Open Access

Stefan Engelberg, Carolin Müller-Spitzer, Thomas Schmidt

• Lexicographic content interlinked within and between Internet dictionaries can be thought of as a network of streets. The streets connect different pieces of content in Internet dictionaries, thus forming the digital street network between different dictionary entries. The links in the user interface of a dictionary, from one headword to its associated synonyms for example, play an important role here as the main signposts by which users arrive, ideally, directly at their destination. Admittedly, this is not quite the same as reading a signpost in a street (cf. also Blumenthal et al. 1988). If you want to look up a place in an atlas, this can be done very conveniently online nowadays with the search function in digital maps. Direct access to dictionary content works in the same way. Here, there is a wide range of options for dictionary users to access individual pieces of lexicographic content. This chapter is intended to provide insights into the whole field of linking and access structures. In the process, our aim is not to provide an exhaustive overview but rather to demonstrate, by way of example, which basic possibilities exist. In the first section, we explain what can be understood by linking in Internet dictionaries and how the level of data management differs from the presentational level. In the second part, we present the options for both semasiological (→ Section 5.3.1) and onomasiological access structures (→ Section 5.3.2). Finally, in → Section 5.4, we show what new impulses electronic cross-linking and access structure can offer for modern dictionary research.