User-Friendliness of Noun and Verb Coding Systems in Pedagogical Dictionaries of English: a Case of Polish Learners
International Journal of Lexicography, 24 (1):
50--78 (Mar 1, 2011)DOI: 10.1093/ijl/ecq037
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to assess the user-friendliness of noun and verb coding systems in monolingual dictionaries for foreign learners of English (MLDs). The paper opens with an overview of noun and verb codes in MLDs. Two coding systems are identified: mainstream and alternative ones. They inspired an empirical study, presented in the main body of the paper, in which around 900 native speakers of Polish took part. Besides their level of proficiency in English, the following variables were included: degree of syntactic congruence between English and Polish lexical items, form of codes and part of speech. The subjects were given a test in which they were to complete partial English translations of 12 Polish sentences using specific nouns and verbs in appropriate syntactic constructions. The nouns and verbs were headwords of dictionary entries compiled for the purpose of the study and manipulated accordingly. The results indicate that differences in syntax between the Polish and English lexical items did not influence the user-friendliness of either noun or verb codes. The form of codes, by contrast, did affect the results inasmuch as alternative verb codes were more user-friendly than mainstream ones for both the advanced and intermediate learners. Mainstream noun codes, in turn, proved more user-friendly than alternative ones only for the advanced students. The effect of the part of speech depended on the level of proficiency; it was nonexistent in the less advanced group, but in the proficient one it was additionally modified by the form of codes. Finally, the more proficient subjects relied on codes more often than the intermediate ones.