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We start by trying to answer a question that has already been asked by de Schryver et al. (2006): Do dictionary users (frequently) look up words that are frequent in a corpus. Contrary to their results, our results that are based on the analysis of log files from two different online dictionaries indicate that users indeed look up frequent words frequently. When combining frequency information from the Mannheim German Reference Corpus and information about the number of visits in the Digital Dictionary of the German Language as well as the German language edition of Wiktionary, a clear connection between corpus and look-up frequencies can be observed. In a follow-up study, we show that another important factor for the look-up frequency of a word is its temporal social relevance. To make this effect visible, we propose a de-trending method where we control both frequency effects and overall look-up trends.
What makes a good online dictionary? Empirical insights from an interdisciplinary research project
(2011)
This paper presents empirical fmdings from two online surveys on the use of online dictionaries, in which more than 1,000 participants took part. The aim of these studies was to clarify general questions of online dictionary use (e.g. which electronic devices are used for online dictionaries or different types of usage situations) and to identify different demands regarding the use of online dictionaries. We will present some important results ofthis ongoing research project by focusing on the latter. Our analyses show that neither knowledge of the participants’ (scientific or academic) background, nor the language Version of the online survey (German vs. English) allow any significant conclusions to be drawn about the participant’s individual user demands. Subgroup analyses only reveal noteworthy differences when the groups are clustered statistically. Taken together, our fmdings shed light on the general lexicographical request both for the development of a user-adaptive interface and the incorporation of multimedia elements to make online dictionaries more user-friendly and innovative.
Compared with printed dictionaries, online dictionaries provide a number of unique possibilities for the presentation and processing of lexicographical information. However, in Müller-Spitzer/Koplenig/Töpel (2011) we show that – on average - users tend to rate the special characteristics of online dictionaries (e.g. multimedia, adaptability) as (partly) unimportant. This result conflicts somewhat with the lexicographical request both for the development of a user-adaptive interface and the incorporation of multimedia elements. This contribution seeks to explain this discrepancy, by arguing that when potential users are fully informed about the benefits of possible innovative features of online dictionaries, they will come to judge these characteristics to be more useful than users that do not have this kind of information. This argument is supported by empirical evidence presented in this paper.
Die Benutzung von Onlinewörterbüchern ist bislang wenig erforscht. Am Institut für Deutsche Sprache in Mannheim wurde versucht, diese Forschungslücke mit einem Projekt zur Benutzungsforschung zumindest zum Teil schließen (s. www.benutzungsforschung.de). Die empirischen Studien wurden methodisch sowohl in Form von Onlinefragebögen, die neben befragenden auch experimentelle Elemente enthielten, als auch anhand eines Labortests (mit Eyetracking-Verfahren) durchgeführt. Die erste Studie untersuchte generell die Anlässe und sozialen Situationen der Verwendung von Onlinewörterbüchern sowie die Ansprüche, die Nutzer an Onlinewörterbücher stellen. An der zweisprachigen Onlinestudie (deutsch/englisch) nahmen international fast 700 Probanden teil. Durch die hohe Resonanz auf die erste Studie und den daraus folgenden Wunsch, die gewonnenen Informationen empirisch zu vertiefen, richtet sich auch die die zweite Studie an ein internationales Publikum und schloss inhaltlich an die erste Studie an. Später konzentrierten sich die Studien auf monolinguale deutsche Onlinewörterbücher wie elexiko (Studien 3 und 4), sowie auf das Wörterbuchportal OWID (Studie 5). Im Vortrag werden ausgewählte Ergebnisse der verschiedenen Studien vorgestellt.
A comparison between morphological complexity measures: typological data vs. language corpora
(2016)
Language complexity is an intriguing phenomenon argued to play an important role in both language learning and processing. The need to compare languages with regard to their complexity resulted in a multitude of approaches and methods, ranging from accounts targeting specific structural features to global quantification of variation more generally. In this paper, we investigate the degree to which morphological complexity measures are mutually correlated in a sample of more than 500 languages of 101 language families. We use human expert judgements from the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS), and compare them to four quantitative measures automatically calculated from language corpora. These consist of three previously defined corpus-derived measures, which are all monolingual, and one new measure based on automatic word-alignment across pairs of languages. We find strong correlations between all the measures, illustrating that both expert judgements and automated approaches converge to similar complexity ratings, and can be used interchangeably.