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The paper presents the results of empirical research conducted with students from the Faculty of Translation studies of Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (VUAS) in Latvia. The study investigates the habits and practices concerning the use of dictionaries on the part of translation students, as well as types of dictionaries used, frequency of use, etc. The study also presents an insight into the evaluation of the usefulness of dictionaries by Latvian students. The research describes the advantages and disadvantages of dictionaries used by the respondents, the importance of the preface and the explanation of the terms and abbreviations used in dictionaries. The research conducted, as well as the insights, results and recommendations presented, will be relevant for the lexicographic community, as it reflects the experience of one Latvian University to improve the teaching of dictionary use and lexicographic culture in this country and to complement dictionary use research with the Latvian experience.
In foreign language teaching the use of dictionaries, especially bilingual, has always been related to the hypotheses concerning the relationship between the native language (L1) and second language acquisition method. If the bilingual dictionary was an obvious tool in the grammar-translation method, it was banned from the classroom in the direct, audiolingual and audiovisual methods. Also in the communicative method, foreign language learners are discouraged from using a dictionary. Its use should not obstruct the goals of communicatively oriented foreign language learning – a view still held by many foreign language teachers. Nevertheless, the reality has been different: Foreign language learners have always used dictionaries, even if they no longer possess a print dictionary and mainly use online resources and applications. Dictionaries and online resources will continue to play an important role in the future. In the Council of Europe’s language policy, with its emphasis on multilingualism and lifelong learning, the adequate use of reference tools as a strategic skill is highlighted. In several European countries, educational guidelines refer to the use of dictionaries in the context of media literacy, both in mother tongue and foreign language teaching. Not only is their adequate use important, but so too is the comparison, assessment and evaluation of the information presented, in order to develop Language Awareness and Language Learning Awareness. This is good news. However, does this mean that dictionaries are actually used in class? What role do dictionaries play in foreign language teaching in schools and universities? Are foreign language learners in the digital era really competent users? And how competent are their teachers? Are they familiar with the current (online) dictionary landscape? Can they support their students? After a more in-depth study of the status quo of dictionary use by foreign language learners and teachers and the gap between their needs and the reality, this contribution discusses the challenges facing lexicographers and meta-lexicographers and what educational policy measures are necessary to make their efforts worthwhile in turning foreign language learners – and their teachers – into competent users in a multilingual and digital world.
This think-aloud study charts the use of online resources by five final-year MA students in Nordic and Literacy Studies based on the analysis of screen and audio recordings of an error-correction task. The article briefly presents some linguistic features of Norwegian Nynorsk that are not common in the context of other European languages, that is, norm optionality with regards to inflection and spelling. While performing the task, the participants were allowed to use all digital aids. This article examines their resource consultation behavior, and it makes use of Laporte/Gilquin’s (2018) annotation protocol. The following research questions are posed: What online resources are used by the students? What characterizes the use? Are online resources helpful? This study provides new insights into an as yet little explored topic within the Norwegian context. The findings demonstrate that the participants relied heavily on the official monolingual dictionary Nynorskordboka. Indeed, the dictionary was helpful in the vast majority of the searches, either resulting in error improvement or the validation of a word; that is, many of the searches considered correct words. The findings suggest severe norm insecurity and emphasize the need to improve norm knowledge and metalinguistic knowledge as prerequisites for better utilization of aids. It is also suggested to include necessary information on norm optionality and other commonly queried issues in the dictionary architecture.
This paper presents the results of a survey on dictionary use in Europe, the largest survey of dictionary use to date with nearly 10,000 participants in nearly thirty countries. The paper focuses on the comparison of the results of the Slovenian participants with the results of the participants from other European countries. The comparisons are made both with the European averages, and with the results from individual countries, in order to determine in which aspects Slovenian participants share similarities with other dictionary users (and non-users) around Europe, and in which aspects they differ. The findings show that in many ways the Slovenian users are similar to their European counterparts, with some noticeable exceptions, including (much) stronger preference for digital dictionaries over print ones, above-average reliance on other people when dictionary does not contain the relevant information, and the largest difference between the price of a dictionary and the amount willing to spend on it.
In the past two decades, more and more dictionary usage studies have been published, but most of them deal with questions related to what users appreciate about dictionaries, which dictionaries they use and what type of information they need in specific situations — presupposing that users actually consult lexicographic resources. However, language teachers and lecturers in linguistics often have the impression that students do not use enough high-quality dictionaries in their everyday work. With this in mind, we launched an international cooperation project to collect empirical data to evaluate what it is that students actually do while attempting to solve language problems. To this end, we applied a new methodological setting: screen recording in conjunction with a thinking-aloud task. The collected empirical data offers a broad insight into what users really do while they attempt to solve language-related tasks online.
Dictionary usage research is a topic of increasing importance within the field of lexicography. At the beginning of the new millennium, the dictionary user was still relatively unknown. However, in the last ten years, more and more user studies have been published. Consequently, methods, data and the conclusions which can be drawn were successively refined. Also, new possibilities of web-based data collection, e.g., the analysis of log files, enriched this field of research. This contribution aims to describe the state of the art in dictionary usage research in the digital era. I begin by providing a short overview of methodological and terminological basics and then place a special focus on three different methods of collecting empirical data on dictionary use: online questionnaires, eye tracking and the analysis of log-files. All these methods are illustrated on user studies conducted at the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim.