Using dictionaries  : studies of dictionary use by language learners and translators / ed. by B. T. Sue Atkins. - Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1998. - V, 214 S.

Shelf mark EURAC-Library: ET 580 L679 -88

A dictionary is a complex assembly of interwoven facts -often presented in semi-sentences- difficult to understand, and larded with abbreviations and references to concepts unfamiliar to the majority of its users. When the dictionary is bilingual, the situation is worse: almost 50% of its contents are guaranteed to be unfamiliar to any reader.
Yet it is rare to find dictionary skills being taught at all, far less systematically, in schools and colleges. For their part, lexicographers try conscientiously to make their work accurate and accessible within the limits imposed on them by the print medium and budgetary constraints: what kind of dictionary sells best?
There is a general belief amongst those concerned with dictionaries that dictionary users do not get the best out of their dictionaries, and, conversely, that dictionaries themselves could be improved so as to serve their users better. The authors of the essays in this volume certainly agree with both these statements.
The problem is, of course, what specific skills should be taught to students to enable them to use their dictionaries better? And how can the dictionary be made more informative and helpful for it users? The answers to these questions depend on knowing what actually happens when people use their dictionary. What kind of words do they look up? Do they read the whole entry or only a part?
All these questions, and many others, are addressed in the papers in this volume, which draws together studies of how dictionaries are used by language students, student translators and language professionals, working with a foreign language.
Dictionary consultation is highly complex: many more such experiments are needed before lexicographers have enough information to allow them to make reasoned changes in dictionary design, and before those teaching dictionary skills know enough about their student's attitudes and habits to guide them through the decision-making steps of the dictionary look-up. The purpose of this volume is to provide a launch-pad for other investigative experiment from which dictionary makers and dictionary users alike may benefit.

(from the Introduction, by B. T. Sue Atkins)

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