-forward approach: all forms are given in a strict alphabetical order. OALDgives the derivative pocketful, as well as the compounds pocket knife and pocketmoney, which are written as two words, under the entry pocket, but presentspocketbook as a separate entry. COBUILD again has an alphabetical orderingin the case of pocket, whether the items are written as one word (pocketbook),two words (pocket money) or as a hyphenated word (pocket-sized). Elsewhere,however, a derived word like poetically is given under poetic and before poetical,and buck naked is given under buck whereas bucket seat is not given underbucket but as a separate entry.

CIDE gives most meaning-related words in one entry, be it as subentries oras examples. In the case of pocket, only pocketbook and pocketknife arepresented in separate entries, whereas pocketful, which is also one word, buta derivative, not a compound, constitutes a subentry. The other compounds,which can all be found as examples under pocket [BAG), are written as twowords or as hyphenated words. Now, for two reasons, this approach maycomplicate the task of the foreign reader. First, not all compounds given underpocket [BAG] have a clear relationship with that meaning. A learner whocomes across "a pocket-sized television" and who has understood that themeaning of pocket [GROUP/AREA] contains an element of reduced size, might



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very well start looking for an explanation in that entry. For pocket veto thereseems to be no clear reason to look for it under pocket |BAG), nor for deadend under dead [COMPLETE]. Second, many compounds can have differentshapes in the texts the learner is confronted with, and these variations arereflected in the dictionaries. Six out of sixteen compounds which are givenwith paper and which appear in more than one of the four dictionaries havedifferent forms (e.g. LDOCE gives paperclip, OALD gives paper-clip,COBUILD and CIDE give paper clip). So, whereas grouping words undermeanings may be puzzling for the L2 reader, presenting them according totheir fortuitous form may further complicate his task.

It is worth pointing out that CIDE's presentation requires the use of manycross-references. Mostly they are given (three times for organization), butsometimes they are lacking (organizer occurs at two different places withoutthere being sign posts from the one to the other). Grouping things togethermay have still other drawbacks. As mentioned above, CIDE and OALD givenames of countries, inhabitants, currencies etc. in a special list. These richesare only findable, however, for those who are aware of them while executinganother task, viz. reading a text.

All four dictionaries give crossreferences like bought->buy, but LDOCE isthe only one to give grown-*grow, COBUILD the only one to givethrown->throw. The frequent absence of forms like grown, known and thrownas separate entries in the alphabetical list seems to be justified by the fact thatthey (almost) immediately follow the corresponding infinitives. Moreover, inCIDE derived forms are systematically presented in the entries of the simpleforms they belong to. However, all four dictionaries give written-*write almostimmediately following write. They are all far less systematic when it comes toirregular forms of compound verbs like remade, overate or overcame.

3.1.3 Accessibility of multi-word expressions. L2 readers not only want tolook up isolated forms, but are quite often puzzled by what seem to be longerstretches of language having some special meaning. To my knowledge, nothingis known about the sensibility of foreign learners to the fixed or idiomaticstatus of word combinations they come across without knowing their meaning.It may be hypothesised that when they are confronted with an expression allthe elements of which they recognise without being able to extract the meaningof the whole, they will consult the dictionary in another way than when theyare presented with a combination of words they did not know before. If theyare aware of the presence of some sort of special combination of words, theycan look for special signs or a particular presentation.

Although this point may cause many difficulties for the L2 learner, I willnot go into the problem of defining what constitutes a fixed expression or whatdifferentiates collocations from idioms. What is certain is that the learner hasto decide on the word where he may find the explanation he needs. Again thepresentations of multi-word expressions in the four dictionaries differ consider-ably. To give some examples, turn out your pocket is treated as a fixed expressionneeding an explanation by LDOCE, as a simple example or collocation byOALD, and is not mentioned at all by the two other dictionaries; money burns



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a hole in sb's pocket is explained under money in OALD, under burn in LDOCEand CIDE, and under pocket in COBUILD. Not much is known about wherepeople look up this type of expression, but it seems that people with differentmother tongues have varied search strategies (see Bogaards 1990, 1992). Asthe learner's dictionaries are written for a worldwide use, they should ideallymention all multi-word expressions in the entries of all relevant content words.

In the case of pocket LDOCE seems to present this type of expression inabout the same way as the different senses of the lemma word. In other entries,like ground, it becomes clear that the multi-word expressions are given next tothe sense they belong to or grouped in clusters based on similar meaning. Beon familiar ground is under 9 AREA OF KNOWLEDGE, whereas on moralgrounds is under 17 REASON. This approach leads to there being two mentionsof to cover a lot of ground, one next to 7 SPORTS in the sense of "to travela very long distance" and one next to 9 AREA OF KNOWLEDGE in thesense of "to give information about many different parts of a subject".Unfortunately, there is no cross-reference from one mention to the other. Inthe introductory pages it is stated that "[pjhrases and idioms are usually listedunder the first main word", with a cross-reference note in the entries of othermain words. The word "usually" should be taken rather literally: to drop aclanger, break sb's heart, have a good word to say and over my dead body areeach defined at two places (and sometimes in somewhat different terms),whereas strike home, which is defined at strike, has no cross-reference at home.

OALD has special signs in the form of black boxes with white letters foridioms (IDM) as well as for phrasal verbs (PHR V). After these signs themulti-word expressions are presented in a strict alphabetical order. The policyadopted for giving definitions at one place rather than at another is the sameas with LDOCE: "idioms are defined at the entry for the first 'full' word (.. .)that they contain" (p. A6). But this policy is carried out more strictly; it isindicated what is meant by 'full words' as opposed to grammatical words andwhich 'full words' are an exception to the rules. It is also stated that idiomsare not mentioned under their variable parts. Because live to tell the tale canalso be used in the form be around or be still alive to tell the tale, it is onlydenned under tell with a cross-reference at tale. Putting cross-references at live,around and alive would doubtless have been helpful, especially for those learnerswho come across one of these expressions without knowing that other variantsare possible as well.

COBUILD has not explicitly formulated any policy for the placement ofmultiword expressions but there seems to be a preference for giving the defini-tion under the second (or the last?) element: drop a clanger, hit home, live totell the tale, break sb's heart are all denned at the second or last content word,but make your blood run cold is defined at blood and over my dead body isdefined in two places. There are not very many cross-references. Moreover,what few ones there are relate only to the entry words, not to a particularmeaning, which is what is done in the other dictionaries and which would havebeen very simple given the fact that in COBUILD all meanings are numbered.

At the end of the dictionary CIDE. gives a "Phrase Index", i.e. a full list ofidioms and phrasal verbs with references to the page and the line on that page



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where the definition can be found. This explains why there are no cross-references in the A-to-Z section. The idea is that, when in doubt about thebest place to look for an explanation, the user can consult the list and be surewhere to go. I must say that I am rather sceptical about this procedure. Sincemost fixed expressions contain only two content words, looking up the one orthe other gives a fifty percent chance of finding the solution. Going first to the"Phrase Index" always necessitates a double search procedure. Besides, thedenning policy, as is clearly stated on p. ix, is in favour of the first contentword. Sometimes, as in to drop a clanger or to break sb's heart, two explanationscan be found.

What seems to be a real problem in CIDE is the placement of phrasal verbs.A phrasal verb like put out, which has many different and sometimes unexpectedmeanings, can be found at very different places. Not only are some meaningsexplained under a second element, as in the case of put out the flags, put outto grass, put out of joint, etc., but it is difficult to find the mentions of put outunder the eight entries for put and the two entries for put out. To someonewho is trying to grasp the meaning of to put out in a sentence like "The councilhas put the job of street-cleaning out to a private firm" it may seem to be farfrom evident that he has to look under put [MOVE]. And what could makehim think that he should look under put [CONDITION] in order to findmeanings like "extinguish", "defeat" or "produce"? The "Phrase Index" willnot really help him out, and all the less because some references do notcorrespond to occurrences of to put out (e.g. lines 1154R77 and 1155R62).

3.1.4 The structure of entries. It may be assumed that advanced L2 learnerswho are reading a text in their foreign language and who come across anelement that is unknown to them nevertheless do know several things aboutsuch an element. First, one might reasonably surmise that they are aware ofthe subject of their text and of the type of text they are reading. They are ableto distinguish a literary text from an essay on legal matters or from a casualtext on an everyday subject. Second, they are able to recognise the differentparts of speech and they know whether the element that causes them a problemis a noun, a verb or an adverb. Finally, it must be assumed that they understandthe global meaning of the sentence they are reading. These three sources ofinformation may help them to predict to a certain extent what the meaning ofthe problem word will be. I would like to stress, however, that these statementsare only assumptions which could, and therefore should, be investigated inlater research.

In the light of these assumptions it is interesting to see in what ways thefour dictionaries try to help the learners to find their way to the answer theyare looking for. As for the subject domain, the four dictionaries make veryfew distinctions. COBUILD marks legal, medical and technical terms, CIDElegal, medical and specialised terms, LDOCE legal and technical terms andOALD has only one label, techn, which may be followed by indications likeanatomy, computing, law, etc. With regard to styles and registers, each dictio-nary has five to eight labels, varying from literary, poetic or rhetoric throughspoken and informal to slang and taboo. The number of attitudinal labels is



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more varied. OALD has the most: approving, derogatory, euphemistic, ironic,jocular, offensive and sexist, CIDE has three: approving, disapproving andhumorous, LDOCE has only approving and humorous, and COBUILD has onlyoffensive. LDOCE distinguishes eleven varieties of English, CIDE six, OALDthree and COBUILD only two, American and British. It should be said thatall these labels do not catch the eye; they are in thin italics or, as in the caseof COBUILD, are part of the normal print. They do not seem to be given assignposts for rinding the meaning that could apply in a given text. As far as Iknow, no research has been done on the usefulness of these types of informationfor the L2 learner, but it could be hypothesised that some of the labelsmentioned, e.g. those indicating subject domains, deserve a more salient placethan they now have.

LDOCE and CIDE use semantic information as guiding principles. LDOCEgives global information about clusters of meanings or usages between blacktriangles, called sign posts, and longer entries are preceded by a menu containingthese global headings. In the same vein, CIDE gives what are called guidewords in boxes. As can be seen in figures 1 and 4, LDOCE has five sign posts,whereas CIDE has only two guide words. As has already been suggested above,CIDE's guide words may sometimes be too wide or too vague, but in any caseit is an empirical question to what extent these associative approximations ofmeanings are effective. Unfortunately, LDOCE's sign posts and CIDE's guidewords are not always formulated within the limited vocabularies that are usedfor the definitions (see 3.2.1).

The most outstanding feature of COBUILD is the extra column which givesall the grammatical information (see fig. 3). Given its prominent place, onehas to conclude that in this dictionary the learner is assumed to profit mostfrom this type of indication for finding his way to the relevant meaning. Butagain, it is a matter of empirical research whether and to what extent thisactually is an effective approach. As a matter of fact, in this new edition,nominal, verbal and other uses of a given form are better grouped than theywere in the first edition. Furthermore, for long entries there are now superhead-words like mind 1 noun uses and mind 2 verb uses. In the case of pocket,however, not all nominal uses are grouped together.

Learners using OALD and having found the relevant word form are notoffered any particular help for finding the meaning they are looking for, exceptin very long entries like get, give or go, where similar meanings are groupedand presented with global semantic indications. As is the case for the otherdictionaries, the meanings are in order of descending frequencies, with themost frequent and/or general meaning being explained first and the morespecific meanings or usages coming later. Although it is difficult to think ofother orders of presentation, except for one based on etymology - which hasto be excluded for obvious reasons - , one might wonder whether advancedlearners are really helped if they have to go through a number of familiarmeanings in order to get to the unknown ones they need.

Before finishing this section on findability for receptive purposes, a word ontypography and overall lay-out is in order Thanks to the use of a great varietyof typefaces, LDOCE has succeeded, it seems to me, in having the clearest



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presentation: meanings and special uses are easily traceable in the entries. Thepages in the other three dictionaries are much more grey and lacking in distinctrelief. This is especially true for CIDE, where, as a result of a very smalltypeface and little contrast between normal and bold print, it is rather difficultto find what one is looking for. LDOCE and OALD have grey thumb-indexeswhich may speed up the search procedure by helping the user to go from oneletter to another.

3.2 Comprehensibility

3.2.1 Comprehensibility of definitions. Once the L2 learner has found theplace where he may find the explanations he is looking for, he has to interpretthe information given about the form which caused him trouble. As all fourdictionaries use definitions as a first means of clarifying the meanings of wordsand expressions, it is interesting to compare the defining styles adopted in eachof them.

All four dictionaries claim to use a limited defining vocabulary. LDOCEgives on p. B13-B18 a complete list of the more than 2,000 words which havebeen selected for this purpose. It is expressly stated (p. B12) that only "themost common and 'central' meanings of the words in the list" are used.Furthermore, the words are only used in the word classes as indicated in thelist (but not all relevant words have been specified as to word class), and as arule phrasal verbs are excluded. The list includes 30 prefixes and suffixes thatcan be used with the defining words. All words which are used in definitionsbut which do not belong to the Longman Defining Vocabulary are printed insmall capitals (see for instance pocketbook in fig. 1).

In contrast with earlier editions, OALD now has also a defining vocabularythe full list of which is given on p. 1417-1428. It consists of some 3,500 words,which are applied under about the same conditions as those in LDOCE, exceptfor the affixes; in OALD only inflected forms may be used, but no derivatives.This different treatment of forms reduces the difference in size between thedefining vocabularies used in LDOCE and in OALD: whereas independence isgiven as a separate member of the defining vocabulary in OALD, this word isnot part of the LDOCE list but may still be used in that dictionary because itcan be constructed from its elements (in-+ depend+ -ence). Nevertheless,OALD seems to appeal to a much larger vocabulary knowledge on the partof its users and therefore seems to address itself to more advanced learnersthan any of the other dictionaries. This may be due to the fact that the wordsin the list were not only chosen according to their frequency, but also accordingto "their value to students as a 'core vocabulary' of English" (p. 1417). Thesetwo criteria do not seem to necessarily lead to the choice of the same elements.What is more, their combination implies that knowledge of elements thatshould become part of the learners' vocabulary is assumed to be already presentin that vocabulary. Words like impulse, inflict, inherit or jelly do not seem tobe very frequent nor to be essential for defining purposes. As they will causeproblems to many advanced learners, they should not be part of a definingvocabulary.



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CIDE presents a defining vocabulary containing less than 2,000 words. Thisvocabulary is claimed (p. 1702) to

be easy for learners to understandavoid old-fashioned wordsavoid words which are often confused with other words in Englishavoid words which are often confused with foreign wordscontain words useful for explaining other wordsuse common words of high frequencyuse words which have the same meaning in British and American English.

Some of these statements require some qualification. For every polysemousword it is indicated in which particular meaning(s) it may be used, e.g. carein the meanings of [PROTECTION [ and [ATTENTION 1, not in those of|WORRY] or [WANT]. This restrains the number of possible lexical units inan important way. On the other hand, all selected meanings are taken with alltheir related forms, e.g. care for, carer and caring for care [PROTECTION],and careful, carefully, careless, carelessly and carelessness for care[ATTENTION ]. This has led to the inclusion of such rather infrequent itemsas inconveniently, inventor, jokey and keyboard. In CIDE all the different usesof e.g. care as well as its derivatives are counted as only one word in the list(p. 1702-1707). If one counts all different forms, the total number of items ismuch higher, adding up to about 4,000.

In itself it is an attractive idea to avoid the use of words which are oftenconfused with other words, as proposed by CIDE. It is not totally clear,however, whether one succeeds in doing so by using only one word of aconfusing pair. For instance, one may wonder whether learners who are boundto confuse economic and economical are helped if only the former is used. Asto the so called false friends, the compilers of CIDE have not been able toavoid all of them: inconvenient, industry, information, injure and intelligentwhich, according to data given in this dictionary (see below), cause particularproblems to Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Japanese and Russian lear-ners of English, are all part of the defining vocabulary.

COBUILD is less explicit as to the vocabulary that may be used in defini-tions, but it is stated (p. xviii) that "most words in our definitions [are] amongstthe 2,500 commonest words of English". COBUILD indicates the frequencyof words by giving a number of black diamonds next to each entry, fivediamonds for the 700 most frequent words, one for the words between 6,500and 15,000 words. There is no special level for words up to 2,500. The onlyconclusion one can draw is that the denning vocabulary should have at leastthree black diamonds (up to approximately 3,500 words).

In order to see how these principles work out in a concrete sample, I haveanalysed all the definitions given from pocket to point. OALD seems to stickmost strictly to its own policy: all outsiders, i.e. words outside the definingvocabulary, are printed in small capitals, except for two cases where wordsthat are not part of the list, at least not in the given word class, were used innormal print: string was only to be used as a noun, whereas in "string bags"in pocket 5 it is an adjective; decimal in point 3 (a) is used as a noun whereas



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in the list it is only an adjective. It should be remembered, however, thatOALD's defining vocabulary is rather large, allowing words like ballet, garmentand solemn to be used without special treatment.

LDOCE seems to be less in control of its defining policy. In the same sampleone can find, without special marking, outsiders like sewn (in pocket 1),appointed, grace, score and decimals, none of which are in the list given at theend of the dictionary. On the other hand, outsiders which are marked as suchare sometimes explained between brackets so as to give a definition within adefinition (e.g. BET in each way). Further, in order to define points (forrailways) a phrasal verb (cross over) is used which is not even explained in thisdictionary. This rather undesirable situation can be found more often in CIDE.A pockmark is defined as "a small hollow on your skin . . . " . As only hollow[EMPTY] is in the defining vocabulary, a learner might look up hollow as anoun, where he will find that a "hollow (. ..) is a valley". A pod is defined as"a usually thick-skinned long narrow flat part of particular plants . . . " , whereasit is said that "Someone who is thick-skinned does not appear to be easilyhurt by criticism". "A point of land is a long thin area of land that stretchesout into the sea"; looking for a relevant definition of the phrasal verb stretchout, one comes home empty-handed.

Finally, COBUILD probably uses far more outsiders than the other dictio-naries. For the definition of 73 lexical units from pocket to point, I counted 19defining words which did not have at least three black diamonds in thisdictionary. As there are one thousand words between this criterion and the2,500 defining words claimed by COBUILD, the real number may even behigher. These figures should be compared to 21 outsiders (15 of which aremarked as such) for 130 lexical units in LDOCE, 16 outsiders (14 marked)for 106 lexical units in OALD and 13 outsiders (10 marked) for 116 lexicalunits in CIDE.

The use of familiar words for the explanation of unknown elements is anessential criterion for judging the quality of definitions in a learner's dictionary.But it is not the only one. The precision of the definitions and the definingstyle also play an important role.

In order to check the precision of definitions I have compared the meansused to define some near synonyms. A L2 reader who comes across verbs likeknock down, demolish, wreck, destroy, devastate and obliterate and who knowsor finds out that they all mean cause damage, may be interested in findingmore information on the particular meaning of one or more of these words.Most of the differences between the six verbs have to do with the violence ofthe process and/or with the decisiveness of the result, knock down being leastviolent and obliterate most total. These differences are best rendered, it seemsto me, by LDOCE, where knock down is defined as "to destroy a building orpart of a building" and obliterate as "to destroy sth. so completely that nosign of it remains". CIDE is about as clear on this point and OALD onlyslightly less. COBUILD, on the other hand, uses essentially a combination ofdestroy and completely or totally to define demolish, wreck, devastate as wellas obliterate, reducing all differences in violence or resulting effect. This lackof discrimination also presents itself for grubby, grimy and filthy, which are



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denned by COBUILD as "rather dirty", "very dirty" and "very dirty indeed"respectively, whereas LDOCE, OALD and CIDE define filthy as "extremelydirty", "dirty in a disgusting way" and "extremely or unpleasantly dirty".Again, for understanding, sympathy, pity and compassion, the definitions inCOBUILD are too close to each other and do not really underline the strengthof the feeling expressed by the last word. In a series such as picture, painting,drawing, sketch and illustration, only LDOCE succeeds in discriminating thelast word in relation to the others by defining it as "a picture in a book, articleetc, especially one that helps you understand it".

Comparisons such as these are complicated by the fact that as a rule CIDEdoes not define derived words like dirty, grimy, muddy and dusty, or drawingand illustration. Fortunately, explanatory notes are sometimes given in bracketsin the context of examples. Although this may allow for better contextualadequacy, the explanations given sometimes lack sufficient discriminatorypower, as is the case in grimy The child's face was grimy (=dirty) and streakedwith tears. What can be appreciated in COBUILD is that it sometimes givesuseful cultural information. For instance, it mentions the difference in positionbetween poets laureate in Britain and in the United States, and it adds topoinsettia that it is very popular as a house plant in Britain. Stating that"Artists often use sketches as a preparation for a more detailed painting ordrawing" seems also to be useful to learners grasping for the exact meaningof sketch.

As to defining styles, LDOCE and OALD maintain the traditional formatof definitions as phrases where nouns are replaced with nouns, verbs withverbs, etc. LDOCE sometimes gives explanations as short notes in bracketsafter fixed expressions such as from/out of your own pocket or have deeppockets. Every now and then, OALD still features such old-fashioned turns ofphrase as in pocket 5: "any of the holes . . . " , instead of a hole just like "asmall piece of material . . . " as in pocket l(a). It also quite often gives cross-references instead of definitions, as in pocket 4 (=AIR POCKET), pocketknife (= PENKNIFE) and pocketbook 2(a) (=WALLET). This is a space-saving device which will not always be welcomed by those who are trying tounderstand the text they are reading.

COBUILD always gives definitions in complete sentences, which containlots of information about how the word is normally used. For a reader,however, this emergent 'word story' could be a negative feature, since it mayhave little to do with the text he is reading. The information the reader islooking for has thus to be extracted from a setting that is often more or lessredundant and that is not always relevant to him. If a reader is presented witha text like This trip will make a serious demand on my pocket and if he wantsto verify the meaning of the last word, the rest of the utterance being quiteclear to him, he will find in COBUILD: "You can use pocket in a lot ofdifferent ways to refer to money that people have, get, or spend. . . .". It isevident that the first part of the sentence, up to the word "money", does notgive him any valuable information.

CIDE has a mixed style: phrases, sentences and notes or single words areused. As can be seen in figure 4, phrases are used for the first meaning of an



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entry, sentences for following meanings; as already stated, notes or singlewords are used in brackets for uses and (fixed) expressions that are presentedin the form of examples. Sometimes, entries contain only a cross-reference andno definition, as in pocketknife (a PENKNIFE).

In spite of the criticisms formulated, it is difficult to say anything definitiveabout which type of definition is most profitable for L2 learners. Very littleresearch has been done on this topic. Indeed, whatever research there has beendone leads to the conclusion that the dictionary does not seem to contributein a significant way to a better understanding of written texts. MacFarquhar& Richards (1983) report that their subjects, learners of English as a secondlanguage (ESL), preferred the definitions of LDOCE, since they were writtenusing a defining vocabulary, to those written without such a restricted vocabu-lary, but the authors did not check the actual comprehension of either type.In the same vein, Cumming & al. (1994) found that 71% of their subjects,again ESL learners, preferred COBUILD-type definitions, against 27% whopreferred the more traditional type (with truncated sentences). In both casesthe subjects liked to have examples with the given definitions; however, theauthors were unable to find any influence of this preference on the results oftheir subjects on other tests.

3.2.2 Illustrations and other meaning clarification devices. As is suggested bythe findings of Cumming & al. (1994), definitions are not always sufficient foran adequate understanding of the meaning of a word or expression.Fortunately, there are other means of making the meaning of words clear.Ilson (1986), for instance, mentions illustration, exemplification and discussionin addition to definition. In this section I will analyse what the four dictionariesoffer by way of illustrations, tables, diagrams, etc., as well as notes, cross-references and any other means which may (further) explain the meaning ofwords and expressions. In the following section (3.2.3) I will come to the roleexamples can play in the context of reading in ESL.

With the exception of COBUILD, the learner's dictionaries taken intoaccount here also give illustrations in the form of pictures, drawings or sketches.In none of the dictionaries is there any justification of the choice of items tobe explained in this way. This choice certainly depends on what can be shownby pictures, but this does not explain why so different items are chosen for avisual treatment (see Stein 1991 for an overview of illustrations in learner'sdictionaries). For the letter E, for instance, illustrations can be found at earth,eavesdrop, edge, engine, enough, escalator, examine and eye in LDOCE, ateagle, ear, egg and eye in OALD, and at edge, emergency services, energy andeye in CIDE. Besides, there are sometimes cross-references to pictures whichare elsewhere in the dictionary, e.g. from ear to head in LDOCE, from earth-worm to worm in OALD and from earflaps to hats in CIDE. The latterdictionary gives by far the most cross-references of this type.

What may be surprising is that most of the illustrated words just cited belongto the defining vocabulary of the three dictionaries and therefore may beassumed not to be problematic for the users, at least as far as comprehensionis concerned. The reason for the presence of illustrations for these words has



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therefore to be sought on the productive side of dictionary use; I will comeback to them later on (section 4.1.1). Of the words mentioned, only eagle,eavesdrop and escalator may have been chosen for illustration for reasons thathave to do with receptive use. It is not entirely clear, however, why OALDhas an illustration at eagle as well as at peacock, pheasant and pigeon, but note.g. at dove, robin, toucan or canary. As a matter of fact, CIDE happens tohave cross-references to an illustration grouping some twenty different birdsfrom the same four birds as OALD, whereas the other birds mentioned haveagain only definitions. LDOCE does not depict any of these birds. As toeavesdrop, the illustration does not really add to the definition, which seemsperfectly clear: "to listen secretly to other people's conversations". The samemay apply, but perhaps to a lesser degree because of the technicality of thedefinition, to escalator; there are no illustrations, however, at the equallytechnical words elevator or lift.

The three dictionaries each have a type of picture where a number ofelements of a given set are brought together. LDOCE has 24 coloured full-page illustrations as well as a number of black and white pictures illustratingsuch different sets as Fruit, Office, Physical contact, Driving or Clean. CIDEalso has a substantial number of these collective pictures, all in black andwhite, showing aspects of Playground, Jewellery, Motorway or Winter sports,and it fairly often gives pictures showing different meanings of words likecolumn, jack or rail. OALD has far fewer pictures, most of them being illustra-tions of one (meaning of a) word, but some more comprehensive pictures canbe found, all in black and white, e.g. for nut, mountain or dog. It is interestingto note that most pictures illustrate nouns. In CIDE some verbs are illustratedat Food preparation, in OALD at kneel. But LDOCE has by far the greatestvariety: Physical contact illustrates verbs like punch, slap, hug, stroke, etc.;Types of walk gives to creep, to shuffle, to paddle, etc.; adjectives are used inDescribing people and in Adjectives: broken; prepositions are illustrated inPositions and directions.

Now, for the reader all these riches, except for those which are on-the-spotillustrations of the word he is looking up, are not always immediately available.There have to be, therefore, cross-references from the entries of these wordsto the elements depicted at other places in the dictionary. This seems to havebeen well implemented for the relatively small number of illustrations inOALD, but somewhat less in LDOCE and CIDE. In LDOCE, there are cross-references to Vegetables from, among other things, Chinese leaves, butter bean,green bean and pepper, but not from red pepper or green onion. There are alsoseveral elements of the very nice Describing people which could have beenbetter exploited: hazel (with the example "hazel eyes"), five o'clock (shadow)and (center) part have no cross-references to this page. As the Sounds of p. 1437are taken as nouns, there are only cross-references from nouns like fizz, hiss,jingle, rustle, etc. (the first two with wrong page numbers), whereas the illustra-tions could be used equally well with the corresponding verbs. For some ofthe verbs of cleaning (p. 238) the reverse is the case. In CIDE cross-referencesare lacking, for instance, from drawstring, eyelet, toggle and tooth to Dressingand undressing. There is no cross-reference from willow to Trees, only from



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weeping willow, although the tree described at willow is indeed a weepingwillow. The cross-reference from plane to Tools is mistakingly at plane(tree),not at plane [TOOL]. In spite of these errors it is clear that in many casesusers can profit from illustrations which are elsewhere in the dictionary if theyneed extra information on the meanings of unknown words.

Discussion, according to Ilson (1986: 217), "is just what its name implies:talking about words". This can be done in varying, more or less explicit ways.Synonyms or antonyms given in addition to other elements may help under-stand the meaning of a given word. References to tables or diagrams may beas helpful. Discussing contrast with near synonyms or confusing words mayin some cases even be the sole means of really clarifying a particular meaning.It is therefore important to examine what the four dictionaries have to offeron this point.

LDOCE has several means of drawing attention to words related to a givenelement. In the first place there are the indications see also and compare. It isnot very clear, however, what specific types of relationships are described ineach of these two categories. Both may contain (near) synonyms, (e.g. eatablesee also EDIBLE, emblem compare SYMBOL), compounds or morphologicallyrelated words, (e.g. effect see also SOUND EFFECT, SPECIAL EFFECT, breakfastcompare CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST), as well as more loosely meaning-relatedwords (e.g. each see also ALL, EVERY, eavesdrop compare OVERHEAR). Aftercompare, but not after see also, antonyms like eccentric compare CONCENTRIC

or elder compare YOUNGER can be found. But there are also other means topresent synonyms and antonyms. Synonyms are sometimes given after thedefinition of a meaning, e.g. "economic . . . 2 an economic process, activity etc.produces enough profit for it to continue; PROFITABLE" (cf. pocketbookand pocket money in fig. 1). Antonyms can be found in the same place, precededby the indication opposite, e.g. "ebb . . . the flow of the sea away from theshore, when the TIDE(. ..) goes out - opposite FLOOD TIDE". Finally, one canfind in the same place British or American synonyms like AUBERGINE BrE ateggplant or BAND-AID AmE at Elastoplast.

This does not seem to be a very satisfactory situation, especially for thecategories see also and compare, because the learner cannot know in advancewhich type of relationship the words cited there will have with the word hewas looking up or whether his excursion to those words will really help himin better understanding his problem word. A reader who comes across theword emigrant and sees in the dictionary entry "compare IMMIGRANT", mayvery well think that emigrant and immigrant mean about the same thing, andcontinue his reading. In other words, indications about relationships betweenword meanings should be much more straightforward, using unambiguouslabels for words with the same, opposite or analogous meanings as well as forwords which have only formal relationships with each other. As to the presenta-tion of infrequent synonyms and of American or British variants, these maygive valuable information to L2 readers who happen to know these words, butthis will not be the case very often.

The same remarks and criticisms apply more or less to OALD, although inthis dictionary "related words", after see also, and "contrasted words", after



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compare, are somewhat better distinguished. This means that, although bothcategories may present associatively or morphologically related words, e.g.edition see also IMPRESSION, REPRINT; embassy compare CONSULATE, HIGH COMMIS-

SION, all words with opposite meanings are preceded by compare, whereassynonyms may be found after see also or following a definition, e.g. eatablesee also EDIBLE; ejaculation . . 2 . . a sudden expression of anger, surprise, etc;a n EXCLAMATION.

CIDE also has cross-references introduced by see also or compare. In thiscase the former indication is restricted to form-related words, e.g. earth seealso EARTHEN, the latter to all types of meaning-related words: synonyms (e.g.envious compare JEALOUS), antonyms (e.g. entrance compare EXIT), and othermeaning relations (e.g. empathy compare SYMPATHY). Only occasionally doesone find a synonym after a definition, for instance at epicure, where one finds"a GOURMET". It goes without saying that here again the users do not havesufficient information about the type of relationship at hand.

COBUILD has a simpler and more direct system of indicating meaning-related words. In its famous extra column one can find the symbols = and #for synonyms and antonyms respectively, e.g. easy 1 = simple, # difficult.Although less numerous and less varied than in the first edition, this type ofindication is far greater in number than in any of the three other dictionaries.Unfortunately the cross-references are only to word forms, not to particularsenses of words, which is done in the other dictionaries and which might havebeen more effective and helpful for L2 readers. The category see also containsonly compounds or form-related words like economics see also home economics.This category, which is not used very often, is mostly presented as a separatemeaning with a number, but is sometimes introduced by a simple dot.

Comparing the four dictionaries on this point it becomes clear that thechoice of related words to be given with a particular meaning is as unforeseeableas was the case with illustrations. Although COBUILD has the most cross-references of this type, rather straightforward antonyms like flow or flood tidefor ebb are missing. For eavesdrop, LDOCE gives overhear, COBUILD giveslisten in, the other two dictionaries remaining silent on this particular point.

LDOCE and OALD have also cross-references to appendices. Those thatseem to me to be helpful for receptive purposes concern Weights and measuresand Military ranks in LDOCE, Family relationships and Ranks in the armedforces and some parts of Numbers in OALD. CIDE gives some tables in theA-to-Z section, e.g. Relationships or Units of measurement. For military ranksthis type of table seems absolutely necessary. COBUILD and CIDE, whichonly give definitions for this type of items, are far less precise. A graphicrepresentation of frequency adverbs like usually, often, occasionally, as givenby LDOCE, can only add to a more precise understanding of these items.Genealogical trees as given by LDOCE, OALD and CIDE in order to illustratefamily relationships seem to be especially useful for non-western L2 readers.

In addition to these more or less implicit indications, LDOCE, OALD andCIDE have more explicit discussions of meaning-related or confusing words.These discussions are called USAGE NOTE in LDOCE, NOTE in OALD,and LANGUAGE PORTRAIT in CIDE. The choice of the words to be



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discussed in this way is almost as unpredictable as was the case of illustrationsand of related words. Only where grammatical words like each, every, few, etc.are concerned, do all three dictionaries pay explicit attention to the difficultiesthe L2 learner may experience. Sometimes the necessary information is givenin a note, but the absence of such a note does not necessarily mean thatnothing is said about a particular problem: LDOCE and OALD discuss thedifference between first floor and ground floor in a note; CIDE gives the sameinformation in a regular entry. In most cases, however, any given set of wordsis discussed in only one of the dictionaries. LDOCE compares adjectives likefamous, well-known, distinguished etc., OALD discusses differences between togiggle, to snigger and to titter, and CIDE tries to make clear distinctionsbetween expensive, costly, dear, etc., while the other dictionaries pay no particu-lar attention at all to these near synonyms. In all these cases users of COBUILDhave to find out for themselves, exploiting all the synonyms given in the extracolumn. As many definitions given for near synonyms resemble each other alot in this dictionary, however (see 3.2.1), it will not be very easy for the L2user to tell them apart.

As may be seen from the examples given, most of the usage notes are devotedto words belonging to the respective defining vocabularies, but in many casesthey may nevertheless be very helpful for readers who try to understand allthe details of a text. LDOCE and OALD, in that order, give a fair amount ofthis type of discussion, paying attention to semantic differences as well as toparticularities in grammar or in use. CIDE's "language portraits" are lessnumerous; as they pay less attention to semantic distinctions between more orless similar words, and contain more grammatical or morphological informa-tion, they seem to be less useful for the L2 reader.

Another feature of CIDE should be mentioned in the context of L2 reading,however: the lists of "false friends". For sixteen languages, a list of false friendsis presented in the A-to-Z section, under the letter of the nationality signswhich can be found on vehicles from each country: F for French, P forPortuguese, T for Thai, etc. All the words of these lists are marked with thatsign in the relevant entries. Thus, an Italian speaker is warned that invidiousas a false friend does not mean the same as Italian invidioso, as he might tendto think. In the list at the beginning of letter I, he can find that the latter wordis translated with envious. This may indeed be valuable information, providedof course that he is willing to consult the dictionary.

What is less clear is how the false friends have been collected. For Frenchsome 150 words have been selected, whereas according to Hammer & Monod(1976) English and French share some 11,000 words, very many of which haveone or more different meanings in the two languages. One may wonder whymany real faux amis are not listed, e.g. words like fabric, facile, fail or fastidious,the meanings of which do not correspond at all to those of their formal Frenchcounterparts fabrique, facile, faillir and fastidieux. Many partial false friendslike face or facility are missing, whereas similar cases like figure or flipper arementioned. On the other hand one is surprised to find in the list words likefete or herb, which can almost always be translated with fete and herbe.

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I think few Dutch learners are bound to confuse fail with falen. If they were,why are bail/balen, hail/halen and tail/talen absent from the list? On the otherhand many well-known and persistent faux amis are missing, e.g. eventually/eventueel, acrually/acrueel and occasion/occasion ('second hand', a French wordnormally pronounced as if it were English). But the most astonishing elementin the lists of faux amis, an element which seems to be a problem for speakersof at least six different languages, because of its resemblance to the local namesfor Iceland, is the word island. I am quite sure, as far as Dutch is concerned,that not one learner has ever had any kind of difficulty with this "confusingpair". All in all one can safely say that there is much room for improvementon this point.

3.2.3 Examples for receptive purposes. For those L2 readers who, in spite ofdefinitions, illustrations or discussions, might not have got a clear picture ofthe meaning of a word, examples could be helpful. According to COBUILD(p. xxii), some users prefer even to read the examples before they go to thedefinition. In both cases the examples given should be as clear as possible.Actually, however, it is not easy to know what makes an example clear tosomeone who does not know the meaning of the word that is exemplified. Toget an idea of the problems a learner may have to struggle with, I will give allthe examples which can be found in the four dictionaries for a given meaning,replacing the problem word with a question mark and outsiders (i.e. wordsnot in the defining vocabulary of the dictionary concerned) with the indicationof their part of speech:

LDOCE: He was a strange man who (Verb) in the ?OALD: He's interested in the ?COBUILD: However, interest in the ? tended more towards (Adj.) magic rather

than (Noun) . . . books dealing with the ?CIDE: She became interested in the ? and magic when she was in her twenties

A learner who is prepared to spend time on his problem word could find outthe meanings of the verb (to dabble), the adjective (ceremonial) and the noun(witchcraft), depending on the dictionary he is using, but could still not havethe impression that he got nearer to the meaning he is longing for.

If examples have a role to play in receptive dictionary use, as I think theyindeed have, one might wonder why learner's dictionaries do not restrict thevocabulary used in examples, or at least in those examples which are givenwith the intention of helping L2 users understand the exact meaning of a word,in a similar way as they do for their definitions. All four dictionaries useoutsiders in their examples, albeit not in similar quantities. LDOCE and OALDboth use relatively few outsiders, but it must be kept in mind that the definingvocabulary used in OALD is considerably larger than LDOCE's. Although itis stated in OALD (p. xvi) that some examples "have been changed slightlyfrom the corpus to remove difficult words", this does not prevent words likerelish, plight or solicitor from appearing in examples in this dictionary. CIDEand especially COBUILD use many more outsiders, COBUILD even usingsuch very infrequent words as paganism or filing cabinets. Examples in the twolatter dictionaries tend to be longer and less stereotyped than the ones presentedin LDOCE and OALD.



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Traditionally, examples were made up by lexicographers, whereas morerecently, thanks to work on corpora, more so-called authentic examples areput in the dictionary. Many of the examples in LDOCE and in OALD stemfrom the lexicographic tradition, COBUILD is a typical example of corpuswork, while CIDE is a mixed case. As was indicated in table 3, CIDE givesthe most examples, but as was mentioned earlier on, this dictionary presentsmany fixed expressions in the form of examples, with an explanation in bracketsoften interrupting the sentence. Next comes COBUILD, then OALD; LDOCEgives considerably fewer examples.

As was stated by Minaeva (1992: 78), users of learner's dictionaries "shouldpossess a considerable amount of background knowledge because illustrativeword-combinations and sentences abound in sociolinguistic information". Theauthor goes on to give examples where proper names like Muriel Spark, Devon,(Laurence) Olivier or the Ford Foundation are used, or where typical institu-tions like the Post Office or pawnbroker's shops are mentioned. She couldhave gone even farther by evoking cases where no explicit reference is madeto any specific context, but where knowledge of that context is important forthe correct understanding of a given example. Such is the case with "Expectoccasional showers today" or "There will be occasional showers during theday" (at occasional in LDOCE and OALD, respectively), which are easilyrecognised as utterances taken from some weather forecast by those who knowthe language well, but not necessarily by learners. Compare also cases like"The crash occurred when the crew shut down the wrong engine" (at occur inCOBUILD) or "Out of (.. .) compassion for her terrible suffering they allowedher to stay" (at compassion in OALD).

Sometimes the examples are too short or too general to give any additionalinformation about the content of an item, as in two of the examples givenabove: "He is interested in . . . " and "books dealing with . . . " . (By the way,the ? in these examples replaced the noun occult.) By contrast, examples arealso often quite long or confusing. This danger occurs most in the case ofauthentic examples like the following ones taken from COBUILD: "I supposeI was looking for an occupation which was going to be an adventure" (atoccupation); "There were over 40 tenants, all occupying one wing of thehospital" (at occupy).

In CIDE "[w]ell-known phrases from popular songs, television, films, books,plays, and sayings by famous people are sometimes included after theexamples" (p. X). Thus one may find "Elementary, my dear Watson" (SherlockHolmes), "What kind of fool am I?" (song), and "What's good for the countryis good for General Motors, and vice versa" (C. E. Wilson, 1953) (see alsofigure 4). These cultural references could be profitable to L2 learners whocome across these elements without the source being indicated. But it wouldalso be interesting to know whether and to what extent L2 readers really usethis type of information.

It goes without saying that the crucial question in this matter is, again, whattype of example is most useful for the L2 reader. This question has beenaddressed by Laufer (1992). She presented 57 adult Israelian EFL learnerswith 20 unfamiliar English words, 10 words with authentic examples, 10 with



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lexicographer examples. There were two conditions: 'example only' and'definition+example'. As far as the receptive part of this experiment is con-cerned, the subjects were asked to give a translation in their mother tongue.These translations were scored 0 points for an incorrect translation, 1 pointfor an approximate translation, and 2 points for a correct translation. In the'example only' condition, the results were quite low, but the scores for lexico-grapher examples were significantly better than for authentic examples (means:2.15 and 4.15, p = .007). In the 'definition-(-example' condition, the resultswere considerably higher, but the difference was again significant in favour ofthe lexicographer example (means: 9.32 and 10.45, p = .O38). Laufer (1992: 75)concludes that "even if the new word is defined, the additional informationwhich is provided by the lexicographer's example will contribute to the under-standing of the word significantly more than the information provided in theauthentic example". This experiment, as well as other ones run by Laufer,show also that "an example alone cannot be expected to provide as muchinformation as a definition with an example" and that "examples alone provideless information than definitions alone". Finally, Laufer states that "the pos-sible benefit from lexicographer's examples is less dependent on [the] vocabu-lary level of the dictionary user than the benefit from authentic examples".

4. The use of learner's dictionaries for productive purposes

4.1 Findability

4.1.1 Finding unknown meanings [lexical units/items—Ed.]. Producing in aforeign language may profit greatly from the use of learner's dictionaries.However, the first difficulty the L2 user is confronted with is the fact that, dueto the alphabetical ordering of the words, the elements he needs will seldombe presented together. This is a real handicap when strict translations arerequired; in these cases the use of a bilingual dictionary, instead of or inaddition to a monolingual one, will be in order. But even when the writer isallowed to adapt his text to his knowledge, he will very often need words orexpressions that he does not know or cannot remember.

To make the point at issue clear, let us imagine an ESL learner who hasacquired the 2,000 most frequent words of English and who wants to write astory about some everyday events. This could be something like the following,where the words he needs to find in the dictionary are given in Dutch andFrench.

Last week I was invited to dinner by my good friend Charles. He had made averrukkelijk/delicieux meal, something with gehakte/hache vegetables in a deeg/pate.He complained about the gootsteen/evier which was verstopt/bouche and for whichhe needed a loodgieter/plombier. I told him that I needed a monteur/mecanicien inorder to repair the remmen/freins of my car because I had difficulties whenever Ihad to voorrang geven/donner la priorite and sometimes to stop in time in front ofthe verkeerslichten/feux. We talked a lot about our hobbies/passe-temps favoris, oneof which is politiek/politique. Weare both links/de gauche and are very interested ina new wetsontwerp/projet de loi about which much overleg/deliberations is going on.



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What have the four dictionaries to offer so that our ESL learner can finishthis text using an acceptable or even correct and varied vocabulary? As to thefirst word, none of the dictionaries has any means of finding a word likedelicious. There are no more or less synonymous words given at good; lookingup taste may lead to tasty, but there are no cross-references to different kindsof taste or to expressions one might need in order to make compliments to thecook. For the other words about food and eating, OALD has a note at to cutwhich leads to to chop (hakken/hacher). LDOCE does not refer from to cutto other verbs, but the user may remember p. 690 Verbs in the kitchen, wherehe finds to chop as well as to knead, and the lemma of the latter verb happensto contain an example with the word dough (deeg/pate). Nothing of the kindcan be found in COBUILD or CIDE.

For a translation of gootsteen/evier one might search at kitchen. LDOCEdoes not refer from this entry to the picture on p. 689 where a sink can befound. OALD refers to a nonexistent picture; CIDE has a picture on the nextpage but it does not feature a sink. As to the problem with this sink, I havenot been able to find paths that could have led me to choked or clogged up.Unfortunately, this misfortune had not been depicted on p. 1180 Adjectives:Broken in LDOCE. In order to repair the sink as well as the car, the learnerneeds some professionals. The words needed are not under work, job orprofession in any of the dictionaries, but COBUILD and CIDE happen to giveexamples under to repair where plumbers are mentioned but not (motor) mech-anics. Parts of cars, like brakes or exhaust pipes, can be found in pictures inLDOCE, OALD and CIDE.

With regard to the vocabulary of traffic, all four dictionaries mention stop-lights with a cross-reference to British traffic lights under to stop. I have notbeen able, however, to find an equivalent for voorrang geven/donner la priorite(give way). In order to find hobby, looking up words like stamp and fishingled to examples containing this word. The same goes for politics, which isreferred to in entries like party or left, or rather left (-) wing, which could befound in the latter entry. Again, bill and deliberation were not findable startingfrom a vocabulary of 2,000 frequent elements.

From a list of 27 words and expressions I was able, starting from all relatedwords I could think of and looking up all types of cross-references, to findsatisfying equivalents for from 9 (COBUILD) to 13 (LDOCE) items. As canbe seen in the examples given, in several cases these equivalents are quite nearto the Dutch or the French words. It seems likely, however, that only in caseswhere learners suppose some sort of cognate relationship, will they look upsuch equivalents. On the other hand, not all learners are prepared to look upmore than one or two words in order to find an equivalent. So, with the helpof these dictionaries, it seems possible to access unknown meanings in certainlynot more than half of the cases. This is a score that will not encourageevery learner.

As was noted in section 3.2.2, illustrations representing the meanings of veryfrequent words might be useful for finding the names of their parts or thoseof related objects. This is true for instance for the illustrations given at enginein LDOCE, egg in OALD and energy in CIDE. Sometimes, however, the



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words given are too technical, e.g. conjunctiva at eye in LDOCE or anvil atear in OALD, whereas words like glasses or deafness are lacking in theseentries. CIDE sometimes makes a happy combination of scientific informationand conceptual relationships, such as in the "Language Portrait" Eye, eyesightand seeing where the parts of the eye are given next to words like vision, short-sighted and contact lenses, and next to a grid explaining the uses of look, watchand see.

A word about the Longman Language Activator (LLA) seems to be in orderhere as this dictionary is announced as "The world's first production diction-ary" [Reviewed by E. A. Nida in IJL 8/2 Summer 1995, pp. 143-6 —Ed.].Taking the same list of 27 items under the same conditions, I was able to find11 satisfactory equivalents, which is about the same result as for the fourlearner's dictionaries. This is mainly due to the absence of all concrete nounslike sink, brakes, plumber, etc. A word like party is only treated in the senseof a social event, and it is only thanks to the expression party politics that onecan find the entry for politics, adjectives like left and right not being treatedat all. With this dictionary it was possible, however, to find words like bill,deliberate, negotiate and compromise which were not findable in any of theother dictionaries. The value of this dictionary seems indeed to be more onthe side of abstract than of concrete vocabulary.

Conversely this means that the learner's dictionaries still can improve onthe quality and the quantity of cross-references, even if they are not willing toinclude such elaborate comments as can be found in LLA. Apart from givingmore tables (e.g. of professions) and still more pictures showing details of well-known things or situations (as has already been partly realised in LDOCE),presenting more words associated with domains like politics, decision makingor traffic could be helpful, especially for the learner who wants to producetexts in the foreign language.

4.1.2 Choosing between options. Learners who are writing a text quite oftenwonder whether the words they happen to know or those they managed tofind in the dictionary really are the ones they need, or whether other wordsexist that have about the same meaning but which are more precise or, as thecase may be, somewhat less negative, a bit stronger or more colourful. Or elsethey are not sure whether the word they found in some text can be used in thecontext of their writings. Should they say that something was done deliberately,or are there other, better ways of saying that what happened was not due tochance? How should a given event be qualified if it was something in betweena street row and a revolution? In other words, learners are often looking forinformation which allows them to compare alternatives and to choose theword which best expresses their intention. The question here is thus what thedictionaries do in order to draw attention to other possibilities and how theydiscriminate between the possibilities offered.

As was stated above (section 3.2.2), cross-references to other words are notsystematic, not very well organised and not very numerous, even though someof these critical remarks pertain less .to COBUILD than to the others. Thisimpression is confirmed by an analysis of all information that could be useful



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in the context of L2 production for the words from N to nay. Only one word,narrow, is related to other words (wide, broad) in all four dictionaries; and twoothers, nasty and nationalise, are treated in analogous ways in three of thefour dictionaries. This means that all dictionaries have their own particularnetworks of relationships. But these networks do not have the same density,nor the same quality.

CIDE has the fewest possibilities for making choices between alternatives.Apart from a number of antonyms like nadir/zenith, there are only two caseswhere attention is drawn to other possibilities. The first is a mutual cross-referencing between narrow and broad, where the latter term is simply definedas "very wide". The second concerns the terms narrow boat, canal boat andbarge, which seem to be synonyms according to the definitions, but which havedifferent referents in the picture at canal.

OALD and LDOCE offer more choices, amongst other things by givingusage notes and pictures illustrating the exact meaning of words like narrow,broad, wide and thin. These notes seem to be extremely welcome because, evenwhen they treat words which belong to the defining vocabulary and whichmay therefore be assumed to be known, they can resolve many problems evenfor advanced learners who want to use such words productively. In addition,learners can profit from words mentioned after see also or compare, as well asfrom words cited as synonyms or opposites after the definitions. Unfortunately,the contrasts that should characterise the relationships between the entry wordand words given after compare in OALD are not always very clear, e.g.nationalism compare PATRIOTISM, where nationalism is defined as "a strongfeeling of love and pride in one's own country" and patriotism as "love ofone's country and willingness to defend it" (see also nap2/pik 4). In othercases one may wonder whether the meanings of words presented as synonymsare really close enough. For instance, natural 3b is defined as "(of qualities,etc) with which one is born; INHERENT" and is illustrated by the example "Hehas a natural talent for music"; inherent is defined as "existing as a natural orpermanent feature or quality of sth/sb" and is illustrated by phrases like "aninherent distrust of foreigners, an inherent weakness in a design". As may beseen it is not always possible to replace natural by inherent, nor the other wayround. Even if one may think that learners will be served by this type ofcomplementary information, it is not certain that they will always be able toput it to an adequate use.

One sometimes can have the same kind of doubts about relationships thatare suggested in LDOCE. Is malicious, defined as "showing a desire to harmor hurt someone", really synonymous with nasty in the sense of "extremelyunkind and unpleasant"? And why is name 3 denned as "the opinion thatpeople have about a person or organization", whereas its synonym reputationis defined as "the opinion that people have about a particular person or thingbecause of what has happened in the past"? How can learners make sure thatthe differences in the two definitions stand for substantial differences in meaningor use, or that they correspond to shades of meaning which may be neglected?On the other hand, LDOCE makes it sometimes rather difficult to discoversome part of a semantic network. For instance, at narrow 5 (narrow ideas/attitudes) one finds a cross-reference to narrow-minded; at narrow-minded there



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are cross-references to prejudiced and to broadminded; at the latter entry men-tion is made of small-minded; finally, looking up this word one finds petty.Although all these words may open new horizons to the learner or bring himnearer to the perfect solution of his communicative problem, the way he hasto go seems rather long and complicated.

As already stated, COBUILD gives by far the most synonyms and antonymswhich may suggest alternative possibilities, and it does so in a quite straightfor-ward manner. For instance, four different senses of naked and six uses of nameare presented with related words. In all these cases the learner has to verifyfor himself whether the words suggested can be used in the context he had inmind. It is also a pity that the cross-references are not to numbered meaningsbut to head words only. In several cases, however, the verification processturns out to be a rather disappointing task because not all words given in theextra column are entries in the dictionary (e.g. moaning at nagging, overoptimis-tic at naive, chin wag at natter).

In cases where learners are looking for a neutral word to replace an(in)formal one, or the other way round, the four dictionaries offer satisfactorysolutions only very occasionally. Next to natter and to snooze, which arecharacterised as informal words, COBUILD gives chat, gossip and nap respect-ively; at stoolpigeon and at nab, LDOCE gives informer and arrest. But thistype of synonymous element belonging to different registers is very rare. Forthe same verb nab, COBUILD gives only collar (and there grab), without thelearner being guided to arrest. The converse, cross-references from neutralwords to words belonging to formal or informal registers, seems to be totallyabsent from the four dictionaries.

The four dictionaries are better in giving the American or British equivalentsfor words which belong to only one of these types of English. Except forOALD, they all mention American diaper next to British nappy. One maywonder, however, in which cases this type of information will be useful for theproductive (or, for that matter, receptive) user.

4.2 Usability

4.2.1 Grammatical information. Once the learner feels he has found the rightlexical item, he faces the problem of creating or adapting the context. Startingfrom a basic knowledge of the grammatical rules and regularities, he consultsthe dictionary in the hope of finding clear and explicit guidance as to whichsyntactic and morphological treatment should apply in what particular way toeach individual lexical unit. As can be seen in figures 1 to 4, the four dictionariesgive this grammatical information in rather different formats. In order toindicate that to pocket is a transitive verb, LDOCE places a [T], CIDE firststates that an object is obligatory (pbj) and then adds a [T], whereas OALDand COBUILD indicate for each meaning that the verb is constructed with anoun (Vn).

In simple cases like to pocket, these marking systems may be thought to beequivalent, one system giving neither more nor less guidance to the learnerthan the other. In somewhat more complex cases, however, important differ-ences appear, as for instance for the verb to concede (see figures 5 to 8).



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In LDOCE, three uses are classified as [T], one as [I, T] and one does nothave any grammatical indication. For the first sense, only the second use isexplicitly described (concede (that)). For the second sense, the learner has tofind out, by analysing the two examples given, that the verb is not to be usedindifferently as intransitive or transitive as this notation has to be interpretedin other cases, but that [I] and [T] refer to two rather distinct uses. The lasttwo uses are described more explicitly: concede sth to. CIDE is slightly moreexplicit by stating overtly that the verb can be used with a quotation([+clause]), but most of the structural peculiarities have to be extracted fromthe examples. In both LDOCE and CIDE, [T] may cover a number of relativelydiverse constructions.

OALD presents the grammatical information in two ways, first by indicatingthe frame (~sth (to sb)), and then by giving descriptions in terms of wordclasses and sequences of different realisations of these frames ([Vnpr],[V.speech], etc.). Not only is the use of rather difficult and often ill-understoodnotions like transitive and intransitive avoided, but learners can use the verbcorrectly without being forced to read the examples.

The same kind of explicit data are presented in an even clearer and morecomplete way in COBUILD. In the first place, the frames, which are part ofthe definition in COBUILD, quite often contain valuable information on thekinds of subjects or objects that are possible or usual with a given verb, e.g."1 If you concede something . . .", "2 If you concede something to someone. . . " , "5 If you concede a game, contest, or argument. . ." , or "1 If you cannotconceive of something, . . .", "4 When a woman conceives, . . .". In addition,the extra column gives the possible constructions in terms of sequences ofword classes, all fixed prepositions being specified: V n t o n , V ofn as n/-ing, etc.

The richer and more precise syntactic description given by COBUILD comesclearly to the fore when one compares the explanations given about thegrammatical apparatus used in this dictionary to those used in the other ones.Whereas the other dictionaries use some fifteen different categories, COBUILDdistinguishes some 75 "word classes". Even if not all of these would be acceptedas word classes by the other dictionaries, it is clear that categories like thenouns and the adverbs are further subdivided in COBUILD than in any ofthe other dictionaries. Regarding verbs, only OALD has anything like as richa sub-classification as COBUILD.

In the case of the notoriously difficult use of phrasal verbs, a clear notationis definitely necessary. As long as no convincing evidence to the contrary isavailable, I am inclined to think that indications like 'VPn, also VP'(COBUILD) are much more direct than [I, T] (LDOCE) for describing theuse of get through in the sense of'passing an examination', or that get through(to sb) (OALD) permits a better understanding of the structural possibilitiesof this use of the phrasal verb than [I] [+to] (LDOCE) or simply [I] next toan example with and another one without a complement introduced by to(CIDE).

Classifying a given word as an adjective or as an adverb will not always besufficient to guide the learner to the correct use of the item. In many casesmore information is necessary. For an adjective like galore, all dictionaries



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state that it is only used after nouns; with the exception of OALD, this is alsothe case for concerned. For enough things are more complicated. LDOCE hastwo entries, one for the adverb and one for the determiner and the pronoun;in addition it gives a usage note on the place of enough in these uses. CIDEhas one entry where enough is presented as determiner, pronoun and adverb;halfway through the article it is stated that this word "can be used after anadjective, adverb or verb to mean . . .". OALD again has two entries, one forthe indefinite determiner and one for the adverb; in the first entry it is clearlystated that in this case this item is "usu[ally] used in front of plural oruncountable nfounjs", in the second that it is "used after vferbjs, adjfectivejsand adv[erb]s". COBUILD, finally, gives for each use a whole list of possiblesequences, like ADV: adj/adv ADV, ADV after v, etc.

Most users of English who recognise frankly, unfortunately as well as todayas adverbs, will be at the same time aware of the different uses these wordsmay be put to. But because this is not necessarily the case for learners, thedictionaries obviously need to provide some sort of specification. This is notthe case in CIDE, which characterises all three words as just adverbs.COBUILD and LDOCE rightly specify that frankly (in one particular sense)and unfortunately are used as adverbs which qualify a sentence or a clause.OALD has a note devoted to this matter at hopeful, but (un) fortunately is notmentioned as being a member of the particular class of sentence adverbs.

Whereas three of the dictionaries give the forms of comparatives and super-latives like poorer, poorest, LDOCE does not. For OALD, these forms consti-tute all this dictionary has to say about gradability and the use of a specificclass of accompanying specifiers. CIDE quite often adds "[not gradable]" toadjectives and adverbs, but not in a very systematic way; it can be found e.g.at yesterday, today, tomorrow, concerned and iron, but not at concentric, concep-tual or concomitant, where users might have more doubts. Only COBUILDconsistently marks all gradable adjectives and adverbs as GRADED. Likewise,this dictionary indicates in a systematic way the attributive and/or predicativeuse of adjectives like golden, iron, silver or silken, without using this termino-logy. OALD pays only incidental attention to this problem; CIDE and LDOCEalmost never provide any guidance on this point.

Sometimes learners may have difficulty in adapting a word to a given context,especially when such a context necessitates, for instance, the use of an adjectiveor a verb instead of the noun they had in mind. To provide help in these cases,the learner's dictionaries clearly need to present morphological relationships.But in most of the dictionaries this is only the case under very strict conditions,and it is questionable whether these conditions are helpful for those learnerswho are trying to avoid clumsy sentences when writing in their foreignlanguage.

Whereas COBUILD systematically presents all inflected forms of each entryword, even when these forms are strictly regular and do not present anydifficulty to advanced learners, it never gives cross-references to other wordsof the same family. Only when they are formed on the basis of the entry wordwithout major changes in meaning and when they follow the entry word inthe alphabetical ordering [Not necessarily. —Ed], may related words be given



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in bold face in the entry. This means that genuinely and genuineness are to befound under genuine, and geologist under geology [non-alphabetically. —Ed.],but that geographical and geological precede as independent entries those forgeography and geology respectively, and that growth conies after unrelatedwords like growl, without there being any indication of the existence of thenoun in the entry for grow.

LDOCE and OALD are less strict as to the alphabetical ordering of morpho-logically related words. They both present geographical, geographically as wellas geographer under geography. They both also give, after See also, concessionat the end of the entry for concede, but not, for instance, conception underconceive, growth under grow, or factual under fact. Again, they both givegreatness at the end of the entry for great, without indicating, however, towhich meanings of the adjective this noun corresponds. So, learners may betempted to conclude that one can speak about the greatness of a house or ofan occasion.

CIDE has opted for a presentation in what can be called morphologicalfamilies. So it comes as no surprise that geographer, geographical, geographicaland geographically are all to be found under geography. But furthermoregrowth is mentioned under grow, factual under fact, fatten under fat, etc. Whatis more, greatness is only mentioned under great [FAMOUS], so that not onlythe formal link is clear, but the semantic one as well. CIDE could have beenstill more systematic, however, words like conception or gift not being givenunder conceive and give.

The case of ordinal numbers nicely illustrates this point. If, for any reason,learners want to use these words without being certain about their form, wherecan they find them? COBUILD does not exploit this type of relationship atall. In LDOCE one finds simple forms like fourth or tenth in the entries forthe cardinal numbers, but not in cases where the form is less regularly formed.Much the same is true for OALD, although there is an incidental CompareSECOND at two. Only CIDE makes it almost systematically possible to replaceexpressions like "number 2" or "number 5" with the corresponding ordinals,sometimes by giving words in a "Language Portrait" (first and second), some-times by entering the ordinals in the morphological family of the cardinalnumber (fifth).

As was mentioned earlier (section 3.1.1), the four dictionaries have differentpolicies for entering morphological tools. It is difficult to see how and to whatextent these tools may improve the written production of learners. Most users,if ever they think of using these tools for productive purposes, will be awareof the risks of constructing words along the lines indicated at the entries forprefixes or suffixes, or in tables like COMBINING FORMS as in CIDE. Whenit is indicated that -en, -ify and -ize/-ise may be used to form verbs fromadjectives or nouns, the limitations of these rules are not given, and so formslike *yellowen or *optionify are not excluded.

4.2.2 Other information on use. Learners who have found the word theywant to use and who are aware of its grammatical possibilities still may needother types of information. In the first place, if they are to write texts that areas "natural" as possible, they need to be informed about the frequency of use



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of words in certain constructions. CIDE does not give any information on thispoint, OALD only incidentally, as in possess where for the meaning "to controlor dominate a person's mind" it is stated that the passive is the dominant form("esp passive").

Every now and then LDOCE gives bar charts to present information on theuse of a word. For instance, at disagree one can see that this verb is used inmore than half of the cases with the preposition with and in about 30% of thecases without a preposition, patterns like disagree about, disagree on, disagree(that) and others each being used in less than 10% of the cases. In similarways, one can see that good or happen are used more frequently in spokenthan in written English, that vacation is relatively more frequent in AmericanEnglish than in British English, and one can find out which are the wordsmost commonly used with e.g. idea, information or interest. Although thecriteria for the choice of items to be illustrated in this way are not given bythe compilers of this dictionary, the presence of this type of information mustbe positively appreciated, because large parts of it may be helpful for learnersproducing texts in their L2. In addition, LDOCE gives the examples showinggrammar or collocations in frequency order (p. xvii). Although this is aninteresting feature for productive users, I am not sure that it is salient enoughin practical use.

COBUILD is most systematic in giving indications about the frequency ofstructures used with individual meanings of words. In the extra column threesigns are used: usu to signal very frequent patterns, oft for patterns which arerelatively frequent, and also for patterns which are less common (with nouns,this indication may also have the meaning of "behaving in a way which is nottypical of that category"). This dictionary not only presents the most detailedinformation about the grammatical possibilities, it also guides the learner towhat is normal or natural.

Another feature of COBUILD may put an end to hesitations learners mighthave in using fixed phrases. One of the difficulties here is to know what partsof these expressions may or have to be adapted to the context and which areonly to be used in the form given. For instance, in cases like run/take its courseor carry the day, learners may wonder whether the nouns may or have to bein the plural form when the subject is plural. In such cases, COBUILD is theonly dictionary to give indications. V inflects or N inflects in the extra columndraw attention to the fact that only the verb or only the noun has to beadapted to the context.

Another kind of information learners of a L2 badly need concerns colloca-tions: which are the words normally accompanying a given meaning? Insteadof overusing words like "very" or "heavy", advanced learners should bestimulated to use more typical intensifiers. Looking for an alternative for"heavy rain", learners may find torrential/driving in OALD, or pouring/torren-tial in CIDE, while LDOCE gives only heavy, and COBUILD nothing at all;wanting to replace "very important" they find very/especially/vitally in OALD,very in CIDE, very/vitally in LDOCE and most in COBUILD.

It is not very easy to get a clear view of the collocational riches of each ofthe four dictionaries.As to the presence of intensifiers, the two examples givenabove give a fairly good view: although some of the intensifiers mentioned on



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"Study page A4" are absent from the corresponding entries in the dictionaryitself, OALD seems to have the greatest variety, while COBUILD is laggingbehind. In none of the dictionaries, however, does this point seem to havebeen given the attention it deserves. Sometimes no intensifier is given, some-times one can be found in an example, sometimes one or more are presentedas real collocations (e.g. in bold face).

The same is true for objects with verbs ("which things does one gather?","which things can be gained?") and for nouns with adjectives ("to what thingsor people does generous apply?"). OALD gives the most answers, COBUILDthe least, LDOCE and CIDE coming in between. One could object here thatthe questions asked are not those asked most frequently by users. They aremore likely indeed to start from nouns and to look for verbs, adjectives orother nouns that may be combined with them. Telling us that a gap may befound in a fence/hedge/wall as well as in a story, conversation, education, etc.,and that one may talk of front garden, back garden, herb/rose/vegetable garden,etc., OALD is again the most generous dictionary.

Only when it comes to giving the verbs that allow the formation of a verbalexpression on the basis of a noun, does LDOCE come first. Although all fourdictionaries give a fair number of these verbs (e.g. bath (have/take), call (make),etc.), LDOCE not only gives the most of them, but marks them as such aswell. CIDE also marks most of these verbs as having a special relationshipwith the noun, whereas OALD gives many of them in the context of anexample. COBUILD sometimes gives these verbs as part of the definition,sometimes in the context of examples; as a rule they are not marked.

4.2.3 Examples for productive purposes. As was seen earlier on (section 3.2.3),all four dictionaries present examples. In this final section I would like toapproach these examples from the point of view of the learner who wants toproduce correct texts in his L2. The central question here is thus to what extentthe examples given really help learners to understand how the words are to beused. In a productive context examples can be taken to be the fleshing out ofthe more or less abstract information that is provided by the definitions and/orthe grammatical codes. These illustrations are especially important in the caseof verbs. Real sentences can show in a practical way how the structural skeletoncomes to life. In other words, the examples given provide models to be followed.

All four dictionaries always give at least one example illustrating each ofthe verbal structures mentioned, except for those structures marked as notvery common {also .. .) in COBUILD. A striking difference betweenCOBUILD and the other dictionaries, however, is that many of the examplesin COBUILD are rather long. As a case in point, one could consider theexample given at concede 3 (see fig. 7). In addition, in many cases the examplescontain very infrequent words such as shrapnel at gaping, or proper nameswhich are not always clear to the learner, e.g. Nomura's U.S. unit at concede1 or Kensington Gardens at garden 3. The problem with these examples couldbe that because of their length as well as of the presence of unfamiliar elements,they do not present in a clear way the structure that was to be illustrated andthey cannot easily be taken as models for the learner's own production.



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310 Paul Bogaards

This point of critique applies to some extent also to CIDE. As can be seenin the entries presented in figs. 4 and 8, the examples in this dictionary are notonly used to explain the grammatical information (as stated on p. xi), but alsoto present collocations and fixed phrases and, in addition, to give an explana-tion of the meaning of these items. It is not impossible that this accumulationof functions is damaging for each, as well as for the help they are supposedto provide to the productive L2 learner.

LDOCE and OALD have simpler, shorter, lexicographer-made examplescontaining less unfamiliar words. It is again necessary to stress that onlyempirical research can give conclusive answers to the question whether thistype of example is more helpful for production than the authentic type or not,or whether there is no difference. In the same experiment as described insection 3.2.3, Laufer (1992) asked the subjects who had been presented witha definition and an example to write sentences with the target words. For this'productive' task the mean score for the lexicographer examples was againhigher (8.36) than for the authentic ones (7.36), but this difference was notstatistically significant. So, the author concludes that "in production, unlikein comprehension, the subjects' performance was not significantly affected bythe different type of examples".

This lack of difference between the two types of examples may mean that,although the authentic examples imply the presence of some disturbinginformation, they are as good as models of use as the more traditional ones.As Laufer does not mention from which dictionaries the test material wastaken, nor how much explicit or coded grammatical information there was atthe subjects' disposal during the test, more research would be needed to settlethis question.

5. Conclusion

By way of general conclusion I would like to present table 4. In this table allaspects discussed in sections 3 and 4 have been listed and the results of thediscussions have been reduced to plusses and minuses. These signs are to beread as a five point scale going from remarkably good (+ +) to remarkablybad ( ). Admittedly, this is a rather crude way of summarising what hasbeen said up to now, but I hope the surveyability of the table will compensatefor its lack of subtlety.

In many cases it was not easy to decide on the signs to use for a givencriterion. After the discussion about defining style, for instance (see sec-tion 3.2.1), it was very difficult to make any evaluative judgment at all. Theprincipal aim of table 4, then, is to try and visualise the differences betweenthe four dictionaries discussed. What was clear, however, was that none of thedictionaries deserved very negative judgments on any criterion. All seem to beacceptable learner's dictionaries, their strengths and weaknesses being rathervaried. For instance, LDOCE has the most positive values on the receptiveside, COBUILD on the productive side. Taking all criteria as equally importantand replacing + + by 5 points and by 1, the totals for the four dictionaries



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are 81 for LDOCE, 77 for OALD, 72 for COBUILD and 64 for CIDE. Themeans on this five point scale are 3.5 for LDOCE, 3.3 for OALD, 3.1 forCOBUILD and 2.8 for CIDE.

On some points, all dictionaries discussed are rather weak. In the first placethere is the difficulty of finding unknown meanings [lexical units/items—Ed.].Although this will remain one of the major drawbacks for monolingual diction-aries as compared to bilingual ones, more thought needs to be given topossibilities to improve this situation. A second point that deserves moreattention of researchers and dictionary makers concerns the use of pictures.Third, all four dictionaries could improve on such points as the treatment ofirregular forms and the use of distinctive labels and cross-references. Finally,more research needs to be done on the use and utility of different types ofexamples.

ReferencesAugusto, M. C , Bogaards, P., Hannay, M., Martin, W., Slagter, P. J., Venancio, F.,

Wekker, H., Wijne, C. 1995. Towards a Database for General Translation Dictionariesand Bilingual Learner Dictionaries, with special Reference to Dutch and Portuguese,Den Haag: C L W .

Bogaards, P. 1988. 'A propos de l'usage du dictionnaire de langue etrangere.' Cahiersde Lexicologie 52, 131-152.

Bogaards, P. 1990. 'Oil cherche-t-on dans le dictionnaire?', International Journal ofLexicography 3, 79-102.

Bogaards, P. 1992. 'A la recherche de collocations dans le dictionnaire de langueetrangere.' in R. Lorenzo (ed.), Adas do XIX Congreso Internacional de Linguisticae Filoloxia Romdnicas. A Coruna: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, II175-185.'

Bogaards, P. 1993. 'Models of dictionary use.' Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen46/47 (Dutch Contributions to AILA '93 Selected in Honour of Johan Matter): 17-28.

Bogaards, P. 1994. Le vocabulaire dans I'apprentissage des langues etrangeres. Paris:Credif- Hatier/Didier (Coll. LAL).

Cruse, D. A. 1986. Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.dimming, G., Cropp, S., Sussex, R. 1994. 'On-line Lexical Resources for Language

Learners: Assessment of some Approaches to Word Definition.' System 22: 369-377.Hammer, P., Monod, M. 1976. English-French Cognate Dictionary. University of

Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.Hausmann, F. J. 1977. Einfuhrung in die Benutzung der neufranzosischen Worterbucher.

Tubingen: Niemeyer.Ilson, R. 1986. 'General English Dictionaries for Foreign Learners: Explanatory

Techniques in Dictionaries.' Lexicographica 2: 214-222.Laufer, B. 1992. 'Corpus-based versus Lexicographer Examples in Comprehension and

Production of New Words' in H. Tommola, K. Varantola (eds.), Euralex '92Proceedings (Studia Translatologica A 2) Part I: 71-76.

MacFarquhar, P. D., Richards, J. C. 1983. 'On Dictionaries and Definitions.' RELCJournal 14: 111-124.

Minaeva, L. 1992. 'Dictionary Examples: Friends or Foes?' in H. Tommola,K. Varantola (eds.), Euralex '92 Proceedings {Studia Translatologica A 2) Part I:77-80.

Stein, G. 1991. 'Illustrations in Dictionaries.' International Journal of Lexicography4: 99-127.



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Table 1. Some data

First editioneditor(s)

Last editioneditor(s)

No of pages a-zNo of other pagesNo of definitions

claimedNo of examples

claimedCorpuses*

about four learner's dictionaries of English.

LDOCE

1978P. Procter

3/1995M. Rundell

164464

> 80 000

-LLC + BNC

OALD

1948A.S. Hornby

5/1995J. Crowther

139278

65000

90000BNC+OAEC

COBUILD

1987J. SinclairP. Hanks2/1995J. SinclairG. Fox1951

38

> 75 000

100000BE

CIDE

1995P. Procter

1/1995P. Procter

170191

100000

> 100000CLS

*LLC - Longman Lancaster Corpus (30 million words)BNC - British National Corpus (100 million words)OAEC - Oxford American English Corpus (40 million words)BE - Bank of English (200 million words)CLS - Cambridge Language Survey (100 million words)



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Table 2. Comparison of POCKET.

LDOCE OALD COBUILD CIDE

NOUN- small bag in cloth- small bag in door- amount of money- small area- small amount- air pocket- hole or bag for balls

VERB- put in your pocket- steal money- get money in a dishonest way- hit a ball

ADJECTIVE- small enough- smaller than usual

FIXED EXPRESSIONSbe in each other's ~sbe in sb's ~burn a hole in sb's ~dig into one's ~from your own ~have sb/sth in your ~

- able to control- sure to win

have deep ~ sin ~line sb's ~live in each other's ~sout of ~out of your own ~pick sb's ~put your hand in your ~suit your ~turn out your ~

Total lexical units(number of non-explained forms)Number of examples

+

+

+

+

++++

+

+

+

+++

m+

+++m+24

218

++++

m+

+

++

++mm

+

+m++

mm

206

14

14 18

21 36

m — mentioned (entered) without explanation



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314 Paul Bogaards

Table 3. Numbers of' lexical units and examples in(in brackets: the numbers of non-explained forms

a. lexical unitsbuckle-bunchground-guessworkorderly-ouchvacation-vatTotals

cross-referencesEstimated totallexical units

b. examplesbuckle-bunchground-guessworkorderly-ouchvacation-vatTotals

LDOCE

282 (22)263 (15)216 (23)196(21)957(81)

62

100,000

13115715493

535Estimated total examples 56,000

OALD

228(12)205(12)177(17)177(21)787 (62)

61

76,000

231256205197889

86,000

four samplesincluded)

COBUILD

241 (9)202(14)152(13)154(19)749 (55)

48

72,000

261271241231

100496,000

CIDE

207215153113688

48

71,000

233253287271

1044107,000

(16)(20)(32)(34)

(102)



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Table 4. Evaluative comparison of four learner's dictionaries of English.

LDOCE OALD COBUILD CIDE

RECEPTIONFindability

1. Number of meanings + + + + +explained- morphological tools + + + +

2. Accessibility of forms:- meaning related forms + + + ± —- irregular forms ± + + ±

3. Accessibility ofmultiword expressions ± + + —

4. Structure of entries:- use of labels ± + — ±- guiding principles + — ± ±- general lay-out + + + ± —

Comprehensibility5. Definitions:

- defining vocabulary + + — ±- precision + + + ± ±- defining style + ± ± ±

6. Illustrations etc.:- pictures ± ± — ±- synonyms etc. — + + ±- notes etc. + + — +

7. Examples + ± — —

PRODUCTIONFindability8. Finding unknown — — — —

meanings [items —Ed.]9. Choosing between ± ± + —

alternativesUsability10. Grammatical information

- syntax — + + + —- morphology + + + +

11. Other information- frequency + ± + + ±- inflection — — + —- collocations ± + — ±

12. Examples + + ± ±



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316 Paul Bogaards

GQi§ pocket1 /1pokjt|'pa:kjt/n|C]0 8 1 •• IN CLOTHES < a small bag sewn onto or into a

coat, trousers etc so that you can put things such asmoney or keys into it: Joseph always stands with hishands in his pockets. |coat/trouser/jacket etcpocket The keys are in my coat pocket. | turn out yourpockets (=empty your pockets) —see picture on page9842 •MONEY* the amount of money available for youto spend: When will the new taxes start hitting people'spockets?. | suit every pocket We offer a range of repay-ment plans to suit every pocket | from/out of your ownpocket (=uslng your own money instead of money fromyour company, the government etc) The prince offered topay for the restoration out of his own pocket. | have deeppockets (=have a lot of money)3 •• IN A BAG/DOOR ETC 4 a small bag or piece ofmaterial fastened to an object so that you can put smallthings into it: All passengers should read the air safetycard in the pocket of the seat in front.4 • SMALL AREA/AMOUNT 4 a) a small areawhere the situation is very different from the area sur-rounding it: Apart from a few pockets of resistance, thenew government is firmly established.\a poor country dot-ted with pockets of wealth b) a small amount of some-thing that is different from what surrounds it: The minehas a few remaining pockets of iron ore.5 be/live in each other's pockets informal, especiallyBrE if two people are in each other's pockets, they aretogether too much6 have sb/sth in your pocket a) to be able to controlsomeone such as a police officer or politician, by threat-ening them, paying them money etc: a powerful organ-ization with many local politicians in Us pockets b) tobe very sure that you are going to win something such asa competition or election: /(looks like the Democrats havethis election in their pockets already.7 be out of pocket BrE informal to have less moneythan you should have, after some form of exchange orbusiness deal: Unless you handle the deal carefully, youcould be badly out of pocket. | £10/£50 etc out of pocketSelling the car so cheaply left her £100 out of pocket.8 pick sb's pocket to steal from someone by taking

9 put your hand in your pocket to give money to some-one who needs it or in order to helpsomeone: Ihopeevery-one will put their hands in their pockets and givegenerously to the fund.10 • FOR BALLS 4 a small net bag fastened to a BIL-LIARD or SNOOKER table which you have to hit the ball into—see also AIRPOCKET line your own pockets (UNE' (4))

pocket1 o(T] 1 to put something into your pocket: Roypocketed his wallet and car keys and left the house. 2a) to steal money, especially money that you are respon-sible for. The society's treasurer was accused of pocketingsome of the profits, b) to get money in a slightly dis-honest way: It's simple - we buy them for S5, sell them forS8. and pocket the difference. 3 to hit a ball into a pocketin games such as BILLIARDS

pocket' ad) [only before noun) small enough to be car-ried in your pocket: a pocket dictionary

pocket bat-tie-ship /,••••••/ n [C] a fairly small fightingship

pocket-book /'pDkJtbokl'po:-/ n [C] 1 AmE a smallOat case for holding papers and paper money; WALLET2 a small NOTEBOOK 3 AmE old-fashioned a woman'sHANDBAG, especially one without a STRAP1

pocket c a l c u l a t o r / , / n [ C ] a small piece of elec-tronic equipment which you use to do calculations

pock-etful /•pokjlfulfpa:-/ n [CJ the amount that apocket will hold: [+ of| o pocketful of pebbles

pocket handkerchief /,-• • •••/ n [C] old-fashioned ahandkerchief made of cloth not of paper

pocket-handkerchief adj informal, especially BrEsmall and square in shape: a pocket-handkerchief garden

pocket knife f-jnplural pocket knives /-naivz/[C]asmall knife with one or more blades that fold into the han-dle —see picture at KNIFE'

pocket m o n e y /••• ,-/n [U] 1 especially BrE moneygiven regularly to a child by its parents to spend on smallthings: ALLOWANCE (4) AmE: Sophie spends her pocketmoney on sweets and magazines. 2 informal a smallamount of money that you can use to buy small things:Gavin gives private lessons to earn himself a bit of pocketmoney.

pocket ve-to /,•••••/ n (C) a method used by the US Presi-dent to stop a BILL (=proposal for a new law), by keeping itwithout signing it until Congress is no longer working

Fig 1. LDOCE

p o c k e t /'pokit/ n 1(a) a small piece of materialsewn into or onto a garment and forming a smallbag for carrying things in: a coat I jacket! trouserpocket o He picked up his keys and put them in hispocket o a pocket dictionary/calculator/guide (ie onesmall enough to fit in a pocket), (b) a containerresembling this, eg on the inside of a car door or aSUITCASE: YOU will find information about safety pro-cedures in the pocket in front of you (eg on anaircraft). 2 (usu sing) money that one has availablefor spending; financial means: prices to suit everypocket o The expedition was a drain on her pocket. 3a small isolated group or area: pockets of unemploy-ment o a few isolated pockets of opposition/resistanceto the new regime. 4 = AIR POCKET. 5 Uport) any ofthe holes or string bags beneath them situatedround the edges of a table for pooP(3), SNOOKER orBILLIARDS, o picture at SNOOKER. fEE3 be in sb's'pocket to be controlled or strongly influenced bysb. be/live in each other's 'pockets to be (too)close to or spend (too) much time with each other,dig into one's pocket(s) o DIG. have sb in one's'pocket to have influence or power over sb. ,in/,outof 'pocket having gained/lost money as a result ofsth: Even after paying all our expenses, we were stillover £100 in pocket. ° His mistake left us all out of

pocket, o ,out-of pocket expenses (ie money that onehas spent and which will be returned, eg by one'semployer), line one's/sb's pocket o LINE3.money bums a hole in sb's pocket O MONEY.pick sb's pocket o PICK', put one's hand inone's pocket o HAND1.• pocket v 1 to put sth into one's pocket [Vn] Shequickly pocketed the note without reading it. 2 tokeep or take sth for oneself, esp dishonestly: [Vn]She pays J2 for them, sells them for S4 and pockets thedifference. ° He was given £20 for expenses, but pock-eted most of it. 3 [Vn] (eg in BILLIARDS) to hit a ballinto a pocket(5).pocketful Aful/ n (pi -fills) the amount a pocketholds: a pocketful of coins.m 'pocket knife n (esp US) - PENKNIFE, O picture atKNIFE.'pocket money n [U] (a) (Brit) a small amount ofmoney given to a child by its parents, esp on aregular basis, (b) money for small expenses.

p o c k e t b o o k /'pDkitbuk/ n 1 a small book for writ-ing in. 2(a) = WALLET, (b) (US) a PURSEKD or smallbag for a woman.

Fig 2. OALD



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pocket /pokn/pockets, pocketing, pocketed1 A pocket is a kind of small bag which forms panof a piece of clothing, and which is used for cany-ing small things such as money or a handkerchief.He took his flashlight from his jacket pocket andswitched it on... The man stood with his hands inhis pockets.2 You can use pocket in a lot of different ways to re-fer to money that people have, get, or spend. Forexample, if someone gives or pays a lot of money,you can say that they dig deep into their pocket. Ifyou approve of something because it is very cheapto buy, you can say that it suits people's pockets.When you come to choosing a dining table, it realtyis worth digging deep into your pocket for the bestyou can afford. ...ladies' fashions to suit all shapes,sizes and pockets... You would be buying a piece ofhistory as well as a boat, if you put your hand inyour pocket for this one... We don't believe that theyhave the economic reforms in place which wouldjustify putting huge sums of Western money intotheir pockets.3 You use pocket to describe something that issmall enough to fit into a pocket, often somethingthat is a smaller version of a larger item. ...a pocketcalculator. ...my pocket edition of the Oxford Eng-lish Dictionary.4 A pocket of something is a small area wheresomething is happening, or a small area which hasa particular qualify, and which is different from theother areas around it Trapped in a pocket of air.they had only 40 minutes before the tide flooded thechamber... The newly established government con-trols the bulk of the city apart from a few pockets ofresistance.5 If someone who is in possession of somethingvaluable such as a sum of money pockets it, theysteal it or take it for themselves, even though itdoes not belong to them. Dishonest importerswould be able to pocket the VAT collected from cus-tomers.6 If you say that someone pockets something suchas a prize or sum of money, you mean that they winor obtain it, often without needing to make mucheffort or in a way that seems unfair; used in jour-nalism. He pocketed more money from this tourna-ment than in his entire three years as a professional7 If someone pockets something, they put it intheir pocket, for example because they want tosteal it or hide it Anthony snatched his letters andpocketed them... He pocketed a wallet containing£40 cash from the bedside of a dead man.6 If you say that some money Is burning a hole Insomeone's pocket, you mean that they want tospend It as soon as possible. It's Saturday, you'redown the high street and you've got a few quidburning a hole in your pocket.9 If you say that someone is In someone else'spocket, you disapprove of the fact that the first

• • •COM-COUNT:OtpossK.

person is willing to do whatever the second persontells them, for example because the first person isweak or is being paid by the second person. Theboard of directors must surely have been inJohnstone's pocket.10 If you say that someone Is lining their own orsomeone else's pockets, you disapprove of thembecause they are making money dishonestly or un-fairly for themselves or for someone else. It is esti-mated that 5.000 bank staff could be lining theirown pockets from customer accounts. ...a govern-ment that ignores the needs of the majority in orderto line the pockets of the favoured feu:11 If you are out of pocket, you have less moneythan you should have or than you intended, for ex-ample because you have spent too much or be-cause of a mistake. They were well out of pocket -they had spent far more in Hollywood than he hadearned... Statements with errors could still be goingout. but customers who notify us will not be left outof pocket. • See also out-of-pocket.12 If someone picks your pocket, they steal some-thing from your pocket, usually without you notic-ing. They were more in danger of having their pock-ets picked than being shot at.

pocket book /pokubuk/ pocketbooks1 In American English, you can use pocketbook torefer to people's concerns about the money theyhave or hope to earn: used in journalism. Peoplefeel pinched in their pocketbooks and insecureabout their futures. ...the voters' concerns overpocketbook issues.2 In American English, a pocketbook is a small bagwhich a woman uses to cany things such as hermoney and keys in when she goes out. The usualBritish word is handbag.3 In American English, a pocketbook is the sameas a wallet.

pocket knife, pocket knives; also spelledpocketknife. A pocket knife is a small knife withseveral blades which fold into the handle so thatyou can cany it around with you safely.

p o c k e t money; also spelled pocket-money.1 Pocket money is money which children are givenby their parents, usually every week; used mainlyin British English. We agreed to give her £6 a weekpocket money.2 Pocket money is a small amount of money whichyou earn, and which you can use for buying thethings that you want; used mainly in British Eng-lish. Volunteers receive £21 pocket money eachweek, accommodation and expenses.

pocket -s ized; also spelled pocket-size. If youdescribe something as pocket-sized, you approveof it because it is small enough to fit in yourpocket. ...a handy pocket-sized reference book.

N-COUKT.oenkntic

•OOOON-UNCOUMT

Iwusmnol

Fig 3. COBUILD



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318 PaulBogaards

pocfc-et [BAG: / e ' p o k i t . J 'pa : kit/ n [C] a small bag forca Tying things in which is made of cloth and sewn esp.into the inside or onto the outside of a piece of clothing • ajacket/trouser/coat pocket m a hip/breast/back pocket • askirt with two patch pockets {=squares of material sewnonto the outside of a piece of clothing to form containers) •/ lost my keys when they fell out of a hole in my pocket. • Shewalked along with her collar turned up and her handsthrust deep in/into her pockets. • He took some coins from/out of his pocket. • A pocket is also a container, often madeof cloth, which is sewn into or onto a bag or fixed to a seatin a car or on an aircraft Sarah put her maps in the outsidepocket of her rucksack, o I want to get one of those bags withlots of zip pockets on it o The flight attendant said that wewould find the safety instructions in the pocket of the seat infront of us. • The pockets on a BILLIARD, SNOOKER or POOL

table are the holes around the edge of the table and thesmall net bags under them into which the balls are hit. •(infml) Your pocket is also the amount of money that youhave for spending: These new tax increases will be hard onour pocket (= will be bad for us financially), o It helps to havedeep pockets ( = a lot of money) when you're involved in along law suit like this, o I paid for my ticket out of my ownpocket (= with my own money), but I can claim the cost of itback from my employer. • (disapproving) I don't think it'shealthy the way you two are/live in each other's pockets(= are with each other all the time and are very dependenton each other). • (disapproving) The head teacher has theschool governors completely in her pocket/The schoolgovernors are completely in the head teacher's pocket (= shehas power and control over them), so she can do exactlywhat she wants. • Last year's winners again have thechampionship firmly in their pocket (=are certain tosucceed in winning it). • If you are in pocket or out ofpocket after an exchange involving money, you have moreor less money than you started with: By the time we've paidall our expenses, we should still be (several hundred pounds)in pocket, o The last time I went to the pub with you, I endedup seriously out of pocket! • All your out-of-pocketexpenses (= money you have to pay yourself for thingssuch as food and travel while you are doing a job forsomeone else) will be paid when you get back to the office. •Pocket-handkerchief is fml or dated for HANDKERCHIEF: •(Br infml) We have a tiny pocket-handkerchief (= verysmall and usually square in shape) garden. • My mumgives me £1 a week pocket money (also spending moneyAm also allowance; <= money given by a parent to a childevery week or month, which the child can spend himself orherself). • Our hotel and food are included in the cost of ourholiday, soaliwe need to take with us is pocket money (alsospending money; (= money for spending on personalthings). • Pocket money can also mean not very muchmoney: / work really hard at this job, and all I get paid is

pocket money, o Cf course, £20000 is just pocket money tosomeone like Charles. • You can now get pocket-sizedtelevisions (~ televisions that are very small). • (infml) I'mnot going to be told what to do by some pocket-sized(= small) kid. • (Am) The president's pocket veto (= failureto approve a suggested law before the governmentcompletes its business for the year) avoided aconfrontation with Congress before the summer break. • "Isthat a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to seeme?" (Mae West in the film My Little Chickadee. 1939)pock-eto iy /E'pDkit . J ' pa : kit/ v [7] • He carefullypocketed his change (= put it in his pocket). • /'// tell them Isold it for £20. not £25. then lean pocket (= take for myself,esp. dishonestly) the rest. • I expect the Council wilt justpocket the proceeds of the sale, not spend it on makingimprovements to the town. • Davis pocketed the black (= hitthe black ball into the pocket) to win the game.pock-et /E 'pok- i i , J 'po:-kit / adj(beforen;not gradable]• If you describe something as pocket, it means that it issmall enough to put in your pocket, or that you regularlycarry it in your pocket • a pocket dictionary • a pockettravel guide • a pocket edition of a book • a pocket diary •a pocket calculator • a pocket phone • a pocket video game• a pocket watch • Pocket can also mean smaller thanusual: a pocket battleshippock«et*fiil/£'pnk-itful. $ 'pa:kit- / n JC] • She alwaystakes a pocketful of tissues (=as many as a pocket willhold) with her when she goes out with her children. • If yousay someone has a pocketful or has pocketfuls (ofmoney), it means they have a lot of money: They wonpocketfuls of money playing cards.

POCk-et IGROUP/AREAI / £ ' p D k i t , $ ' p a : k i t / n [C] a group,area or mass of something which is separate and differentfrom what surrounds it • Among the staff there are somepockets of resistance (=some small groups of them areopposed) to the planned changes. • Although the Presidentis deeply unpopular, there are a still a few pockets ofsupport for him. • Within the city, there are a few pocketsof greenery (= small areas where plants, trees, etc. grow).• The captain told us to fasten our seat belts because wewere going to encounter a pocket of turbulence (=an area ofviolently moving air).

pock-et-book /C'pok-itbuk, $'pa:kM-/ n |C) Am awoman's HANDBAG • / want to get a new pocketbook to gowith these shoes. • If you say that something has an effecton someone's pocketbook. or that they decide somethingwith their pocketbook, it means that their personalfinances are involved: These new tax arrangements willhit everyone's pocketbook. o In this election, people areexpected to vote with their pocketbooks. • © ®

pocfc-eMcnffe /E'pok it-naif, S'po:kit-/ n (C)p/pocfcetfcnlv*s/£'pDk-it-naivz. $ 'pa:kit-/ a PENKNIFE• fPJC> Knife

Fig 4. CIDE



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Fig 5. LDOCE

con-cede /kan'si:d/ v1 •• ADMIT STH IS TRUE •« [T] to admit that some-thing is true or correct although you wish it was not true:"You could be right I suppose". Sheila conceded. \concede (that) / concede that he s a good runner, but Istill think I can beat him.2 • ADMIT DEFEAT * [I.T] to admit that you are notgoing to win a battle, argument, or game because you arenot strong enough or good enough to win: The army con-ceded and the enemy claimed victory. | concede defeatMatthew kept on arguing, unwilling to concede defeat.3 concede a goal/point etc to not be able to stop youropponent from getting a goal, point etc during a game:Manchester United were unlucky to concede a goal beforehalf-time.4 • GIVE STH AS A RIGHT « [T] to give something tosomeone as a right or PRIVILEGE (1): concede s th to Thericher nations will never concede equal status to the poorercountries.5 • GIVE STH UNWILLINGLY •* [T] to give somethingto someone unwillingly after trying to keep it: concedesth to After the First World War Germany conceded a lotof land to her neighbours. —see also CONCESSION

concede /kan'sfcd/ v 1 - sth (to sb) to admit thatsth is true, valid, proper, etc: [Vnpr] concede a pointto sb in an argument [Vn] She grudgingly had toconcede defeat (ie admit that she had lost).(V.speech] 'OK. I might have been wrong,' he con-ceded. [V.that] I was forced to concede that she mightbe right. [Vnn] / concede you that point, but it doesn 'tdisprove my argument. 2 ~ sth (to sb) to give sthaway; to allow sb else to have sth: [Vn] We must notconcede any of our territory (ie allow another coun-try to have it). [Vnpr] England conceded a goal totheir opponents in the first minute. 3 to admit thatone has lost a game, an election, etc: [V,Vn] Afterlosing her queen she was forced to concede (the game).See also CONCESSION 1.

Fig 6. OALD



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320 Paul Bogaards

c o n c e d e /ksnsjid/ concedes, conceding,conceded1 If you concede something, you admit, often un- VERBwillingly, that it is true or correct. Bess finally con- vttutceded that Nancy was right... Well,'he conceded, 7 J"**""do sometimes mumble a bit.'... Mr. Chapman con- tsovnnceded the need for Nomura's U.S. unit to improve itstradingskills.2 If you concede something to someone, you allow VERBthem to have it as a right or privilege. Poland's ffCommunist government conceded the right to es- vmontablish independent trade unions... Facing total de- »so v n nfeat in Vietnam, the French subsequently concededfull independence to Laos.3 If you concede something you give it to the per- VERBson who has been trying to get it from you. A strike v nby some ten thousand bank employees has endedafter the government conceded some of their de-mands.4 In sport, if you concede goals or points, you are VERBunable to prevent your opponent from scoringthem. They conceded four goals to Leeds United... vn unLuton conceded a pee kick on the edge of the penal- v"Tyarea.5 If you concede a game, contest, or argument, you VERBend it by admitting that you can no longer win. vnranReiner, 56, has all but conceded the race to his ri- Vn

vaL.. Alain Prost finished third and virtually con-ceded the world championship.6 If you concede defeat, you accept that you have VERBlost a struggle. Ainours conceded defeat in its at- J "1"'tempt to take control of holiday industry rival Own-ers Abroad.

Fig 7. COBUILD

con-cede <obj) /kan'siid/ v to admit, often unwillingly,(that something is true), or to allow (something) • TheGovernment has conceded (that) the new tax policy has beena disaster. [+ (f/w<) clause) • /concede (that) he s clever, but Istill think that he's boring. [+ (that) clause] • "It won't beeasy," he conceded. 1+ clause) • The president is not expectedto concede (=allow) these reforms. [D • He is not willing toconcede (- allow anyone else to have) any of his power/authority. (T| • Britain conceded (=allowed) independence toIndia in 1943. IT] • With two players injured and three othersremoved from the game, the football team conceded(=admitted) defeat m • If you concede, you admit thatyou have lost in a competition: She conceded even before allthe votes had been counted. [I] • If a team or a personconcedes a point or a game, it means that they allow theother team or person to win the point or game: The teamconceded two goals (to the other side) in the first five minutesof the game. [T] • If a country concedes land, it gives it toanother country: After the war, the country was forced toconcede a lot of their territory. (Tl • See also CONCESSION.

Fig 8. CIDE



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