The lexicographer’s dream audience : dictionary use among English majors at a Slovenian university

Vrbinc, Marjeta (author), Vrbinc, Alenka (author), Farina, Donna M. T. Cr. (author)

Interviews with undergraduate students from the University of Ljubljana, who are majoring in English and can be considered language specialists, investigated habits of dictionary use, look-up abilities, and perceptions of the utility and quality of definitions and illustrative examples. This contrasts with a parallel study (Farina et al. 2019) with undergraduates majoring in business and economics. Like the parallel study, this study was based on fourteen questions and nine contexts containing a clearly-marked common word used in an infrequent sense; participants had to locate the sense in a dictionary that, at the time of the studies, was the online Merriam–Webster Learner’s Dictionary, rebranded today as The Britannica Dictionary. Participants were asked to think aloud as they looked up words. Among other results, the study revealed that its participants, while they were linguistically-educated and experienced, did not fully grasp the complexity of presenting dictionary information online.

• Language: English
• Keywords: definition, dictionary use, examples, online dictionary, user study, proficient dictionary users, preparation for dictionary use
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts; EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 149-172
• Numbering: Vol. 36, iss. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-146820
• UDC: 811.111'374:378(497.4)
• ISSN on article: 0950-3846
• DOI: 10.1093/ijl/ecac019
• COBISS.SI-ID: 147351555
• Publication date in RUL: 14.06.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: International journal of lexicography
• Shortened title: Int. j. lexicogr.
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• ISSN: 0950-3846
• COBISS.SI-ID: 197933

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: slovarska razlaga, raba slovarjev, primeri rabe, spletni slovar, študija uporabnikov, napredni uporabniki slovarjev, priprava na rabo slovarjev

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: BI-US/17-18-033
• Name: Dictionary User Groups: What They Can Teach Lexicographers