Cognitive Lexicography: A New Approach to Lexicography Making Use of Cognitive Semantics 9783110424164, 9783110427448

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Carolin Ostermann Cognitive Lexicography

LEXICOGRAPHICA Series Maior

Supplementary Volumes to the International Annual for Lexicography Suppléments à la Revue Internationale de Lexicographie Supplementbände zum Internationalen Jahrbuch für Lexikographie Edited by Rufus Hjalmar Gouws, Ulrich Heid, Thomas Herbst, Oskar Reichmann, Stefan J. Schierholz, Wolfgang Schweickard and Herbert Ernst Wiegand

Volume 149

Carolin Ostermann

Cognitive Lexicography A New Approach to Lexicography Making Use of Cognitive Semantics

ISBN 978-3-11-042744-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-042416-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-042428-7 ISSN 0175-9264 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Preface This monograph is a revised version of my dissertation submitted at the LudwigMaximilians-University of Munich in 2014. I would like to thank particularly a number of people who have offered their help and support for this project directly or indirectly over the past months and years, for without them this piece of work would not have achieved its current form. First of all, I am indebted to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Schmid (LudwigMaximilians-University of Munich) for his support, help and advice in all questions concerning this project, for his patience and critical comments, for his motivation and communication even via distances when needed. I am also deeply grateful to my second supervisor Prof. Dr. Thomas Herbst (Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) for taking an interest in and supporting the project from a later stage onwards. Furthermore, I would like to express my appreciation to my friends and colleagues at Erlangen and Munich universities Dr. Susanne Dyka, Cordula Glass, Eva Scharf and Dr. Wolfgang Falkner, who were always prepared to help and give advice, to think things through and test new dictionary features, and who – in Erlangen – more than once provided some of their valuable course time to hand out testing materials for this project to their students. Many thanks are also due to the people who read and helped to check the manu-script. First, of course, to Kathleen Rabl for her diligent final proofreading, but also to Dr. Matthias Ostermann, who read the manuscript with the detached curiosity of a physicist and even kept on maintaining that he had learned a lot from it. His mathematical skills, however, were indispensable in the statistical sections and his scrutiny was of enormous help in revising the final manuscript. Last, my thanks also go to the project editors at deGruyter Mouton for their support in all stages of the publication process. It is impossible to imagine what this book would look like without the contributions of all these people. It is I, however, who am responsible for any remaining flaws or inadequacies. Most importantly, I would again like to thank Dr. Matthias Ostermann for his support in so many ways, without which this project would never have been possible. Carolin Ostermann Munich, May 2015

Contents 1

A new approach to lexicography | 1

2 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2

A history of learner lexicography | 6 English lexicography up to the 20th century | 7 The beginnings: glosses and hard words | 7 Johnson, Murray and Webster | 8 Genesis of learner’s dictionaries | 10 Influential figures for EFL-lexicography | 10 Linguistic research | 11 Generations of learner’s dictionaries | 15 Survey of publications and editions | 15 Different features and approaches | 17

3 3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.3 3.3.1 3.3.2 3.4

Principles of learner lexicography | 21 The form of the dictionary | 22 The genre of monolingual learner’s dictionaries | 22 Macrostructure and microstructure | 24 Multiple forms and meanings | 26 Defining practice | 29 Defining formats | 29 Defining principles and defining vocabularies | 34 Further means of meaning explanation | 37 Example sentences | 37 Illustrations and other features | 39 On lexicography as a science | 42

4 Cognitive linguistics and lexicography | 45 4.1 Combining two disciplines | 45 4.1.1 The relationship of the disciplines | 45 4.1.2 Cognitive linguistics as a new input | 48 4.2 Categorisation in dictionaries | 51 4.2.1 Human categorisation | 51 4.2.1.1 The horizontal level | 51 4.2.1.2 The vertical level | 53 4.2.2 Categorisation in definitions and illustrations | 55 4.2.2.1 Lexicography on categorisation | 55 4.2.2.2 Birds in the dictionary | 57 4.3 Cognitive Lexicography | 64

VIII | Contents

5 Person-denoting nouns | 68 5.1 Frame semantics | 68 5.1.1 Frames and scripts in cognitive linguistics | 68 5.1.2 Frame semantics applied to lexicography | 72 5.1.2.1 Risk, FrameNet and other approaches | 72 5.1.2.2 Frame-based dictionaries and example sentences | 74 5.2 Cognitive frame example sections | 76 5.2.1 Person-denoting nouns and their frames | 76 5.2.2 Cognitive frame-example structure | 78 5.2.3 Frame example sections | 82 5.2.4 A cognitive macrostructure | 87 5.3 Analysis of dictionary examples | 90 5.3.1 “The Big Five” | 90 5.3.2 OALD1-OALD8 | 96 5.4 User-studies of cognitive frame examples | 99 5.4.1 Dictionaries and vocabulary learning | 99 5.4.2 Testing productive use: gap-fill task | 100 5.4.2.1 Methodology | 100 5.4.2.2 Design of materials | 102 5.4.2.3 Results and discussion | 105 5.4.3 A further step: vocabulary task | 108 5.4.3.1 Methodology | 108 5.4.3.2 Design of materials | 110 5.4.3.3 Results and discussion | 111 5.4.4 General discussion of results | 120 6 Abstract nouns: emotion terms | 124 6.1 Cognitive approaches to emotion terms | 124 6.1.1 Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy Theory | 124 6.1.2 Metaphor and metonymy and emotion terms | 130 6.1.3 Further research on emotion terms | 133 6.1.3.1 Research in psychology | 133 6.1.3.2 Semantic primitives | 135 6.2 Cognitive definitions of emotion terms | 137 6.2.1 The set of emotion terms | 137 6.2.2 Cognitive defining format | 140 6.2.3 Definitions of basic emotion terms | 142 6.2.4 Definitions of complex emotion terms | 144

Contents | IX

6.3 6.3.1 6.3.1.1 6.3.1.2 6.3.2 6.3.2.1 6.3.2.2 6.4 6.4.1 6.4.1.1 6.4.1.2 6.4.1.3 6.4.2 6.4.2.1 6.4.2.2 6.4.2.3 6.4.3

Analysis of dictionary definitions | 146 Basic emotion terms | 146 “The Big Five” | 146 OALD1-OALD8 | 149 Complex emotion terms | 149 “The Big Five” | 149 OALD1-OALD8 | 152 User-studies of cognitive definitions | 153 Study of basic emotions: emotion-naming task | 153 Methodology | 153 Design of materials | 154 Results and discussion | 155 Study of complex emotions: emotion-naming task | 159 Methodology | 159 Design of materials | 160 Results and discussion | 161 General discussion of results | 163

7 Particles | 166 7.1 Cognitive approaches to particles | 166 7.1.1 The word class ‘particles’ | 166 7.1.2 Particles and cognitive polysemy | 168 7.1.3 The Principled Polysemy Approach | 171 7.1.3.1 The idea of Principled Polysemy | 171 7.1.3.2 The senses of the vertical cluster | 172 7.2 Cognitive microstructures for particles | 178 7.2.1 Particle entries: set-up | 178 7.2.2 Particle entries: the vertical cluster | 181 7.2.2.1 above and below | 181 7.2.2.2 over and under | 187 7.3 Analysis of dictionary entries | 197 7.3.1 “The Big Five” | 197 7.3.2 OALD1-OALD8 | 200 7.4 Particle entries in use | 201 8

Synopsis: cognitive lexicography | 204

9

Lexicography in the future | 207

References | 211

X | Contents

10 Appendix | 231 10.1 Dictionary analyses | 232 10.1.1 Concrete nouns: birds | 232 10.1.2 Person-denoting nouns | 237 10.1.3 Emotion terms | 259 10.1.4 Particles | 265 10.2 Cognitive dictionary materials | 278 10.2.1 Cognitive example section: person-denoting nouns | 278 10.2.1.1 Overview of frame example sections | 278 10.2.1.2 Annotated frame example sections | 280 10.2.2 Cognitive defining structure: basic emotion terms | 297 10.2.2.1 Overview of definitions of basic emotion terms | 297 10.2.2.2 Annotated definitions of basic emotion terms | 298 10.2.3 Cognitive defining structure: complex emotion terms | 305 10.2.3.1 Overview of definitions of complex emotion terms | 305 10.2.3.2 Annotated definitions of complex emotion terms | 307 10.2.4 Cognitive entry structure: particles | 321 10.2.4.1 Particle entries: overview | 321 10.2.4.2 Particle entries: annotations I: above | 324 10.2.4.3 Particle entries: annotations II: below | 327 10.2.4.4 Particle entries: annotations III: over | 330 10.2.4.5 Particle entries: annotations IV: under | 334 10.3 Materials from user-studies | 339 10.3.1 Production tasks: person-denoting nouns | 339 10.3.1.1 Gap-fill task: test items | 339 10.3.1.2 Gap-fill task: testing material | 340 10.3.1.3 Gap-fill task: results | 347 10.3.1.4 Vocabulary task: test items | 348 10.3.1.5 Vocabulary task: testing material | 349 10.3.1.6 Vocabulary task: results | 354 10.3.2 Naming tasks: emotion terms | 358 10.3.2.1 Basic emotion terms: test items | 358 10.3.2.2 Basic emotion terms: testing material | 361 10.3.2.3 Basic emotion terms: results | 362 10.3.2.4 Complex emotion terms: test items | 366 10.3.2.5 Complex emotion terms: testing material | 369 10.3.2.6 Complex emotion terms: results | 370 Supplement: new cognitive dictionary | 374

List of Figures Page 25 Page 30 Page 31 Page 33 Page 50 Page 60 Page 61 Page 66 Page 89 Page 92 Page 97 Page 106 Page 107 Page 112 Page 113 Page 115 Page 117 Page 119 Page 120 Page 125 Page 128 Page 141 Page 142 Page 148 Page 156 Page 157 Page 158 Page 162 Page 164 Page 173 Page 174 Page 175 Page 176 Page 177 Page 177 Page 182 Page 182 Page 184 Page 185 Page 186 Page 187 Page 188 Page 189 Page 191 Page 193 Page 194 Page 195

Figure 1: Figure 2: Figure 3: Figure 4: Figure 5: Figure 6: Figure 7: Figure 8: Figure 9: Figure 10: Figure 11: Figure 12: Figure 13: Figure 14: Figure 15: Figure 16: Figure 17: Figure 18: Figure 19: Figure 20: Figure 21: Figure 22: Figure 23: Figure 24: Figure 25: Figure 26: Figure 27: Figure 28: Figure 29: Figure 30: Figure 31: Figure 32: Figure 33: Figure 34: Figure 35: Figure 36: Figure 37: Figure 38: Figure 39: Figure 40: Figure 41: Figure 42: Figure 43: Figure 44: Figure 45: Figure 46: Figure 47:

The microstructure of a dictionary entry The form and structure of the analytical definition The form and structure of the full-sentence definition The form and structure of the single-clause when-definition The structure of the mental lexicon vs. a book dictionary Model of cognitive hierarchy of dictionary definitions A radial-set model of dictionary definitions on birds Cognitive lexicography Links in the macrostructure created by FE-sections Number of example sentences in “The Big Five” Number of example sentences in OALD1-OALD8 Results of gap-fill task Results of gap-fill task (version two) Test-subjects’ knowledge of person-denoting nouns Number of correct translations of person-denoting nouns Real knowledge of pdN vs. correct translation Scores in paraphrases of pdNs Numbers of total vs. correct paraphrases Number of learning for paraphrases The structure of metaphorical mapping The structure of metonymical mapping A cognitive defining structure for emotion terms A cognitive defining structure for complex emotions Metaphor box of angry in MEDAL2 Results of basic emotion terms All answers given on happiness Re-test on desire Results of complex emotion terms Word count of definitions on emotion terms The proto-scene for over The network for over The proto-scenes for the vertical axis The network for above including examples The network for under including examples The erroneous network for below including examples The corpus of above (LDOCE5) Meaning clusters of above A new network of above The corpus of below (LDOCE5) Meaning clusters of below A new network of below The corpus of over (LDOCE5) Meaning clusters of over A new network of over The corpus of under (LDOCE5) Meaning clusters of under A new network of under

XII | List of Tables

List of Tables Page 3 Page 8 Page 14 Page 16 Page 41 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 77 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 86 Page 94 Page 104 Page 105 Page 116 Page 127 Page 128 Page 131 Page 132 Page 138 Page 139 Page 143 Page 144 Page 145 Page 150 Page 155 Page 163 Page 174 Page 180 Page 196 Page 205 Page 208 Page 347 Page 347 Page 354 Page 354 Page 357 Page 357 Page 362 Page 370 Page 370

Table 1: Table 2: Table 3: Table 4: Table 5: Table 6: Table 7: Table 8: Table 9: Table 10: Table 11: Table 12: Table 13: Table 14: Table 15: Table 16: Table 17: Table 18: Table 19: Table 20: Table 21: Table 22: Table 23: Table 24: Table 25: Table 26: Table 27: Table 28: Table 29: Table 30 Table 31 Table 32: Table 33: Table 34: Table 35: Table 36: Table 37: Table 38: Table 39: Table 40: Table 41: Table 42: Table 43:

Chapter overview A sample of historical dictionaries of English lexicography Early learner’s dictionaries and reference works Timeline of English monolingual learner’s dictionaries Classifications of illustrations by different authors Members of the category BIRD for analysis (Rosch 1975) Attribute list of the category bird Parasitic categorisation in definitions from LDOCE5 Person-denoting nouns and their frames The set-up of frame example sections Frame example section for bridegroom Frame example section for conductor Different kinds of frame example sections COBUILD word webs vs. frame example sections Example of reading material in the gap-fill task Gap-fill text for bridegroom Annotated paraphrases of pdNs An overview of metaphorical mapping: LOVE IS A JOURNEY Metonymical mappings Metaphors of emotion terms The prototype of the concept of emotion The set of basic emotion terms The set of complex emotion terms A cognitive definition of anger A cognitive definition of pride A comparison of cognitive definitions of complex emotions Basis of emotions in dictionary definitions ‘Cognitive’ distractor definitions Comparison of results of basic and complex emotions The senses of over according to Tyler and Evans The set-up of cognitive particle entries Lexicographic particle note on the vertical cluster The set-up of cognitive lexicographic dictionary features Chapter summary Statistic χ2-scores of correct solutions (version 1) Statistic χ2-scores of correct solutions (version 2) Accepted German translations (task A) Statistic χ2-scores of correct translations (task A) Statistic χ2-scores of learning in translation Statistic χ2-scores of learning in paraphrases Statistic χ2-scores of correct basic emotion terms Accepted synonyms and translations for complex emotions Statistic χ2-scores of correct complex emotion terms

1 A new approach to lexicography Some British lexicographers […] believe that lexicography can only progress if it takes into account the work of linguists, their methods, their questions and their answers. (Béjoint 2010: 269)

The lexicography of English is founded on a rich tradition over many centuries. During nearly all that time, lexicography was influenced by linguistics in various ways and by different schools (cf. Béjoint 2000: 169- 178 and 2010: 262- 347). Lexicographers in recent times have acknowledged the potential and the need for a linguistic basis to lexicography, as the quote by Béjoint above indicates. This quote need not be interpreted radically, in the sense that lexicography is dependent on linguistics and in need of progress. Nevertheless, I argue that linguistics can always contribute to lexicographic theory and practice, and in the light of the developments of linguistics over the last decades, it is time to look at a new set of questions and answers that linguistics now offers. What I propose is to take a new approach to lexicography by making use of cognitive linguistics, more precisely: cognitive semantics. At first glance, lexicography and cognitive linguistics do not seem to have a lot in common that would favour a projection of one theory onto the other. While the lexicography of English has followed established principles for decades and even centuries, cognitive linguistics is a comparatively new branch of linguistics, which only emerged a few decades ago, and both are very different branches of linguistics. But since cognitive linguistics attempts to describe language according to how humans perceive and conceptualise the world, with language not being seen as an isolated faculty but as relating to the world (cf. Croft/Cruse 2004, Evans/Green 2006, Ungerer/Schmid 2006), a cognitive linguistic approach might be especially suitable for dictionaries that aim at explaining the very same language users process. The use of cognitive linguistic theories in lexicographic practice could facilitate the processing of dictionary information by users and make various features of dictionaries more efficient. This is what I would like to demonstrate here by exploring a projection of cognitive linguistics onto lexicography in different fields. I argue, therefore, that the application of cognitive semantic theories to different areas of lexicographic practice can improve traditional elements of dictionary structure and make the information offered more accessible to dictionary users. I will attempt to demonstrate as well that different areas of lexicographic practice can be used for what I eventually call cognitive lexicography (cf. chapter 4.3 below). For my project, I have decided to work with monolingual learner’s dictionaries, and have chosen three exemplary areas of their common lexicographic practice in addition to three major areas of cognitive semantics, which all, once combined, can be developed into a new cognitive lexicographic practice. The lexicographic ele-

2 | A new approach to lexicography

ments selected – the dictionaries’ example sentences, definitions and the entries’ microstructure – cover the most important elements of a monolingual dictionary. The cognitive semantic principles were chosen in accordance with their usefulness for the current purpose and their dominance, but are a random choice and can be complemented and expanded by further approaches in the future (cf. chapters eight and nine). In each chapter, one theory of cognitive semantics is combined with one aspect of lexicographic practice. The new cognitive lexicographic features that emerge are demonstrated in relation to a certain group or kind of lexemes, for which I have chosen the most suitable cognitive semantic principle. To make matters more explicit, the concept of frame semantics (Fillmore) was selected to show how persondenoting nouns (such as bridegroom) can be given cognitive example sections based on semantic frames and their frame elements, which at the same time also present a more cognitive semantic macro-structure within the alphabetical arrangement of the dictionary. A class of abstract nouns, the semantic field of emotion terms, will be given a cognitive definition structure based predominantly on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff/Johnson). Finally, the word class of particles (e.g. over) will be given a more cognitive microstructure based on accounts of Cognitive Polysemy (e.g. mechanisms of polysemous extension, or the Principled Polysemy Approach by Tyler/Evans). Thus I will indicate how an existing cognitive approach can be applied in lexicographic practice (frame semantics, here for person-denoting nouns), as well as how the dictionary can be improved in the area of a certain lexical field (emotion terms) or a given word class (particles). The chapters also cater at the same time to different needs of the user: The chapter on person-denoting nouns furthers encoding by aiding vocabulary acquisition and language production and offers at the same time an onomasiological access to the dictionary, while the chapter on emotion terms improves the decoding of definitions. The chapter on particles provides a more transparent location of the required information within the dictionary entry for highly polysemous lexical items. An overview of this arrangement is presented in table 1. The overall structure of the book is the following: chapter two gives a short outline of the history of learner lexicography and situates this project in a larger context; it also comments briefly on the different monolingual learner’s dictionaries on the market and their development. Chapter three continues with a summary of theory and practice in traditional monolingual learner lexicography and presents the theoretical basis from which the development of my cognitive features depart. After these purely lexicographical chapters, chapter four builds the bridge to cognitive lexicography by outlining the relationship between lexicography and linguistics over decades, by tracing cognitive principles already in practice in learner lexicography, and by eventually establishing the notion of cognitive lexicography. Chapters five to seven, finally, deal with the cognitive lexicographic theories and the new

A new approach to lexicography | 3

cognitive dictionary features, with chapters eight and nine giving a final summary of what constitutes cognitive lexicography in general and what could constitute it in the future. All the accompanying materials can be found in the appendix (cf. chapter ten). The supplement at the very end is supposed to be seen as a “cognitive dictionary supplement” which could be added to any monolingual learner’s dictionary: it contains all the dictionary elements and entries developed in the previous chapters in alphabetical order. Tab. 1: Chapter overview Purpose of the user

Lexemes and their respective lexicographic elements

Dominant Cognitive Principle

encoding purposes, enhancement of vocabulary

Person-denoting nouns (e.g. bridegroom)  cognitive example sentences  cognitive macrostructure

Frame semantics

decoding purposes

Abstract nouns: emotion terms (e.g. anger, love, pride)  cognitive defining format

Conceptual Metaphor Theory

transparent location of information

Particles (e.g. over)  cognitive microstructure

Cognitive Polysemy

The structure of chapters five to seven on cognitive lexicographic features is organised as follows: first, there will be a short overview from the literature on the cognitive principle used before I outline the elements, theory and structure of my cognitive dictionary features and present the new dictionary materials. In comparison to the new cognitive dictionary features, I then conduct a thorough dictionary analysis of the entries of the respective lexemes in the five monolingual learner’s dictionaries to ascertain whether cognitive principles are already being applied in current lexicographic practice. Prototype theory, to give one example of cognitive semantics, has definitely made its way into lexicography (cf. Hanks 1994 and chapter 4.2), and the aim here is to determine whether the principles used for my approaches can also be detected. The analysis will not be restricted, however, to the five recent monolingual learner’s dictionaries, but will also be extended to three older editions of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary in order to determine how lexicographic practice in these areas has developed in the oldest learner’s dictionary. Lastly, the new cognitive dictionary features of frame-example sections (chapter five) and cognitive definitions (chapter six) are put to the test in small-scale psycholinguistic user-studies, in order to discern whether and to what extent they

4 | A new approach to lexicography

prove to be more beneficial to the learner than traditional features. In chapter seven, a few remarks will be made on particle entries in use. It is therefore my aim both to work meta-lexicographically by conducting dictionary analyses within a given cognitive semantic framework, as well as to work practically and offer new lexicographic features, which are additionally tested in small-scale user-studies or commented on didactically. All the accompanying materials for the dictionary analyses, the cognitive lexicographic dictionary elements, and the user-studies, can be found in the appendix in chapter ten. The materials with which I will be working are, as previously mentioned, monolingual learner’s dictionaries. Even if the dictionary features proposed in the following can, of course, also be applied to monolingual lexicography for native speakers, I chose learner’s dictionaries, since learners should especially profit from information that is more accessible due to its cognitive basis. Herbst (1990: 1379) defines a monolingual learner’s dictionary as “a synchronic monolingual dictionary intended to meet the demands of the foreign user”. Learners naturally encounter more difficulty in decoding information; they are especially encouraged to enhance their vocabulary, and their particular needs deserve special attention in this kind of dictionary. Therefore, improvements that make the dictionary information more “cognitive” should be most welcome here. The choice of monolingual over bilingual dictionaries was made because they have a larger assortment of lexicographic practices regarding the rendering of information (instead of merely giving a translation) and therefore offer more possibilities for an adaptation of dictionary features. Monolingual dictionaries also reach a wider audience since they do not depend on the native language of a certain user, but are, as Humblé (2001: 34) says, “like universal ‘bilingual’ dictionaries, since they translate hard English into easy English, independently of the user’s first language”. The dictionaries selected for this project are the latest editions (at the time of writing) of the five British monolingual learner’s dictionaries competing on the market (“The ‘Big Five’”, Béjoint 2010: 164): The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary, The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, and The Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. All dictionaries will henceforth be abbreviated to their common acronyms accompanied by a number indicating the edition; they are therefore to be called OALD8, LDOCE5, COBUILD6, CALD3 and MEDAL2.1 As also mentioned previously, I furthermore chose

|| 1 In late spring 2013, a new edition of the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, CALD4, appeared, which, unfortunately, could no longer be considered for this project. The same applies to LDOCE6 which has appeared in the meantime.

A new approach to lexicography | 5

to use OALD1, OALD3, and OALD5 for a dictionary analysis of older editions of the OALD.2 A last remark has to be made regarding literature. The bibliography at the end can in no way be seen as exhaustive on the subject. Lexicography is a vast field of scientific interest, and literature on the topic is available in abundance. Due to the purpose of this paper, I was forced to make a choice; this selection of literature, however, by no means diminishes the value of works not quoted here. The same is even truer of cognitive linguistics. I seek to present an overview and a brief account of the theories used in each of the cognitive lexicographic chapters below; space restrictions do not allow, however, for an exhaustive discussion of all the concepts here either.

|| 2 For matters of simplicity and consistency, I chose to abbreviate the first edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary also ’OALD’, although the dictionary still carried another title in its first edition, namely A Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (cf. bibliography, chapter 2).

2 A history of learner lexicography The monolingual learners’ dictionary […] came into existence […] in the mid-1930s. By the early 1940s, it had taken on characteristics recognizable in varying degrees in all the advanced-level dictionaries of the 1990s. (Cowie 1999b: 3)

The English language is the language with the longest tradition in lexicography and probably the lexicographically best-described language (Heath/Herbst 1994: 149 and Herbst 1996: 321). The first dictionaries appeared in the Old English period and dictionaries in the form we know them today emerged in the 17th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, monolingual dictionaries of English had been available for quite some time; they were dictionaries for native speakers, as we would say today (the distinction would naturally not have been made at the time), with a tradition as etymological dictionaries, the most important and prestigious dictionary in Britain being presumably the Oxford English Dictionary. Compared to this long history, learner’s dictionaries belong to a genre that is still fairly young, being not yet a hundred years of age; still, they have developed into a distinct genre of their own due to three dominant figures and founding fathers of English learner lexicography who developed this new genre based on their linguistic research. This chapter briefly summarises the history of English monolingual learner’s dictionaries.1 First, the lexicography of English up to the 20th century will be sketched in order to see from where the founding fathers of learner lexicography departed, shedding light both on the early beginnings of lexicography as well as on the important lexicographical works of the 18th and 19th centuries. Then, the genesis of monolingual learner’s dictionaries will be outlined, focussing on the people who compiled them and the linguistic research they conducted. The last chapter presents the available rival products; it illustrates the market situation and the development of these different products up to today. All of this serves to place cognitive lexicography in a larger context, where it should be seen as the most recent development of learner lexicography inspired by linguistics.

|| 1 For a similar, yet shorter outline, cf. Hanika (2006).

English lexicography up to the 20th century | 7

2.1 English lexicography up to the 20th century2 2.1.1 The beginnings: glosses and hard words The lexicography of English is practically as old as the English language itself, it can be traced back to the Old English period. During this time, lexicography took the form of glosses: English translations were written above or below Latin words by English monks who were studying Latin manuscripts. These interlinear glosses were later also collected as separate manuscripts (glossaries); one example of these early glossaries is Ælfric’s The London Vocabulary (Jackson 2002: 31). According to Cowie (1990: 672), these glosses in Latin manuscripts were “a primitive forerunner of the modern bilingual dictionary”, especially since they were later ordered alphabetically. In this sense, Béjoint (2010: 52) also sees glosses in the Middle Ages as precursors of common dictionaries: The direct ancestors of European dictionaries were handwritten glosses added to Latin Manuscripts in the Middle Ages, in order to help readers who did not have enough Latin to understand the more difficult words.

The Middle Ages also saw the compilation of Latin-English bilingual dictionaries as an aid to teaching vocabulary in order to help students prepare for higher education at universities, where Latin was the unique language of instruction. An example of such a dictionary is the Promptorium Parvulorum of 1440, with the terms Promptorium, Ortus Vocabulorium or Alvearie often used as titles, and still with the common topical arrangements instead of alphabetical ones. In the 16th century, bilingual dictionaries appeared between two vernacular languages, e.g. the first EnglishFrench dictionaries, such as the Lesclarcissement de la langue françoyse by John Palsgrave (cf. Jackson 2002: 32, Cowie 1990: 672- 673, Béjoint 2010: 54- 55). The first monolingual dictionary commonly cited is Robert Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabeticall… of Hard Usuall English Words of 1604 (Béjoint 2010: 56 and Jackson 2002: 33). The developments within the English language brought about by the strong influence of the French language in the Middle English period, and the high number of hard words resulting from this (cf. Baugh/Cable 2013, Leisi/Mair 1999), made it necessary to produce reference works which explained all these hard words. The subtitle of A Table Alphabeticall reads (Béjoint 2010: plate 4) “With the interpretation thereof by plaine English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other unskilfull persons.” This indicates that monolingual dictionaries began as dictionaries of hard words intended for those who had not

|| 2 For a detailed account, cf. Béjoint (2010: 50- 128) on British dictionaries and (2010: 129- 162) on American dictionaries; for a report on dictionaries recording the Old and Middle English language and on the OED, cf. Thim (2011).

8 | A history of learner lexicography

received a school education (Stein 2002: 9). Further hard word dictionaries were The English Dictionarie by Henry Cockeram, Glossographica by Thomas Blount or An English Dictionary by Elisha Cole. Subsequent hard word dictionaries were those aimed at recording the whole language, such as John Kersey’s New English Dictionary and the first encyclopaedic dictionaries (cf. Béjoint 2010: 57- 61, Cowie 1990: 673- 674). Both Béjoint (2010: 62) and Cowie (1990: 673) note that plagiarism was common among lexicographers of the period, but that dictionaries were also very popular, which favoured their competition. Table 2 summarises the historical dictionaries cited so far. Tab. 2: A sample of historical dictionaries of English lexicography (collected from Béjoint 2010, Cowie 1990, Jackson 2002)

Year

Author

Dictionary

Purpose

OE period

Ælfric

The London Vocabulary

Glosses

1440

Geoffrey the Grammarian

Promptorium Parvulorum

Glosses

1530

John Palsgrave

Lesclarcissement de la langue françoyse

Vernacular glosses

1604

Robert Cawdrey

A Table Alphabeticall… of Hard Usuall English Words

1623

Henry Cockeram

1656

Thomas Blount

The English Dictionarie: or, An Interpreter of Monolingual dicHard English Words tionaries of hard words Glossographica: or, A Dictionary Interpreting all such Hard Words…

1676

Elisha Cole

An English Dictionary

1702

John Kersey

New English Dictionary

Recording the language

2.1.2 Johnson, Murray and Webster The 18th century is described in the literature as a turning point marking a new period in lexicography. There was a stronger need for reference works in a time when science and technology developed rapidly (Béjoint 2010: 63), and there was a “growth of interest in the normative dictionary, one which […] might fix the language in its present form” (Cowie 1990: 674).

English lexicography up to the 20th century | 9

The most important lexicographic enterprise of the period, as summarised by Béjoint (2000: 97- 98 and 2010: 66- 69), was certainly Samuel Johnson’s undertaking of writing the Dictionary of the English Language, which finally appeared in 1755 after nine years of preparation. Common lexicographic practice at the time was to base the list of entry words and information to be included on authentic texts, forerunners of today’s corpora, and Johnson did so. He used literary works of contemporary authors he thought to be most useful. These sources were not supposed to be representative of the language, but to exhibit the best quality. Béjoint (2000: 98) calls this practice “a capital innovation in lexicography” and explaines (2010: 77) that [t]he corpus of eighteenth-century lexicographers was an open collection of mostly literary texts from reputable authors, from which words were drawn, together with quotations to prove that a word was used by these authors and to illustrate its use.

Apart from the use of quotations, Johnson was also progressive in the approach he took to record the language. In his paper, Hanks (2005) traces the lexicographical issues that Johnson addressed in his preface to the dictionary, all aspects – e.g. the treatment of compounds, phrasal verbs, definitions and explanations or orthography – which also prove to be difficult in lexicographic practice today. He stresses (2005: 244) that Johnson devised for himself principled solutions […]. The majority of his solutions are still in daily use by modern English lexicographers, few of whom are conscious of their debt to him. Johnson was unshakeably committed to empirical descriptive principles […].

Béjoint remarks (2010: 75) that the “Dictionary was a landmark in the history of English lexicography […] because of its intrinsic qualities […]”. It also marks a turning point, since it fixed the practice of dictionaries that function as a scholarly record of the language, that used a corpus, that record literary language and that fulfil a normative function (Béjoint 2010: 76- 82). The next milestone was the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, which originated from a desire to rectify shortcomings of the dictionaries available and to offer a systematic, historically oriented description of the English language (Thim 2011: 64). The New English Dictionary, the name it first carried, was published in 125 fascicles between 1884 and 1928, with a supplement in 1933, when it came to be known as the OED. It was edited – among others – by James Murray, who had worked on it since 1886 and who died in 1915 (Béjoint 2010: 99- 100). During his lifetime, Murray, however, “always insisted on being editor-in-chief […], and the dictionary is remembered as Murray’s” (Béjoint 2010: 99). The dictionary’s aim was, according to Thim (2011: 65), to “produce a complete historical inventory […] of the English lexicon […]”, where (2011: 67)

10 | A history of learner lexicography

[…] each entry was to provide a full history of its headword from its earliest attestation in the language onwards, including sections on historical forms and spellings and on etymology.

Thus, a new historical, descriptive, exhaustive, literary, language, objective and scholarly dictionary using quotations was created; it received a new edition in 1992 and currently a third edition and can be regarded as the lexicographic authority to this day. It furthermore initiated a family of smaller Oxford dictionaries (Béjoint 2010: 101- 121). The lexicographic scene described so far only refers to Great Britain. In the USA, Noah Webster became the lexicographic authority, during the time between the great dictionaries by Johnson and Murray in Britain. Since the first dictionaries in America had been British, extending Johnson’s influence, it was Webster who started American lexicography. He fixed American English spelling conventions in A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) and produced the first authoritative work with An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) after 28 years of compilation. The dictionary lasted several editions and after Webster’s death in 1843, the rights of the name were sold to the Merriam Brothers, who edited revised editions of the original. Webster’s International Dictionary (1890) and Webster’s New International Dictionary (1909) are the famous titles of American lexicography of this period (Bejoint 2010: 84- 89).

2.2 Genesis of learner’s dictionaries 2.2.1 Influential figures for EFL-lexicography Monolingual dictionaries had been available for some time by the beginning of the 20th century; from that basis, a new kind of dictionary developed, learner’s dictionaries. The genesis of this genre was not random but due to three teachers of English, who taught English as a foreign language in Asia: Albert Sidney (‘A.S.’) Hornby, Harold Palmer, both in Japan, and Michael West, in India (Cowie 1999a: 2). These men were, according to Cowie (1999a: 2), “founding fathers of applied linguistics in this century”; they devoted themselves to linguistic research to improve English language teaching and were occupied with, as Rundell (1998: 316) notes, “features that were specifically motivated by the needs of non-native learners of English”. In 1912, Michael West began a career in the Indian Education Service where he occupied several high-ranking positions. Even more important was West’s engagement in the 1920s in an experimental project in which he wrote or adapted reading materials in English on practical subjects addressed to all Indians, not just the elite that profited from the school system. He did so by simplifying the language and thereby introduced a form of vocabulary control. On the occasion of a conference held in New York, he met Harold Palmer (and Lawrence Faucett), with whom he was to collaborate at a later time (Cowie 1999a: 6- 8).

Genesis of learner’s dictionaries | 11

This Harold Palmer was a man who had received little formal education in England, but made his way as a teacher of English as a foreign language, who – after a stop in Belgium – eventually came upon invitation to Japan in 1921, where he was appointed Linguistic Adviser to the Japanese Ministry of Education and two years later director of the newly established Institute for Research in English Teaching (IRET), where English teaching methods and courses were devised, teachers trained and linguistic research carried out (Cowie 1999a: 3- 5). The most famous – and youngest – of the three men is certainly A.S. Hornby, as he is the editor of the first editions of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, and whom Cowie (1989: 56) considers to be “probably the most influential figure in E.F.L. lexicography”. Hornby studied English language and literature and was recruited in 1924 in his mid-twenties “by a visiting Japanese to teach English […] on the island of Kyushu” (Cowie 1998: 252). In Japan, he […] discovered that, although his students had a good understanding […] of their English literary texts, they were much less confident in speaking and writing English. ([1] OALD online, 6)

and focussed on language teaching instead of literature. He also started a correspondence with Palmer who finally had him transferred to IRET in Tokyo in 1931, where the two worked together on their linguistic projects, while Hornby also kept on teaching. Hornby became “Palmer’s crown prince” (Cowie 1998: 252) at IRET and succeeded him as director in 1936, before he was repatriated during World War II. After a period in Teheran, he stayed in London, where he worked at the British Council, and also acted as a journal editor and educational broadcaster (“English by Radio”). He is described as a modest man who “seldom spoke of these remarkable achievements” (Cowie 1998: 254), all of which are too numerous to be outlined in greater detail (Cowie 1998: 251- 254 and 1999a: 8- 13).

2.2.2 Linguistic research The three men introduced in the previous chapter realised that dictionaries for nonnative speakers of English would have to be different from those for native speakers: on the one hand, easier in their formulation, on the other hand, more exhaustive in their description of the language. But they did not start out to write monolingual learner’s dictionaries for the sake of it or to start a new genre. Dictionaries were rather a by-product of their linguistic research in order to facilitate English language teaching and learning, and the dictionary was, among other forms of publications,

12 | A history of learner lexicography

the form they sought to record their findings. OALD1 was only the final product of a long line of publications based on linguistic research.3 A dictionary was the natural form for recording the findings of the kind of research that Harold Palmer, later together with A.S. Hornby and Michel West were devoted to and which was the first of four new characteristics of learner lexicography, namely vocabulary control. This movement was dominant in language teaching throughout the 1920s and 1930s and its aim was, in Cowie’s words (1999b: 4), […] to ease the learning burden of the foreign learner by presenting only (or at least initially) those words which could be shown to carry the main weight of everyday communication.

Cowie (1999a: 14) further stresses that this movement “played a vital part in the genesis of the monolingual learner’s dictionary”. Defining vocabularies in learner’s dictionaries today are still based on the idea of vocabulary control and the publications of this period (cf. chapter 3.2.2). Palmer first undertook the task of compiling a controlled vocabulary suited for middle schools in his function as a researcher at IRET in 1927; it was published as the First Interim Report on Vocabulary Selection in 1930 containing 3000 words (Cowie 1999a: 15- 18). Later, together with Hornby, he continued and […] succeeded in producing […] what were in fact structured lexicons. Their word lists […] were alphabetical arrangements of ‘word-families’ […], each entry being headed by a simple word, or root, and consisting of […] related forms and common compounds. (Cowie 1999b: 5)

Their work culminated in the Thousand-Word English (1937), as well as in The General Service List (1936) together with West, having […] reached their most sophisticated level with the addition of phonetic transcriptions and word-sense divisions […] and above all of plentiful examples and collocations […]. (Cowie 1999b: 5)

West had started working on vocabulary control since he had seen “the development of reading as an answer to the educational needs of a bilingual society” (Cowie 1999a: 22) with which he was confronted in India, and he produced reading material on various topics using simple English. For this purpose, he simplified existing reading material by replacing rare and dated words and by distributing these new words evenly across texts (Cowie 1999a: 7). Together with J.G. Endicott, West published what could be called the first monolingual learner’s dictionary, the New Method English Dictionary (1935); it is the first dictionary to explain the meanings of the entries within a restricted vocabulary (Cowie 1999a: 24, Neubauer 1984: 117),

|| 3 For a detailed account, cf. especially Cowie (1999a: 14- 51).

Genesis of learner’s dictionaries | 13

and that is supplemented by West’s essay Definition Vocabulary (1935), in which he details problems of defining practice with a restricted set of words (Cowie 1999a: 24 and 1999b: 9). Another new feature that contributed to the genesis of modern learner’s dictionaries was an interest in collocations and phraseology. From 1927 onwards, Palmer, later together with Hornby, started research on a “full-scale, systematic analysis of English word-combinations to be undertaken in a language teaching context” (Cowie 2009: 391); these findings were published in the Second Interim Report on English Collocations (1933). In the literature, the approach is described as “a detailed and rigorous classification” (Cowie 1998: 257) of collocations comprising all major word classes. Criticism from a synchronic linguistic point of view (Cowie 1998: 257, 2009: 392) is directed towards the broad use of the term ‘collocation’ in contrast to the common distinction between collocations, idioms and phrases today; nevertheless, the benefits of the approach are beyond doubt (Cowie 1998: 256- 258, 1999b: 10- 12, 2009: 391-393). The third important new feature based on linguistic research was the introduction of syntactic patterns of verbs. Here, Hornby was the leading figure. He drew on work previously done by Palmer with a focus on the production of written language (Cowie 2009: 386) and which was published in his Grammar of English Words (GEW) (1938), where “[…] each pattern was identified by means of a number code, and one or more codes were included, as appropriate, in verb entries” (Cowie 1998: 260). The final feature was closely related to syntactic patterns, namely example sentences, in which lexico-grammatical behaviour is shown in context. Palmer and Hornby introduced it and distinguished between two types: skeleton-type examples – mere abstractions of the language – and sentence-example types – fixed or variable elements in a full sentence (Cowie 1999b: 7- 8). All in all, as Rundell (1998: 316- 318) summarises, Hornby’s and Palmer’s legacy for modern learner lexicography consisted of vocabulary control, grammatical and syntactical information as well as examples and phraseology in the learner’s dictionary, and “[w]ithin a period of just seven years, the fundamentals of an MLD tradition were already in place” (1998: 318). The last step before the ‘birth’ of OALD1 was Hornby’s publication of A Beginner’s English-Japanese Dictionary in 1940; this was “an elementary-level bilingual dictionary” (Cowie 1998: 258) containing mostly grammatical information (Cowie 2009: 398). Although it opposed Palmer’s and Hornby’s conviction that “English should be learnt through the medium of English”, where translation was “a procedure of last resort”,4 it was felt to be needed as a reference tool, as “some learners had no regular contact with a teacher” (all Cowie

|| 4 Cowie (1999a: 1) says on this topic that “[t]his preference [for the monolingual dictionary, CO] reflected the close links which existed at the times between dictionary design and language teaching methodology […].”

14 | A history of learner lexicography

1998: 258), and Cowie (1998: 259) describes this dictionary as a bridge to OALD1. It can also be said, as Widdowson (2012: 554) does, that “Hornby believed that language pedagogy had to make reference to linguistics, but that linguistics also had to have relevance for pedagogy”, and this paved the way to OALD1. Table 3 gives an overview once more of the first learner’s dictionaries and reference works produced in that period. Tab. 3: Early learner’s dictionaries and reference works (collected from Cowie 1998, 1999a, 2009, Fontenelle 2009)

Year

Author

Dictionary

1930

Harold Palmer

First Interim Report on Vocabulary Selection

1933

Harold Palmer & A.S. Hornby

Second Interim Report on English Collocations

1935

Michael West & James G. Endicott

The New Method English Dictionary (NMED)

1935

Michael West

Definition Vocabulary

1936

Harold Palmer, Michael West, Lawrence Faucett

General Service List5

1937

Harold Palmer & A.S. Hornby

Thousand-Word English

1938

Harold Palmer

A Grammar of English Words (GEW)

1940

A.S. Hornby

A Beginner’s English-Japanese Dictionary (BEJD)

1953

Michael West

General Service List of English Words (GSL)

All these different pieces of research outlined above were finally combined in the first edition of the OALD. Palmer discussed the idea of a general major advanced learner’s dictionary with a Japanese colleague before he left Japan (Cowie 1998: 259, 1999a: 42), and Hornby set out to work on the project. The focus was put on “lexical and grammatical priorities which had also been a feature of IRET research” (Cowie 1998: 259). Major characteristics of the dictionary were verb-patterns, definitions and glosses for receptive needs, syntactic information about nouns and examples

|| 5 The General Service List was part of the First Interim Report on Vocabulary Selection; it became West’s project and was finally published separately in 1953 as The General Service List of English Words (cf. Cowie 1999a: 7).

Generations of learner’s dictionaries | 15

and collocations (cf. Béjoint 2010: 165- 166, Cowie 1998: 259- 263, 1999a: 42- 51, 2009: 398- 402). Hornby improved the verb patterns from Palmer’s GEW; according to Cowie (1998: 260), Hornby was the first to arrange patterns and illustrative examples in a series of tables, and he was much more consistent in his inclusion and positioning of codes in individual entries.

The advantage was that in this arrangement, vertical divisions corresponded to major structural elements; he also added detailed explanatory notes and was more consistent in positioning the code within the entry (Cowie 1998: 261). Regarding the dictionary itself, Hornby did not start from scratch, but used the current third edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary and adapted the macrostructure by deleting unsuitable entries (Cowie 1999a: 43 and 47, 2009: 400). Hornby furthermore included phonetic transcriptions and worked with synonyms and antonyms for defining, inspired by de Saussure’s structuralism (Cowie 1999a: 43- 51). The dictionary was finally released in Japan in 1942 under the title An Idiomatic and Syntactic Dictionary. It was reprinted in England in 1948 under the title A Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (ALD).6 It is the most traditional, the first and the oldest dictionary of all learner’s dictionaries and is still available today in its 8th edition, nowadays competing with several rival products.

2.3 Generations of learner’s dictionaries7 2.3.1 Survey of publications and editions With the publication of OALD1 in 1948, a whole new market opened up for dictionaries, but it would still take 30 years before we can actually speak of a competitive market. Table 4 offers an overview of the publication dates of all the editions of the five monolingual learner’s dictionaries we know today.8

|| 6 There is a nice anecdote (cf. online source [1] OALD online: 12- 13) about what a dangerous undertaking it was to get the original copy from Japan to England during the time of World War II (where a shortage of paper was also a problem), and that the dictionary only closely escaped being lost before it came into existence. It is reported that Hornby had three printed manuscripts of the dictionary, two of which he had sent separately by mail to Oxford University Press in London, but which were lost. In a desperate attempt to save the last copy, he took it – although forbidden – with him and hid it in his clothes on his way to England when he was repatriated from Japan. 7 Please note that the title of the chapter is borrowed to some extent from Cowie (1999a), who also speaks of different generations of learner’s dictionaries. 8 The forerunner of OALD1, the Idiomatic and Syntactic Dictionary of English (1942) printed in Japan is not listed here; the slash between 2003 and 2005 for LDOCE4 symbolises the fact that the same edition was re-issued in 2005 with a writing assistant; a new impression in 2006 of this edition also comprised minor changes, e.g. regarding core vocabulary (cf. Hanika 2006).

16 | A history of learner lexicography

Tab. 4: Timeline of English monolingual learner's dictionaries (collected from the inside cover of the latest dictionaries (cf. bibliography) and Béjoint 2010) Dictionary

Years of publication of different editions

OALD

1

LDOCE COBUILD CALD MEDAL

1948 21963 31974 1

4

1989 |51995| 62000

1978 21987 1

1987

|72005| 82010

|31995| 2

|42003/05| 52009 62014

| 1995| 2001 2003 |52006| 62010 3

4

|11995| 22001 1

2002

3

2008 42013

2

2007

As can easily be seen from the chart, OALD maintained a monopoly on the market for exactly 30 years, and its first three editions remained unrivalled. It was only in 1978 that a competitive product appeared in the form of the first Longman learner’s dictionary. But OALD did not react immediately to the publication of LDOCE1, nor to LDOCE2 in 1987 and the publication of yet another rival, COBUILD1 in 1987; not before 1989 did it publish its 4th edition. A very interesting year lexicographically is certainly 1995 (see also bold print), in which a new product entered the market (CALD), and the other learner’s dictionaries each issued a new edition. There were further new editions of the dictionaries in the early 2000’s (although LDOCE has the largest gap between new editions from 1995 to 2003), before a similar situation can be found for 2005/06 and 2009/10 with new editions of OALD, LDOCE and COBUILD. After CALD in 1995, another new product, MEDAL, entered the market in 2002; only two editions have appeared so far, and it seems that the newest product has also been the first to leave the market again, since its editor Michael Rundell announced in November 2012 in his online blog (online source [2]: Rundell 2012b: Macmillan blog) that Macmillan would no longer publish dictionaries in print form since the future lay in online dictionaries that have the advantage of being able to be easily kept up-dated, which allow for crowd-sourcing and interactive use and which can also offer additional information and resources. Up-to-date information is indeed an issue in lexicography, and it can be seen from the chart that generally, the time span between new editions has become shorter over the past years. It nevertheless remains to be seen whether more dictionaries will take MEDAL’s approach. At the time of writing, CALD is offering the latest product of all with its 2013 edition. The dictionaries used for this project represent a recent time span (2007- 2010) and are the latest ones of all the products on the market (see bold print).9

|| 9 Except for CALD4 (and LDOCE6) which could no longer be considered due to their late publication date, cf. footnote in chapter one.

Generations of learner’s dictionaries | 17

2.3.2 Different features and approaches Apart from sheer dates and numbers, new editions as well as new products have always brought innovations and new features with them. Although Cowie (1999b: 3, see introductory quote above) remarks that early learner’s dictionaries soon displayed characteristics still recognisable today, Jackson (2002: 140) states on the contrary that MLDs have developed far beyond their original conception in the 1930s and 1940s, not only in the range of information they offer the learner, but also in the attention to the learner’s needs and reference skills.

It seems only natural that dictionaries should have developed further over generations, especially in a competitive market after 1978.10 The first edition of LDOCE challenged the established OALD by what Herbst (1996: 322) summarises under the term ‘user-friendliness’: it introduced for the first time a defining vocabulary, a more accessible layout of entries and more transparent syntactic codes, as well as an improved coverage of function words and a more exhaustive treatment of both British and American English varieties (cf. GötzVotteler/Herbst 2009: 48, Herbst 1996: 322, Rundell 1998: 318- 320). The new grammar codes in LDOCE were appreciated since they followed a so-called doublearticulation consisting of combinations of capital letters with numbers and lowercase letters (Fontenelle 2009: 41411), whereas OALD’s pattern system in the first three editions was “neither transparent nor mnemotechnically organized” (Herbst 1996: 329) and “had to be constantly looked up with the aim of being memorised” (Jackson 2002: 131). Another ground-breaking new publication was COBUILD in 1987, edited by John Sinclair. It was “the first dictionary to be produced on the basis of the analysis of a large text corpus” (Götz-Votteler/Herbst 2009: 48) and used exclusively authentic language material for the dictionary; further distinguishing features were the introduction of full-sentence definitions and a macrostructural extra-column (2009: 48).12 The name of the dictionary derives from the name of the corpus, the Collins Birmingham University International Language Database, later renamed ‘The Bank of English’ (Jackson 2002: 131). The dictionary’s focus was clearly on a syntactic description of the language, which sometimes demands more from its users; Herbst

|| 10 For detailed outlines of the characteristics of all the different editions of all learner’s dictionaries, cf. Béjoint (2010: 163- 200) and Cowie (1999a). 11 Fontenelle (2009: 434) sees LDOCE’s articulate description of grammar codes “as a precursor of Herbst et al.’s recent Valency Dictionary of English (2004).” 12 Please note that in the latest COBUILD edition, the first to be edited after John Sinclair’s death in 2007, the extra-column has vanished (among other changes in lexicographic practice).

18 | A history of learner lexicography

(1990: 1379) concedes here that “it is not designed for the foreign learner in the same way as OALD or LDOCE are”. Nevertheless, John Sinclair is another leading figure in EFL-lexicography due to his radically new approach.13 Hanks (2008: 220- 222) points out in this respect that since he was not a lexicographer and lexicography was only a means to an end for him, he challenged received models and managed at the same time to escape the publishers’ common conservatism. The two dictionaries that entered the market later, CALD and MEDAL, both came with their own features, but not with revolutionary practices like their predecessors, and complemented the market instead. Götz-Votteler/Herbst (2009: 48) also note that [b]e it because of lexicographic considerations and user-research, competition between the different publishing houses or the fluctuation of lexicographers between different publishers, there is a tendency to be observed that the five dictionaries become more similar in overall design and appearance so that it is increasingly difficult to develop or recognize any distinct profile.

All dictionaries also include the phrase ‘for advanced learners’ in their title (GötzVotteler/Herbst 2009, 48),14 and since the 1990s, all dictionaries also come equipped with a CD- or DVD-ROM, which originally started a discussion in literature on its usefulness, its advantages or disadvantages (cf. Jehle 1999, Leech/Nesi 1999, Nesi 199915). At the time, CD-ROMs were seen as one possible model of the perfect learner’s dictionary, as Leech and Nesi (1999: 296) envision it: […] a giant octopus being confined inside a wooden box. The perfect learner’s dictionary, one which answered all users’ needs, would have to be a vast open-ended information source.

The commonly mentioned advantages are therefore huge storage capacity with space for additional dictionary features, different search options with information and entries being linked to each other more easily, or access to corpora with a generally reduced access time to information (cf. Jehle 1999: 354- 356 and 361, Leech/Nesi 1999: 295- 298 and 303, Nesi 1999: 56- 59).16 Regarding the disadvantages mentioned (e.g. Nesi 1999: 63- 65), the question of effectiveness and word-retention || 13 The fact that he is not mentioned above in the chapter of influential figures of lexicography does not mean that he was not one – he simply does not belong to the founding fathers in the 1930s and 1940s, but influenced the genre at a later point in its history. 14 Béjoint (2010: 186) also comments that “learner’s dictionaries are converging towards a single model”. 15 For a general introduction, cf. Herbst/Klotz (2003: 251- 266), Svensén (2009: 437- 451). 16 Apart from more pictures and example sentences as well as a less dense microstructure within the entries, CD-ROMs often even offer “a second dictionary”: LDOCE5 offers its Language Activator and a Writing Assistant, OALD8 offers a thesaurus and an example bank, and CALD3 its Smart Thesaurus.

Generations of learner’s dictionaries | 19

applies to dictionaries in general, and the criticism of the site-dependency of CDROMs seems a bit out-dated in a world where access to computers and the use of the Internet has gained a more prominent role. People possess more as well as more modern (especially portable) technical devices than they did in the 1990s; new media such as (dictionary) apps for tablet computers and smart phones have become available, and it remains questionable whether CD-ROMs are still as appreciated today as they were in the nineties, since the medium seems a bit out-dated. Possibly, Rundell’s focus on online dictionaries for Macmillan products (see above) is indeed more in line with user-behaviour today. The appearance of rival products on the market, especially in the mid-1990s, sparked off a vast amount of literature devoted to dictionary comparisons or analyses of single editions as well as a methodology of comparison (cf. Aarts 1991, Antor 1994, Bogaards 1996, Bogaards 2003, Chan/Taylor 2001, Coleman/Ogilvie 2009, Götz-Votteler/Herbst 2009, Herbst 1990, Herbst 1996, Heuberger 2000, Jackson 2002, Meer/Sansome 2000, Nielsen 2013, Rundell 1998, to name just a few). This tradition is also taken up here, and dictionary analyses and comparisons in cognitive terms will also be provided in this project. Apart from dictionary comparisons, research into dictionary use has also gained a more prominent role, with many publications on users’ needs and behaviour (cf. Atkins 1998, Battenburg 1991, Humblé 2001, Nesi 2000, Tono 2001, again to name just a few major studies). Cowie (1999a: 177) distinguishes between several types of research, e.g. centering on linguistic categories or users’ reference skills; and in terms of user-research, small-scale userstudies will also complement my cognitive dictionary features. The question that now remains after the historical outline in the previous chapters and after the information about the different products on the market is what position cognitive lexicography could now or will one day occupy (cf. also chapter 4.3). First of all, cognitive lexicography draws on principles that are historic and lexicographic standards today; it does not aim at changing all lexicographic practice but is a natural development of lexicography. Just as with Johnson and especially the COBUILD project, cognitive lexicography also aims at using authentic language. In contrast to quotations from good authors and representative collections of authentic texts, however, cognitive lexicography takes into account how language is processed and verbalised by language users and uses research into these questions as its basis for dictionary writing. And just as Hornby, Palmer and West were concerned with research into language description suited to the learner’s needs, cognitive lexicography draws on research on language processing which can be turned into a simple, natural description of the language, more in line with how language users think and speak. As all dictionary writers in previous history, lexicographers practising cognitive lexicography will use existing material but will also draw on new sources available in line with the latest linguistic research, and aim at using this for writing good dictionaries; they are – perhaps more than ever – applied lin-

20 | A history of learner lexicography

guists. As a genre, cognitive lexicography can be applied to both native and nonnative lexicography and will hopefully be seen as a new chapter in dictionary writing, characterised by a new linguistic influence. The analyses carried out in the chapters to come will also shed light on the question of whether current learner’s dictionaries can already be characterised as cognitive to a certain degree. But before a closer look can be taken, the traditional lexicographic conventions will have to be outlined.

3 Principles of learner lexicography […] LEXICOGRAPHY is an activity which consists in observing, collecting, selecting, analysing and describing, […] a number of lexical items […] belonging to one or more languages. (Svensén 2009: 2)

This chapter seeks to outline lexicographic principles of monolingual lexicography, especially those principles used in learner lexicography. Since the lexicography of English looks back on a rich tradition, many conventions regarding the set-up of a dictionary and the presentation of information within its entries have developed over this timespan, even if Wierzbicka (1985: 5), in her meanwhile famous quote, says that […] lexicographers are people who work hard but who can never escape having a guilty conscience, because lexicography has no theoretical foundations, and even the best lexicographers, when pressed, can never explain what they are doing or why.

The situation does not seem that desperate in practice; the lexicographic conventions regarding the dictionary’s form (concerning micro- and macrostructure, including problems such as homonymy and polysemy), the dictionary’s defining practice and further means of conveying meaning will briefly be outlined here.1 All these conventions will later come into play again when the cognitive dictionary features are presented (regarding examples and macrostructure, definitions, or microstructure and polysemy, cf. chapters five to seven) and are therefore to be understood as the necessary basis from which cognitive lexicographic features depart, as the cognitive dictionary features are also designed within that framework.2 The chapter will start with a delimitation of the genre of the monolingual learner’s dictionary and will be rounded off by a few remarks on the status of lexicography as a craft lacking theory (cf. Wierzbicka above). The most important introductions on lexicography, which form the basis of this chapter, are Atkins/Rundell (2008), Béjoint (2010), Engelberg/Lemnitzer (2008), Herbst/Klotz (2003), Jackson (2002), Landau (2001), Schläfer (2008), Svensén (1993) and (2009), and Zgusta (1971).

|| 1 For a similar, yet shorter outline of these conventions and a comparison of lexicographic practice between OALD7, LDOCE4 and COBUILD5, cf. Hanika (2006). 2 Please note that conventions e.g. regarding the display of pronunciation or grammatical and syntactical information will not be outlined here, since these practices are not part of the cognitive features proposed later on. For information on these practices, the reader is advised to turn to all the introductory titles on lexicography from the bibliography.

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3.1 The form of the dictionary 3.1.1 The genre of monolingual learner’s dictionaries Before describing the form of monolingual learner’s dictionaries (henceforth ‘MLDs’), a few words on the genre itself are in line. A dictionary, very generally and hardly surprisingly, is according to Crystal (2003: 108) […] a reference book that lists the words of one or more languages, usually in alphabetical order, along with information about their spelling, pronunciation, grammatical status, meaning, history, and use.

There are many different kinds of dictionaries ranging from monolingual to bilingual, from general to specialised dictionaries.3 From their title, it can already be deduced that MLDs target the non-native speaker of English and use the English language for meaning description exclusively; Geeraerts (1989a: 294) formulates this in linguistic terms by saying that […] a monolingual dictionary is a dictionary that contains only one object language and in which the explanatory meta-language is not distinct from the object language. (original italics maintained)

Tarp (2008: 130, also 2009: 160)4 focuses on the function defining an MLD as […] a dictionary whose genuine purpose is to satisfy the punctual and lexicographically relevant information needs that learners may have in a range of situations in connection with the foreign-language learning process.

and Martin (2006: 281) further specifies those as needs for a command of L2 regarding understanding, speaking, writing and reading. These information needs or “demands of the foreign user” (Herbst 1990: 1379, see also above) cover both decoding and encoding. Regarding the user’s decoding needs, i.e. the understanding of language items, learner’s dictionaries have to provide simpler definitions, mostly within the frame of a restricted defining vocabulary, and more examples in order to illustrate the meaning described in the definition. Further help is usually necessary within entries of polysemous words so that the user is able to quickly find the correct sense of a word (cf. Carter 1987: 10, Herbst

|| 3 For a detailed account and typology of different dictionary types, cf. e.g. Coleman (2008: 581582), Cowie (1990: 680- 684), Herbst/Klotz (2003: 200- 250), Jackson (2002: 21- 27), Svensén (1993: 17- 38 and 2009: 12- 38). For a summary of all the terms used for monolingual learner’s dictionaries, cf. Béjoint (2010: 164). 4 Compare also Tarp’s discussion (2009: 159- 160) of the definition of MLDs by various authors under various approaches.

The form of the dictionary | 23

1990: 1379, Jackson 2002: 132- 139, Landau 2001: 16- 17, Stein 1999: 45). Learner’s dictionaries do not, however, offer etymological information on their entry words,5 since, according to Svensén (2009: 334), this would “[…] expose the user to a particularly great risk of being given erroneous ideas about the present-day meaning of words […]”. Information on encoding, i.e. the production of language, is needed to a greater extent for learners than for native speakers, and therefore, according to Carter (1987: 10), learner’s dictionaries “also often provide more detailed guidance both on matters of syntax […], and pronunciation […], and on cultural and stylistic restrictions […]”. Regarding syntax, learner’s dictionaries provide extensive information on grammatical patterns for sentence construction and on collocations and idioms. What Carter refers to with the terms ‘cultural and stylistic restrictions’ is contained in usage notes of all kinds, and style labels or appendices, where study pages attempt to familiarise the learner with cultural or grammatical phenomena in more detail (cf. Jackson 2002: 135- 140, Hanika 2006). Béjoint (2010: 197- 198) summarises characteristic features of learner’s dictionaries, in addition to the above mentioned, with an extensive list, where he also adds, among others, a focus on frequency of language, an emphasis on the layout and quality of the microstructure, an extensive front matter on how to use the dictionary, and the use of a corpus. Götz-Votteler/Herbst (2009) formulate many of these characteristics as requirements for good MLDs throughout their article. Lastly, it has to be said that MLDs often display, to a certain degree, features of encyclopaedic dictionaries6 (e.g. Meer/Sansome 2000), since they offer entries on institutions or cultural items (e.g. ‘BBC’), even more so in their CD-ROM versions where a cultural dictionary is often added (OALD8, LDOCE5).7 The fact that MLDs have developed into a genre of their own with so many characteristic features allows one to easily forget that their origins once lay in native speaker dictionaries (henceforth NSDs) adapted for MLD-purposes (cf. chapter two above). Until a few decades ago, but not so prominently anymore, critical voices were raised in the literature that “MLDs are operating within the constraints of a much older lexicographic tradition” (Rundell 1988: 127), that despite all the new features, “the traditional NSD model has been augmented but not abandoned” (Rundell 1988: 129) and that MLDs still had to emancipate themselves from NSDs, the latter being inapt for decoding purposes with their historical approach of focus-

|| 5 Etymological information can be obtained as an additional feature in some CD-ROM-editions, where users can click on buttons within the entries called ‘word origin’ (OALD8, LDOCE5). 6 Compare in this respect also the article by Heath/Herbst (1994), who discuss the problems but also the usefulness of two encyclopaedic editions of MLDs from the 1990s and voice requirements (1994: 158- 159) for successful encyclopaedic learner’s dictionaries. 7 Compare also Wiegand (1994: 251- 256) on the role of encyclopaedic knowledge in meaning description.

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sing on “meaning and coverage” (Rundell 1988: 128 and 133). This concern seems to have vanished in the light of all the new editions of MLDs: Landau states (2001: 17) that “[t]he advanced-level ESL dictionaries […] are […] more sophisticated and more demanding of the user than most native-speaker dictionaries.”, where Béjoint (2010: 198- 199) suggests that this development is due to competition on the market and the fact that “no other language community has such a wealth of learner’s dictionaries” (2010: 198). All in all, the previous chapters have shown that MLDs have developed historically as well as content-wise into a genre of their own, the form of which will now be further outlined in the course of this chapter.

3.1.2 Macrostructure and microstructure The macro- and microstructures of dictionaries deal with how information is arranged and presented. The macrostructure deals with information on a more global level and refers to all elements concerned with the layout and general placement of information. The microstructure deals with the arrangement of information and meaning description within a single entry (cf. Svensén 1993: 210 and 223, 2009: 345 and 368). The overall macrostructure distinguishes between a dictionary’s front matter, comprising forewords and the key to the dictionary, the dictionary’s body with its alphabetical A-Z part and the appendices (Jackson 2002: 25- 26);8 the term is, however, often used with reference to the body of the dictionary exclusively. The layout of dictionaries normally consists of two columns per page9 with their single entries, and the macrostructure also provides room for illustrations or additional dictionary features placed near the entry to which they belong; the macrostructure thus stands for the “total number of lemmas, but also what counts as a lemma is determined” (Bogaards 1999: 114). Whereas the macrostructure is usually alphabetical, there are also approaches applied which break the strict alphabetical order, especially with compounds and derivates of lexemes (Svensén 2009: 368- 376). In a so-called nesting policy with a truncation of headwords, compounds and derivates are entered (“nested”) at the end of the entry of the lexeme from which they had been derived (“the trunk”), or they are presented as run-on entries within the entry of the base (cf. Jackson 2002: 86- 87, Svensén 1993: 223- 229 and 2009: 374- 376). This results in a

|| 8 Please note that in the case of some modern learner’s dictionaries (e.g. CALD3, MEDAL2, also OALD7) the distinction is not always strictly adhered to; special study pages can also often be found in the middle of the body of the dictionary separating the alphabetical part. 9 Only in COBUILD dictionaries up to the 5th edition did these two columns have an extra column by their side (erroneously called “third column”) which displayed mostly grammatical information.

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tiered entry structure compared to a flat entry structure (Atkins 1992: 40). Whereas some authors see advantages in this approach (e.g. Antor (1994: 67), who acknowledges benefits for vocabulary acquisition of related lexemes), the tendency in modern MLDs goes towards ‘denesting’ in favour of an improved findability of items and user-friendliness (Meer/Sansome 2000: 287). Once an entry has been located, its microstructure offers different pieces of information on the respective headword. In order to illustrate this, the entry for dictionary from OALD8 has been quoted in figure 1.

Fig. 1: The microstructure of a dictionary entry (OALD8, s.v. dictionary)

The entry starts with the headword, here dictionary, in bold print, usually with a separation into its syllables, and in modern EFL-dictionaries often printed in colour; a key after the headword in the case of OALD8 is an indication of word frequency (cf. chapter 3.3.2). After the headword, a phonetic transcription is given in IPA symbols including American English variants, followed by grammatical information such as the part of speech and irregular inflections, for which each dictionary develops its own coding system. The central part of the entry contains its definitions (Antor 1994: 78, Jackson 2002: 76); the different senses, thus lexical units of the lexeme are enumerated followed by a definition in normal print and example sentences in italics. Cross-references of single lexemes (e.g. words outside a defining vocabulary), here spellchecker, are printed in small capitals; for other features such as information on idioms, collocations, verb patterns, labels, reference to synonyms or antonyms etc., each dictionary devises its own conventions, often involving an eye-catching layout within the entry such as bold print or italics (all cf. Jackson 2002: 81 and 101- 116, Ilson 1984: 81, Landau 1984: 76- 98, Svensén 1993: 210- 219 and 2009: 344- 367). Lastly, a few remarks have to be made regarding notational terms centring on the concept WORD: the terms lemma, lexeme and lexical unit have to be clearly distinguished in lexicography. A lemma is any ‘word’ appearing as a headword in the macrostructure of the dictionary; Bußmann (1990: 445) defines it as an “Eintrag bzw. einzelnes Stichwort in einem Lexikon oder Wörterbuch”. A lexeme (also lexical item) is defined by e.g. Lipka (2002: 89) as an abstract unit of the lexicon that is a complete sign with a class of variants, its word forms. Lexemes are therefore “theo-

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retical constructs on the level of the language system (langue)” (Schmid 2011: 24). Since every lemma is itself a lexeme and since every lexeme can, at least theoretically, achieve lemma status in a dictionary,10 there is a certain temptation to use the terms synonymously, which should, however, be avoided. Lastly, lexemes consist of one or several lexical units, the “union of a lexical form and a single sense” (Cruse 1986: 77, also in Lipka 2002: 149). A lexeme is therefore “a family of lexical units” (Cruse 1986: 76) and it should be noted that it is between the lexical units that sense relations hold (Cruse 1986: 84, also in Lipka 2002: 149- 150).

3.1.3 Multiple forms and meanings Even if the distinction between the macro- and microstructure of a dictionary seems to be a clear-cut matter, the semantic nature of lexemes will often force the lexicographer to make informed decisions on the lemma status of lexical items. Only a small proportion of the lexemes in the lexicon can be called monosemous, i.e. consisting of a single lexical unit and being “words with a single meaning, a single referent, and a single grammatical function” (Moon 1987: 17311). The majority of lexemes, however, display traits of homonymy and polysemy, something which has to be rendered in macro- and microstructure. The classic lexicographic approach consists in treating homonymous items in separate entries while the senses of polysemous lexemes are treated in a single entry (e.g. Cowie 2001: 40). This still leaves room for the question of how many entries are allotted to a homonymous word form, how they are organised internally and how different senses of a polysemous lexeme are arranged. The lexicographer’s decisions also have to be in line with the dictionary’s policy and can take various forms. Considering homonymy first as a problem concerning macrostructure, Jackson (2002: 2) defines homonyms as lexemes that “share the same spelling and pronunciation, but have a different etymology”12 and Bussmann (1990: 314) also states that homonymous lexemes […] verfügen über eine gleiche Ausdrucksform hinsichtlich Orthographie […] und Aussprache […] bei unterschiedlicher Bedeutung und oft verschiedener etymologischer Herkunft [...].

|| 10 Compare Schmid (2011: 24) who calls a lemma a “citation form” of a lexeme in a dictionary. 11 Compare also the author’s discussion (1987: 174) of the many ‘quasi-monosemous’ words which have a single meaning but too many contextual uses to be explained by a single definition. 12 The criterion of etymology is not undisputed: Lipka, for example, argues (2002: 154- 157) to abandon and replace it by the criterion of formal identity or distinctness and close semantic relatedness, since etymology can be too arbitrary or even irrelevant for synchronic use where it allows historically homonymous words to appear as polysemous today. A similar point regarding homonymy developing into polysemy is made in Cowie (2001: 42) and Zgusta (1971: 77).

The form of the dictionary | 27

This definition can be differentiated further into homonyms being homographs (sharing spelling but not pronunciation) or homophones (sharing pronunciation but not spelling) or both at the same time (Jackson 2002: 2- 3, also Svensén 1993: 200).13 Whereas pure homophones are of minor importance in lexicography due to the dictionary’s alphabetical arrangement, homographs, especially when they are also homophones, are a critical matter, since the lexicographer also tries to “map out the content and structure of the lexicon of a language as it is acquired and possessed in the mind or brain of a native speaker” (Robins 1987: 55), an important point especially in the context of cognitive lexicography. The ways of arranging homonymous items regarding formal matters range from giving each homonym a separate entry with a raised number, to grouping some homonyms together that share grammatical or lexical features, to finally putting all homonyms in one entry. The semantic arrangement of homonyms, whether in one or several entries, can, according to Svensén (1993: 200- 207), be motivated by several criteria: the etymological criterion displaying historical facts, the semantic approach displaying the synchronic situation, the combinational and morphosemantic approach grouping hyperlexemes and subsidiary meanings together, and finally the formal approach of separating homonyms according to their word class.14 In his investigation of NSDs, Malakhovski arrives at further, more elaborate systems, including variants and subsystems (1987: 39- 49).15 In learner’s dictionaries, however, the trend is generally towards using several entries or at least clearly marked subsections of entries in order to facilitate searching and increase user-friendliness. Whereas LDOCE5 and MEDAL2 follow the formal approach strictly, OALD8 and CALD3 distinguish according to word class within one entry, while only COBUILD6 follows a semantic approach by putting all word classes and meanings in one large entry ordered by the corresponding hyperlexeme16 (compare for all e.g. the entry of light). Once decisions have been made about which lexemes are regarded as homonymous with their own lemma status and how they are to be presented, problems in

|| 13 Malakhovski (1987: 37- 38) offers an even more elaborate cross-classification of homonyms with formal (phonetic or graphic) and semantic (lexical or grammatical) types where he in addition to sound and spelling considers word class and lexical sense as a criterion for lexemes representing a homopair, a homogroup or a homosegment. 14 Compare also Atkins (1992: 39- 40) who distinguishes between a non-homographic, a totally homographic and a partially homographic approach, all of which (with the exception of etymology) roughly correspond to Svensén’s strategies. Atkins’s terminology stresses the fact that it is the spelling which is decisive in the alphabetical arrangement of a dictionary. 15 These center on the general approaches outlined above, but usually vary according to which kinds of homonyms are grouped together and the multiple ways of distinguishing them with the help of Arabic and Roman numbers. 16 Something which – despite the semantic approach taken – can also be described as an orthographic approach (Herbst 1996: 348) since all words spelt alike go in one entry.

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the microstructural sorting of senses are due to the polysemous nature of lexemes. According to Bußmann (1990: 593), polysemy can be defined as the fact that [...] ein Ausdruck zwei oder mehr Bedeutungen aufweist, die allesamt etwas gemeinsam haben und sich meist aus einer Grundbedeutung ableiten lassen.

to which Likpa adds (2002: 152) that it is a lexeme in which “meaning is partly identical”. I will neither go into detail here on how to test an item for polysemy or establish its several senses, nor discuss different semantic approaches to this (cf. Ayto 1983, Atkins/Rundell 2008, Geeraerts 2001, Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk 2007, Robins 1987, Stock 1984, Svensén 2009). But once the meanings have been established, the formal presentation is more straightforward than with homonymy: all meanings appear either grouped together in one paragraph with only Arabic numbers in bold print distinguishing the senses, whereas in newer dictionaries and especially in longer entries, every new sense starts in a new line, sometimes introduced by “signposts” (cf. chapter 3.3.2) which paraphrase the meaning and attempt to help the user find the requested sense faster. Jackson (2002: 88- 90) calls the two approaches ‘lumping and splitting’, where senses are either lumped together with an eye to space restrictions, or split into separate paragraphs with an eye to user-friendliness. Regarding semantics, the various senses of a polysemous lexeme are given with the most basic meaning, thus the most central and least marked one, first, followed by less frequent, marked, technical or archaic meanings (Svensén 1993: 212 and 2009: 363- 364). This means that ‘most basic’ is often equated with frequency (“‘important’ means ‘frequent’”, 1993: 213 and 2009: 364), a classic approach criticised by several authors.17 Meer/Sansome (2000: 291- 292) argue for a coherent order where senses are transparently connected giving a clearer semantic picture and overriding the arbitrariness of frequency; they do so without touching upon theoretical semantic matters. However, one can clearly see that this already points in a cognitive direction. Geeraerts (1990: 198) points out the problem that often only the senses are enumerated without attempts to render the prototypical structure of concepts, while “the structure of prototypically organized concepts is characterized by clustering and maximal overlapping”. This suggests the link between polysemy and its proto-

|| 17 Compare Tarp’s demand (2001: 26- 33) to base the arrangement and display of data on user’s needs and functions, such as knowledge and communication-oriented functions where, according to the author, in both cases, information on homonymy and polysemy is superfluous. Rundell (1988: 129- 130) argued already in the eighties that the general distinction between homonyms and polysemes is only a historically-motivated but counter-intuitive tradition from NSDs and that multisense lexemes should be presented in smaller chunks. (What he demands seems to me, however, to be a demand for the formal approach with regard to homonymy, which was not as dominant in the 1980s as it is today.)

Defining practice | 29

typical organisation, the discussion of which has to be postponed (cf. chapter seven). All in all, it remains a topic open to discussion of whether the traditional distinction between homonymy and polysemy may be abandoned in the future, especially under the influence of new approaches to polysemy in cognitive terms. The lexicographer, however, will be forced to decide on the number and arrangement of entries, for which authors such as Cowie (2001: 46- 50 and 57) also stress that the two terms form a continuum rather than an either-or-decision.18 In any case, decisions on lemma status strongly affect micro- and macrostructure19 and, also in the light of cognitive lexicography, new ways of presentation may be sought (cf. chapters five and seven).

3.2 Defining practice 3.2.1 Defining formats After outlining the formal features of dictionaries in the previous chapter, the single microstructural features of a dictionary entry will briefly be discussed in the following. The first feature and the heart of an entry is its definition, since looking up meaning was long ago already found to be the prime purpose of consulting a dictionary (cf. Béjoint 1981: 215, Tomaszczyk 1979: 113, Tono 2001); dictionaries are also seen as a “tool for communication” (Béjoint 1981: 209). The rendering of information on the meaning of lexical items can, however, take various forms.20 The most traditional form of a dictionary definition is the analytical definition, also called true definition (cf. Atkins/Rundell 2008: 414- 417, Svensén 1993: 120- 125 and 2009: 217- 224, Zgusta 1971: 252- 254). It consists, according to Svensén (1993: 122 and also 2009: 219), of […] stating the superordinate concept next to the definiendum (genus proximum) together with at least one distinctive feature typical of the definiendum (differentia specifica). The superordinate concept specifies the class containing the definiendum as one element. The distinctive features specify in which ways the definiendum differs from other elements in the same class.

|| 18 Cowie shows in a dictionary analysis (2001: 48- 50) that there are dictionary passages where evidence of homonymy is lacking but two entries are devised due to different syntactic class, as well as there being passages where, despite clear differences, lexemes are put in one entry. 19 Compare Svensén’s remarks (2009: 365) on microstructure- vs. macrostructure-oriented dictionaries prioritising either homonymy or polysemy, a similar point also in Béjoint (1981: 212) on too many vs. excessively long entries. 20 Compare also Wiegand (1994) for an elaborate account of parts of a dictionary text rendering a paraphrase of meaning and a critical discussion of the term definition. Compare also Hanks (1988: 42) who also prefers the term explanation.

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Figure 2 quoted from Svensén further illustrates the structure.

Fig. 2: The form and structure of the analytical definition (Svensén 1993: 122, similarly 2009: 219)

The definition “enumerates only the most important semantic features […], which suffice to differentiate it from other units” (Zgusta 1971: 253), and the semantic relationship of hyponymy is used to situate the definiendum in context, expressing a “generic conceptual relationship whereby concepts are arranged in classes according to similarities and differences noted between them” (Svensén 1993: 122 and 2009: 218). Nakamoto (1998) distinguishes analytical definitions according to their perspective,21 while Svensén (1993: 122- 124 and 2009: 218- 222) more generally distinguishes between intensional and extensional definitions, where the former consist of denoting the content of a concept, while the latter exemplify the range of a concept by enumerating examples. Finally, Geeraerts (2010: 83, similarly 76 and 115) maintains that the analytical definition is strongly influenced by a structuralist semantic approach: […] an analytical definition […] is supposed to consist of a genus proximum, i.e. the next higher superordinate term in a taxonomy, to which are added differentia specifica, i.e. the attributes that distinguish the concept to be defined from its co-hyponyms. And clearly, this model of definition also underlies the basic ideas of componential analysis.

Analytical definitions are, as the example so far has also illustrated, mostly used for nouns since these are easily organised in hierarchies, but can also be used for some groups of verbs (Atkins/Rundell 2008: 415). When it then comes to verbs and also adjectives in general, another way of defining, namely paraphrasing, is usually chosen. Very simply, this approach consists of a “brief rewriting” (Svensén 1993: 117) or only giving a synonym and is often also subsumed under the term ‘synonymy’ (Jackson 2002: 94, Svensén 2009: 214- 217).

|| 21 The author examines whether analytical definitions are written in an anthropocentric or referent-based perspective, and divides the former type into sub-types according to the presence of the personal pronoun you. A definition is referent-based if the genus word is the subject of a postmodifier and the definition defines by keeping the entity in mind. In an anthropocentric definition, the genus word is the object of a postmodification and the definition is written in the perspective of a person (for examples, e.g. 1998: 206).

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This is a space-saving approach, the only disadvantage of which lies in the potential danger of different connotations of near-synonyms (Atkins/Rundell 2008: 421, Svensén 1993: 118- 119). If a paraphrase or synonym is added to an analytical definition, we speak of a hybrid definition (Svensén 1993: 131- 132). The third major type of definition, the full-sentence definition, was invented by COBUILD and is therefore also called the COBUILD definition (Svensén 2009: 235). Although it has been in use since the first COBUILD edition, it has hardly been described in general lexicographic literature until now.22 This type of definition consists of giving a full sentence where “the definiendum is embedded” (Atkins/Rundell 2008: 441), and it explains a lexical item in a way a native speaker would use when asked what this item means; “[t]he underlying idea is that the definition should […] resemble ordinary speech” (Svensén 2009: 235). Examples, including the definition structure, are given in figure 3 (cf. Sinclair 1991: 124, Svensén 2009, 236).

Fig. 3: The form and structure of the full-sentence definition (COBUILD6, s.v. dictionary and look up)

Regarding its structure, the definition consists of a contextualising and an explanatory part, also called ‘left-hand’ and ‘right-hand side’. The former comprises the repetition of the headword and shows lexical and syntactic usage; in the example of look up, it mentions that pieces of information are normally looked up and these “colligational and collocational preferences” (Atkins/Rundell 2008: 441) are embedded in the definition. The contextualising part may also vary according to word class: with nouns, it is often a noun phrase connected with the operator is (‘A dictionary is…’); for verbs, we find temporal or conditional clauses introduced by operators (‘If you look up …’; alternatively, also when and someone are used). The ex-

|| 22 Atkins/Rundell (2008) and Svensén (2009) are the first introductory books on lexicography to include this type; references to this defining type can, of course, already be found in articles devoted to dictionary comparisons, e.g. Aarts (1991), Herbst (1990) and (1996), Rundell (1998).

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planatory part “has most in common with definitions in traditional dictionaries” in Hanks’ (1987: 131) words; the right-hand side of the definition of dictionary in the example above could stand alone as an analytical definition (cf. Atkins/Rundell 2008: 441- 443, Sinclair 1991: 123- 137, Svensén 2009: 236- 239). Hanks (2008: 220221) explains that this definition scheme is due to the fact that […] Sinclair was determined to get rid of the apparatus of traditional dictionaries (reductionist and substitutable definitions, simplistic grammatical categorizations, overuse of brackets, etc.), an apparatus which he thought was to a large extent both theoretically unsound and meaningless to users.

When it comes to the advantages and disadvantages of this definition type, the major advantage mentioned lies in the naturalness of the wording (cf. Hanks 1987: 117, Herbst 1996: 326, Herbst/Klotz 2003: 54- 55, Rundell 1998: 333 and 2006: 326) because it resembles so-called folk definitions. These are natural explanations by native speakers provided in a context of discourse, which are as long as they need to be, while they draw on a variety of techniques and more easily remain in the memory (Stock 1988: 81 and 83- 86). Full-sentence definitions furthermore allow for “providing information on semantic and collocational ranges of the valency complements of a verb” and function as a kind of “generalized example sentence” (both Herbst 1996: 326). Disadvantages, on the other hand, concern the length of the definitions, especially in the context of space-restrictions in a dictionary, as well as restrictions on the syntactic and collocational variety that can be indicated within one single definition (Herbst 1990: 1382, Rundell 2006: 327- 333). Atkins/Rundell (2008: 442) claim that this definition type “works especially well for words whose selectional and syntactic preferences are easy to identify and fairly limited”. But whereas Rundell (2006: 326) says originally in his article that full-sentence definitions “provide a much fuller picture of the target lexical item”, he also concludes (2006: 333) in the light of all its disadvantages that “FSDs represent a useful new strategy […], but that the same objectives can often be achieved through other means […]”. This defining type is therefore not undisputed. The last type of definition is a kind of derivation from full-sentence definitions, namely single-clause when-definitions (henceforth sc-wh definition). Whereas the literature on full-sentence definitions is scarce, there is even less on sc-whs, although this defining type can be found in more and more entries of the latest learner’s dictionaries. The only authors who have worked more extensively on this type of definition in a series of studies are Lew/Dziemianko (2006, 2013 and Dziemianko/Lew 2006, 2012). They describe (Lew/Dziemianko 2006: 226- 229) the structure of this type of definition, mostly used for abstract nouns, in comparison to full-sentence definitions: Both defining types are in this case introduced by when, but whereas when functions as a hinge and introduces the topic and an extensive co-text in full-sentence definitions, sc-wh definitions only work with a reduced co-

Defining practice | 33

text and a gloss, the latter of which is also present in full-sentence definitions. An example from their article is quoted in figure 4.

Fig. 4: The form and structure of the single-clause when-definition (Lew/Dziemianko 2006: 228)23

At first sight, this type seems like an abbreviation of space-consuming full-sentence definitions; it also “begins with ‘when’ but (unlike FSD) consists of a single clause and has no main verb” (Atkins/Rundell 2008: 443). However, sc-wh definitions do not allow for as much information on valency as full-sentence definitions do (‘revival of’, Lew/Dziemianko 2006: 229), and there is a certain potential for misinterpretation due to the difficulty of bringing reduced folk defining into the dictionary setting (Atkins/Rundell 2008: 444). Lew/Dziemianko have accordingly also found out in the course of their studies (cf. Lew/Dziemianko 2006, 2012; Dziemianko/Lew 2006, 2013) that sc-wh definitions are significantly less helpful in determining the part of speech of lexical items than analytical definitions, but might be acceptable in rich microstructures which make up for missing grammatical information (2013: 168). Interestingly enough, to conclude, this defining type is not as recent as one may believe: Osselton (2007: 395) showed in his article that it was used as early as in Elisha Cole’s dictionary (cf. chapter two), mostly for nautical and hunting items. A few remarks should still be made regarding a special case of definitions. Whereas definitions and lexicography seem to have long been inspired by structuralist semantics (cf. Geeraerts‘s quote above and chapter four), allusions can also be found to cognitive semantics, especially prototype theory, in the literature on definitions. Svensén (2009: 224- 22624) is the first to speak explicitly of ‘prototypical definitions’ as a variation of analytical definitions; according to him, these are definitions which contain distinctive features but are supplemented by the mention of typical

|| 23 For a similar scheme on full-sentence definitions alone, cf. Sinclair (1991: 125). 24 This is based on Rothe (2004) who traces the existence of semantic theories in lexicography.

34 | Principles of learner lexicography

cases which are introduced in the definitions by ‘special words’25 such as usually, especially, often.26 Hanks (1987: 118) already said in the eighties, in the context of full-sentence definitions, that they “are always to be read as stating what is typically the case, not as providing sets of necessary or sufficient conditions”. In general, it is also Hanks (1988: 37) who stressed very early the importance of typicality when it comes to defining, and he also speaks of the meaning potentials of words created by context rather than of words having single senses (cf. 2000, similarly Nida 1992: 132 and 1997: 266). Atkins/Rundell (2008: 418) conclude that cognitive and corpus linguistics are developments that […] draw us away from the […] traditional approach of ‘defining’, and take us into a messier, more relative world, in which we create ‘explanations’ that will enable users to interpret all […] uses of a word.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen (cf. chapter four) in how far definitions correspond to cognitive principles and what position cognitive linguistics has achieved.

3.2.2 Defining principles and defining vocabularies The formal features and possibilities outlined in the previous chapter look straightforward and seem to offer a wide variety of ways for describing the meaning of lexical items. It has, however, already been mentioned that definition writing is more complex than it may seem, the problems of which are also discussed in the literature. Starting with the perspective of the user, s/he first has to familiarise him- or herself with a dictionary’s conventions regarding the form and rendering of meaning, which is itself not trivial since dictionaries have their own coded language – called “lexicographese” by Ilson (1984: 82). The lexicographer, on the other hand, also finds himself in a dilemma as regards definition writing, since he, according to Hanks (1979: 35) […] is in the impossible position of a man who undertakes to answer people’s questions, but since he does not know at the time of compilation what questions exactly his public will ask, he has to try and word his entries so as to answer all possible questions about them.

|| 25 Compare also Lakoff (1982: 160- 161) who speaks of these ‘special words’ in terms of hedges, which are linguistic “expressions that function semantically to form categories consisting of representative members” (1982: 160). A summary thereof also in Taylor (2011: 77- 82). 26 A similar remark on an observation of prototypical definitions in current English dictionaries can also already be found in Geeraerts (2007: 1163, identically also 2001: 14), who generalises that “this prototype-oriented definitional technique can hardly be called exceptional […].”

Defining practice | 35

Hanks (2005: 254) elaborates further that definitions in general suffer from the problem that they are trying to capture something evanescent, that they constitute everyone’s private belief about public language and that they are “at best a series of desperate compromises with an ultimately unknowable truth”. Bolinger (1985: 193) adds that lexicography is an unnatural occupation since words are taken out of context. Nevertheless, definitions lie at the heart of dictionary entries and apart from the formats outlined in the previous chapter, a few practices make an attempt to ensure their general intelligibility. For this purpose, some basic rules are repeatedly mentioned in the literature as principles of definition writing (cf. Zgusta 1971: 257- 258, and accordingly Atkins/Rundell 2008: 433- 436, Béjoint 2010: 324- 329, Jackson 2002: 93- 94, Landau 2001: 163- 171, Svensén 1993: 124- 131 and 2009: 226- 228, also Miller 1986: 182- 183). These state that the words used for a definition are supposed to be simpler than the headword itself and should also be included themselves in the dictionary, while circularity should be avoided (defining word A in terms of word B, while word B is defined in terms of word A), but substitutability is to be ensured (i.e. definitions should be written syntactically27 so that they could be replaced by the headword). Atkins/Rundell (2008: 450- 451) answer the question of what a good definition is by saying that content and form must fit together (also Rundell 1998: 324), and they enumerate several further features necessary for intelligibility in lists (2008: 412413), e.g. that the language of the definition should be appropriate to the skills of the target user and that the definition should enable the user to use and interpret the word in a new context. Rundell (1998: 325) finally summarises the situation: all decisions regarding form and context should be made with respect to their general “lexicographic relevance”. The last point to be mentioned deals with defining vocabularies, which are so widely used nowadays that they can themselves count as a principle of definition writing. Although the idea of defining vocabularies originated in the vocabulary control movement in the early 20th century, with its respective publications, the OALD had in its first editions never used one. It was LDOCE that introduced this feature with its first edition, and it was widely appreciated as a revolution (cf. chapter two above). It initiated a vast amount of literature devoted to the nature of defining vocabularies and their advantages and disadvantages, centring mostly on LDOCE’s (first) defining vocabulary (cf. Ayto 1984, Herbst 1986, Jansen et al. 1987, Neubauer 1984, 1987 and 1989). In Atkins/Rundell’s words (2008: 449),

|| 27 For this purpose, different defining formats are usually recommended for different word classes, cf. e.g. Svensén’s suggestions (1993: 127- 131 and 2009: 228- 235).

36 | Principles of learner lexicography

[a] defining vocabulary is a finite list of high-frequency words (typically the most frequent 2,000-3,000 words in the language) which the learner is expected to ‘know’ sufficiently well to be able to understand any definition in the dictionary.

Since, as Carter (1987: 4) explains, “[l]earning the most core 2,000-3,000 words in a language provides a firm basis of about 80 per cent of the words likely to be encountered”, the aim in using a defining vocabulary is therefore to “maximise the user’s chances of understanding the definition” (Ayto 1984: 50). If the defining vocabulary does not suffice, words from outside are permitted, printed in small capitals as a cross-reference28 (a “mixed definition” in Neubauer’s terms (1989: 900)29). The advantages of the use of a defining vocabulary are quite obvious: in using simple words, “the user […] can now at least understand what is communicated […]” (Neubauer 1987: 49) and user-friendliness is ensured; the restriction also enforces lexicographic discipline (Ayto 1984: 54, Herbst 1986: 113 and 1990: 1382). However, the common disadvantages mentioned comprise arbitrary decisions in the set-up of the vocabulary, e.g. basic words missing (Ayto 1984: 53- 54), words being included which belong to a certain core vocabulary but are not useful for description (Neubauer 1987: 50) or a lack of demarcation of meaning for polysemous items (Svensén 2009: 247). The strongest argument put forward against the use of a defining vocabulary is the danger that the definitions become simplistic and unable to render more complex concepts, or even inexact and unnatural in their wording since certain lexemes are not permitted (Antor 1994: 79, Svensén 2009: 247- 248). Carter mentions (1987: 10) that “defining vocabularies can achieve simplicity at the expense of accuracy”, but the opposite, definitions becoming syntactically more complex in order to avoid non-core items (Fontenelle 2009: 419) is also possible. Today, all major learner’s dictionaries use defining vocabularies, (with the exception of COBUILD); the indicated size varies between 2,000 (LDOCE) to 2,500 (MEDAL) and 3,000 (OALD),30 although the size is actually of minor importance (Herbst/Klotz 2003: 52, Herbst 1986: 114 and 1996: 324). LDOCE’s defining vocabulary cannot be fully determined either in its actual size, since it admits a list of preand suffixes for derivation as well as compounding between the elements of the || 28 This practice is not adhered to by MEDAL2 if the cross-referenced entry is nearby, as Bogaards (2003: 48) observed. 29 Compare Neubauer’s classification (1989: 900- 903) of vocabulary control in definitions, for which defining vocabularies are only one element. Further approaches are attempts at simple language without restrictions or defining vocabularies with sense differentiations (for the latter, seen by the author as improvements to existing defining vocabularies, also 1984: 120- 123). 30 CALD3 seems to use a defining vocabulary, but only hints at it in the preface (“Definitions are written using words that learners of English are likely to know. If we have to use a word that is not on the list, it is in SMALL CAPITALS.”, p. XI) and neither indicates its size nor prints it in the appendix as the other dictionaries usually do. My interpretation is that they rely on their core vocabulary and their indications of frequency (p. VIII-IX) for writing definitions.

Further means of meaning explanation | 37

defining vocabulary (LDOCE5: 2060),31 which raises the number of items to 5,000 to 10,000, as Herbst/Klotz estimate (2003: 52, also Herbst 1986: 105). Naturally, the defining vocabularies are not identical either among the dictionaries, and sometimes, elements that seem very basic figure in one defining vocabulary but are missing in another, or supposedly less basic items are integrated because they seem useful for defining purposes.32 Undoubtedly, definitions are the heart of the dictionary entry; they draw on a variety of forms and practices, which can all also be preserved under a cognitive approach, as will be demonstrated later (cf. chapter six). But even if definitions are the central part of an entry and the most elaborate lexicographic feature, they often do not suffice to explain meaning. They are accompanied by example sentences and further methods of meaning explanation, which will be outlined in the next chapter.

3.3 Further means of meaning explanation 3.3.1 Example sentences Whereas dictionary definitions draw on a range of different formats, this is not the case for example sentences. Example sentences are simply “a language sample which includes the headword itself” (Stein 2002: 205, original italics maintained) in a dictionary entry, and they belong to an open class with a different status than definitions (Harras 1989: 608). Although example sentences were a feature of EFL-lexicography from the very beginning (cf. chapter two), they now have a more prominent role, with EFLdictionaries’ productive orientation based on research into users’ needs from the 1970s onwards (Cowie 1989: 56). Regarding their form, they are in most cases full sentences, but can also consist only of a short phrase. Normally, every dictionary entry offers at least one example (cf. the microstructure of an entry above), but some dictionaries also follow a “dual-track approach” (Bogaards 2003: 50 on MEDAL1), where less frequent items are not provided with an example. Xu (2008: 407) has found that exemplification in recent learner’s dictionaries correlates with the frequency of items, where unmarked core words are given more examples and where adjectives and function words are given more examples than other parts of speech. Generally, example sentences complement the definition and have supportive functions, often fulfilling several of these functions at a time (Cowie 1989: 57).

|| 31 Jansen et al. (1987: 83) mention here an “excessive reliance on affixation” as a possible source for a lack of consistency in defining vocabularies. 32 Compare Bogaards’s (2003: 48) analysis of MEDAL, mentioning the examples of law-making and leadership as part of MEDAL’s defining vocabulary, which are only used in three definitions, but avoiding them would make these three definitions longer and less intelligible.

38 | Principles of learner lexicography

An example sentence’s function can, according to Drysdale (1987: 218- 222), consist of: supplementing the definition, showing the headword in a context, distinguishing several meanings, illustrating grammatical patterns, showing typical collocations and indicating style and register. Cowie (1989: 57) further specifies this classification: according to him, the first three of the aforementioned are decoding functions, whereas the latter three fulfil encoding functions. Atkins adds (1995: 37) that examples may have an explicit or implicit dimension (exemplifying information given elsewhere in the dictionary or be the only source for this kind of information); and sometimes, other distinctions can be found, such as defining vs. naming examples (dealing with how the headword is incorporated into the example, as in Drysdale 1987: 222), or commented or uncommented examples (with or without an indication of meaning, as in Svensén 2009: 281). Atkins/Rundell maintain (2008: 458461) that a good example needs to be natural and typical, informative and intelligible;33 and Stein comments critically (1999: 54 and 2002: 214) that the need for exemplification is also dependent on the quality of the definition.34 When one asks where examples in dictionaries actually come from,35 there are generally three sources mentioned: example sentences can be authentic and be taken from a corpus, they can be adapted from a corpus and they can be wholly made-up, i.e. invented (cf. Atkins 1995: 38, Engelberg/Lemnitzer 2008: 206, Herbst/Klotz 2003: 58, Svensén 2009: 283). With the advent of the COBUILD dictionary in 1987 with its unique corpus approach of using authentic language only, a debate ensued as to whether authentic or made-up example sentences are to be regarded as superior (e.g. Humblé 2001: 78- 80, Svensén 2009: 283- 285), and in which different authors take different positions. Cowie (1989: 58- 60), on the one hand, seems to be strongly in favour of made-up examples saying that they can be shaped according to the learner’s needs without having to make a selection, that they are self-sufficient without a context and are not as narrow as is often contended. He concedes that there is a danger of “sacrificing linguistic naturalness to explanatory fullness” when inventing an example, but on the other hand, “use of authentic data […] is no guarantee that the various needs […] will automatically be fulfilled” (1989: 59). Herbst (1990: 1382) also comments in this context that “the fact that a particular sentence happens to be in the corpus used does not necessarily make it the best example”. Hanks (himself a lexicographer and once part of the

|| 33 Compare also Harras’ criteria for good examples (1989: 611- 613) – e.g. display of prototypical cases or display of sense relations to other entries – and her appeal for a theory of example sentences. Regarding display of prototypical information, cf. also Atkins (1995: 37). 34 Compare also Stein’s models (1999: 54 and 2002: 213) on the place of the example and its interaction with other parts of the dictionary entry. 35 Compare here the general distinction between example and quotations (textual evidence of a word with an attesting function), e.g. in Stein (2002: 205) or Atkins/Rundell (2008: 453).

Further means of meaning explanation | 39

COBUILD project), on the other hand, promotes nothing but authentic examples, saying that made-up examples are not natural and serve only a constructed purpose; he thinks (2005: 263) that [t]he lexicographer who makes up an example risks misleading the user by holding up as a model sentences and phrases which in reality would never be uttered by a real speaker having a real communicative purpose.

As with all “either-or-questions”, the matter might not be as black and white as it seems. Rundell (1998: 334) also takes a more moderate position saying that [a]ll reputable MLDs now base every aspect of their text on corpus data, so the differences now lie in the degree to which corpus material is ‘processed’ on the way into the examples.

Thus indeed, the question might not be where the example comes from but if it is of good quality and fulfils the necessary functions. Example sentences have also motivated research: Laufer (1993) tested the comprehension of unknown words from definitions and example sentences alone or combined and discovered (1993: 140- 141) that generally, the traditional entry is best for an average user, whereas good users can also understand new words by definition or example alone. Frankenberg-García (2012) conducted an experiment on corpus example sentences with the aim of finding out whether they are superior to dictionary definitions in comprehension. Her result (2012: 286) was that three corpus examples can achieve the same effect as a definition. Humblé (2001: 55), finally, considers example sentences to be “the core of foreign language lexicography” and has outlined his suggestions (2001: 97- 160) for improvement based on smaller experiments, where the main emphasis is on a distinction between decoding and encoding examples. Generally, example sentences are a vital part of a dictionary entry and it remains to be seen at a later point (cf. chapter five), which form they can take in a cognitive approach.

3.3.2 Illustrations and other features Dictionary definitions and example sentences usually make up the bulk of every dictionary entry. But they are far from being the only methods of meaning description and can be supplemented by illustrations and other minor features, which will be outlined in this chapter. Illustrations are used when the verbal description is insufficient (Stein 1991: 105, Svensén 1993: 167 and 2009: 298), and early research into dictionary use has already shown that the vast majority of users think that they facilitate decoding (Tomaszczyk 1979: 114). They tend to be used more often in monolingual dictionar-

40 | Principles of learner lexicography

ies than bilingual ones, and in dictionaries aimed at learners or younger users, since they help to activate experiential knowledge (Svensén 1993: 168- 169 and 2009: 299300). Illustrations support the verbal description by showing more typical features, by replacing otherwise extensive definitions, by representing conceptual relationships and by contrasting within one subject field (Svensén 2009: 298- 299, similarly Herbst 1996: 340). Regarding their form, they can be distinguished as photos and drawings, and can be printed either in black-and-white or colour. Photos are said to be more realistic but cannot be shaped to defining needs as a drawing can and might consume more space; the use of colours is of course more expensive in print (Svensén 2009: 301- 302). Therefore, extensive colour illustrations are mostly found in the study pages either in the appendix or in the middle of the dictionary, separating the body, and are often printed on high-quality paper. All modern learner’s dictionaries make use of illustrations (Rundell 1998: 335); the latest edition of COBUILD is the last MLD to start using illustrations. The macrostructural place of (smaller) illustrations is usually “in the immediate vicinity of the lemma, either within the regular text-face or in the margin” in order to achieve interaction between verbal and visual explanation (Svensén 2009: 301). When it comes to functions and classifications of different kinds of illustrations, several authors have come up with different classifications (cf. Ilson 1987, Hupka 1984 and 1989, Stein 1991), and it is striking that no unified classification, such as there are for definitions, seems to exist, possibly because the use of illustrations is generally scarce and random regarding the illustrated lexemes. There is a discrepancy between the approaches in the perspective of analysis, namely whether the types of lexical items in need of illustration are analysed or the various types of illustrations found in dictionaries (Stein 1991: 105, Svensén 2009: 303); the term ‘illustration’ is also used differently by different authors.36 For matters of simplicity, the categories put forward are schematically listed in table 5. The most useful classification in lexicographic terms seems to be Hupka’s,37 since his labels are self-explanatory and most illustrations found in dictionaries can be classified according to them (which was also his approach (1984: 169)). Stein’s classification (1991: 107- 126) is – apart from the categories mentioned in the table – much more elaborate, describing many different instances of illustrations (e.g. for concrete nouns, in typical surroundings, for verbs and adjectives etc.), each with an example and grouped according to word class. Interestingly enough, Ilson based his classification very early on cognitive terms using Fillmore’s classification (1978), though without going into more details or adapting the approach to lexicography

|| 36 Ilson (1987: 195) defines the term very broadly counting “tables and diagrams as well as pictures” among them. 37 Please note that Svensén’s introduction (1993: 167- 180 and 2009: 303- 313) is based on Hupka (1989) and uses his terms more or less freely while giving examples for the different kinds.

Further means of meaning explanation | 41

but simply giving examples from dictionaries. Generally, illustrations can most often be found for concrete nouns as these are easy to depict (Svensén 2009: 303), but possibly, the illustrations found in MLDs today might be different from those used for the classifications of more than twenty years ago. Hupka’s classification indeed seems to be the most useful, whereas sometimes, the only important distinction is the one according to Ilson (1987: 194), namely if an illustration is a group illustration (where several items of a category are depicted) or a composite one (where the different parts of an item are labelled). Tab. 5: Classifications of illustrations by different authors

Author

Classification of illustrations

Hupka (1989, also 1984); [translations by Stein (1991: 105)]

1. Unikale Illustration 2. Aufzählende Illustration [enumerating] 3. Sequentielle Illustration [sequential] 4. Strukturelle Illustration [structural] 5. Funktionale Illustration [functional] 6. Nomenklatorische Illustration [nomenclatory] 7. Szenische Illustration [scenic] 8. Funktionsschemata [functional schemata] 9. Enzyklopädische Illustration [encyclopaedic]

Stein (1991: 107- 126)

illustrations that can stand alone  illustrations in need of verbal support: identifying labels vs. differentiating labels vs. captions

Ilson (1987: 194- 198)

group and composite illustrations (noun); classification based on Fillmore’s (1978) word fields and semantic domains (contrast set, taxonomy, partonomy, paradigm, cycle, chain, network, frame)

In addition to illustrations, further smaller features can be part of a dictionary entry or be found near the entry and help to elucidate meaning.38 One of them is the style labels given to lexemes for indicating style and register. They are an attempt to make the user aware of a certain use of a word or even warn of a use (such as the labels taboo, offensive do). The most common labels are formal, informal or regional labels e.g. for British and American English, but Hünig (2003: 372 and 381) has also found that labels vary greatly among different learner’s dictionaries (as well in number as in kind), which is why users cannot really rely on them. Another feature is the indication of word frequency: all MLDs indicate a core vocabulary based on a corpus.39 Further options are the marking of a certain word field (such as academic

|| 38 Compare also Wiegand (2009) for features of micro- and macrostructural access. Compare also Lew (2013) for a summary on the “Magnificent Seven Explanation techniques” (2013: 386), of which Definition (‘homoglossal definition’ compared to ‘heteroglossal definition’ / translation), Exemplification and Illustration are a part (2013: 387). 39 For an introduction to the use of corpora for frequency information, cf. Kilgarriff (1997); for a survey on modern MLDs’ practices of frequency indication, cf. Bogaards (2008).

42 | Principles of learner lexicography

words, in OALD8 marked by ‘AW’, in LDOCE5 by ‘AC’) or statistical graphs on frequency (also in LDOCE). All modern MLDs also employ usage boxes (whether they are given that name or others) where word use is explained and contrasted or vocabulary building is furthered. Signposts are another very important feature. They are short meaning paraphrases presented in highly polysemous entries at the beginning of each sense (after the number in bold print); they “help users disambiguate and thus find meaning more quickly” (deCesaris 2012: 532). Signposts came into use in MLDs in 1995, but it is not completely clear who invented them, LDOCE or CALD (Béjoint 2010: 176). They are now widely used under various names (by OALD, LDOCE and CALD as short cuts, signposts and guidewords). A similar function is provided in other dictionaries by menus (COBUILD or MEDAL), where a semantic summary of all possible meanings is given at the beginning of a longer entry (Atkins/Rundell 2008: 204, 216 and 444). DeCesaris (2012) has observed in her analysis that signposts can semantically take the form of a superordinate, a paraphrase, a brief definition, a synonym or a field label and noted therefore that they generally display a “‘mixed-bag’ nature” (2012: 533). They are also used very unsystematically across dictionaries and word classes and are also dependent on other features of the entry, e.g. the length and kind of the definition. Nevertheless, they are a feature that contributes considerably to user-friendliness and forces the lexicographer to make informed decisions about the order of the entry (2012: 532 and 534- 538). All the features of a dictionary entry outlined in this and the previous chapters are methods of general lexicographic practice with the aim of making meaning description as transparent as possible. It remains to be seen later which of them can be used for cognitive lexicography and to what extent. Before this can be tackled, a few comments must still be made on the nature of lexicography as a science.

3.4 On lexicography as a science Many theoretical issues on how to display information in dictionaries have been outlined in the previous chapters, but these were a record of lexicographic practice. When it comes to theory, on the other hand, we find a controversy in the literature about whether there is something like theory, and in this case, whether lexicography is a proper science. Every science follows clear rules and conventions; with regards to the set-up of a dictionary, we also find them in the unanimous and detailed outlines of the socalled lexicographic process in literature. It comprises different stages in the writing process of dictionaries, involving principled decisions, from recruiting staff over choosing software tools and starting from lemma selection to adjusting the diction-

On lexicography as a science | 43

ary according to a style guide (cf. Atkins 1992, Atkins/Rundell 2008: 97- 129 and 160200, Engelberg/Lemnitzer 2008: 197- 222, Landau 2001).40 Whereas this process might be slightly different from one dictionary project to another, the most important and undisputed stage in it is nowadays the use of computer corpora (cf. Atkins/Rundell 2008: 53- 96, Engelberg/Lemnitzer 2008: 208- 209). While Fillmore (1992: 105) already called for a combination of an ‘armchair linguist’ and a ‘corpus linguist’ for successful language description more than twenty-five years ago, Atkins/Rundell (2008: 53) suggest that a corpus occupies a central role in lexicography and “should be as large and diverse as possible” (2008: 74).41 Apart from these attempts at formalisation in the dictionary writing process, however, the status of lexicography as a science has often been doubted;42 it is often only seen as a branch of applied linguistics (cf. Atkins/Rundell 2008: 4, Tarp 2001: 23 and 2009: 155). Wierzbicka (1985: 5) has, in line with her pessimism regarding the theoretical foundation of lexicography, also noted a discrepancy between the practice and its theoretical vacuum in lexicography compared to theory and an empirical vacuum in semantics. Furthermore, the community can be split into two groups: authors who believe in lexicographic theory and those who do not (Bogaards 2010: 313, similarly Rundell 2012a: 47-48). The latter group can be represented by Atkins/Rundell, who simply say about theoretical lexicography (2008: 4) that “we do not believe that such a thing exists”, or by Béjoint (2010: 381), who does not believe either in the existence of the possibility of a theory of lexicography, since we are dealing with a craft. Tarp (2008, 2009), representing the Aarhus functional lexicography, on the other hand, is one of the strongest advocates of a theory of lexicography; he defines it (2009: 157) as […] a systematically organised set of statements about the conception, production, usage and history of dictionaries and their relationship with specific types of social need. (original italics maintained)

He further acknowledges (2009: 155- 156) the interdisciplinary vocation of lexicography but calls for a general lexicographic theory, outlining his suggestions (2008, cf. also Wiegand 1999) with a theory of lexicographical functions, e.g. considering

|| 40 For an example of principled decisions regarding the consistency of a dictionary’s macro- and microstructure, cf. Atkins/Grundy (2006). 41 Due to space restrictions and the focus of this project, an extended discussion of the role and conception of corpora and their practical use in lexicography has to be excluded. For single examples, e.g. on a semantic corpus analysis of verbal near-synonyms, cf. Atkins/Levin (1995), or for an analysis of sense-relations, cf. Storjohann (2006). 42 Compare that Landau’s monograph (2001) is called The art and craft of Lexicography (emphasis added, CO), something also Tarp (2008: 7) and Atkins (1992: 31) remark.

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the users and their skills or the communicative situation. Bogaards himself seems to take a position somewhere in the middle, saying that (2010: 318) [i]f indeed we see the dictionary […] as an object that should strike the optimal balance between the three aspects mentioned: the data, the user and the way users get access to the data, then it is crystal clear that many different theories are involved if one wants to establish a healthy basis for the practice of dictionary writing.

This remark regarding different disciplines contributing to lexicography, together with a final comment (2010: 314), in which he claims that “[o]n many occasions, theoretical support is expected from linguistics”, shed light on the fact that lexicography and linguistics are actually intrinsically linked and share a long common history, some of which will be explored in the next chapter.

4 Cognitive linguistics and lexicography There is a large amount of linguistic knowledge in dictionaries, but there is little linguistic theory. Yet there are many lexicographic questions whose solutions can, or could, or should, be based on what the linguists know about language and its use. (Béjoint 2010: 275)

Even if lexicography is sometimes viewed as a craft rather than a science with solid theoretical foundations (chapter 3.4 above), it has always been influenced by linguistics. Linguistic research by Harold Palmer, Michael West and particularly A.S. Hornby lead to the new genre of monolingual learner’s dictionaries, and various linguistic sub-disciplines, such as corpus linguistics, have had an impact on learner’s dictionaries over the years (chapter 2). At the same time, the relationship between the two disciplines1 of lexicography and linguistics has not always been amicable; their rivalries and their relationship in general over the past decades will be briefly outlined here. This will automatically shed light on the difficulties of the undertaking of combining cognitive linguistics and lexicography in particular, the benefits of which will, however, also be presented in detail. At the same time, cognitive linguistic principles can be detected in traditional lexicography, mostly with respect to categorisation. The lexicographer who writes definitions or designs dictionary entries perceives the world in the same way as the user who reads the entries. He or she therefore often subconsciously applies cognitive principles, e.g. in the wording of definitions or presentation of material, and thus a short analysis thereof in traditional lexicography will be provided. The example analysed is the one most often cited, BIRDS, and the analysis will comprise definitions and illustrations. Finally, I will give a definition of the notion of cognitive linguistics, the approach taken in the subsequent chapters.

4.1 Combining two disciplines 4.1.1 The relationship of the disciplines Before combining lexicography and cognitive linguistics in particular, it is first necessary to have a look at the relationship of lexicography and linguistics in general. Since the former is often perceived as a branch of applied linguistics, it is only

|| 1 It should be noted that the term disciplines in relation to lexicography and cognitive linguistics might seem infelicitous since the two do not function on the same level, the former being an applied branch of linguistics, the latter a strand of linguistic thinking. For lack of a better term, it will, however, be used here.

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natural for the two disciplines to exhibit strong ties; the question of what linguistics can contribute to lexicography has existed throughout modern times. Hanks (2005) has shown that Samuel Johnson already addressed linguistic questions in his approach to dictionary making. In the 19th century, lexicography served as a tool for historical semantics, recording and describing the history of the lexicon, something that can be regarded as a fruitful symbiosis due to their common historical orientation, to paraphrase Geeraerts (1997: 7- 9). It is therefore most often semantics and lexicology that are perceived as having a relation to lexicography, since these disciplines all deal foremost with word meaning and the description of words. Although this relationship started to deteriorate, however, at the beginning of the 20th century, since the practical component became more important than the scientific one, the ties became closer again in the middle of the 20th century under the influence of structuralist semantics (Geeraerts 1997: 9- 12). The relationship between lexicography and lexicographers on the one hand and linguistics on the other is nevertheless often not unproblematic: Lipka (1995: 381) wonders whether lexicography is the ‘poor relation’, i.e. an inferior family member, of lexicology and attests a “complex relationship” between the two, while Rundell (2012a: 61) notes even hostility among some lexicographers towards linguistics, the latter of which they suspect of attempting to ‘colonise’ lexicography. At the same time, lexicographers themselves were often considered to be non-linguists and rejected by the academic world (Béjoint 2000: 169), although today, both disciplines are “inextricably mixed” and “[n]o modern lexicographer can afford to ignore what linguistics has to offer” (2000: 177). Lexicographers are seen today as so-called “[l]inguists-cum-lexicographers” (Béjoint 2010: 2682). Stein (2002: 1) stresses that “[l]exicography has traditionally suffered from the separation between dictionary makers, linguists and language teachers”, and Atkins (1992: 32) also formulates an open position towards linguistics, saying that [a]lthough theoretical lexicography is certainly not synonymous with lexicology […], nor with its daughter science lexical semantics […], a large proportion of the decisions made by the lexicographer are linguistic decisions, and so we should consider particularly, but not exclusively, the contribution of theoretical linguistics to theoretical lexicography, and hence the role of the theoretical linguist in dictionary making.

In general, it seems that linguistics has always influenced lexicography and been the basis for lexicographic decisions, even if this role was more or less prominent and especially more or less welcome, depending on the time and the people who were compiling dictionaries. Today, lexicographers seem to be more and more

|| 2 Compare here also Béjoint who quotes (2010: 269) a series of famous lexicographers and comments that “Sue Atkins, Patrick Hanks, Rosamund Moon, and others began as lexicographers but eventually gained recognition as linguists”.

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aware of the role of linguistics and the two disciplines work together rather than against each other. When we then ask more specifically which branches of linguistics or strands of linguistic thinking have had an impact on lexicography so far, we can generally conclude in Lipka’s words (1995: 382) that “the internal development of linguistic theory is reflected, with some delay, in the work of the lexicographers”.3 While dictionaries from the early 20th century were still influenced by the tradition of historical linguistics of the 19th century, the major influence in the 20th century came from structuralist semantics, while influences from generative semantics were limited; a dictionary was (and is often still) seen as a record of the language with the lexicon being regarded as a structure with paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations between its words (Béjoint 2000: 173- 174, similarly 2010: 264- 268). But it was not only semantics that exerted an influence on lexicography: pragmatics also influenced dictionary writing, with labels being included in dictionary entries as a result of a “pragmatization” (Lipka 1995: 382). Geeraerts (1989a: 291- 293) also mentions pragmatic principles underlying lexicography (e.g. regarding communicative intentions of content or consultative interests of the user). Apart from semantics and pragmatics, John Sinclair and corpus linguistics “have profoundly influenced lexicographic practice and products in the last quarter century” (Rundell 2012a: 66). In addition to these major strands, lexicography is generally also open to other linguistic influences: two famous lexicographers, Rundell (2012a: 67- 70) and Atkins (1992: 41- 43), both recommend reading linguistic literature (e.g. Lakoff/Johnson 1980/2003), however “more for their consciousness-raising discussion than for immediate applicability” (Atkins 1992: 42). Finally, two articles from the volume edited by Herbst et al. (2004) demonstrate that branches of cognitive linguistics, here prototype theory and frame semantics (cf. Jehle 2004, Bublitz/Bednarek 2004), are beginning to be tentatively counted among the neighbouring sciences of lexicography (“Basis- und Nachbarwissenschaften”). Lexicography has thus always drawn on a wide variety of linguistic influences4 and it will be shown later how cognitive linguistics in particular can contribute to this process.

|| 3 Compare here Béjoint’s assessment (2000: 173) that “[t]he main currents of theoretical linguistics have had echoes in practical lexicography, but mostly faint ones, as if the rumours had taken a long time to reach the quiet studies of working lexicographers, and as if they had been weakened by the time they finally arrived.” 4 Compare in contrast Béjoint’s pessimistic statement (2010: 345) that “[…] what linguistics has given to lexicography is frustrating”, since questions relevant for lexicography, such as what a word meaning is or how many meanings a word has, cannot even be solved by linguistics.

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4.1.2 Cognitive linguistics as a new input The question that arises from all the aforementioned is nevertheless: why would it be beneficial to use yet another branch of linguistics, cognitive linguistics, as a new basis for lexicography? Why should these two disciplines be combined when lexicography already draws on various linguistic disciplines and is struggling with its self-conception as a “science without theory” (Bogaards 2010)? The answer is foremost that an analysis of semantic content in cognitive terms more adequately describes how language users process language, since cognitive linguistics works on both a semantic and referential level of language description, accepts differences in structural weight and fuzziness, and puts an emphasis on multidimensional, clustered semantic structures (Geeraerts 2007: 1161- 1162). Taking this as a basis in turn helps to produce a more realistic description of language in dictionaries that will be more easily understood by the dictionary user. Geeraerts (2007: 1168, nearly identically also 2001: 18- 19) summarises here that […] what Cognitive Linguistics seems to offer to lexicography is a conception of semantic structure that is perhaps in a number of respects more realistic than what many other semantic theories (in particular, theories of a structuralist persuasion) can provide.

Rundell (2012a: 48) also calls from a lexicographic point of view for a complete and systematic approach in line with an observation of usage, where “reliance on intuition and subjective judgements is kept to a minimum”; therefore, a stronger reliance on theory and empirical, realistic, i.e. psychologically plausible language description should be most welcome. The need for a more realistic description also arises from what again Geeraerts (2007: 1168, also 1990: 198- 201, 2001: 18) calls the linearization problem: it describes “the fact that lexicographers […] have to project a multidimensional clustered semantic structure onto the linear order of the dictionary”. This structure is the result of the nature of the mental lexicon, a fluid and changing network of nodes with multi-dimensional links between them (Aitchison 2003: 243- 2465). If the linearisation problem were to be overcome, cognitive linguistics could help to identify and develop “ways of dealing with the links between the senses of lexical items that go beyond common practice” (Geeraerts 2007: 1169 and identically 2001: 19), but which are more in line with how we store vocabulary in our mind. Summing up, there are thus three main reasons for applying cognitive linguistics to lexicography: the adherence to a more realistic semantic conception, a possible solution of the linearisation problem, and at the same time, an adaptation of

|| 5 Please note that there are also earlier models of mental networks, e.g. the spreading-activation model proposed by Collins and Loftus (1975).

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dictionary structure to that of the mental lexicon. Some voices in the literature have also already recognised the benefits of a cognitive lexicographic approach: Geeraerts states (2001: 19) that “Cognitive Semantics appears to offer an exciting perspective for the further development of lexicography […].” The most prominent voice may be Langacker: he pointed out in an interview (2005: 342) that cognitive grammar6 can serve as an approach for many dimensions of linguistics, so that he concludes: “I think there can and will eventually be a cognitive lexicography using the ideas of cognitive grammar.” Yet even if the novelty, the benefits and the usefulness of the approach are irrefutable, it does not mean that it proves to be unproblematic; the reasons mentioned for applying cognitive linguistics to lexicography represent at the same time obstacles to be overcome. Regarding new theories in general, and a more realistic semantic conception in particular, in Béjoint’s words (2000: 173), [t]his is because theoretical linguistics is not easily applied to lexicography, particularly new approaches, which are typically ill-fitted for a general-purpose dictionary that is meant to be used by the man in the street.

From another point of view, Stein (2002: 204) stresses the problem lexicographers face in applying linguistic theories to their practices: The hard-pressed dictionary compilers are thus not given the scholarly support so urgently called for to help them in their lexicographical decisions in order to improve particular aspects or areas in their dictionaries.

Thus, no matter how much lexicography and linguistics have always been related to one another, one simply has to acknowledge that “lexicographers and linguists have different agendas” (Rundell 2012a: 71); experience has furthermore shown, as Ungerer/Schmid (2006: 25, emphasis added, CO) observe, that e.g. [d]ictionary definitions are written for a practical purpose and not with a systematic linguistic and cognitive analysis in mind. Lexicographers can afford to skip some properties that are to be taken for granted, or they can modify their definitions by limiting expressions or ‘hedges’ […].

It is, however, precisely this linguistic and cognitive analysis that forms the basis for a more realistic cognitive lexicography. Paradoxically, as Geeraerts (1997: 13) notes, lexicographers, when interested in applying linguistic theory, often look in vain for

|| 6 Please note that Langacker does not see a terminological conflict between cognitive linguistics in general and cognitive grammar and, when asked about the relation between the two, equates them by saying (2005: 342): “Thus, instead of saying that cognitive grammar is different from cognitive linguistics, I would say that it is only one version of it.”

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information and can only rely on a limited amount of empirical material – something, which has often proven true for the features proposed later on in chapters five to seven (cf. also Gao 2013: 59). When returning to the aforementioned linearisation problem and the difference between the structure of the mental lexicon and the alphabetical arrangement of the dictionary, it is clear – not only from the contrast in figure 5 – that the two concepts could not be more different regarding structure and content: whereas the mental lexicon is seen as an extendable network with interrelations between its nodes, organised in semantic fields and accessed via their auditory images, i.e. sounds (Aitchison 2003: 240- 242), book dictionaries follow a strict alphabetical order in which content is countable and fixed, and where neither semantic nor phonological similarities play a role, but only the written word.7 “The fluidity and flexibility of the mental lexicon, then, contrasts strongly with the fixed vocabulary of any book […]” (Aitchison 2003: 13), since (2003: 11) “a desire to be neat and tidy in an alphabetical fashion may outweigh other considerations”.8

Fig. 5: The structure of the mental lexicon vs. a book dictionary (left: Aitchison 2003: 246, right: OALD8, s.v. dictionary and following)

It is therefore the task, but also the challenge, of cognitive lexicography to start a new chapter by combining cognitive linguistics and lexicography, and to overcome the problems mentioned for this approach. Cognitive lexicography must attempt to find more realistic dictionary content and structure, while at the same time

|| 7 It should be noted that dictionaries often do make attempts to follow semantic principles, e.g. via cross-references to synonyms and antonyms, or usage boxes for an onomasiological access (cf. chapter three); these attempts do not, however, entirely solve the problem described here. 8 Compare Miller (1986: 175- 177), who also points out the problem of the discrepancy between the mental lexicon, organised phonologically and semantically in semantic fields, and dictionaries where all this is “buried under the alphabetical ordering” (1986: 176). He furthermore remarks that the consequence of a preference for an alphabetical order over semantic fields is “polysemy across fields” (1986: 177), which itself would be minimal within each semantic field. The problem of polysemy will be addressed in chapter seven.

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remaining true to the book medium and traditional lexicography. Cognitive linguistics is, however, not completely absent from present dictionaries, since principles of categorisation can be detected. These principles will be outlined in more detail in the next chapter, before an elaborate definition of the concept of cognitive lexicography is given.

4.2 Categorisation in dictionaries 4.2.1 Human categorisation Over the past decades, cognitive linguistic research has put forward theories of how humans conceptualise the world in categories and how they structure their thinking. These theories, foremost prototype theory with family resemblance effects and conceptual hierarchies, will be briefly outlined, before discussing to what extent lexicographers acknowledge them in their practical work.

4.2.1.1 The horizontal level Forming categories as cognitive representations of the world around us is a central human activity that helps us to function as human beings; categories are a central concept in cognitive sciences (Lakoff 1982: 142- 143) and can roughly be defined as instances “whenever two or more distinguishable objects or events are treated equivalently” (Mervis/Rosch 1981: 89).9 In contrast to classical theories of semantics, “it is impossible to draw up a set of necessary and sufficient criteria” (Cruse 1990: 383); instead, “[c]ategory membership seems to be characterized […] by clusters of attributes” (Lakoff 1982: 146). Ever since Rosch’s research in the 1970s into the structure of cognitive categories of concrete objects (1973: 1975, Rosch/Mervis 1975), the notion has been accepted that we store mental concepts around an ideal representative, the prototype, which has all or most of the attributes we ascribe to this category. Rosch’s experiments with attribute listing or goodness-of-exemplar ratings of ten categories of concrete nouns, amongst them BIRD, FRUIT, and FURNITURE, have shown that informants’ judgements are consistent and also tell us not only about category membership of items, but also about the typicality of category members, i.e. their degree of representativeness. If we take the example of the category BIRD, the >ROBINPENGUINPENGUIN< belongs to the category BIRD, since it displays some attributes perceived to be typical for birds (e.g. ‘laying eggs’).11 This in turn indicates that categories are – in contrast to the classical view – not clear-cut but fuzzy, the last of the three aspects of prototype theory next to typicality and prototypicality (Schmid 1998: 9 and 11).12 Categories simply help us to structure the world with the least cognitive effort, termed cognitive economy, yet their internal structure is not arbitrary due to their perceived world structure (Rosch 1978: 28- 30). Prototype theory in general is a very powerful tool for explaining human categorisation of natural objects13 and has become, as Taylor says (2008: 42) “a locus communis of the cognitive linguistics literature”. Although a category is perceived “in terms of its clear cases rather than its boundaries” (Rosch 1978: 36), still also marginal members, such as the >PENGUIN< for BIRDS, are fairly easily categorised because of shared attributes. This is due to the fact that members of prototypically organised categories are related to one another by the principle of family resemblances in Wittgenstein’s (1953) sense. In this view, according to Rosch/Mervis (1975: 575), […] each item has at least one, and probably several, elements in common with one or more other items, but no, or few, elements are common to all items.

Family resemblances are thus “networks of overlapping attributes” (1975: 575), yet the number of attributes at work need not be specified. At the same time, precisely || 11 Compare Lakoff (1987) or Geeraerts (1989b: 149) on the degree of membership and degree of representativity. 12 Compare also Geeraerts (1989b: 144) who emphasises that the very capacity of prototype theory to deal with fuzziness made it appeal to the linguistic community, since this feature (among others) was neglected in structuralist approaches. 13 Compare Rosch (1978: 40- 41) who discusses common problems and misunderstandings of prototype theory, e.g. to suppose a literal single prototype for categories or forget about the fact that prototype only means reference to judgements of degree of prototypicality. Taylor (2008: 42- 44) also outlines problems of viewing categories solely in terms of their prototypes or even of confusing the prototype with the meaning of a category. Geeraerts (1989b: 146 and 155- 158) summarises problems of the prototype approach in general, such as the notion of being a prototypical concept itself.

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this number of attributes accounts for relations between categories: according to Rosch/Mervis (1975: 598- 599), […] the most prototypical members […] are those which bear the greatest family resemblance to other members of their own category and have the least overlap with other categories

which means that prototypical members have more attributes in common with other category members and less with other categories (1975: 602). Thus, the >PENGUIN< in our example is then a marginal member of the category BIRD, since it does not share many attributes with the prototype, yet might be a prototypical member of another category (possibly ARCTIC CREATURES), while the >ROBIN< as a prototype of the category BIRD with the most attributes would figure as an at least more peripheral member in another category. Family resemblances generally create internal coherence of a category and help to establish category structure; they are vice versa – next to frequency, salience of attributes and gestalt – also a principle of prototype formation (Rosch/Mervis 1975: 599).14 In any case, family resemblances are a valuable tool for explaining membership and the position of items in fuzzy category structures.

4.2.1.2 The vertical level Whereas prototype theory and the principle of family resemblances describe the horizontal organisation of internal category structure, categories themselves can be found on varying vertical levels of inclusiveness, building hierarchies between a superordinate, a middle position, the so-called basic level, and a subordinate. If we continue with the example of birds,15 ANIMAL would function as a superordinate, of which BIRD is a type and represents the basic level, itself having many more subordinates, such as the >ROBIN< or the >PENGUINROBIN< as a basic level, at least if we leave aside expert biological taxonomies and refer to folk taxonomies which have inconsistencies or gaps (2006: 65- 69). Compare here also Rosch et al. (1976: 390- 393 and 430- 432) on different attribute listings for biological and non-biological taxonomies with different amounts of knowledge changing a classification scheme, or Wierzbicka (1985: 189- 192) on the basic categorisation of life forms.

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immediately superordinate level plus their distinguishing attributes (cf. Taylor 2011: 49). The concept of BIRD is therefore equipped with the attributes of the category ANIMAL plus distinguishing attributes which are typical of birds, whereas all subordinates of the category BIRD share the attributes of the categories ANIMAL and BIRD adding specific attributes for a specific type of bird. Superordinate categories, such as ANIMAL, do not possess category-wide attributes (Rosch/Mervis 1975: 576, Rosch 1978: 31) and have “no common overall shape, and, consequently, no common underlying gestalt that applies to all category members” (Ungerer/Schmid 2006: 77). In order to be characterised, they borrow attributes from the basic level, something called parasitic categorization (2006: 77 and Ungerer 1994: 150). Superordinate categories have mostly a collecting function, namely “to subsume a large number of categories under one label which makes the set of categories available for easy handling” (Ungerer/Schmid 2006: 84), and thereby allow for abstraction (Ungerer 1994: 150). Subordinate categories, on the other hand, fulfil predominantly a highlighting function, stressing particular aspects of their immediate superordinate (Ungerer/Schmid 2006: 81). The members of the subordinate set are also “not so much categories, but individual instances” (Taylor 2011: 49), since they are similar to basic levels regarding gestalt and attributes, yet have specific attributes normally not shared by other categories, even if they also draw on general attributes from the basic level in terms of parasitic categorisation (Ungerer/Schmid 2006: 79- 81). The >ROBIN< therefore is easily recognised as a bird, sharing all attributes, while its red breast sets it apart and is not found in other categories. Rosch (1978: 32- 33) summarises here, regarding her experiments, that [v]ery few attributes were listed for the superordinate categories, a significantly greater number listed for the supposed basic-level object, and not significantly more attributes listed for the subordinate-level objects than for basic-level.

The cognitively most important category is represented by the middle, i.e. the basic level, in our example the category BIRD. Here we “are at the most inclusive level at which there are attributes common to all or most members of the category” (Rosch 1978: 31), thus where the “information value of attribute clusters is maximized” (Lakoff 1982: 147). It is because of this particular position that the other levels of taxonomies depend on it for conceptual structure, and that parasitic categorisation takes place (Ungerer 1994: 150). Characteristics of members of the basic level are, apart from category-wide attributes, a common overall shape of items and gestalt perception, as well as characteristic actions; they are morphologically simple, recognised more rapidly and acquired by children before super- or subordinates (cf. Lakoff 1982: 146 and 1987: 46- 54, Mervis/Rosch 1981: 92, Rosch 1978: 33- 35, Rosch et al. 1976: 385- 406; Schmid 1996: 286- 288). Basic level terms are furthermore the most deeply entrenched, i.e. routinised and automated categories and have the advantages of offering an ideal balance between specificity and variety of members,

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as well as similarity and difference within and across categories (Schmid 2007: 118 and 122- 124). They interact here with prototypes of categories: it is at the basic level that we find prototypically organised category structure with prototypes as cognitive reference points, while prototypes are fully developed on the basic level (Schmid 1996: 287, similarly 1998: 24 and Ungerer/Schmid 2006: 75). Summing up, the basic level is the cognitively most salient and most entrenched level with the greatest importance for categorisation. Following this short overview of principles of human categorisation, it will now be analysed whether they can be detected in dictionaries, and it will also be summarised what lexicographers have to say with respect to categorisation.

4.2.2 Categorisation in definitions and illustrations 4.2.2.1 Lexicography on categorisation When it comes to the categorisation principles found in dictionaries, especially the potential of prototype theory has been widely acknowledged. Atkins/Rundell mention (2008: 130) some “linguistic theories which we have found to have direct application to our work as dictionary planners and dictionary makers”, amongst which they also count prototype theory and frame semantics (2008: 131) and briefly include (2008: 275- 280) the former among the linguistic theories contributing to lexicography. Many more voices further point to the benefits of prototype theory for lexicography, e.g. Béjoint, who notes (2000: 176) that [t]he most promising aspect of modern semantics for lexicography – though it has not had any impact on practical dictionary making yet – is probably prototype theory and the ensuing discussion of the modes of categorization, of word meaning and the nature of semantic features […].

In the same respect, Geeraerts (1990: 208) praises prototype theory as a possible mode of circumventing the aforementioned linearisation problem and summarises (1990: 210) […] that prototype semantics is well suited as a theoretical basis […], since it accurately models the kind of semantic phenomena that lexicographers have to face up to […].

Apresjan adds more generally (2002: 51) that the reconstruction of conceptualisation underlying meaning is one of several pillars of systematic lexicography.16 || 16 The only critical voice with regard to the prototype concept is Anna Wierzbicka (1990). She criticises a general overuse of the prototype concept in lexical semantics, which leads to accepting simplifications and semantic fallacies and using it as an “excuse for intellectual laziness and sloppiness” (1990: 365) in defining. She advocates a remedy for the problem with semantic primitives, a subject which will be addressed later on in more detail (cf. chapter six).

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And it is along those lines that the remarks of practical lexicographers have to be read: Rundell already stated in the 1980s (1988: 134) that […] learners will be better served by accounts of word-meaning based on a ‘prototype’ approach, which deals in core meanings that admit of minor variation and degrees of category membership, rather than by the rigorously ‘criterial’ approach favoured by most NSDs […].

Definitions simply “must […] give an account of what is typical, rather than simply describing what is possible” (1988: 135). Hanks’ view (1987: 118) that definitions should state what is typically the case has been mentioned, and he elaborates (1988: 37), using cognitive terminology, that what counts in defining is typicality. In his 1994-article, where he explicitly states the necessity of prototype theory for lexicography, he continues to explain (Hanks 1994: 91) that lexicographers have to “capture meaning potentials rather than meanings”, where he defines meaning as “events that take place in the world […]” and demands explicitly that […] lexicography needs to temper (or replace) the received Aristotelian-Leibnizian doctrine of necessary and sufficient conditions, which may be fine for many things but is not fine for the description of natural language or human cognitive processes, with some form of prototype theory.

He, however, rightly concludes (1994: 97) that the active introduction of radically new theories might not be a simple task, since “[w]e are contrasting a theoretical tradition of approximately 20 years’ duration with one of approximately 2400 years’ duration”. On the other hand, Geeraerts stresses that principles such as prototype theory are not new as such to lexicography but have always been used without being named (possibly because the theory was not available yet). He summarises in connection with polysemy (1997: 11- 12, emphasis added, CO, also 1990): […] knüpft die Prototypentheorie wieder an die prästrukturalistische Betrachtungsweise an, und sie verdeutlicht, daß Wörter auch eine interne polyseme Struktur haben, die im Wörterbuch berücksichtigt werden soll. Für die lexikographische Praxis ist diese Einsicht natürlich nichts Neues, aber eine theoretische Lexikographie, die sich zu stark durch strukturalistische Prinzipien führen läßt, läuft Gefahr, über diese interne Struktur hinwegzusehen [...].

In this context, one has to see, as Geeraerts observes (2007: 1160-1161), that [a] number of existing definitional and descriptive practices in the dictionary that are somewhat suspect from an older theoretical point of view receive a natural interpretation and legitimacy in the theoretical framework offered by Cognitive Linguistics.

This simply describes the fact that traditional defining is somewhat cognitive in nature, even if it is usually interpreted according to structuralist semantic thinking. As an example, it suffices to have a look at the classical analytical defining structure

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which is based on stating a superordinate. Even if the differentiae specificae are interpreted in terms of structuralist necessary and sufficient conditions, it is apparent that the genus proximum alone does not contradict human categorisation since we structure our concepts in terms of hierarchies. The juxtaposition of hedges in definitions, with lexical items such as usually or typically, only now termed ‘prototypical definitions’, constitutes another point here: doomed in a strictly structuralist defining practice as being examples of sloppiness or vagueness, due to their enumerating character of more items than necessary (cf. Zgusta 1971: 253), they become acceptable or even natural in cognitive thinking. What finally still has to be mentioned in the context of conceptual thinking applied to lexicography is Anna Wierzbicka‘s (1985) elaborate body of descriptions of “simple everyday words” (1985: 1). In her work, she set out to bridge the gap between theoretical semantics and practical lexicography (1985: 6) and concentrated on concrete nouns, starting out with cups and mugs, dealing with bikes and cars, cats and dogs and fruit and vegetables, offering semantic analyses and, deriving from them, definitions of the above-mentioned concepts, which are written within the framework of a semantic meta-language (cf. 1996 and chapter six below). Although she is concerned with conceptualisation as the basis for semantic defining and also deals with e.g. basic categorisation and taxonomies of items (1985: 189- 192 and 258- 328), she is constantly critical of research on prototypes and conceptualisation in Rosch’s terms (e.g. 1985: 258- 261 and 340- 342, 1990) and considers the approaches to be fallacious in semantic (contrasted to logical) terms. What she nevertheless offers is an in-depth analysis of the concepts with a practical application, in itself an accomplishment. It has therefore to be concluded altogether that voices in favour of prototype theory or models of categorisation used in lexicography are generally not hard to find; yet, there is (in line with Béjoint’s first quote above) no single description of how to apply the model in practical lexicography, nor an analysis of how models of categorisation are depicted in classical lexicography. The latter will be provided in the next chapter with an analysis of the category BIRD.

4.2.2.2 Birds in the dictionary If we transfer all of the aforementioned considerations regarding categorisation to lexicography, more precisely to the definitions and illustrations of items from the category BIRD, the question arises of what categorisation looks like in book dictionaries where emphasis is not on the coherence of internal category structure, but on the meaning description of single items in isolation (Zgusta 1971: 248). In order to analyse the representation of the prototypically organised category BIRD, all definitions of the respective entries were collected. Not only are definitions the heart of a dictionary entry (Jackson 2002: 76), they should also reflect category

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structure best in the assumption that semantic structure reflects cognitive structure and language is conceptualisation (cf. Evans 2007: 26 and 99, Langacker 1987 and 2008). Definitions, however, are listed, without example sentences or crossreferences (for an overview of the definitions, cf. chapter 10.1.1). This analysis is not interested in lexicographic principles either, e.g. the defining method employed,17 it seeks instead to display categorisation: the research question underlying this analysis is whether the language employed in defining represents category structure. It will be of interest, whether and how many attributes the definitions list, how definitions change from central to peripheral category members and what role encyclopaedic knowledge plays.18 The hypothesis is that the closer a bird is to the prototype, the more features will figure in the definition; conversely, peripheral members will display less attributes but additional, individual information that makes up for its deviation, although Aitchison (2003: 14) explains that […] a book dictionary tends to give information that is spuriously cut and dried. It is likely to tell you that pelicans, sparrows, parrots and flamingos are all birds, but will not rank them in any way.

In making the analysis feasible, a selection from the 54 category members of the category BIRD (Rosch 1975: 232) was made, whose definitions were analysed: the eight top ranks were selected, five category members from the middle (ranks 26-30) and the last five ranks (50-54),19 as displayed in table 6. Tab. 6: Members of the category BIRD for analysis (Rosch 1975)

Top ranks (1-8)

robin, sparrow, bluejay, bluebird, canary, blackbird, dove, lark

Middle ranks (26-30)

hawk, raven, goldfinch, parrot, sandpiper

Last ranks (50-54)

ostrich, titmouse, emu, penguin, bat

The definitions from the dictionaries were annotated in line with attributes typical of the category BIRD and the prototype >ROBINROBINROBINROBINSPARROWBLUEBIRDGOLDFINCHTITMOUSE< that all share the tag ‘S(s)-C-P’, which are the core attributes (although >GOLDFINCH< belongs to the middle ranks and >TITMOUSE< actually even to the last ranks). The more we approach the periphery, we find first a group, still close to the prototype, with a mentioning of typical activities (>CANARYLARKDOVEPARROTBLUEJAYBLACKBIRDSANDPIPERRAVEN< and >HAWKOSTRICH< and >PENGUINRAVEN< which is no longer seen as a bird of ill-omen, or in the case of >OSTRICHBLUEJAY< and >BLUEBIRD< were added from OALD5 onwards, whereas >TITMOUSE< was deleted after OALD3 and >GOLDFINCH< appears, strangely enough, only in OALD3 and OALD8. Apart from this, changes over the editions are only minimal. A few words will finally be devoted to the illustrations of the category BIRD. Illustrations are an interesting dictionary feature regarding cognitive principles of categorisation, since they draw on gestalt principles (i.e. the notion of a good overall shape, cf. Ungerer/Schmid 2006: 34- 43, Schmid 1993), they help to activate world knowledge (Svensén 1993: 168- 169 and 2009: 299- 300) and play a “role in linguistic categorization and perception” (Lipka 1995: 391).26 Not all dictionaries, however, offer illustrations in the category BIRD: OALD8 and MEDAL2 provide illustrations on separate study pages (OALD8: V10, “The animal kingdom”; MEDAL 2: C13, “Animals”), whereas LDOCE5 and COBUILD6 position their features in the macrostructure close to the entry bird; CALD3 does not include illustrations at all. From the older editions of the OALD, it is only OALD3 that offers an illustration in the category BIRD, also within the macro-structure, but spread over two pages (OALD3: 82- 83). Except for the older OALD3, all dictionaries use coloured drawings and, in Ilson’s (1987) terminology, they are all group illustrations displaying single category members, in the case of OALD8, LDOCE5 and OALD3 combined with composite illustrations where single parts of some items, mostly body parts of birds, are labelled. In cognitive terms, all illustrations can be described as reduced illustrations which are easy to grasp (cf. Ungerer/Schmid 2006: 39). There are, however, a few remarkable points to be observed: first, only OALD3 actually presents a pictorial representation of the category starting from the prototype and listing members very close to it (e.g. sparrow, swallow, nightingale); all other modern illustrations deal foremost with less prototypical or even peripheral category members (e.g. eagle, owl, duck), assuming probably that the concept BIRD is understood, and that learners need more help in understanding subcategories, e.g. only birds of prey as in LDOCE5. And although || 26 Compare also Nesi (1998) for an analysis of the usefulness of illustrations of concrete nouns, here kitchen utensils, in the 1995 editions of the learner’s dictionaries.

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OALD8 does use a prototypical bird for an illustration of its parts, it is not the robin, but the finch. It indirectly mentions, however, attributes of birds (apart from the labelled parts of the finch, such as beak, wing, tail) by displaying separately a feather and a nest in which eggs are lying. COBUILD6 has created one of its Word Webs, a newer feature (cf. chapter 5.3.1), but links the category BIRD to extinct avian dinosaurs and offers features of birds only in comparison (“Like birds, these dinosaurs laid their eggs in nests. Some had wings, beaks, and claws […].”, COBUILD6: 145). In comparison to other categories treated by Rosch, e.g. FRUIT, the category BIRD does not receive an extensive illustrational treatment. Whereas we find in some dictionaries long coloured pages of different kinds of fruit or vegetables (e.g. OALD8: V26V27, LDOCE5: 705 and 1947, MEDAL2: C10- C11), birds are often incorporated into the animal kingdom (as is the case with OALD8 and MEDAL2) with only a few category members represented. A reason could be that terms of fruit and vegetables are more important from a language learning perspective since they are much more likely to be encountered or needed by learners, whereas the different kinds of birds are of minor importance in the language learning process, yet this is only an interpretation for the lexicographic choices made. To conclude, one could say that it seems that a complete pictorial representation of the category BIRD is not the foremost aim of the dictionaries. The illustrations often label parts of birds or show category members deviant from the prototype. After the analysis of definitions and drawings from the category BIRD, one can now generally conclude that Aitchison (2003: 14 and above) is contradicted: dictionaries do rank birds somehow. I would call this, however, a case of indirect cognitive lexicography, since the reflection of cognitive structure through the wording of the definitions and choice of illustrations is probably the result of the lexicographer’s own perception of the world. The notion of cognitive lexicography as it is understood and applied in this project will be outlined in detail in the next section.

4.3 Cognitive Lexicography After establishing the reasons for and difficulties in combining cognitive linguistics and lexicography, and following a short analysis of categorisation principles in dictionaries, the notion of cognitive lexicography finally has to be established.27 Before this can be done, a few terminological remarks have to be made regarding the terms of the cognitive input to lexicography, namely cognitive linguistics, cognitive semantics and cognitive grammar, which so far have been used more or less synonymously. While it is clear that cognitive linguistics acts as a cover term for both cognitive semantics and cognitive grammar and functions as a new input for lexicogra-

|| 27 For a shorter summary hereof and of the foregoing, cf. Ostermann (2014b).

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phy in general, it is the latter two terms that need to be distinguished. For this project, mostly concepts and models of cognitive semantics are used, since the major contributing concepts for the single new dictionary features – frame semantics, conceptual metaphor theory and cognitive polysemy – can be counted among the theories of a cognitive approach to meaning28 which take, among others, an encyclopaedic meaning representation and an embodied cognition for granted (Evans 2007: 27 and 99, Lakoff 1987: 269- 303). The use of cognitive semantic theories might also seem natural with respect to the fact that dictionaries themselves foremost (at least in a lay perspective) deal with ‘words’ and word meaning. On the other hand, just the same way as dictionaries also provide grammatical information, theories relating to cognitive grammar are not excluded per se (cf. chapter eight). It is simply the usefulness of a particular cognitive theory – whether termed cognitive ‘semantic’ or ‘grammatical’ in nature – that is decisive for its application, not its cover term, even if in this approach, it is cognitive semantics that is used as the major input in lexicography. When it comes to combining cognitive semantics and lexicography, cognitive lexicography has to deal with the difficulties encountered in such an approach, foremost the discrepancy between book dictionaries and the mental lexicon. This challenge is summarised in Aitchison’s (2003: 14) comparison: The relationship between a book dictionary and the human mental lexicon may be somewhat like the link between a tourist pamphlet advertising a sea side resort and the resort itself. A tourist pamphlet gives us a small, partial glimpse of a place as it was at some point in the past, with no real idea of how the different parts of the resort fit together to form a whole, living town. Similarly, a book dictionary gives us a spuriously neat, static and incomplete view of the mental lexicon.

Building on this, where a book dictionary offers only something limited as a keyhole view to the whole room, i.e. the language in one’s mind, cognitive lexicography attempts to pave the way and offer an entrance to the store of the mental lexicon. Single cognitive dictionary entries serve as access points or at least allow the user to gain a larger picture and walk on some paths of the tunnels in the underground network (Aitchison 2003: 243- 246), since, as Singleton (1999: 37) says “orientation to context is one of the lexicon’s vital parts and […] any attempt to address the meaning of individual lexical entries in isolation […] is doomed to failure.” With lexical items as access points to larger underlying cognitive structures, cognitive lexicography adapts an encyclopaedic view of meaning and conceptualisation in which knowledge of lexical items is more than knowledge about word meaning, as

|| 28 It has to be admitted that the underlying figure-ground resp. trajector-landmark distinction for an embodied approach to spatial semantics in the form of particles (chapter seven) is generally accounted for in the framework of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 2008).

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it activates a whole underlying network of structured knowledge (cf. Cruse 1990: 395, Evans/Green 2006: 207- 222, Fillmore 1982: 134- 135, Murphy 2000: 329- 332). In order to allow access to conceptual knowledge, cognitive lexicography produces new dictionary features. What is common to the three features outlined in the ensuing chapters, and to the approach of cognitive lexicography as such, is that it uses both traditional lexicographic principles and theories of cognitive linguistics as input and merges the two disciplines. Lexicographic structures are the basis onto which cognitive semantic theories are mapped in order to achieve cognitive dictionary features, each adapted to the cognitive semantic theory used and the lexical field selected. In this framework, an infinite number of combinations can be devised, in which each lexical field or dictionary feature might demand the application of a particular cognitive semantic theory. The approach is also visualised in figure 8.

Fig. 8: Cognitive lexicography

Lexicography and cognitive linguistics are both independent linguistic branches; together, they can be combined in the notion of cognitive lexicography. Lexicography offers its traditional practices and structures for dictionary entries, onto which cognitive theories and language material are mapped, i.e. the structures are reshaped with cognitive linguistic language input. Therefore, the box saying ‘traditional lexicographic structures’ is below the box ‘cognitive lexicography’, and the box ‘cognitive theories and language material’ comes on top, since the two things

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are put on top of each other, constituting Cognitive Lexicography. The two branches become one unified whole where features and characteristics mix; the different layers and origins may still be recognisable, but it is one new ’product’, cognitive lexicography is a hybrid of the two. The arrows leaving the box ‘cognitive lexicography’ and pointing to the smaller boxes (where ‘CL’ stands for ‘Cognitive Lexicographic’) symbolise that the approach can take various forms, the ones suggested in this project, but also an infinite number more. The theories mentioned on the lowest level are those used in the upcoming chapters for a particular feature, but can also be interchanged or complemented. Cognitive lexicography is thus to be seen as a new lexicographic practice that sets out in a new direction from what we are used to in dictionaries, while still being true, however, to the medium and its general practices. It offers features that might not meet the users’ expectations since they are anything but conservative regarding lexicographic practice (cf. Hanks 2008: 221 on Sinclair’s similar attitude). But cognitive linguistics is a new way to do what “courageous lexicographers” do, namely (2008: 221) […] examining data with an open mind, then looking at users’ needs, and so gradually working up a framework for analysis and description that will do least distortion to evidence and be most helpful to the target audience. […] Forget what theorists have told us […]. What do users need to be told, and how should it be expressed?

And users definitely deserve a description of language that most suits the way they process the very same language. Therefore, the notion of cognitive lexicography is defined as follows: Cognitive Lexicography is the application of cognitive linguistic theories to traditional lexicographic practice. It is a new approach to lexicography focussing on a language description according to theories and findings from cognitive linguistics and it combines the two disciplines with the aim of facilitating the understanding of dictionary entries or definitions due to a faster activation of the underlying concepts. Cognitive Lexicography as such is a new branch of lexicography which is open to applying the full range of cognitive linguistic approaches and considers all parts of dictionary entries as well as other aspects related to dictionaries (cf. Ostermann 2014b). What cognitive lexicography looks like in particular will be shown in the three up-coming chapters. The first approach deals with exemplification in dictionary entries based on frame semantics, and also leads to a cognitive macrostructure. The second feature deals with cognitive dictionary definitions of emotion terms based on Conceptual Metaphor theory, while the last approach provides a cognitive arrangement for four lexical items of the highly polysemous word class of particles.

5 Person-denoting nouns Der Nutzen der frame-Semantik für die traditionelle Lexikographie bleibt […] eher zweifelhaft. (Bublitz/Bednarek 2004: 50)

Although frame semantics has been fully established as a conception of semantics and research on frames has lead to the much-appreciated FrameNet project online, a remark like the one in the quote above is not hard to find when it comes to lexicography. While single projects have dealt with the concept in isolation (e.g. Wegner 1985, Konerding 1993a) and various authors have formulated desiderata for framebased dictionaries (e.g. Atkins 1995, Fillmore 2003), the pure incorporation of frame semantics in learner’s dictionaries has not been discussed so far. This is what this first new cognitive dictionary feature attempts to change by introducing a new example section established on the principles of frame semantics in Fillmore’s terms. This new dictionary feature will also exemplify how elements of a frame can be linked and thereby establish a ‘cognitive’ macrostructure in the dictionary with cross-references between entries, which also contribute to user-friendliness. As a first step, the concept of frame semantics as well as its applications so far in a lexicographic context will be briefly outlined. What follows is a definition of the category ‘person-denoting nouns’, before a detailed outline of the new dictionary feature in theory as well as in practice regarding seventeen frames is introduced. Following the cognitive dictionary feature, an analysis of the five synchronic and four diachronic dictionaries will be provided, before the chapter is rounded off by a report on two small user-studies.

5.1 Frame semantics 5.1.1 Frames and scripts in cognitive linguistics Frame semantics, as devised by Charles Fillmore, became a new approach to semantics from the 1970s onwards, in the process of turning away from structuralist and generative semantics. The underlying idea and the novelty of the approach consisted in the assumption that upon hearing, i.e. processing a lexical item, other related items are evoked and associated at the same time. It is always the complete scene that we understand (e.g. Fillmore 1975: 123), since “structured encyclopedic knowledge […] is inextricably connected with linguistic knowledge” (Cienki 2007: 170, also Lehrer 1993: 149, Martin 2006: 284- 285). Therefore, the approach was also called “the semantics of understanding” regarding word meaning, as opposed to truth-conditional semantics (Fillmore 1985), and seen as “an alternative to checklist theories of meaning” (Fillmore 1975). The idea originated with Fillmore’s early work

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on the properties and syntax of verbs and extended to scene schematisations and communication situations (Fillmore 1982: 112- 119, also Cienki 2007: 171). When it then comes to defining what a semantic frame is, Fillmore himself has given many definitions (cf. 1975, 1977, 1982, 1985). One of them stresses the relation of several lexical items to encyclopaedic knowledge, saying (1982: 111) that a frame is “any system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one of them you have to understand the whole structure in which it fits”. At another point, Fillmore adds (1982: 119) that a frame “is a system of categories structured in accordance with some motivating context”, which leads to the general idea that frames are “coherent schematizations of experience” (1985: 223). Therefore, quoting Fillmore (1982: 112) once more, […] words represent categorizations of experience, and each of these categories is underlain by a motivating situation occurring against a background of knowledge and experience.

To summarise from all the aforementioned definitions, a frame can thus be understood as a conceptual structure representing our world knowledge and experience and functioning as a background, against which a word and its related lexical units are activated, processed and understood in a given context. The most famous example of a semantic frame is certainly the [COMMERCIAL EVENT FRAME]1 (cf. Fillmore 1977: 102- 109, also 1982: 116 and Fillmore/Atkins 1992: 78). When we think of an action denoted by the verb to buy, we automatically conceptualise a scene where generally at least two people are involved exchanging material things, according to Fillmore (1977: 103) “the buyer, the seller, the money […], and the goods […].”, or in more elaborate terms (Fillmore 1982: 116): […] a person interested in exchanging money for goods (the Buyer), a person interested in exchanging goods for money (the Seller), the goods which the Buyer did or could acquire (the Goods) and the money acquired (or sought) by the seller (the Money).

This frame thus comprises the four major so-called frame elements BUYER, SELLER, MONEY and GOODS, and could, at least theoretically, be expanded by secondary categories, such as COST or CHANGE, or more complex members of the lexical field, e.g. DISCOUNT or CREDIT (Fillmore/Atkins 1992: 782). The use of different lexical items from the frame also makes it possible to create different syntactic – and conceptual – perspectives using different verbs (Fillmore 1977: 106- 109), e.g. stressing the act of

|| 1 Frames are indicated by capitals in square brackets, again in line with the convention in Ungerer/Schmid (2006). When frames are mentioned together with their person-denoting noun from section 5.2 onwards, the square brackets are, however, omitted. 2 Compare here also Fillmore’s early terminology of “nuclear and nonnuclear elements” of scenes (1977: 106), which later changes to core and non-core elements (see below).

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buying or selling, yet remaining within the same frame or conceptual scene. Fillmore summarises here that (1977: 108- 109) [b]y taking a kind of simple prototypical commercial event, we can examine, one by one, the lexical items that activate or are activated by scenes of such an event.

This is also the reason why, as mentioned above, he originally called a frame (1975: 124) “any system of linguistic choices […] that can get associated with prototypical instances of scenes”. Picking up on these latter terms – the prototypical instances of scenes – two more points must be added: First, the reference to prototypical instances reflects an interaction of the concept of frame semantics with prototype theory as outlined above in the sense that frames are culturally dependent prototypical models of experience (cf. the example on write in Fillmore 1977: 81- 84). Fillmore (1975: 123) said very early that “in some cases the area of experience on which a linguistic frame imposes order is a prototype”. He later also acknowledges that he was influenced by prototype theory and explains (1982: 117- 118) that […] very often the frame or background against which the meaning of a word is defined and understood is a fairly large slice of surrounding culture, and this background understanding is best understood as a ‘prototype’ rather than as a genuine body of assumptions about what the world is like.

Second, it should be noted that there are competing terms used when it comes to frames, as exemplified by the use of the lexical item scene. Since “there is no unified frame theory” (Bednarek 2005: 688), a wide variety of competing terms by different authors can be found, ranging from scene, over script, to schema and cognitive model (Fillmore 1977: 127 and 1985: 223 [footnote 4], also Bednarek 2005: 686-688).3 One of these terms, script, has achieved a prominent status due to its use by Schank/Abelson (1977: 36- 68, esp. 42- 46) in the context of their famous restaurantscript. The authors are, among other things, concerned with people’s specific knowledge representing causal chains of events and the mechanisms of how people retrieve this knowledge. If we go to a restaurant, we know from our experience that this involves looking at a menu, choosing what to eat, ordering with a waiter, eating and finally paying the bill – with all of this happening in a certain order. There may be variations of different kinds, called tracks of scripts (1977: 40), in our example possibly cultural differences (whether a waiter seats you or whether you may choose

|| 3 Fillmore himself (1975: 124) differentiates between scenes and frames in the beginning or speaks of scene schematisations (1982: 116), but seems to give up on the term scene in later publications (“conceptual frames and linguistic description”, 1985: 232, cf. also the respective comment in Cienki 2007: 173-174). Compare also Lakoff (1982: 168-177) for a comparison of ICMs with scene semantics.

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the place yourself), or differences on the kind of restaurant (e.g. a fast food restaurant); but people generally possess the ability to identify scripts and add parts omitted in speaking about a script situation, a mechanism called script applier (1977: 38). A script is then defined (1977: 41) as […] a structure that describes appropriate sequences of events in a particular context. A script is made up of slots and requirements about what can fill those slots. The structure is an interconnected whole […]. Thus, a script is a predetermined, stereotyped sequence of actions that defines a well-known situation.

Scripts therefore provide connectivity, are part of narrative understanding and responsible for filling in information that has not been explicitly mentioned (1977: 4041). Scripts play a crucial role in conceptualising stereotyped situations, especially if these involve more than a static scene but a sequence of events. One last concept to be mentioned that draws on the idea of frames but implements it in a different way, is Barsalou’s conception of frames (1992a, 1992b). In his account, frames are one possible representation of concepts and consist of attributes that describe aspects of the concept, and their values, which are subordinate concepts of attributes and inherit or contain additional information. Frames often contain core attributes, and their appearance may be constrained in one context or another (cf. 1992a: 157- 163, 1992b: 29- 44). Generally, “[h]uman conceptual knowledge appears to be frames all the way down” (1992b: 40) and frames are seen to be probabilistic in their nature (1992b: 35): Barsalou sees the concept of frame as a fluid knowledge structure, as “a finite generative mechanism capable of producing a large field of related concepts” (1992b: 61). At its basis, so-called primitives are assumed, which are abstract, unanalysed concepts that can be elaborated on and that include e.g. semantic roles or activities (1992b: 42). Barsalou’s model also accounts for the prototypicality of frames in the sense that typicality is measured by the frequency of attributes and values across exemplars (1992b: 48); and the model refers to the script idea by accounting for event sequences or plans (1992b: 54- 57). All in all, this conception draws to a larger extent on cognitive processing4 than the traditional Fillmorean account, the idea of primitives, however, will be useful later for the cognitive dictionary feature. After this short outline of the focal concept of this chapter, a few remarks will be made on how far frame semantics has been applied as a part of lexicography, before the new dictionary feature is outlined in detail.

|| 4 Please note that Barsalou (cf. e.g. 1999 and 2008) later abandoned the idea of frames, concentrating on simulation theory, i.e. on grounded cognition and perceptual symbol systems.

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5.1.2 Frame semantics applied to lexicography 5.1.2.1 Risk, FrameNet and other approaches Frame semantics offered a completely new approach to word meaning and has lent itself to new analyses of various semantic fields. The desire to serve the branch of linguistics that is concerned with describing word meaning, lexicography, was also voiced, mostly by lexicographers such as Sue Atkins, as well as Fillmore and his associates at Berkeley. When we first look for semantic analyses within the frame semantics approach, we primarily find papers by Fillmore/Atkins themselves. In her 1994 paper, Sue Atkins conducted an analysis of the verbs of seeing (e.g. see, spot, glimpse, behold, and others) within the [PERCEPTION]-frame, criticising (1994: 42) that in dictionaries, these verbs are often defined circularly in terms of each other and suggesting a frame semantics approach to support corpus analysis. While corpora can identify frame elements and grammatical expressions, a frame semantics analysis leads, according to her (1994: 47- 53), to a more systematic differentiation, since similarities and differences can more easily be distinguished, e.g. differences between expected or unexpected capturing or the distance and duration of seeing. Fillmore/Atkins also conducted an elaborate semantic analysis of the lexeme risk (1992, 1994; later also on crawl, cf. 2000) where the authors show how frame semantics can help to better distinguish between different senses and account for different syntactic structures, while at the same time dealing with polysemy. In relation to the [RISK]-frame, the authors demonstrate (1992, 1994: 351- 363) that the verb has two general subframes (risk-running and risk-taking) with different categories and syntactic realisations, and that the noun has five major meanings, which dictionaries only unsatisfactorily describe by blurring senses or omitting important information due to constraints of sense divisions in the macrostructure.5 Both authors therefore generally advocate the idea of a frame-based dictionary (cf. Atkins 1995, Fillmore 2003, Fillmore/Atkins 1992), where, in Fillmore’s words (2003: 263) […] certain kinds of structured background information (or “frames”) should be treated as essential components or accompaniments of word definitions.

Certain elements in a dictionary entry, e.g. the example sentences, are supposed to take on new functions (Atkins 1995: 39- 41), which will also be outlined in the ensuing chapter. The largest lexicographic project implementing a frame semantic approach is, of course, the free online computational dictionary project FrameNet, set up at the university of Berkeley. FrameNet “has as its objective to give an exhaustive account,

|| 5 Further examples for semantic analyses in a frame semantics account are e.g. Petruck (1995) of elements of the [BODY]-frame in Hebrew, or Martin (1994) for defining animals.

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in terms of frame semantics, of a large proportion of the basic vocabulary in English” (Fillmore 2003: 287) and defines and exemplifies lexical units with recursion to their semantic frame. More precisely, in the words of Fillmore and his colleagues (Fillmore/Johnson/Petruck 2003: 235), FrameNet identifies and describes semantic frames, and analyzes the meanings of words by directly appealing to the frames that underlie their meanings and studying the syntactic properties of words by asking how their semantic properties are given syntactic form.

This means that FrameNet not only defines and exemplifies frames by listing and explaining the participating lexical items, but also displays their possible syntactic realisations. FrameNet is thus a semantic and syntactic approach, focussing on semantic roles (Atkins/Rundell/Sato 2003: 341). The lexical items that participate in a frame are called frame elements (FEs), a “frame-specific defined semantic role that is the basic unit of a frame” (Fillmore/Petruck 2003: 3596), which can be further distinguished into core and non-core frame elements (also Atkins/Fillmore/Johnson 2003: 267) and which are usually colour-coded in the online interface of the dictionary. A dictionary entry in FrameNet offers definitions of the frame, of its frame elements, including exemplification, as well as information on related or inherited frames and a list of lexical units that evoke the frame (Boas 2005b: 455). The creation of such a FrameNet entry follows several steps, starting with a semantic analysis in frame semantic terms, as well as the annotation of corpora and the use of various software tools.7 FrameNet’s contribution to lexicographic relevance consists, according to Fillmore/Johnson/Petruck (2003: 248), in the fact that […] lexicographers starting a new dictionary entry from scratch or revising an existing one, will welcome FrameNet’s complete characterization of the headword’s grammar and combinatorial properties, with corpus-derived example sentences showing authentic contexts.

The drawbacks mentioned with regards to FrameNet as a dictionary are: first, it does not cover systematically the whole vocabulary of the English language, but “contains […] 7,000 lexical units based on more than 130,000 annotated sentences” (Baker/Fillmore/Cronin 2003: 281); second, that it is nothing more than a (nevertheless quite powerful) tool and much more would be needed to transform results into a

|| 6 For more terminology relating to FrameNet, compare Fillmore/Petruck (2003) for a complete glossary. Compare also the articles in the special issue of the International Journal of Lexicography (IJL), ed. by Fontenelle (2003), dedicated exclusively to FrameNet, as well as Fontenelle (2012) for a summary of articles on FrameNet in IJL. 7 For further details and exemplifications, cf. Atkins/Fillmore/Johnson (2003) (on the examples argue and argument); for a summary of the “workflow”, cf. Boas (2005a: 145- 151). Compare also Baker/Fillmore/Cronin (2003), as well as Fillmore/Petruck/Ruppenhofer/Wright (2003) for details of the processes and programmes involved.

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real dictionary entry (Atkins/Rundell/Sato 2003: 342). However, Boas (2005b) sees FrameNet as the basis for cross-linguistic research and the implementation of multilingual lexical databases, since interlingual representations are conceptual in nature and can be represented by frames. Apart from the aforementioned project and analyses, there are two other projects to be discussed that deal with the frame concept in lexicographic contexts of German nouns, even though their application is very different from Fillmore’s original idea and is rooted in artificial intelligence research. First, Wegner (1985, 1989) suggested a frame typology (consisting e.g. of person, group, setting) including dimensions of frames for meaning description in lexicography, which he sees as a solution to formal problems of representation and problems of complexity (1989: 896- 898, also Martin 1994: 244- 246). Second, Konerding (1993a, 1993b, Konerding/Wiegand 1994) suggested a systematisation of meaning based on frames, defining them (1993a: 141) as linguistic texts that elicit tacitly assumed conceptual knowledge and asserting their usefulness for tapping into stereotyped knowledge structures. For this purpose, he devised a method for the establishment of types of nouns and their meaning by asking systematic questions and breaking the meaning of nouns down to the last hyperonym in a chain of hyperonyms (“Hyperonymtypenreduktion”), thereby ultimately constructing so-called matrix-frames that paraphrase meaning (1993a: 161- 217). Even though these frames (e.g. 1993a: 225 and 235) seem to be the result of a detailed, sophisticated semantic meta-analysis, leaving aside syntactic realisations and other participating lexemes of that frame, rather than being useful for immediate lexicographic application (which the title actually promises), the different types of questions and nouns will be a part of the initial stage in the establishment of the new dictionary feature.8 Before this new feature is outlined, however, a few remarks on frame semantics in relation to traditional dictionaries in general and example sentences in particular are required.

5.1.2.2 Frame-based dictionaries and example sentences Frame semantics has up til now predominantly been used in the context of the FrameNet approach, as well as other more global approaches, though not at all in the context of traditional dictionaries. Some authors, such as Bublitz/Bednarek

|| 8 It should also be noted that Konerding (1993a: 65- 69, also Bublitz/Bednarek 2004: 37- 40) regards Wierzbicka’s (1985) conceptual analyses of nouns as part of a frame approach since they also assume the notion of shared knowledge in a reductive analysis (Wierzbicka 1985: 43- 49) and take a form similar to his proposals, defining by semantic domains (e.g. 1985: 244- 255 for animals). For the current purposes in this chapter, I will refrain from any discussion of whether Wierzbicka’s conceptual analyses can be counted among frame approaches, but discuss some of her work, which will also be an integral part of another dictionary feature, later on in chapter six.

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(2004: 35), even call frames a taboo word for traditional lexicography. Nevertheless, I argue that frames are a valuable source for dictionary entries and new approaches to dictionary writing. While Miller (1986: 175) complained nearly twenty years ago about the ignorance of dictionaries regarding the organisation of words in semantic fields, something to which frames can be a solution, Martin (1997: 61- 62) stresses the descriptive and explanatory power of frames since they organise and represent world knowledge, and says (1997: 61) that “defining the conceptual meaning of a word could greatly profit from a frame-based approach.” He generally (2006: 285) calls for a frame-based lexicon from which dictionary entries are derived, and that the potential of frames should also be made fruitful for traditional lexicography, since, as Fillmore/Atkins (1992: 76) observe, “the necessary links to the background frames are generally not made available in print dictionaries”. While suggestions in literature range from adding frames to dictionary entries (Bublitz/Bednarek 2004: 47- 50), over describing a conceptual framework while completely eliminating traditional dictionary senses (Fillmore/Atkins 1994: 370), to a thematic organisation of dictionaries (Martin 2006: 289- 290), what I have in mind is a completely new feature based on frame semantics and situated in a central position in a traditional dictionary entry, both being true to traditional lexicography but also uniting most of the demands just mentioned. 9 The element from a traditional dictionary entry that could best be used for a new cognitive feature is the example section, resulting in a cognitive frame example section. Although example sentences very often stand in the shadow of definitions, they are ideal: apart from their functions, such as showing the headword in a context and offering collocations, they evoke a situation (Herbst/Klotz 2003: 56) and offer enough space for elaborate descriptions without the restrictions of a particular format. The usefulness of example sentences has also been acknowledged in the literature: Langacker (2005: 346- 347) answered a question on possible frame-based dictionaries saying that in any case example sentences would play an important role; and Atkins (1995: 39- 41) redefines the principle aspects of example sentences in frame-based dictionaries, where they “constitute an integral part of the description of meaning” and “must systematically exemplify all the lexically relevant facts of the frame […]” (1995: 39). Cognitive frame example sections (also ‘FE-sections’) therefore add a cognitive representation of a frame to the dictionary entries of the participating lexical items, which functions at the same time as a trigger for vocabulary acquisition of the lexical realisations of the frame elements and which helps a user’s encoding purposes in an onomasiological approach. They are therefore an

|| 9 Although there are competing terms in the literature for the frame concept, as has been outlined above, and although the frame example sections often have a script-like nature (as will be outlined below), I will from now on, for matters of consistency, use exclusively the term frame.

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answer to the repeated appeals in literature for frame-based dictionaries, where, as Fillmore/Atkins (1992: 75) point out, [...] individual word senses, relationships among the senses of polysemous words, and relationships between (senses of) semantically related words will be linked with the cognitive structures (or “frames”), knowledge of which is presupposed for the concepts encoded by the words.

Although the authors supposed (1992: 75) that this “could not easily be represented in a standard print dictionary” because more information has to be given than what dictionaries usually have room for, and envisioned an online lexicon (which was later realised in the form of FrameNet), this is exactly what the new dictionary feature proposes, even in the context of standard print dictionaries. The next chapter will now outline the theory behind this dictionary feature in complete detail – i.e. what frame example sections are and the particular steps taken in setting them up – after establishing the notion of person-denoting nouns, and will then proceed to discuss the various frame example sections, also in the context of a more cognitive macrostructure within the dictionary.

5.2 Cognitive frame example sections10 5.2.1 Person-denoting nouns and their frames Before explaining what cognitive frame example sections are and how they are devised, the term ‘person-denoting noun’ (‘pdN’), for which the dictionary feature was created, has to be clarified. It is clear that we are not dealing with a semantic field (such as emotion terms in chapter six) or a particular word class (such as particles in chapter seven), but with a type of noun around which the dictionary feature centres. It will furthermore also be indicated how the lexical items for this dictionary feature were chosen and which ones they are. Person-denoting nouns are ‘agentive nouns’ in a frame, i.e. those that denote a person and its usual activities. These nouns can be seen as the main elements and starting points of a frame, since they activate related lexical items and with them the whole frame. Their main characteristic is that they are semantically involved in typical actions at typical places, lexically evoking typical collocating verbs, all of which is their strongest appeal for a frame semantics approach. The term persondenoting noun was used because these nouns usually denote a profession or habitual occupation carried out by this person.

|| 10 For a short version of cognitive frame example sections and of the user-study reported on in chapter 5.4.3, cf. also Ostermann (2014a).

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When looking at the literature, it was clear that the [RESTAURANT]-script with the item waiter would be a suitable candidate (Schank/Abelson 1977: 37 and 43) and similar items denoting social or locative events had to be found, i.e. situations in which something happens and where people are involved. In order not to rely completely on introspection and find candidates that are thematically relevant but sufficiently difficult – so that dictionary users profit most from the new feature with an eye to vocabulary acquisition – I turned to the word list Words in Context (CarltonGertsch 2007). This is a thematic vocabulary book used in Bavarian grammar schools in order to prepare for topics in A-level exams. From its index, I extracted suitable candidates and narrowed down the list by choosing items that easily allow for different perspectives in their frame, where the frame also has an inherent event structure.11 Twelve person-denoting nouns were chosen: bridegroom, conductor (in 2 senses), landlord, librarian, mayor, plaintiff, striker, surgeon and suspect. For the second user-study on frame example sections (chapter 5.4.3 below), another five items were chosen at a later point; these were caretaker, midwife, pawnbroker, umpire and usher,12 this time taken from a website listing professions (online source [3]). Table 9 summarises the seventeen elements in alphabetical order (the elements underlined by a dotted line belonging to the set chosen in the second run) and also indicates the frame in which each person-denoting noun figures (cf. chapter 5.3 below). Tab. 9: Person-denoting nouns and their frames

caretaker (janitor) BUILDING

conductor1 TRAIN

conductor ORCHESTRA

landlord RENT

librarian LIBRARY

mayor CITY

midwife BIRTH

pawnbroker MONEY

plaintiff COURT

striker FOOTBALL

surgeon OPERATION

suspect POLICE

umpire SPORT

undertaker FUNERAL

bridegroom WEDDING 2

usher PERFORMANCE / EVENT

waiter RESTRAURANT

The next chapter will explain in detail how the frames for these person-denoting nouns were assigned and how the frame-example sections were devised.

|| 11 Compare Barsalou (1992b: 59- 61) for ‘representing plans’; compare Atkins/Fillmore/Johnson (2003: 252) for ‘frame-evoking words’. 12 Apart from waiter, Schank/Abelson (1977: 34) mention usher as an example for nouns evoking specific detailed knowledge, and thereby support its choice. Compare also Boas’ example of the [THEFT]-frame (2005a: 138- 140), where thief would also qualify as a person-denoting noun.

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5.2.2 Cognitive frame-example structure Since it is an accepted assumption in cognitive semantics that frames and scripts represent underlying knowledge structure, it would be desirable for dictionaries to verbalise that kind of information. It could be hypothesised that this would allow the user to understand a given lexical item more quickly and also find relevant vocabulary that belongs to a given frame. Traditional dictionaries suffer from the problem of having to spread encyclopaedic knowledge belonging to one frame across different entries at very different places in the macrostructure, and a form should be sought to link these entries and bring the underlying knowledge structure together. This can be achieved by cognitive frame example sections that help to erase the boundaries between semantic and encyclopaedic knowledge (cf. Fillmore 1982: 134145) and are a new way of dealing with the aforementioned linearisation problem (Geeraerts 2007: 1168- 1169). Metaphorically speaking, this new frame semantics approach in lexicography takes the form of a puzzle with single entries forming a larger picture, i.e. representing their frame. Cognitive frame example sections are a ‘frame part’ within a dictionary entry or alternatively a box close to the entry in the dictionary’s macrostructure (comparable to usage-boxes); they are small paragraphs of text and verbalise the frame of the respective lemma. They contain exemplification on all the elements of a frame linking them, and they are identical in a given perspective in the entries of all the main frame elements. Following this model, all dictionary entries belonging to one frame are connected on a macrostructural level. The new feature follows Fillmore’s suggestion (2003: 283): A lexicography informed by the frame concept would tend to define not words but only families of words that jointly express one frame, even though the meanings of some words […] might have essentially identical descriptions in different frames.

Fillmore’s idea (2003: 284) relies on choosing a word to define, selecting its frame and describing the entire system of concepts; the person-denoting noun functions as the main frame element of this “word family” from which the description starts, and all the participating lexical items of a semantic frame are linked, beyond the boundaries of the dictionary entry and across the macrostructure of the dictionary. This is also in line with Atkins (1995: 35) who promotes a holistic approach, since the content of semantic frames “cannot be arbitrarily compartmentalized into ‘senses’”.13 As a new feature, cognitive frame example sections complement a traditional dictionary entry and take on a mixture of characteristics – some typical of defini-

|| 13 Compare also Hanks (2006) who desires semantic types to be associated with lexical sets in dictionaries, viewed, however, from a syntactic perspective.

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tions, others typical of example sentences – which gives frame examples an intermediate form between defining and exemplifying in which users can grasp meaning faster and also find a meaningful context. They are part of a purely semantic approach focussing on the activation of concepts and the lexical realisations of frame elements. The seventeen person-denoting nouns chosen have additionally proven to be statistically less frequent in the BNC than their superordinate frame (e.g. plaintiff with a frequency of 30.43 pmw compared to court with a frequency of 283.95 pmw), and are therefore interesting for vocabulary acquisition. Frame example sections automatically also describe prototypical scenes in which agents denoted by the participating lexemes play a role, just as semantic frames are prototypical models of experience (cf. Fillmore 1975, 1982 as above). Since frame example sections are constructed and adapted to the lexicographic purpose of rendering a cognitive representation in the dictionary, they fall into the category of made-up example sentences, although authentic language material in the form of collocations is used. However, the overall aim is to guarantee objectivity and not to rely exclusively on the lexicographer’s intuition or his or her own idea of a given concept. Therefore, elicitation techniques are used in order to determine frame elements, a corpus search is conducted as well for authentic language material, and FrameNet is consulted. The following steps are involved in writing frame example sections:14 after choosing the person-denoting noun, the frame in which it figures has to be determined as well as its participating lemmata. A number of elicitation techniques help to make this step as objective as possible, mainly simple questions, such as ‘who?’, ‘where?’, ‘activity?’, ‘goal?’, or ‘item?’. These types of questions are legitimated by approaches in the literature, e.g. by Barsalou’s (1992b: 42) primitives of attributes, consisting of ontological categories and semantic roles such as ‘agent/person’, ‘location’, ‘event’, or ‘instrument’, as well as Konerding’s (1993a: 177- 178) typology of primary and secondary types of nouns, e.g. ‘Person’, ‘Umgebung’, ‘Handlung’, or ‘Gegenstand’. If a relevant frame figures on FrameNet, this information is incorporated as well.15 Overall, the collection of information inspired by these elicitation techniques generally results in finding the person-denoting noun and its frame, a typical collocating verb denoting a habitual activity, the place where something happens, as

|| 14 Compare also Atkins/Fillmore/Johnson (2003: 255) as well as Martin (1994: 250- 252) on how to select and construct a frame in their respective approaches. 15 It should be noted that this is an approach independent of FrameNet and it is not the case that frames figuring on FrameNet were transformed into example sections. FrameNet is, for the current purposes, too syntactically oriented, suffers from too many lexical gaps and is often vague when it comes to defining (covering too many lexemes under one frame). Therefore, FrameNet is only considered as an additional source.

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well as further frame elements triggered by the frame. With regard to the latter, a distinction has to be made between what I call frame-constitutive and framesupporting elements:16 frame-constitutive elements are those that are necessary to understand and trigger the whole frame. They are those elements that constitute different perspectives of a frame example section and are printed in small capitals. Lexicographically, they fulfil the function of cross-references,17 the frame printed in small capitals fulfils the function of a signpost in the form of a superordinate. Frame-supportive elements are marked by underlining and are those elements that are only of secondary importance since they are not obligatory for understanding the frame and may also figure in many frames. With all these different elements, frame example sections therefore express a motivating context and offer material for script-evocation (Fillmore 1982: 119 and 130). They should lead to, in Martin’s words (2006: 286), “more consistent and more complete definitions”. Once all the elements to be treated have been discovered, a search for authentic language material in the BNC web is conducted; this comprises a simple query (*_NN1) for the person-denoting noun and then listing its collocations (ranks 1-20). This way, further frame elements can be detected that appear most often together with the person-denoting nouns, as well as collocations or, more specifically, collocating verbs, all of which are formally given a dotted underlining in the frame example section. The set-up of all these items and their common appearance are also supposed to further vocabulary acquisition while looking up one of the items (in the assumption that the activation of a frame will help in remembering the whole lexical set); in any case, these are “words […] that learners would well do to learn together” (Fillmore 1985: 223). Rundell (1988: 135) also mentions that, in the context of corpus lexicography, […] any account in a learner’s dictionary of the word problem should at the very least mention as significant collocates the verbs pose and (especially) solve.

Martin (2006: 289) has stressed, first, that the use of “a frame […] does not only systematize the description of meaning, but that of combinations and collocations in particular, as well”, and second, that frames also have relevance for a language learning setting (2006: 290- 292). It should also be mentioned that it is common practice in modern language teaching to introduce new vocabulary by defining and explaining items in context (e.g. of a given story to read) and in relation to each

|| 16 Compare FrameNet’s terminology of core and non-core items, the former referring to “elements that are essential to the meaning of a frame” (Fillmore/Petruck 2003: 359). Compare similarly Barsalou (1992b: 34) for core attributes of frames. 17 Compare Svensén (2009: 388, 391, 394) on component-internal, implicit cross-references and a synopsis entry.

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other. Holme (2009: 169- 171) similarly suggests ‘framing activities’, e.g. filler activities on verbs, since (2009: 169- 170) [l]ooking at how verb meanings are framed can […] help students to develop their understanding of how meanings fit together in ways that may […] help them respond to future communicative needs.

The place that collocating verbs and collocations in general have within their frames and in learner’s dictionaries is thus of prior importance.18 After the collection of all the language material, the frame example section can finally be written, including all sorts of annotations (cf. chapter 5.2.3 below), starting from the perspective of the person-denoting noun.19 Since frame example sections are small passages of text, the “coherence-inducing function of frames” (Bednarek 2005) can be observed. The frame itself is a coherent passage of meaningful content unfolding upon the evocation of the concept, but basic textlinguistic rules of grammatical and lexical cohesion,20 e.g. in the form of personal reference or repetition by synonym or superordinate (Halliday/Hasan 1976, de Beaugrande/Dressler 1981), apply as well. Once the frame example section has been established, minor decisions still have to be made: The first concerns the perspectives of the frame example sections; the frame-constitutive elements are used as perspectives, i.e. places in the dictionary where the frame example section will also be entered, and its text is adapted to the new perspective, starting on a new frame element but remaining true to the original text. Martin (2006: 286) speaks here of a flexibility of frame definitions taking “different views/perspectives on the same object, thus stressing different aspects […]”. Further decisions in this last phase of establishing frame example sections concern the question as to whether ‘semantic spin-offs’ can be found, i.e. lexemes from inherited, neighbouring or in any other way associated frames that would be worth being transformed into a frame example section of their own. The last decision concerns the question of where to enter the frame example section and its perspectives into the macrostructure of the dictionary, but this question has at that point already automatically been answered by establishing its different perspectives. The whole process of establishing frame example sections is again summarised in the overview in table 10.

|| 18 Compare here also the demands by Götz-Votteler/Herbst (2009: 51- 55). 19 The frame example sections that are set up in this way would correspond to what Fillmore (2003: 288) calls “large-scale cognitive frames”, namely “representing both static and procedural systems of articulated relations and expectations […]”. 20 For the dictionary entry as text, compare Frawley (1989) based on Prince (1981), as well as Gerzymisch-Arbogast (1989).

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Tab. 10: The set-up of frame example sections

SET-UP OF FRAME EXAMPLE SECTIONS: 1. Choice of the lemma: person-denoting noun. 2. Identification of the frame and its frame elements. 3. Collection of authentic language material from the BNC, esp. of collocations. 4. Writing of the main frame example section with its annotations. 5. Check for perspectives of the frame example section and writing thereof. 6. Check for semantic ‘spin-offs’, i.e. related frames. 7. Decision of places to enter in the dictionary (in line with perspectives).

The next chapter will illustrate in detail the set-up and structure of the frame example sections for bridegroom in the [WEDDING]-frame and for conductor in the [ORCHESTRA]-frame, as well as present all the seventeen cognitive frame example sections and discuss their characteristics.

5.2.3 Frame example sections After the theoretical set-up of frame example sections in the previous chapter, the process will now be illustrated with examples. The construction of the frame example sections of the person-denoting nouns bridegroom from the [WEDDING]-frame and conductor from the [ORCHESTRA]-frame will be explained step by step, while for all the other frame example sections, special characteristics will be discussed. All the frame example sections are reproduced in an overview in the appendix (chapter 10.2.1.1); for further details and for the complete set-up, all the sources of each frame example section and their annotations are reproduced in the appendix in the form of tables, one per frame example section (chapter 10.2.1.2). When determining the frame for bridegroom, it is obvious that this must be the [WEDDING]-frame. In order to identify the frame elements, the aforementioned elicitation techniques were used: the questions of which people are involved (‘who?’), where it takes place (‘where?’), or what usually happens (‘activity?’, ‘goal?’) elicit the frame elements bridegroom, bride (with their related items husband, wife), church and priest/pastor, of which the first four are frame-constitutive. While the superordinate place (in a prototypical setting) is church, the typical collocating verb is to marry resp. to get married, and all this constitutes an event frame (see below for different types of frames). Additionally, there is a frame on FrameNet, ‘Forming_relationships’, in which the lexeme wedding figures, with two partners interacting and changing their social relationship and an epistemic stance, and useful collocations from the BNC include to get married, wedding day, wedding reception and bride itself. Using all this information, the frame example section is written and

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annotated (with capital letters and by underlining items as outlined above), as in the two versions in table 11. Tab. 11: Frame example section for bridegroom

On their WEDDING day, the BRIDE and the BRIDEGROOM get married and become HUSBAND and WIFE. A priest or pastor in church traditionally marries them with family and friends present. Afterwards, there often is a wedding reception. [OnColl their wedding day]Event, the bridePartner1/WhoColl and the bridegroomPartner2/Who get marriedCollActivity and become[change relationship]/Goal husband and wifePartners. A priest or pastor in churchEpistemic stance/where traditionally marries them with family and friends present. Afterwards, there often is a wedding receptionColl.

Lastly, different versions of the ‘bridegroom’-frame example section from the perspective of the item bride as well as the related items husband and wife are written (found in the table in the appendix) and the frame example section is entered in a dictionary with these lemmata. A possible ‘spin-off’ of this frame example section could (ironically) be divorce or any other social event (compare here also the frame on FrameNet).21 The final piece of text of this frame example section demonstrates the intermediate nature of frame example sections between traditional definitions and example sentences: just like definitions, frame example sections use in some way a genus proximum or superordinate term, namely the frame they figure in or even a more explicit superordinate as an apposition (compare in the remaining frame example sections nurse for midwife, doctor for surgeon, or player for striker); in style, they could qualify as full-sentence definitions. On the other hand, complete sentences and a context, a prototypical instance of language, are a feature of traditional example sentences, just as the display of collocations and the supporting notion of the definition. Frame example sections therefore occupy a position between the two traditional features with all the benefits this entails (cf. again Laufer (1993) on the combined entry), yet they function more like example sentences due to their contextual, supporting and vocabulary building function. Even though they are made-up, they allow for words from outside of defining vocabularies because the focus is on

|| 21 It is clear that this frame example section renders a prototypical version of a wedding in Christian culture (cf. Fillmore 1975, 1982, and above on frames as prototypes); it excludes other forms of weddings (e.g. registry office weddings) as well as weddings in other cultures. While the frameconstitutive elements bridegroom and bride, as well as the collocation to get married, will suffice to evoke the frame nevertheless, adding other elements covering other forms of weddings might be considered, especially with an eye to monolingual dictionaries being sold worldwide.

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the complete evocation of the concept, which outweighs a focus on simple language. The frame example section for conductor from the [ORCHESTRA]-frame serves as another instance for illustration. Again, elicitation techniques were used (‘who?’, ‘where?’, ‘activity?’, ‘goal?’, ‘item?’) to determine the frame elements conductor, musician, audience, performance, in front of, rehearsal, podium, and baton, of which the first four are frame-constitutive. The superordinate place is in front of an orchestra, a combination of the frame and a non-constitute frame element. The typical collocating verb is to conduct or to direct, and we are dealing here with an activity frame. The FrameNet frame ‘Performing_Arts’ with its elements performance, performers and audience, as well as the collocations from the BNC orchestra and baton, support the results gained through the elicitation techniques. The final frame example section and its annotated version are displayed in table 12. Tab. 12: Frame example section for conductor

When an ORCHESTRA or CHOIR performs, either as a rehearsal or in front of an AUDIENCE, a CONDUCTOR stands in front on a podium and conducts, i.e. directs the MUSICIANS’ PERFORMANCE with a baton (small thin stick). The MUSICIANS follow the CONDUCTOR’S movements so that all play in a coordinated way and the PERFORMANCE sounds good. [When an ORCHESTRAColl or CHOIRWHO/PERFORMERS]ACTIVITY performs, either as a rehearsal or in front of an AUDIENCE(WHO2), a CONDUCTORWHO stands [in front on a podium]WHERE and [conducts, i.e. directsColl the MUSICIANS’ PERFORMANCE]ACTIVITY/PERFORMANCE with a batonColl/ITEM (small thin stick). The MUSICIANS follow the CONDUCTOR’S movements [so that all play in a coordinated way and the PERFORMANCE sounds good]GOAL.

Different versions of this frame example section (reproduced again in the table in the appendix) are entered at audience and performance. The semantic field of musical instruments, or music in general, would lend itself as a possible ‘spin-off’ for this frame example section. This example also demonstrates well how frame example sections serve as a suitable means for presenting related and probably difficult pieces of vocabulary (baton); it illustrates at the same time the intermediate nature of frame example sections between definitions and examples, since a defining gloss for baton (‘small thin stick’) is added in the text. For the other frame example sections, whose detailed outline can be found in the appendix, only some overarching characteristics need mentioning. First, where necessary, frame example sections consider differences between British English (BE) and American English (AE) in order to cover different varieties of English such as learner’s dictionaries usually do: the person-denoting noun caretaker is given a synonym (AE janitor) just as the person-denoting noun conductor in the [TRAIN]frame (BE guard); the frame example section for landlord mentions both (AE) apartment and (BE) flat as frame-supporting elements. Regarding possible semantic spin-

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offs, it is obvious that some frame example sections are part of a larger superordinate semantic field or category and could be complemented by further frame example sections or even be linked: midwife and surgeon both belong to the category MEDICINE or its subdomain MEDICAL PROFESSIONS (cf. also their common frames on FrameNet); suspect and plaintiff belong to the larger field LAW resp. COURT ROOM INTERACTIONS. This was a haphazard result of the choice of lexemes, but could be explored more systematically in the future strengthening the onomasiological characteristic of the feature. And finally, there is yet another kind of relation: some frame example sections exhibit relations to other, often more general frames, which in frame semantics is described by the term frame inheritance, “a frame-to-frame relation in which the child frame elaborates the parent frame […]” (Fillmore/Petruck 2003: 35922). The frame example section landlord in the [RENT]-frame, but especially the one of pawnbroker in the [MONEY]-frame, are inherited from the classical example of the Commerical Transaction Scenario (e.g. Fillmore 1977, and above, and also on FrameNet) and are more specified versions of a scenario where a BUYER, a SELLER, MONEY and GOODS are involved.23 While the term frame inheritance stresses a top-down process of frames in a higher position in a hierarchy passing down characteristics to frames in a lower position, I would prefer the term hyperframe in an analogy to the semantic concept of hyponymy in cognitive hierarchies; it refers to the more general frame that allows for variations of the concept expressed by its subordinate frames. This term describes the same phenomenon viewed from a bottom-up perspective, and it is more in line with frame example sections that are more likely to describe specific instead of general situations and concepts. Whichever term is used, this also proves that parasitic categorisation, as outlined above (Ungerer 1994, Ungerer/Schmid 2006: 77) not only seems to hold between concrete nouns but also between more elaborate concepts. Frame example sections can additionally also be divided into three different kinds: EVENT-, ACTIVITY- and PLACE-frames, each exhibiting characteristic linguistic elements. EVENT-frames usually start with a preposition24 of time, while in ACTIVITYframes, there is an introductive sentence starting with when (similar to sc-whendefinitions) setting a prototypical scene. In these frame example sections, the person-denoting noun usually follows in the second sentence, later than in other types of frame example sections, since the setting is introduced in the perspective of a

|| 22 Compare here further distinctions such as full, monotonic or multiple inheritance. 23 The frame example section of waiter in the [RESTAURANT]-frame could also be included in this section, since the frame-supporting element pay also invokes some kind of Commercial Transaction scene, even if MONEY is not mentioned explicitly. 24 This word class will for now traditionally be called preposition. A discussion of this and a cognitive approach to this word class will be given in chapter seven.

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general noun. PLACE-frames are introduced by the preposition in, and they resemble most the notion of scripts (Schank/Abelson 1977) unfolding at the superordinate place. The characteristics of these three types of frame example sections are summarised in table 13 including an indication of which frame example sections fall into each category. These three categories were a result of the final frame example sections; nevertheless, the three groups also seem to be characteristic of different types of nouns and correspond, for example, to Konerding’s (1993a: 177- 178) types ‘Ereignis’, ‘Handlung’, ‘Umgebung’. Tab. 13: Different kinds of frame example sections

Kind of frame

Characteristics

FE-sections of this kind

EVENT-frames

Starting with a preposition of bridegroom WEDDING  striker FOOTBALL  time, e.g. in, on, during, after surgeon OPERATION  umpire SPORT  undertaker FUNERAL ORCHESTRA  landlord RENT  by a general noun (e.g. ‘you’) midwife BIRTH  pawnbroker MONEY  susand the frame pect POLICE  usher PERFORMANCE

ACTIVITY-frames Starting with when, followed conductor2

PLACE-frames

Starting with the preposition in caretaker BUILDING  conductor1 TRAIN  denoting the frame librarian LIBRARY  mayor CITY  plaintiff COURT  waiter RESTRAURANT

While the frame example sections of bridegroom and conductor outlined above are items where the devised scheme works perfectly, a discussion of problematic cases is also necessary. The first apparent problem is the one of circularity, a ‘deadly sin’ in defining, especially for the person-denoting noun librarian in the [LIBRARY]frame. It could not be avoided due to the apparent logic of place, but remains infelicitous from a lexicographic perspective, also since the two lemmata are immediately below each other in the alphabetical macrostructure of the dictionary and could therefore well do with only one frame example section at that position. Another case of circularity concerns methods and sources: since definitions in FrameNet are either written by FrameNet lexicographers or taken from a dictionary (Fillmore/Johnson/Petruck 2003: 248, Fillmore/Petruck/Ruppenhofer/Wright 2003: 299), a dictionary was possibly used to produce something for another (cognitive) dictionary. This form of circularity is not detrimental to the feature as such; nevertheless, it has to be acknowledged. Another problem concerns sources and elements incorporated into frame example sections: the person-denoting noun mayor suffers from involving very few typical actions, and some other frame example sections contain quite vague elements (e.g. conductor2, also usher: AUDIENCE, PERFORMANCE; librarian: INSTITUTION; umpire: superordinate person). The person-denoting nouns

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pawnbroker, striker and surgeon contain verbs as frame elements (pledge, win, cure), which breaks the consistent use of nouns and verbs being reserved for the collocating verb (although verbs as frame elements are not unusual in a frame semantics approach, cf. Fillmore 1977, and above). A lack of material was especially problematic for striker, umpire and undertaker, none of which have FrameNet frames and which, especially in the case of umpire, demanded internet research as to what their functions and habitual activities actually are. This leads to the last problem which can – despite the clear steps in the set-up of frame example sections – never be eliminated altogether in lexicography: subjectivity. Even if the frame example section of umpire is much more elaborate than any dictionary entry, there was little material to aid in the set-up, and different versions could be imagined, as is actually the case for all frame example sections. Further subjective choices concern on the one hand the frames: e.g. mayor could also figure in another frame altogether (the larger one [POLITICS], or the narrower one [TOWN HALL]). On the other hand, the prototypical actions are subjective and also only one of several possible versions: compare, as already mentioned, that e.g. a wedding need not only, or even not at all, take place in a church. Generally, these problematic cases do not diminish the value of the feature; it is only important to be aware of these problems and not to regard the frame example sections as engraved in stone, but rather as being one of several versions, devised at a certain point in time. After the discussion of the different frame example sections and their characteristics and problems, it has already become clear that the linking of frame elements spans the macro-structure of the whole dictionary. This aspect will be further outlined in the next chapter.

5.2.4 A cognitive macrostructure Frame example sections with their different frame elements are not only a new form of cognitive exemplification, but also offer new ways of linking entries that are located far apart in the dictionary. With the help of the perspectives of frame example sections, they also allow the user to ‘enter’ a semantic frame at several places and to have access to the larger frame structure. This is not only conceptually relevant but could also be interesting in an encoding approach, since the user quickly finds related and relevant vocabulary items associated with the frame. This onomasiological approach is in line with what specialised dictionaries attempt (e.g. the Longman Language Activator [LA1]), but can be incorporated into a traditional learner’s dictionary. Apart from the benefits already outlined, a closer look at how the nature of frame example sections affects the macrostructure of a dictionary and in how far the latter becomes more cognitive will now be considered.

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There are two aspects to consider with the frame example sections when it comes to macrostructural effects. The first is polysemy: the item conductor, which figures in the two frames [TRAIN] and [ORCHESTRA], vividly demonstrates that frames are also a good way to tackle this aspect. It is a natural characteristic of language that the same lexical item may appear in more than one frame (Fillmore 1982: 124125) and frames, in Martin‘s (1997: 70) words, “explicate relationships and […] offer an insight into the polysemous structure of word meaning as a whole”. A user looking up conductor will automatically learn about the two different meanings and the frames the item participates in. Due to a frame’s flexibility of slots and fillers and its ability to predict sense extensions (Martin 1997: 73- 78), the seemingly unrelated senses of conductor might appear more transparent to a dictionary user (in both cases, it is a person who leads or brings something together, OALD8 CD-ROM ‘word origin’ s.v. conductor) and be remembered more easily. Frame example sections can therefore help to make meanings clearer and more transparent and can in a lexicographic compiling process also help to make macro- and microstructural decisions within a dictionary’s policy of presenting homonymy and polysemy. Lexicographically, features might also be invented that explicate the polysemous relationship between different senses (cf. chapter seven below), of which frames or frame example sections are a visual representation. The matter of polysemy could furthermore also be approached systematically; the item striker has, apart from the meaning ‘football player’, also the meaning of ‘a person being on strike’, and a new frame example section could lead to the semantic field of strike, possibly contrasting verbs such as strike or boycott (in the same way as Atkins (1994) on the verbs of seeing). The primary purpose of using frame example sections is not to contribute to the lexicographic solution of polysemy, but it could be a valuable feature for highlighting relations between the senses of lexical items. A second effect concerns the linking of elements within but also across frame example sections. If we randomly take suspect as an example, the perspectives of the frame example section will be entered (in alphabetical order) at the entries of arrest, crime, police, and suspect, and by doing this, four entries across the macrostructure in very different places in the alphabet are connected internally, i.e. within the borders of one frame example section. This applies to all frame example sections; yet if we take again the lexeme conductor as an example, links in the macrostructure become more extensive and external, i.e. connecting several frames, as displayed in figure 9. Since conductor already participates in two frames, [TRAIN] and [ORCHESTRA], it already ‘extends its arms’ to more entries. But, importantly, it also links up to the frame spread by the item usher, since performance is a frameconstitutive element of the [ORCHESTRA]-frame and at the same time of the frame of usher. The [PERFORMANCE]-frame, again, extends to ticket, which is a frame element of the [PERFORMANCE]- and [TRAIN]-frame (the latter leading again to conductor), forming a circle. Something similar can be observed between the frame example sections of

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landlord and pawnbroker, where money functions as a frame in the latter case and a frame-constitutive element in the first. The second example is also associated with the semantic relation of these frames centring on money (cf. the notion of hyperframes outlined above). These network links could even be observed with the small number of the seventeen frame example sections; this proves on the one hand the connecting power of frames, including their usefulness for lexicographic purposes, and could, on the other hand, also be explored more systematically in the future.

Fig. 9: Links in the macrostructure created by FE-sections

Lexicographically, the different frame elements function as cross-references; in an electronic (online) learner’s dictionary or a CD-ROM version, they could also be envisaged as hyperlinks leading directly to the related entry and frame example section. The cognitive macrostructure can thus either be transferred into a technical feature, or graphs such as the ones above could be added if space restrictions allow. In whichever form the feature is visualised, it offers an improved onomasiological access to the dictionary furthering both decoding and encoding, i.e. an understanding of items as well as vocabulary acquisition. Regarding ideal dictionaries, Bogaards (1996: 280) explains that […] whereas for receptive purposes the learner should be guided from unknown elements to familiar ones, for productive goals he should be able to start from familiar words in order to find words which are new to him.

Frame example sections can offer both: they offer unknown vocabulary in the place where the user had looked up the word and deal with (sometimes sophisticated) person-denoting nouns, but they also include familiar vocabulary within the frame example section or at a related place which guides the user. They contribute, there-

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fore, to an ideal dictionary that is semantically arranged for encoding purposes (cf. Heuberger 2000: 131). After the detailed outline of the set-up and the structure of seventeen frame example sentences, including a discussion of their characteristics, as well as their effect on the dictionary’s macrostructure, it is now time to have a look at what the dictionaries on the market provide regarding frame semantic content. The next chapter will present a detailed lexicographic analysis of “The Big Five” and of the four older editions of the OALD regarding the entries of the seventeen persondenoting nouns and their frames, based on the relevant frame elements discussed above.

5.3 Analysis of dictionary examples 5.3.1 “The Big Five” In an analysis of the dictionary entries of the person-denoting nouns and their frames, the research question is whether frame elements from the cognitive frame example sections can be found in the entries and how systematically they are treated. Furthermore, the exemplification policy of the dictionaries in general is analysed. Finally, there will be an investigation of whether special features can be found in the dictionaries that can be related to a frame semantics approach. For the analysis, I collected the example sentences from the entries of both person-denoting nouns and their superordinate frame in the five dictionaries OALD8, LDOCE5, COBUILD6, CALD3 and MEDAL2. Furthermore, all definitions were added (all in the sense of the one treated in the frame example section). Although the cognitive dictionary feature is devised as a frame example section, it has already been mentioned that it also bears features of definitions; furthermore – as will soon become apparent – many entries for person-denoting nouns do not even have example sentences, and therefore both definitions and example sentences were typed and are listed in the appendix (chapter 10.1.2).25 A first analysis of the policy of exemplification as outlined in the front matter shows that the dictionaries often leave the user more or less in the dark as to where example sentences come from or on what basis they were chosen. OALD8 and MEDAL2 make no comment at all with regards to the source, let alone a principle of decision. A remark on the latter is also missing in the other three dictionaries, but LDOCE5, CALD3 and COBUILD6 refer to a corpus as a source for example sentences:

|| 25 Please note that cross-references at the end of entries or additional meaning paraphrases within definitions or example sentences were omitted; for better readability, every example sentence was given a new line in the tables. Additional example sentences found in the CD-ROM-versions of the dictionaries were not considered, the focus being on the dictionary as a print product.

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LDOCE5 (ix and xii) mentions corpus-based examples from the Longman Corpus Network and the Longman Web Corpus, CALD3 (XII) refers to “[t]housands of example sentences adapted from the Cambridge International Corpus”, and COBUILD6 (xi) speaks of The Collins Bank of English® corpus as the source for its examples. Example sentences in COBUILD6 (xi) “remain close to the corpus, with minor changes made so that they are more successful as dictionary examples”, which is more than an interesting point: the dictionary admits using here, for the first time, corpus-based, adapted and not fully authentic example sentences (something common for LDOCE5 and CALD3), which can be seen as a radically new approach.26 However all these pieces of information are tiny remarks scattered over the front matters in the dictionaries. There is no allusion to any linguistic theory, with the exception of MEDAL2, that says (viii) they share “a belief that we can make dictionaries better by applying what we learn from linguistic theory in practical ways”,27 but without further specification. Therefore, it is necessary to turn to the entries themselves to find out more in an inductive approach. With regard to the number of example sentences given, it becomes apparent that the dictionaries seem to follow what Bogaards (2003: 50) terms a ‘dual-track approach’, even if no dictionary overtly admits it. This means that generally, there are no example sentences for the relatively infrequent person-denoting nouns and only the entries of the frames use example sentences. The only exception is suspect, which has example sentences in all dictionaries, as well as a few other cases that are supported by examples in up to three (usually only one or two) of the dictionaries (e.g. landlord, mayor, surgeon). In order to give an overall impression of the disparity of the number of example sentences, the numbers of examples found in all the 34 entries of person-denoting nouns and their frames were added up for each dictionary,28 and this number was compared to the sum of all the examples found only in entries of person-denoting nouns. The result is displayed in figure 10. The overall number of example sentences is relatively stable, with the exception of OALD8 with a slightly higher, and especially COBUILD6 with a considerably lower number of example sentences altogether. The number of examples for persondenoting nouns can also be regarded as stable, but with more example sentences given in CALD3 and fewer in MEDAL2. If an average number is considered, the sum || 26 The foreword in COBUILD5 (vii) still stated: “All the examples in this book are quoted from the rich selection that the corpus offers, and normally they are printed exactly as they occur in the text.” 27 This is probably in line with MEDAL’s Editor-in-Chief Michael Rundell’s open attitude towards linguistics, as outlined at the end of chapter 4.1.1 above. 28 It should be mentioned that the example sentences for court in MEDAL2 were not fully displayed due to their sheer abundance and the entry’s nature of a run-on entry with collocations in bold print as definitions; the examples for senses 1c and 1d were omitted. The number counted here is the number of example sentences taken into consideration and corresponding to the main sense of the FE-section.

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of all example sentences is 70 on average, compared to an average of seven for example sentences in entries of person-denoting nouns. The overall number of example sentences in all entries is thus ten times as high as the number of example sentences for person-denoting nouns, while only twice as many could be expected in the assumption that every entry uses example sentences. Since the dictionaries do not say how they select their example sentences, it remains unclear whether this was a conscious decision or proof of a lack of material. In any case, a similar phenomenon can be observed regarding the lexemes’ frequency in the BNC web: as mentioned before, the lexemes denoting frames are many times more frequent than the lexemes for person-denoting nouns (e.g. a frequency of 3.31 pmw compared to 52.03 pmw for midwife and birth). This discrepancy in examples between entries of person-denoting nouns and frames therefore also made it necessary to include definitions in the analysis.

NUMBER OF EXAMPLES IN "THE BIG FIVE"

100

84

74

73

71

80

47

60 40 20

8

6

6

11

4

0 OALD8

LDOCE5

COBUILD6

EXAMPLES FOR PERSON-DENOTING NOUNS

CALD3

MEDAL2

TOTAL OF EXAMPLE SENTENCES

Fig. 10: Number of example sentences in “The Big Five”

After taking a closer look at the content of the entries for person-denoting nouns and their frames, one can say from a first look that there is a striking similarity among the definitions across the dictionaries, as well as of the collocations treated in the example sentences. From the definitions of person-denoting nouns, this semantic field is indirectly legitimised, since the definitions uniformly start mostly with “a person / someone who / whose job is …”. In order to compare definitions and example sentences to frame example sections, the former were annotated according to frame elements of frame example sections. The elements were extracted from the dictionary entries, a table of which can also be found in the appendix (at the end of chapter 10.1.2). From these extractions, it becomes apparent that usually

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definitions do provide frame elements, but not to such a large extent as frame example sections. When starting out with the superordinate frame, definitions of person-denoting nouns usually do mention it.29 If this choice by the lexicographer was a subconscious one, it indicates that conceptualisation is universal. The other way round, however, person-denoting nouns do not seem to be an automatic inclusion in the definitions of their frames, since no definitions or example sentences mention them.30 The definitions of frames seem to be written from a more general perspective without unfolding a sequence or event structure; space restrictions or the difficulty of selecting a perspective in writing seemingly do not allow for this, and here, dictionaries can profit most from cognitive frame example sections. Regarding further frame elements, many definitions mention a certain portion, but never all the elements suggested in the cognitive frame example sections. Especially more difficult items to which cognitive frame example sections cater so well (e.g. lease from landlord, labour from midwife, to pledge from pawnbroker, defendant from plaintiff) are nowhere to be found. The only mention of frame elements are the example sentences of conductor2 and rent in CALD3, which mention baton and tenant. Presumably ‘simpler’ items, however, can be found in abundance, e.g. in the definitions of conductor1 (which mention train, bus, passengers, tickets, check and collect), or in library (where books, read, borrow and university library are mentioned repeatedly). This is probably also due to the commitment to write definitions with (and probably adapt example sentences to) a defining vocabulary, which does not allow for difficult items. A last point to be mentioned are collocating verbs: just as the definitions of person-denoting nouns justify this semantic field with their wording, they also usually give a typical collocating verb, since a definition of a person and their job demand it. In this respect, there is a certain similarity to cognitive frame example sections, which can be explained by the coinciding perspective. Summing up, the dictionaries are very similar to each other and only reach a certain level of inclusion of frame material. Cognitive frame example sections can really be seen as an enrichment, catering for information and vocabulary links that the traditional entries seemingly do not offer. One dictionary, however, does offer a special feature that bears a striking resemblance to frame example sections: ‘Word Webs’ in COBUILD6.31 This is another || 29 Exceptions are bridegroom (in all the dictionaries), as well as: conductor2, midwife (LDOCE5 / CALD3), undertaker (OALD8 / CALD3), landlord (CALD3), surgeon, umpire (in all but LDOCE5), suspect (in all but COBUILD6). 30 Exceptions here are conductor in the definition of orchestra in all the dictionaries except COBUILD6, landlord in the examples of rent in OALD8, surgeon and waiter in the definitions of only COBUILD6. 31 COBUILD6 is the only dictionary with a special feature, although Bogaards (2003: 51) mentions a feature called “Talking or writing about…” in MEDAL1, which are boxes that contain related vocabu-

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case in point for the radical changes in the dictionary – after abolitioning the “third column” and abandoning a corpus-only approach – brought about by the 6th edition, the first after John Sinclair’s death. Word webs are small texts centring on a certain topic and offering additionally – also new for COBUILD6 – a coloured picture. The dictionary itself (COBUILD6: viii) advertises them as “encyclopedia-like readings combined with stunning art, creating opportunities for deeper understanding of the language and concepts”, since they offer related vocabulary and encourage vocabulary exploring. In relation to the set of seventeen person-denoting nouns and their frames, COBUILD6 offers nine Word Webs which usually appear near the respective lemma at the top or the bottom of the page, spread over the two columns of the macrostructure: they are city, funeral, library, money, orchestra, train, trial (seen as an equivalent to court), restaurant and wedding, of which only library, restaurant, trial, and wedding contain the person-denoting noun of the cognitive frame example sections. Looking at one of the Word Webs, wedding (s.v., COBUILD6: 1777), in particular and comparing it to the frame example section, both reproduced in table 14, we see that the underlying idea seems to be similar, the text of the Word Web being longer. Tab. 14: COBUILD word webs vs. frame example sections

bridegroom, WEDDING On their WEDDING day, the BRIDE and the BRIDEGROOM get married and become HUSBAND and WIFE. A priest or pastor in church traditionally marries them with family and friends present. Afterwards, there often is a wedding reception.

However, the Word Web is not fully comprehensive (not mentioning e.g. the wedding dress, the wedding rings or characteristics of a ceremony) and omits items which are treated in the frame example section (e.g. the related lexical items husband and wife) as well as the most important collocating verb (to get married) and superordinate places. Instead it seems to centre on the people involved in a wedding (maid of honour, best man) and events related to a wedding (hen party, stag party, honeymoon trip). The gaps in relation to a ceremony, however, have the advantage

|| lary, also entered at e.g. marriage. This feature, however, seems to have been abolished again, for in MEDAL2 where there is no sign of it.

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that they do not force the lexicographer to describe a prototypical scene of a wedding and leave room for the dictionary user’s interpretations according to his or her experience and expectations. An analysis of the other three Word Webs (cf. COBUILD6, s.v. library, restaurant, trial) that contain the person-denoting noun of the corresponding frame example section present similar results: the Word Web restaurant mentions different kinds of restaurants (coffee shops, cafeterias, take away places) or positions that can be occupied in a restaurant (managers, waiters, cooks), but the basic script (i.e. involving the menu, ordering, eating and paying) is not referred to. This might be an indication that Word Webs are not designed to explicate a frame, but provide related vocabulary of a semantic field. A similar point can be made for the Word Web trial, which does contain the lexeme plaintiff as well as many other lexemes of people appearing in a trial (defendant, barrister, witness, jury); it is doubtful whether the mere listing of all the professions and actions of that frame contributes much to vocabulary acquisition and an understanding of the frame, since most items are not explained but must be guessed out of context (it remains e.g. unclear what it means to appeal the verdict). Here, the user would need to look up more items, which COBUILD probably refers to as “exploring vocabulary”, something not necessary with cognitive frame example sections.32 In the Word Web of library, mostly different kinds of media are mentioned (magazines, periodicals, fiction, biography). One could finally conclude that Word Webs are a similar new feature, whose provenance or linguistic background, however, remains unclear and whose set up might, despite its benefits, not be unproblematic. All in all, it can be concluded that none of the five modern dictionaries refers to frame semantics or any linguistic background, even if frame elements can be detected in definitions and example sentences. This, however, again seems to be a case of indirect cognitive lexicography due to the lexicographers’ conceptualisation. The treatment of frame elements is not exhaustive, and especially definitions and example sentences of frames remain very vague, precisely not taking a perspective as described in the cognitive frame example sections. COBUILD6’s feature of Word Webs is a welcome exception and a step towards a frame approach, even if the feature is not unproblematic either. The analysis has also proven that cognitive frame example sections would be a profitable new feature in common monolingual learner’s dictionaries, even in the context of traditional lexicography with space restrictions (which did not hinder COBUILD6 from including Word Webs). The following section will discuss how dictionary definitions and example sentences have developed in different editions of the OALD.

|| 32 Compare the explanation (COBUILD6: viii): “All key words in bold are defined in the dictionary. Upon looking up one word, learners discover other related words that draw them further into the dictionary and the language”.

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5.3.2 OALD1-OALD8 After the analysis of the five modern dictionaries, an analysis of older editions of the OALD will also be provided. Just as in the analysis above, the research questions remain the same, namely whether frame elements from the cognitive frame example sections can also be found in the entries of the OALD in various editions over the years. What will furthermore be investigated is whether and in how far exemplification has changed and whether the advent of frame semantics in linguistics has had an impact on the dictionaries. The method employed consists again of collecting definitions and example sentences from the entries of person-denoting nouns and their frames and of counting and annotating the number of example sentences. Regarding the choice of dictionary material to be analysed, it was again the matching sense to a frame example section that was selected; run-on entries in older editions of the OALD were cut off after the first relevant sense, or only the relevant parts of a run-on entry were chosen; the tilde from OALD3 was also used (displayed as a double tilde). When starting again with the exemplification policy, OALD1 does not mention exemplification explicitly, although it was a vital part of the new genre of learner’s dictionaries. It only mentions (OALD1: vi) in a section called Notes on Type in the front matter that “[i]llustrative phrases and sentences are printed in italic type”, a convention that persists to this day. OALD3 (iii) also only mentions exemplification for sentence patterns, style and context in passing. OALD5 is then the first dictionary that contains more elaborate information on its policies, also involving the numerous new features of the 5th edition: it is the first edition that uses the British National Corpus and, as outlined in the front matter (OALD5: vi), […] the corpus has provided abundant raw material on which to base the illustrative examples which have always been a key feature of the dictionary. Many existing examples were rewritten in the light of the new evidence, and nearly 9 000 new ones were added for this edition.

Example sentences are said to be used “in most cases”, and for the first time, a defining vocabulary and a new coding scheme were implemented (OALD5: ix). OALD5 thus represents a radical departure from practice in OALD1 and OALD3. Turning then to an overview of the number of example sentences, we not only find again a large gap between the number of example sentences in the entries of person-denoting nouns and their frames, but also a striking development, as demonstrated in figure 11. Although exemplification was part of learner lexicography from its very beginnings, the number of example sentences in OALD1 is very low compared to subsequent editions, with no example sentences at all found for the entries of person-denoting nouns. The number has to be relativised, however, with an eye to lexicographic practice: long, “lumped”, and also nested run-on entries are common in OALD1, and many elements printed as a run-on definition in

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normal font would be part of exemplification today. Extensional definitions are furthermore the rule, which often also move to the example section in later editions (e.g. the entry sport in OALD1 compared to OALD5). Yet it is this practice that is responsible for not counting these instances, and it looks as if a lot of information was not treated in older editions, although it only appears in another format.33

NUMBER OF EXAMPLES IN OALD1-OALD8

100 80 60 40 20 0

83

82

52 30 0

2

OALD1

OALD3

EXAMPLES FOR PERSON-DENOTING NOUNS

10

8

OALD5

OALD8

TOTAL NUMBER OF EXAMPLES

Fig. 11: Number of example sentences in OALD1-OALD8

In OALD3, the number of example sentences has already risen, and it rises again considerably in OALD5, reaching a level common today, from where the number of example sentences in OALD8 seems to remain stable. If we take average numbers into consideration, the ratio is approximately the same as the one with the modern dictionaries (here 5 example sentences on average for person-denoting nouns compared to 61.5 example sentences on average for frames), although the average is not a representative number given the different exemplification practices in the different editions. Regarding general lexicographic practice, the language of defining has become simpler over the editions, which is mostly due to the introduction of a defining vocabulary in 1995. The introduction in OALD1 (v), however, justified its decision not to use the available defining vocabularies of the time (e.g. the GSL from 1936) and stated that a special defining vocabulary might still be unknown to a user, while defining by common words seemed to be the more felicitous approach. Apart from

|| 33 Compare here Herbst, who also says in the framework of a dictionary comparison of example sentences (1996: 327) that “a purely quantitative comparison has certain limits.”

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the language of definitions, extensional definitions were eliminated and the microstructure became less dense: the run-on entries mentioned for OALD1 have been abolished by the time of OALD5, where paragraphing (“splitting”) is more elaborate and an emphasis has been put on the findability of entries and user-friendliness.34 Moving finally to frame semantic content of definitions and example sentences from OALD1 through to OALD8, the entries are – despite their lexicographic differences – relatively homogeneous, the only difference being the number of frame elements detected. Just as the number of example sentences increases sharply between OALD3 and OALD5, the number of frame elements automatically does so as well (compare especially caretaker, conductor2, or library); peaks in the number of frame elements detected can be recorded in alternation for OALD5 and OALD8. Regarding the quality of frame elements, the same applies in general to all the editions of the OALD as to the five modern learner’s dictionaries: entries of person-denoting nouns mention the superordinate frame and collocating verbs, while entries of frames remain more general in their perspective and do not mention the persondenoting noun. Frame elements detected are in accordance with cognitive frame example sections, though in a much lower number, leaving out more difficult lexemes despite a relative freedom of defining in the absence of a defining vocabulary in the first two editions. There is still one aspect that concerns OALD5: not only does this dictionary contain a higher number of frame elements in many cases, but also more specific vocabulary that has been deleted again in OALD8; examples of this are baton for conductor2, bride mentioned with bridegroom, interrogation in the entry of suspect, or a list of different sports in umpire (possibly a relic of extensional definitions and examples from OALD1/3). OALD5 belongs to the special collection of editions that all appeared in 1995 and one could imagine that all the elements, including exemplification, were chosen more than carefully. On the other hand, OALD5 is also the dictionary that should exhibit effects from the advent of frame semantics in linguistics (OALD3 from 1973 being published too soon for an incorporation of this new theory); but there are no allusions or resemblances to be found. All in all, older editions of the OALD were not necessarily inferior to current editions, especially not to OALD5, and only differed in lexicographic practice, which changed over the decades (again especially with OALD5). The situation regarding frame semantic content was – as expected – not better than today, but – unfortunately for the modern editions – not so much worse either. The appeal of a comparison lies, however, rather in detecting lexicographic change than in finding cognitive linguistic material. The next chapter will go on to explore how cognitive frame example sections contribute to vocabulary acquisition, tested in two small-scale userstudies. || 34 Compare here also Herbst (1996: 345), saying “[t]he overall structure of OALD5’s entries is a remarkable improvement on previous editions (especially the third).”

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5.4 User-studies of cognitive frame examples 5.4.1 Dictionaries and vocabulary learning Since dictionaries record words and users have been found to look up meanings in most cases when they consult a dictionary (Béjoint 1981), dictionaries also lend themselves to being a tool for vocabulary acquisition, at least in the desirable scenario in which a user remembers the meanings of the words s/he has just looked up. Cognitive frame example sections were – along with encoding purposes of finding related vocabulary in a frame – also developed for vocabulary acquisition, the hypothesis being that encountering words in a meaningful, cognitive context provided by the frame facilitates their retention. The effects of frame example sections for vocabulary acquisition were tested in two small-scale user-studies, which will be outlined in the following chapters. Since these studies involved active work with components of dictionary entries, a few words on vocabulary acquisition and dictionary use are required first. Dictionaries might not be the obvious choice for learning new vocabulary items; language learners think of using course books rather than dictionaries for vocabulary acquisition. The longer a learner learns a language, however, the more likely it is that s/he has a dictionary at their disposal, since, in Carter’s words (1987: 9), [a]lmost every learner or user of English as a second or foreign language owns one, and it is probably one of the few books which are retained after following a language course.

Béjoint/Moulin also state (1987: 98) that a dictionary is a valuable tool within our reach, and Herbst/Stein (1987: 127) stress that its use is part of a wider language competence. Dictionary use can thus be regarded as a skill needed for learner autonomy and independence in a life-long language learning process (cf. Allen 1983: 82, Béjoint 1989: 209, Hedge 2000: 130, Meyer 2001: 62). Although dictionaries are structured alphabetically, presenting lexical items in apparent isolation, they are still suitable for acquiring new lexical units: Summers (1988: 116) notes that definitions and examples provide simple contexts and dictionaries thereby organise the language. The feature of cognitive frame example sections takes this approach even further. And it is precisely this context that is recommended for teaching vocabulary in order to attach new vocabulary items to known ones in the learner’s mental lexicon (cf. Aitchison 2003, Kielhöfer 1994, Martin 2006: 289). Many authors therefore explicitly suggest the use of semantic fields for the introduction of new vocabulary, e.g. also Nattinger (1988: 72), who uses the term situational sets, which seem close to what frames are and what frame example sections offer, since they are […] groups of words that are associated because of the subject of the text, its purpose or its construction; they are words related to a particular situation.

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Therefore, it is assumed that frame example sections in dictionaries can contribute to vocabulary acquisition by providing and unfolding a meaningful context that is not only in line with cognitive findings, but also more elaborate than what normal dictionary entries offer. This cognitive context can form the familiar network to which new vocabulary items are attached. In order to be able to use the dictionary effectively for vocabulary acquisition, users have to have a command of dictionary skills, e.g. regarding finding entries and the particular information they need in the microstructure, although the alphabetical macrostructure of a dictionary seems self-explanatory. The need to teach dictionary using skills, as well as an improvement of them, has been repeatedly called for in the literature, just as the general neglect of a need to teach them, both on the teachers’ and the students’ sides, has been criticised (cf. Béjoint 1989: 208, Béjoint/Moulin 1989: 105, Herbst/Stein 1987: 115, Meyer 2001: 59- 61, Summers 1988: 111).35 The studies reported on below also demand dictionary using skills from their participants, yet to a lower degree, since the participants were provided with the entries they needed (cf. chapter 5.4.2 and 5.4.3). With these entries, two studies were conducted requiring an encoding task from the participants. Before these two studies are described in detail, it should be mentioned that neither was able to prove a statistically significant effect of frame example sections on vocabulary acquisition, the reasons for which will be discussed at the end of this chapter.

5.4.2 Testing productive use: gap-fill task 5.4.2.1 Methodology The first study of person-denoting nouns was a two-group and two-part gap-fill task, with 25 participants in each group. The participants first received dictionary materials on the person-denoting nouns, and later a gap-fill task on these items. The research question was whether cognitive frame example sections in dictionary entries, given to the target group, would lead to a better retention of person-denoting nouns and a subsequent better performance in the productive task, the hypothesis being that test subjects from the target group would perform better. This format was chosen36 to test the retention of person-denoting nouns from the first part of the task, although it reverses a typical look-up situation (as most user-studies do), since there was neither an authentic look-up need nor an intrinsic purpose for the further use of

|| 35 Compare also Hanika (2006) for an overview of the didactics of dictionary use, among which e.g. its strategies and problems. 36 Please note that for these as well as for the studies in chapter six, basic literature such as Albert/Marx (2010), Gries (2008), Hasson/Giora (2007), Meindl (2011), Rasch et al. (2009) and Schwarze (2009a, 2009b) was considered.

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the word. It can, however, be reported that all test subjects found the task meaningful. The experiment tested the twelve person-denoting nouns bridegroom, conduc1 tor , conductor2, landlord, librarian, mayor, plaintiff, striker, surgeon, suspect, undertaker, waiter and their frames. In the first part of the experiment, test subjects were given dictionary entries of the person-denoting nouns which they were supposed to read actively in a given time. The second part of the experiment, which followed immediately after the first and for which dictionary materials were taken away again, demanded filling out a work sheet with small gap-fill texts, one for each person-denoting noun and frame tested. The test subjects were not told how the two parts of the experiment referred to one another and were not told explicitly either that they would encounter the person-denoting nouns again and should therefore try to memorise them. The gap-fill task was chosen in order to force participants to use exactly the same person-denoting nouns, but not to test associations of frames. The test subjects participating in the experiment were university students of English completing their bachelor degrees. They were either in their 2nd or 4th semester and can all be considered advanced learners of English. This group of test subjects is especially suitable since their competence in English presumably permits them to understand all the items, but is not so advanced as to actively include all the person-denoting nouns (e.g. plaintiff). Apart from their being students in linguistics classes, no further social information was elicited. Test subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups, a target and a control group: for the reading activity in the first part, the target group (i.e. the ‘cognitive group’) received dictionary entries from LDOCE5 on the person-denoting nouns supplemented by the cognitive frame example sections. The control group received the same dictionary entries from LDOCE5 with further text material from the BNC on the person-denoting nouns (“fake frame example sections”) so that they had approximately the same amount of reading material to master as the target group and entries in the control group were not read more often.37 For the second part, the test subjects received a worksheet with the gap-fill texts, which was identical for both groups. In the first part of the experiment, the reading task, the test subjects were put under time pressure: they received a little booklet with each dictionary entry on a single page and were told to read one entry after another turning pages when told to do so, but never going back to a previous entry. When the experiment was started in the group after reading the instructions together, the time accorded to reading each entry lasted approximately 25 seconds, a time decided upon by testing with inde-

|| 37 Although it would have been ideal to test frame example sections compared to classical dictionary entries without any supplement, this design was chosen in order to make testing feasible and ensure approximately the same reading time for both groups.

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pendent people. The underlying assumption was that entrenchment works with a faster activation of concepts, ideally ensured by the frame example sections in the target group.38 For the work sheets in the second part, no time pressure was exerted after instructing the test subjects and they were given approximately 15 to 20 minutes, a time in which all were able to finish the task; they were allowed to work on the texts as they pleased, also going back and forth. The order in which the dictionary entries in the reading material as well as the gap-fill texts on the worksheet appeared was randomised for each piece of reading material and each worksheet anew; therefore, no single reading material or worksheet was alike, in order to minimise a learner variable (cf. Grochocka 2008: 474, Lew/Dziemianko 2006: 233) and exclude training effects, fatigue or other influences (e.g. copying) between test subjects. Whenever testing material was handed out to a group of participants, the materials were furthermore drawn randomly from the pile accordingly to the number of expected participants, mixing hereby also target and control group for the reading material. Since testing was anonymous, the test subjects chose a pseudonym which they had to enter on both the reading material and the worksheet so that results from the worksheet could be attributed to a participant from either target or control group. The exact design and composition of the materials will be described in more detail in the next section.

5.4.2.2 Design of materials First, the materials for the reading task will be presented, followed by the worksheets of the gap-fill task. All materials and illustrations thereof can be found in the appendix (chapters 10.3.1.1 and 10.3.1.2). The reading material was presented to the test subjects in the form of a little booklet (DinA5) of pages stapled together; the first page contained the instructions and a line for entering the personal pseudonym, the following pages contained one dictionary entry each. The booklet was fastened with a paperclip at the beginning of the experiment in order to prevent the test subjects from opening it and reading the entries before the actual experiment started. Its dictionary entries consisted of a reproduction of the traditional entry from LDOCE5 on the person-denoting noun for both groups, supplemented by the cognitive frame example section for the target group, and the “fake frame example sections”, i.e. sentences from the BNC on the person-denoting noun, for the control group. The traditional dictionary entries were taken from LDOCE5. This dictionary was chosen for several reasons: it is a traditional, yet innovative product on the market,

|| 38 For the notion of entrenchment, where repetition contributes to the strength of representation of a linguistic unit, leading ultimately to unit status, compare Langacker (1987: 57- 60 and 100, 2008: 16- 17).

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it does not display particularly special features (such as e.g. full-sentence definitions in COBUILD6) and the test subjects might already be familiar with it; additionally, it is also frequently discussed in the lexicographic literature. Only one dictionary was used throughout all the experiments (in this and in chapter six), since the product ‘monolingual learner’s dictionary’ is generally compared to cognitive dictionary features, as it is not the aim to test the qualities of different products on the market.39 The LDOCE5-entries of the person-denoting nouns40 that participants received were copied as they appear in the dictionary: they contained the headword separated into syllables, word class (spelt out as noun without further specifications or abbreviations), the definition and example sentences if present; information on grammar, syntax, and pronunciation was excluded since it was not necessary for the current purpose. Only the corresponding sense from a polysemous entry was reproduced; additional material, e.g. cross-references, collocation boxes, thesaurus information etc., was also excluded.41 The characteristics of the definitions are that they consist of mostly analytical definitions with a genus proximum such as ‘person’, that their entries are rather short (esp. in comparison to those of the frame) and that they do not use example sentences in nearly all cases. 42 Of all the person-denoting nouns, only the lemma landlord is printed in pink in LDOCE5 as an indication of belonging to the core vocabulary, which again mirrors the person-denoting nouns’ relative infrequency in comparison to their frames. With regards to the additional material added to the LDOCE5 dictionary entries, the cognitive frame example sections for the target group were reproduced, yet without normal and dotted underlining in order not to disturb the reading flow. The “fake frame example sections” for the control group were supposed to be texts similar in style to frame example sections, yet not based on cognitive information, and texts from the BNC web were used. They were found by searching for the persondenoting noun and looking for appropriate sentences in the texts from the hits in the KWIC-view; suitable passages were extracted and possibly adapted, covering as much space as needed to equal the length of the cognitive frame example section.

|| 39 The fact that the choice of dictionary is actually only secondary is supported by Chan (2012), who found that the success of dictionary consultation does not depend on a particular product since they are all more or less equally effective in both production and comprehension tasks (also Nesi 2000: 120). 40 Although cognitive frame example sections are primarily designed to be entered at the entry of the frame, both groups had to receive the entry of the pdN in order to test its retention. 41 Strictly speaking, it could be said that the test subjects were denied information they normally would have access to using the dictionary; but this was not a fully natural look-up situation, but concentrated on vocabulary acquisition. 42 The entry for suspect was especially too long for the current purpose and was shortened to one example sentence; this can again be seen as a manipulation, but examples in this entry deal foremost with different syntactic realisations and other dictionaries offer a shorter entry.

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The sources of the BNC texts can be found in the bibliography and table 15 gives an impression of what a dictionary entry (here for bridegroom) on a page of the reading booklet looked like. Tab. 15: Example of reading material in the gap-fill task bride  groom (also groom) noun bride  groom (also groom) noun a man at the time he gets married, or just after he a man at the time he gets married, or just after is married he is married On their WEDDING day, the BRIDE and the BRIDEget married and become HUSBAND and WIFE. A priest or pastor in church traditionally marries them with family and friends present. Afterwards, there often is a wedding reception.

The bridegroom was a very tall young man with reddish hair. Whilst the bridegroom was almost sixty years of age, his bride was in her early twenties.

target group

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GROOM

The worksheets in the second part of the experiment contained a gap-fill task on each of the person-denoting nouns and their frames. The task was designed as a cloze test with a short text of approximately 60-90 words on each person-denoting noun coming from authentic sources (Grotjahn 2002: 211- 212). These were found on the Internet: the person-denoting noun and the frame were typed in a Google©search (e.g. ‘bridegroom wedding’) and appropriate (in most cases newspaper) texts found that way (or texts found directly on the webpages of The Guardian or the BBC) were used (the sources of all the texts are given in the bibliography, online source [6]). When an appropriate text was found, a suitable passage was extracted, shortened to the indicated word length and adapted.43 The first sentence was used as an introductory sentence containing the lexeme of the frame as a cognitive trigger, and gaps were created from the second sentence onwards (Grotjahn 2002: 212). Generally, there are three gaps in the text: the person-denoting noun (the only gap of interest), another element from the frame, and a completely unrelated item. An example, again for bridegroom, is reproduced in table 16 as it appeared in the work sheet, as well as being annotated with the solutions.

|| 43 The texts were abridged and adapted to a considerable degree, e.g. adding items to make the context clear, leaving out words or passages, paraphrasing and replacing items, or changing the order of sentences or picking suitable sentences from a different place in the text.

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Tab. 16: Gap-fill text for bridegroom

A bride gave birth only minutes after tying the knot in Nairobi on Saturday, achieving two of a woman’s greatest desires in one day — being a bride and becoming a mother. Guests at the wedding at St Bakhita Catholic Church in Mukuru slums were lost for words when Ms Catherine Mwikali developed labour pains immediately after exchanging the marriage vows. Catherine, who got ______________ to Mr Josephat Ndiritu, went through the wedding and exchanged rings with the ______________, then she gave ______________ to a baby girl. A bride gave birth only minutes after tying the knot in Nairobi on Saturday, achieving two of a woman’s greatest desires in one day — being a bride and becoming a mother. Guests at the wedding at St Bakhita Catholic Church in Mukuru slums were lost for words when Ms Catherine Mwikali developed labour pains immediately after exchanging the marriage vows. Catherine, who got married to Mr Josephat Ndiritu, went through the wedding and exchanged rings with the bridegroom , then she gave birth to a baby girl.

The example shows that the first sentence already triggers the [WEDDING]-frame with the help of the lexeme bride, by the latest, however, the lexeme wedding itself in the third line mentions the frame explicitly. The solution married is the other related element from the frame, which is additionally one of the most important collocations. The last item birth is the unrelated item of the frame.44 A group of three gaps therefore not only tests the person-denoting noun and triggers the frame, but also includes a distractor. On the worksheets, test subjects also found instructions first, which explicitly demanded English items to be inserted in the gaps, since retention of vocabulary items was tested instead of a global understanding of the frame. After another line to enter their pseudonym from the first part, the test subjects then found the twelve gap-fill texts, the order of which was also randomised for each worksheet. In the appendix, photos of the materials can also be found to give an overall impression of what test subjects held in their hands. The results will be revealed in the next chapter.

5.4.2.3 Results and discussion The research question was whether cognitive frame example sections promote a better retention of vocabulary items of person-denoting nouns and subsequently lead to a better performance in the ensuing gap-fill task. The hypothesis was that test subjects from the target group would perform better in comparison to the con-

|| 44 It is only a coincidence that it belongs to the [BIRTH]-frame with the person-denoting noun midwife, which did not exist at the time of testing. Other unrelated items from the other gap-fill texts are really haphazard contextual items, also covering other word classes than nouns and verbs.

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trol group, since dictionary entries complemented by frame example sections are cognitively more valuable and activate a whole frame, which in turn leads to a higher degree of retention and subsequent reproduction. The null hypothesis is that there is no statistically significant difference between the performances of the two groups. Evaluating the results of the task consisted in counting the correctly mentioned person-denoting nouns in the gaps of the worksheets and of comparing their scores across both groups, where their significance of difference was checked using the χ2–test (the χ2–measures can be found in tables 35 and 36 in the appendix, chapter 10.3.1.3). The experiment was started in a linguistics class with 27 students (n=27), of which 13 worked with material from the target group (nt=13, nc=14). The results were evaluated directly after the first round, and these results revealed a ceiling effect, which ultimately lead to stopping the experiment. As can be seen in figure 12,45 nearly all the test subjects in both groups had filled in all the gaps of the persondenoting nouns correctly.

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Fig. 12: Results of gap-fill task

Only the item plaintiff exhibited the desired effect and is statistically significant (χ2= 6.45, p