Research on Dictionary Use in the Context of Foreign Language Learning: Focus on Reading Comprehension [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110915013, 9783484391062

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LESKDOGEAraßDA S S

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 Sture Allén, Pierre Corbin, Reinhard R. K. Hartmann, Franz Josef Hausmann, Ulrich Heid, Oskar Reichmann, Ladislav Zgusta 106

Published in cooperation with the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) and the European Association for Lexicography (EURALEX)

Yukio Tono

Research on Dictionary Use in the Context of Foreign Language Learning Focus on Reading Comprehension

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 2001

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme [Lexicographica

/ Series maior]

Lexicographica : supplementary volumes to the International annual for lexicography / pubi, in cooperation with the Dictionary Society of N o r t h America (DSNA) and the European Association for Lexicography ( E U R A L E X ) . Series maior. - Tübingen : Niemeyer. Früher Schriftenreihe Reihe Series maior zu: Lexicographica 106. Yukio Tono: Research on dictionary use in the context of foreign language learning. - 2001 Tono, Yukio: Research on dictionary use in the context of foreign language learning : focus on reading comprehension / Yukio Tono. - Tubingen : Niemeyer, 2001 (Lexicographica : Series maior ; 106) ISBN 3-484-39106-5

ISSN 0175-9264

© Max Niemeyer Verlag G m b H , Tübingen 2001 Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier. Druck: Weihert-Druck G m b H , Darmstadt Einband: Industriebuchbinderei Nädele, Nehren

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

xi

Introduction

1

Part 1: Research on Dictionary Use: State of the Art

5

1. User-oriented Dictionary Research: a Brief History

7

1.1. Lexicography: theory and practice 1.2. The user perspective: innovation 1.3. The growing awareness of user needs 1.4. Advances in user-oriented research

7 8 11 13

2. Research on Dictionary Use in Language Learning 2.1. Dictionary use in vocabulary learning 2.1.1. Dimensions of vocabulary learning 2.1.2. The role of dictionary use in vocabulary learning: a critical survey 2.2. Dictionary use in decoding activities 2.2.1. The effect of dictionary use on reading comprehension tests 2.2.2. The effect of dictionary use on the reading comprehension process 2.3. Dictionary use in encoding activities 2.4. Summary

15 15 15 19 26 27 30 32 36

3. Needs and Skills Analysis of L2 Dictionary Users 3.1. The development of needs analysis in dictionary research 3.2. A framework for needs analysis 3.3. Needs analysis of native speakers as dictionary users 3.3.1. Situations of dictionary use 3.3.2. Information used by native speakers 3.3.3. Language needs that are not satisfied 3.4. Needs analysis of ESL/EFL learners 3.4.1. Specific needs of EFL learners 3.4.2. Situations of dictionary use by EFL learners 3.4.3. Information used by EFL learners 3.4.4. Information the users never use 3.4.5. Language needs that are not satisfied 3.5. Skills analysis 3.5.1. Skills for searching multi-word units 3.5.2. Other processes of dictionary look-up 3.6. A new framework for needs and skills analysis 3.6.1. Target situation analysis 3.6.2. Learner factors

37 37 39 39 40 41 42 43 44 44 47 48 49 50 52 53 54 54 55

vi 3.6.3. Contexts of use 3.7. Summary

56 58

4. Research on Dictionary Use: Methodological Considerations 4.1. Areas and hypotheses concerning research into dictionary use 4.2. Towards a more comprehensive framework for the research on dictionary use 4.2.1. The scientific method 4.2.2. Criticism of positivism and the scientific method 4.3. Methods for research into dictionary use 4.3.1. Methods 4.3.2. Participant observation 4.3.3. Surveys 4.3.4. Accounts 4.3.5. Correlational research 4.3.6. Ex post fact research 4.3.7. Experiments, quasi-experiments and single-case studies 4.4. Summary

59 59 62 62 65 66 66 67 67 68 68 70 70 72

Part 2: Empirical Studies

73

5. The Effect of Long-term Dictionary Use on Reading Comprehension 5.1. Purpose 5.2. Method 5.2.1. Subjects 5.2.2. Instrumentation 5.2.3. Hypotheses 5.2.4. Procedure 5.3. Results 5.4. Discussion 5.4.1. The positive effect of dictionary use on reading comprehension scores 5.4.2. Relationship between DRSTB subscores and reading scores 5.4.3. The effect of long-term dictionary use on reading comprehension skills 5.4.4. Future methodological problems 5.5. Summary

75 76 76 76 77 78 78 79 80 81 81 81 82 83

6. How to Assess Dictionary Using Skills for Language Learning 6.1. Two major studies on the assessment of dictionary using skills 6.1.1. Atkins et al. (1987) 6.1.2. Okayama( 1985) 6.2. The components of a test of dictionary using skills 6.3. A comparative study of the dictionary skills test 6.3.1. Subjects 6.3.2. Procedure 6.3.3. Results and discussion 6.4. Summary

84 84 84 87 88 91 91 92 92 95

vii 7. A Good Dictionary User: What Makes the Difference? 7.1. Background 7.2. Method 7.2.1. Subjects 7.2.2. The user profile questionnaire 7.2.3. Procedure 7.2.4. Data analysis 7.3. Results and discussion 7.3.1. The user profile questionnaire 7.3.2. Observations on the use of dictionary conventions 7.3.3. Observations on L2/ LI translation with a dictionary 7.4. Summary

97 97 97 97 98 99 99 100 100 101 111 114

8. Macrostructure Skills: Idiom Look-up Operations 116 8.1. The treatment of idioms in dictionaries 116 8.2. Idiom patterns in the Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English (1985) 118 8.3. Idiom look-up strategies: Béjoint (1981) 118 8.4. Method 119 8.4.1. Subjects 119 8.4.2. Test 120 8.4.3. Procedure 120 8.4.4. Data analysis and review of dictionaries 120 8.5. Results 120 8.5.1. User preferences for looking up words in idioms 121 8.5.2. Differences in look-up patterns between English and non-English majors.. 125 8.5.3. Critical review of idiom presentation in major learners' dictionaries 127 8.6. Discussion 139 8.7. Summary 142 9. Microstructure Skills: Process of Dictionary Look-up in L2/L1 Translation 9.1. Background 9.2. Method 9.2.1. Tests 9.2.2. Information types to be tested 9.2.3. Subjects 9.2.4. Materials for the tests 9.2.5. Procedure 9.3. Results 9.3.1. Grammatical information 9.3.2. Verb-patterns 9.3.3. Countable vs. uncountable nouns 9.3.4. Gloss 9.3.5. Collocation 9.3.6. Idioms 9.3.7. Run-ons 9.3.8. Questionnaires

143 143 143 144 146 148 148 149 149 149 151 154 155 156 157 158 159

vili 9.3.9. Differences between English-majors and non-English majors 9.4. Discussion 9.5. Summary

160 161 165

10. Microstructure Skills: the Effect of Menu on the Look-up Process 10.1. Purpose 10.2. Method 10.2.1. Subjects 10.2.2. Instruments 10.2.3. Procedure 10.2.4. Data analysis 10.3. Results and discussion 10.4. Summary

167 167 169 169 169 170 170 171 173

11. Macrostructure Revisited: the Effect of Signposts/Guidewords 11.1. Background 11.2. Method 11.2.1. Purpose 11.2.2. Variables 11.2.3. Instruments 11.2.4. Subjects 11.3. Results and discussion 11.3.1. Example search test 11.3.2. Word association test 11.4. Summary

174 174 176 176 176 177 182 182 182 184 187

12. Using Learners' Error Information for L2 Lexicography 12.1. Background 12.2. JEFLL corpus project 12.3. Collocation errors of English basic verbs 12.4. Corpus analysis procedure 12.4.1. The basic procedure of text processing 12.4.2. Frequency scores 12.4.3. Mutual information (MI) Statistic 12.4.4. T-scores 12.4.5. Procedures for collocation data analysis 12.5. Results of verb collocation analysis 12.6. Integrating error information into lexicographical description 12.6.1. Errors of verb meanings 12.6.2. Errors of verb patterns and collocations 12.7. Summary

189 189 190 191 192 192 193 194 194 194 198 200 200 201 202

13. L2 Learner Corpora for Pedagogical Dictionaries: The Case of Make 13.1. Background 13.2. Method 13.2.1. JEFLL corpus

203 203 204 204

ix 13.2.2. General native-speaker corpus: COBUILD Direct 13.2.3. Comparing non-native speaker corpora with native-speaker corpora 13.3. Results 13.3.1. Results of the analysis of the general native speaker corpora 13.3.2. The use of the verb make by E F L learners in Japan 13.3.3. The missing link in the use of make by EFL learners 13.4. Summary

205 206 206 206 210 211 213

Conclusion

215

Appendices

218

Bibliography

249

Acknowledgements

This book owes much to my teachers and my students. Reinhard Hartmann shaped my thoughts on user perspectives in pedagogical lexicography. Since 1984, when I first wrote my B.Ed, thesis on dictionary use, he has constantly encouraged and set challenging tasks for me in this field. His empirical approach toward dictionary use constitutes the framework of this book. He was also the one who initially inspired me to make my thesis and papers into a book. Ken Kanatani encouraged me to pursue a career as researcher in the field of English language teaching. He honed my knowledge and appreciation of experimental methods while I was his student and also a colleague at Tokyo Gakugei University. Megumi Aoki, a former postgraduate student of mine, helped me throught the entire process of learner data collection. She also gave me tremendous moral support when I was caught up in intervening work and had difficulty resuming this book project. Hidetomo Momoi, another former postgrad, carried out a quite labour-intensive corpus analysis and helped me clarify a number of ideas expressed in this book. I also thank hundreds of anonymous students I taught at Tokyo Metropolitan College of Aeronautical Engineering and Tokyo Gakugei University for their willingness to participate in the surveys and experiments I conducted during the last 15 years. At an early stage in the preparation of the book, I benefited from the comments of distinguished academics who read my thesis or papers which eventually became part of this book: Sue Atkins, Henri Béjoint, Paul Bogaards, Anthony Cowie, Batia Laufer, Hilary Nesi, Martha Ripfel, Mike Rundell, Phil Scholfield, and Gabriele Stein. I also thank Toshi Watanabe at Benesse Corporation, who offered me a chance to attend the Seminar on Computational Lexicography at Kossuth Lajos University in Debrecen, Hungary in 1995, which motivated me to combine a corpus-based analysis of learner language and a study of dictionary use together for L2 lexicography. I thank Gregory Grefenstette, Patrick Hanks, and Ramesh Krishnamurthy for providing a fundamental understanding of corpus-based dictionary making at the seminar. I also thank Delia Summers, who on several occasions discussed issues of learners' dictionaries with me and showed me how I should integrate user perspectives into an actual product. I would also like to acknowledge the two supervisors of my PhD work here at Lancaster University, Geoffrey Leech and Tony McEnery, who have provided strong support while I have been working on corpus-based research into the L2 acquisition process. At a later stage, pre-final draft chapters were presented to Reinhard Hartmann and Hilary Nesi. Reinhard Hartmann read and critiqued the drafts in their entirety. Hilary Nesi gave me tremendous support by proofreading the manuscripts and correcting my often-stilted writing. Of course all remaining errors are my responsibility. I also thank the chief editor and two reviewers of Lexicographica, Ulrich Heid, Reinhard Hartmann, and Franz Josef Hausmann. I would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Cambridge University Press for the entries "expose", "forge", "negative", " place", "pump" and "spring" in the Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1995); Heinle & Heinle Publishers for Paul Nation (1990) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary, Table 3.1.on p. 31; Kenkyusha Publishing Co. for the entry "take" in the Kenkyusha College Lighthouse English-Japanese Dictionary (1995); Pearson Education for the entries "expose", "forge",

xii "negative", " place", "pump" and "spring" in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995); Shogakukan Publishing Co. for the entry "take" in the Learner s Progressive English- Japanese Dictionary (1997).

Introduction

Until recently dictionary use has been an area that is largely ignored in scientific inquiry. While the lexicon is central to language use and acquisition, dictionaries seem to serve a somewhat different purpose. In the case of native language, dictionaries usually start to be consulted after people have already completed the initial stage of language learning and are moving on to learn how to read and write. Much of the enthusiasm about the mystery of language acquisition has already gone by the time dictionary use begins. Once these users have grown up and acquired basic literacy, their primary purposes for dictionary use are reduced to checking spellings and solving crossword puzzles. Nevertheless dictionaries retain their prestigious status, serving a minority of intellectual minds as a mirror of society and culture, while practical university students exploit them as a tool for increasing technical vocabulary. This situation is gradually changing as a different kind of dictionary use gains more attention. This is in the area of foreign language learning. The use of dictionaries in foreign language learning is not at all a new idea itself. People have invented and made extensive use of glossaries and dictionaries whenever they have tackled the learning of a foreign language. What is new, however, is a profound change of attitude toward vocabulary learning and consequently the renewed interest in dictionary use in the last two decades. There are three reasons for this change. First, there is a shift towards a greater preoccupation with the lexicon in linguistics in general. Many aspects of language that earlier Chomskyan models dealt with as 'syntax' are now handled as idiosyncrasies of lexical items. The syntax itself is considerably simplified by the omission of many rules, at the cost of greatly increased lexical information (Cook and Newson 1996:19). What this implies in psycholinguistic terms is that the major challenge of learning and using a language lies not in the area of broad syntactic principles but in the 'nitty-gritty' of the lexicon. Second, this trend in linguistics echoes a similar shift towards the re-valuation of the lexical dimension in second language teaching and learning. The lexical dimension in second language teaching had been seriously marginalized due to the widespread adoption of audio-lingual methodology after the World War II. Galisson (1991) argues that this marginalisation continued to a large extent under the more recent 'communicative' régime. Since the early 1980s, however, there has been a positive explosion of publications on vocabulary aimed at L2 teachers, L2 teacher trainers and L2 course designers (e.g. Carter and McCarthy 1988; Hatch and Brown 1995; Nation 1990; Schmitt and McCarthy 1997; Singleton 1999; Wallace 1982; Willis 1990). This research is attracting an increasing amount of interest. Third, the last two decades have seen rapid developments in lexicography directed at improving the image of dictionaries within the language teaching profession. As Carter (1998) points out, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE) and the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English (OALD) have contributed considerably to the development and design of dictionaries for non-native learners of English. In 1995, three major English monolingual learners' dictionaries, LDOCE, OALD and the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (COBUILD), were all revised and another dictionary,

2 the Cambridge International Dictionary of English (CIDE) was newly published. A growing interest in pedagogical lexicography and the role of such dictionaries in language learning, together with the realisation that lexical knowledge is now known to be an absolutely crucial factor across the whole spectrum of second language activities, has in recent times resulted in a number of publications reporting empirical studies of dictionary use (see, e.g., Atkins 1998; Herbst and Popp 1999; Nesi 2000). There has, however, been far less investigation of dictionary use in language learning than there has been of L2 vocabulary learning in general, despite the impression that may be given by the recent rash of publications in this area. Although it may be on the increase, good research still appears to be scarce and is often focused on highly specific aspects of dictionary use, so that no clear overall picture emerges. An increasing amount of effort is now being devoted, however, to studying various aspects of dictionary use in relation to the process of vocabulary learning and productive and receptive skills. The purpose of this book is to conceptualise the research on dictionary use within a more general overview of language learning. It brings together some of the findings of studies on dictionary users and uses and shows how research into dictionary use can contribute to the improvement of dictionary design and the clarification of issues in language learning. The book also provides reports on a series of empirical studies conducted by myself, which I hope will shed some light on the nature of the issues discussed throughout the book. The book falls into two parts. Part I, 'Research on Dictionary Use - State of the Art' is, as its title suggests, a summary of previous studies to tease out relevant issues in each area of inquiry. It is composed of four chapters. Chapter 1 begins with a definition of the term 'lexicography' and situates dictionary user studies into the overall picture of lexicography. Chapter 2 contextualizes research on dictionary use in language learning and reviews some of the available studies in relation to vocabulary learning, decoding and encoding activities. Chapter 3 reviews some of the evidence and controversies relating to dictionary users' needs and skills and proposes a new framework for needs analysis. Chapter 4 deals with the research methodology in dictionary user studies. It sets out to describe the positivist and anti-positivist paradigms and introduces major research methods, both normative and interpretive approaches, in order to consider the possibility of applying those methods to research on dictionary use. Part 2, 'Empirical Studies' reports on a series of studies I have conducted in the past 15 years. The first three studies (Chapter 5, 6, and 7) investigate dictionary use in the broader context of language learning. Chapter 5 reports on the relationship between long-term dictionary use and overall reading comprehension skills. Chapter 6 looks at the assessment of dictionary skills and how to validate the available tests of dictionary skills. Chapter 7 examines the characteristics of good dictionary users by means of detailed protocols of look-up processes and a learner profile questionnaire. The next four studies (Chapter 8, 9,10 and 11) report on a series of controlled experiments on the relationship between the macro- and microstructure of the dictionary and reference skills. Chapter 8 examines the user's habits of idiom look-up and how available learner's dictionaries meet the user's expectation. Chapter 9 investigates the user's reference skills and dictionary look-up processes in L2/L1 translation. Chapter 10 and 11 are the follow-up studies, which set out to investigate the effect of the menu or the signpost function of the dictionary on the user's look-up process.

3 Finally, the last two chapters (Chapter 12 and 13) report the use of learner language data for a better lexicographical output. These two chapters show that dictionary use is closely related to learners' individual knowledge of the target language. Better understanding of L2 learners' interlanguage systems contributes to providing information to support learners' potential problems in the target language. Dictionary information will become more finely tuned to users' specific needs by supplying the data on learner errors or non-native-like features. Poor dictionary skills are partly due to inadequate instruction in dictionary use, but also due to the fact that the user does not have sufficient language skills to absorb the information in a dictionary. Identifying the nature of learner language and supplying those gaps in the dictionary can be one of the solutions to such a problem.

Part 1 : Research on Dictionary Use: State of the Art

1. User-oriented Dictionary Research: a Brief History

This chapter introduces a brief history of user-oriented dictionary research in the past two decades. I will especially focus on how user perspectives have been gaining ground among dictionary researchers and lexicographers.

1.1. Lexicography: theory and practice

As I define the scope of this book, it is important to understand the status of L2 dictionary user research in the field of lexicography. Therefore, let us start with crucial terms. Lexicography, according to the Dictionary of Lexicography compiled by Hartmann and James (1998), is defined as "the professional activity and academic field concerned with dictionaries and other reference works" (p.85). As this definition clearly indicates, there are two basic divisions: lexicographic practice (dictionary making) and lexicographic theory (dictionary research). Lexicographic practice is concerned with the professional activity of compiling reference works. It used to be understood that lexicography only covered the practice of dictionary making, as Landau (1984) called it the "art and craft". In recent decades, however, the scholarly field of lexicography, namely theory of lexicography or dictionary research, has become increasingly recognised. The theory of lexicography, or metalexicography, consists of several subdomains. Wiegand (1984), for instance, divided the field into four areas: history of lexicography, general theory of lexicography, research on dictionary use, and criticism of dictionaries. Hartmann and James (1998:86) list 'history', 'typology', 'criticism' and 'use' under the domain of dictionary research. Here we can see that research on dictionary use is recognised as a subcomponent of the general theory of lexicography. Lexicography can be subdivided into several branches, depending on the orientation and purpose of reference works (Hartmann and James 1998: 85). Therefore, the relationship between user research and other perspectives of lexicography can be shown schematically in Figure 1.1. Theory (Dictionary research)

History Criticism Typology

Lexicography

User research Practice (Dictionary making)

Planning Fieldwork Description Presentation

Figure 1.1. Dictionary user research as a branch of the theory of lexicography

8 The general theory of lexicography can be applied to any branch of dictionary making, whether LSP, specialised, terminological or pedagogical. User-oriented research in particular should be conducted with potential target users in mind. If we discuss the user issue from the ESP viewpoint, it is likely to be very different from a study based on ESL/EFL perspectives. Some issues, such as research design and data analysis technique, can be shared among researchers whose target users are different. In this book, I would like to remind the reader that I will focus on pedagogical lexicography and especially on the English learner's dictionary and its use by EFL or ESL students.

1.2. The user perspective: innovation

While it seems to be uncontroversial to claim that the study of dictionary users will improve the quality of dictionaries, such a claim was not fully recognised until a couple of decades ago. As Béjoint (1994) states in his lucid review of general-purpose monolingual dictionaries, dictionaries have been regarded as the "authority" For this reason general readers have not dared to make comments on their quality, and most users have accepted dictionaries as reliable and trustworthy without thinking of criticising their contents or structures. Hartmann (1983) proposed five general postulates which help place dictionary user research in a proper perspective: !. Lexicography is concerned with the description and explanation of the vocabulary of a language or language variety. 2. The basic unit in dictionary-making is the 'lexeme', the close combination of form and meaning. 3. Dictionaries may describe the whole vocabulary of a language (variety) or concentrate on one or more of its aspects. 4. Dictionary-making has to develop a 'metalanguage' for handling and presenting the information. 5. Ultimately all dictionaries are motivated by and judged against the lexical needs of the language user whom they serve. (Hartmann 1983: 4-5) The first and second principles are relevant to the subject matter of lexicography. They deal with the description of language in terms of words, phrases, text, and discourse, together with meaning, sound, and spelling. The recent increasingly prevalent application of corpora in lexicography offers good evidence that this is one of the primary concerns of lexicographers. It has always been a central theme of lexicography to explore how precisely we can describe language and generalize its particular syntactic, phonological, semantic, and orthographical features. The third postulate is concerned with dictionary typology. As Hartmann said, "most dictionaries are the result of a deliberate selection." (ibid: 7) Here we must ask ourselves what criteria we should use in making a selection of a segment of vocabulary for a certain group of users, which leads us to start talking about dictionary types and prospective users. Although some dictionaries are compiled on the basis of pure linguistic description, they will eventually have to be evaluated by users. In this sense, the fifth postulate has a very important implication. Barnhart (1962) argues that the editor's very first concern must be to determine

9 the probable buyer of a particular book. "The amount of information that the editor can give is limited by the price that the buyer will pay for a dictionary in a particular market. His editorial judgement is always limited by the space available." (ibid: 161) The space limitation forces the editor to invent a metalanguage (postulate 4) in order to structure the description and codification. To what extent the dictionary can answer the questions of users about any word of a language depends upon the number of words to be covered in the dictionary (postulate 3). They are all interrelated issues. The fourth postulate is also related to the user perspective. The metalanguage developed for a dictionary should be tuned to the skill levels of prospective users. If the dictionary conventions are extremely complex, then the users cannot access the information with ease. The metalanguage for description must be carefully defined according to the user's background knowledge and expectation. Let me recapitulate these points in Figure 1.2: lexicographers describe a language and refine their descriptions as thoroughly as possible (postulates 1 and 2), but they must set certain criteria to limit their description (postulate 3). Those criteria are concerned with what purpose the dictionary is intended to serve, who the target users are, what kind of background knowledge and reference skills they have (postulate 5), all of which restricts the metalanguage of dictionary conventions (postulate 4).

Description / analysis (Postulate 1 & 2) • LANGUAÍ

LEXICOGRA