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The main purpose of this study was to investigate empirically the impacts of dictionary strategy instruction and exposure on the dictionary performance, perceptions of and attitudes towards dictionary use, and knowledge of dictionary strategy and use by tertiary students of English in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected by means of questionnaires, interviews, observation and students interview feedback. The study was carried out in two phases; phase I, in which 14 participants were chosen to carry out the interviews, and in which the questionnaire was conducted on 77 male students in the preparatory year at the College of Applied Health Science of Qassim University in Saudi Arabia; and phase II where four participants were chosen to carry out the training in dictionary use through a one-to-one tutorial mode. The data in the second phase were collected through observation and students interview feedback. The findings from phase I of the study indicated that the Saudi students did not have appropriate knowledge of their own dictionary. It revealed some instances of failing to take advantage of the potential of dictionary use for language learning and identified factors behind this ineffective use. It demonstrated how the teacher’s role was essential in this respect and could directly influence the process of dictionary implementation inside the classroom The results of phase II demonstrated that strategy training was effective in disseminating the knowledge and skills required of students in using their dictionaries to solve linguistic problems. More importantly, the results showed that the strategy training approach holds great potential for developing students' independence and that it moves them towards greater autonomy. Thus, it is recommended that training be provided to English language learners to optimise their use of this important tool. Finally, specific implications for both teaching and future research are identified.

Dictionary use has played an important role in English learning. Researches showed that dictionary has facilitating effects on vocabulary learning, writing and reading comprehension. However, not all dictionary users can benefit from the use of dictionaries. In fact, dictionary use is not as easy as what we thought, but dictionary skills instruction does not receive much attention in spite of the prevalence of dictionaries. The purpose of this study is to carry out dictionary skills instruction in English classrooms and to assess the effects of dictionary skills instruction on reading comprehension of junior high EFL students in Taiwan. The subjects in the study were 40 second-year junior high students of two classes from Tainan Municipal Cheng-gong Junior High School. Each class was randomly assigned to the experiment group or the control group. The experiment group received dictionary skills instruction in English classes, and the control group did not. First, the 40 subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire about their dictionary use backgrounds. Then, they were asked to take a pre-test on their dictionary skills and local reading comprehension. After the pre-test, the experimental group received dictionary skills instructions during each class time for about 20 minutes. The instruction lasted about 3 weeks in the beginning of the second semester. Finally, the 40 subjects were asked to take a post-test on their dictionary skills and local reading comprehension. The major findings of the current study were summarized as follws: 1. Generally speaking, among the ten dictionary skills investigated in the current study, junior high EFL students in Taiwan encounter problems more or less. The problems include understanding short forms, labels, and grammar codes of the dictionary, getting familiar with the alphabetical orders, making use of guide words, scanning a dictionary page, distinguishing a homograph, removing regular inflections, removing affixes of derivatives, scanning nearby entries or seeking in the addendum, recognizing compounds or idioms, and finding the right meaning of a polysemous. 2. In addition to these problems, the frequent application of ¡¥Kidrule strategy¡¦ made the situation worse. The participants were very likely to pick any Chinese fragments ¡¥near¡¦ the target words (or other words with similar spellings.) and misinterpret the fragments as the meanings of the target words. 3. Most of the above mentioned problems could be reduced after receiving dictionary skills instruction from their English teacher in a short time. Only the ability to distinguish a homograph can not be improved merely through the teacher¡¦s instruction in a short time. It seems that, to distinguish homographs, the participants¡¦ grammatical knowledge played a more important role than the dictionary skills instruction. As for the using of guide words and the removing of inflections, these two skills can be improved without the teacher¡¦s instruction. 4. According to the study, the use of dictionaries with proper dictionary skills instruction and enough practice could make a significant difference in the performance of local reading comprehension tasks.

<p>The purpose of this experimental study is to examine the translation processes and the resulting translations of eight translators performing translation tasks from German into Swedish. The data about the translation processes were collected with the think-aloud technique, i.e. the translators were asked to verbalize as much of their thinking as possible while translating. The translators – four of whom had long working experience and the others substantially shorter experience – were asked to translate the same source text (a news item) for two different fictitious audiences: first for a morning newspaper and then for a children’s magazine.</p><p>With regards to the translation process, the results showed that the two categories of translators did not differ considerably from each other, neither in their dictionary use, nor in their overall accomplishment of the translation tasks. However, they did differ in their attitude. The less experienced translators were more involved in the process, which also led to quality improvements. At the same time, individual differences were substantial regarding all of the criteria examined.</p><p>The resulting translations (the products) were evaluated both by the researcher and by journalists from the newspapers or magazines in which the texts, according to the briefs, were to be published. The results showed small differences in text quality for the two categories of translators. According to the journalists, the less experienced translators even produced slightly better texts for the morning paper.</p>

The purpose of this experimental study is to examine the translation processes and the resulting translations of eight translators performing translation tasks from German into Swedish. The data about the translation processes were collected with the think-aloud technique, i.e. the translators were asked to verbalize as much of their thinking as possible while translating. The translators – four of whom had long working experience and the others substantially shorter experience – were asked to translate the same source text (a news item) for two different fictitious audiences: first for a morning newspaper and then for a children’s magazine. With regards to the translation process, the results showed that the two categories of translators did not differ considerably from each other, neither in their dictionary use, nor in their overall accomplishment of the translation tasks. However, they did differ in their attitude. The less experienced translators were more involved in the process, which also led to quality improvements. At the same time, individual differences were substantial regarding all of the criteria examined. The resulting translations (the products) were evaluated both by the researcher and by journalists from the newspapers or magazines in which the texts, according to the briefs, were to be published. The results showed small differences in text quality for the two categories of translators. According to the journalists, the less experienced translators even produced slightly better texts for the morning paper.

This microanalytic study focuses on the mutimodal word look-up practices of Japanese foreign language learners of English at the novice level using electronic dictionaries (e-dictionaries) in pair conversations. Not yet investigated with a Conversation Analysis (CA) approach, this analysis examines reoccurring interactional and collaborative repair practices (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977; Schegloff, 2000) of the learners' look-ups, and explicates from the sequential turn-taking procedures (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974), the underlying social organization of the e-dictionary look-up sequence. Recent research has found that not-yet-fluent learners are capable of relatively smooth turn-taking (Carroll, 2000, 2004), and they employ various embodied actions (Olsher, 2004) to complete their turns. Nonvocal resources such as gaze movement (Goodwin, 1981) and gestures were also investigated in order to better understand how learners collaboratively utilize vocal and nonvocal resources in hybrid actions, to co-construct the meaning of look-up words, and maintain intersubjectivity. While enrolled in a university intensive English program, thirteen native speakers of Japanese video-recorded thirty-minute conversations; and during these conversations, they completed look-up sequences as interactional achievements. The results indicated that EFL novice learners display sophisticated competencies when using e-dictionaries for communication. While collaboratively completing look-up sequences, they display multimodal competencies by noticing trouble with words, initiating look-ups, making candidate proposals of word translations, correcting themselves, mutually acknowledging their understanding, and maintaining intersubjectivity and sequential relevance. In terms of language learning, learners' collaborative learning of words demonstrates instances of learning-as-interaction (Brouwer & Wagner, 2004; Firth & Wagner, 2007), making public the participants' socially situated cognition. Indications of a change in the participants' cognitive state can emerge in the look-up sequential organization. A lack of knowledge is displayed publically in before-look-up actions, encouraging collaboration in the look-up. Multiple proposals and acknowledgement sequences, often displayed in embodied expansions, provide multimodal indications of a possible change in cognitive state and possible gain in knowledge. Thus, the look-up sequence organization is proposed as an interactional organization for the learning of vocabulary. Finally, the understanding of sequential structures and practices that interactants use in looking up words can inform teachers concerning the efficacy of e-dictionary use in the classroom. / CITE/Language Arts

Since the publication of Dr. Johnson’s first English dictionary in 1755, there have been rapid changes in the development of dictionaries in other parts of the world. However, the advances are perceived more in other languages of the world such as the European languages while in Africa, the changes have been very slow. The majority of dictionaries utilised by most Africans are bilingual and were produced by the missionaries. These dictionaries were aimed at serving the needs of the missionaries, but more recently African scholars have been trying to create dictionaries that are intended to meet the needs of the native speakers particularly because the existing dictionaries contain many words which are archaic or going out of use. This means that the currently produced dictionaries should reflect the changes that have occurred in languages and society. The two dictionaries under scrutiny, Sesuto-English Dictionary and Sethantšo sa Sesotho, share similar content as if they were both targeting the same generation even though the former was written by missionaries in the 19th century while the latter was created by a Sesotho native speaker in the 21st century. This study aimed to establish whether the two dictionaries are the same or not, or whether Sethantšo sa Sesotho had been derived from Sesuto-English Dictionary as well as whether the two dictionaries meet the needs of the contemporary users. The study employed adaptation theory in order to discover the originality of Sethantšo sa Sesotho. User-perspective approach and communication-oriented function were utilised to judge the effectiveness of the two dictionaries in reading and writing and to analyse users’ views. The study established that Sethantšo sa Sesotho has adapted 69% lexical items from Sesuto-English Dictionary; words are arranged in a similar order in both dictionaries with slight differences here and there; most definitions and illustrative phrases/sentences are the same even though the author of Sethantšo sa Sesotho did not acknowledge using any written source of information, thus violating the principles of adaptation; use of these dictionaries during reading and writing was found to be beneficial to users; and both dictionaries lack current words which users encounter daily. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil.(African Languages)

Cette étude s’appuie sur l’enseignement de la lecture-compréhension en français pour un public universitaire débutant en FLE au Brésil. Après avoir fait le point sur cette approche didactique et les enjeux de l’enseignement-apprentissage de la lecture en langue étrangère, dans lequel l’acquisition lexicale joue un rôle important, nous rappelons des notions-clés de la lexicologie et de la sémantique lexicale et présentons le cadre des travaux développés en lexicographie pédagogique, où nous situons plus précisément notre travail. En effet, malgré la diffusion de cet enseignement parmi les étudiants en Amérique latine et sa constante réélaboration afin de rendre compte de nouvelles situations d’apprentissage, il présente des lacunes importantes. Ces lacunes se trouvent autour d’un point névralgique pour une grande partie des lecteurs : le déficit lexical. Un déficit qui n’est pas lié qu’à un simple manque de vocabulaire, mais qui passe aussi par un savoir-apprendre les mots. Cette situation est mise à l’épreuve dans cette thèse par deux recherches expérimentales. Une première recherche à caractère plutôt prospectif vise à repérer le rôle du dictionnaire, et particulièrement du dictionnaire bilingue lors de la lecture et l’effet de son usage sur la construction du sens. Une deuxième recherche met en rapport l’emploi de deux outils lexicographiques, un dictionnaire bilingue et un dictionnaire pédagogique destiné à des apprenants de FLE. Ces recherches nous donnent des pistes essentielles pour l’intégration de l’étude lexicale à ce genre d’enseignement et sont complétées par l’analyse des dictionnaires disponibles pour ce public particulier. Ce parcours nous aide à tracer les principes méthodologiques pour l’élaboration d’un dictionnaire pédagogique d’appui à la lecture et à l’acquisition lexicale fondés sur la lexicographie fonctionnelle. / This study is based on the teaching model of reading French as a foreign language by university students who are beginners in this language in Brazil. After presenting the essential topics of this didactic approach and the issues related to the teaching-learning process when reading in a foreign language, in which the lexical acquisition plays a major role, we present the basics of lexicology and lexical semantics, and finally we portray the works developed in pedagogical lexicography, in which we place this study. Regardless of its dissemination among Latin America students and of its continuous reformulation to account for new learning situations, this teaching method contains some gaps. The gaps refer to a critical issue for a large number of readers: the lack of lexical knowledge. This issue relates not only to a lack of vocabulary knowledge, but also to the ability of word learning. In this study, this question has been further studied based on two experimental researches. The first one, using a more prospective approach, aims at identifying the role of the dictionary–especially bilingual dictionaries–in the reading process and the effects of dictionary use in the construction of meaning. The second one compares the use of two lexicographic instruments: a bilingual dictionary and a pedagogical dictionary for learners of French as a foreign language. Both researches yield important information about the integration of a lexical study with this teaching model; additionally, they are complemented by the analysis of the dictionaries available to this target audience. In this way, we can set methodological principles to build a pedagogical dictionary that helps students in reading activities and that supports vocabulary acquisition on the basis of functional lexicography.

Η διατριβή επικεντρώνεται στη συζήτηση ζητημάτων σχεδιασμού και διδακτικής αξιοποίησης που αφορούν τους λεξικογραφικούς ορισμούς στα μονόγλωσσα ελληνικά παιδαγωγικά λεξικά. Κύριος σκοπός της είναι η διερεύνηση της αποτελεσματικότητας διαφορετικών λεξικογραφικών προσεγγίσεων στη διατύπωση των ορισμών από την πλευρά του χρήστη. Με βάση το θέμα της και τη μεθοδολογική της προσέγγιση εντάσσεται στο επίκαιρο και αναπτυσσόμενο πεδίο της λεξικογραφίας που αφορά τη χρήση του λεξικού. Η πρωτοτυπία της έγκειται στο ότι διερευνά ζητήματα σχετικά με τη χρήση του λεξικού από μια ηλικιακή ομάδα που ελάχιστα μέχρι σήμερα έχει αποτελέσει ομάδα-στόχο πειραματικών ερευνών στη διεθνή λεξικογραφική βιβλιογραφία, πολύ λιγότερο δε στην ελληνική γλώσσα, για την οποία οι ελάχιστες ερευνητικές μελέτες σε αυτό το πεδίο βασίζονται σε ερωτηματολόγια και όχι σε πειραματικά δεδομένα. Στο θεωρητικό σκέλος, παρουσιάζονται παραδοσιακές τεχνικές (αναλυτικοί ορισμοί, ορισμοί με συνώνυμα και μορφολογικοί ορισμοί) και σύγχρονες τεχνικές (ορισμοί με πλήρη πρόταση) που κρίθηκε ότι επηρεάζουν το περιεχόμενο και τη μορφή των ορισμών, και τελικά το βαθμό κατανόησής τους από τους τελικούς αναγνώστες. Στο εμπειρικό σκέλος, παρουσιάζεται η πειραματική έρευνα στην οποία συμμετέχουν 351 μαθητές των δύο τελευταίων τάξεων του δημοτικού. Στόχος της έρευνας είναι να αξιολογήσει την αποτελεσματικότητα παραδοσιακών και των πιο σύγχρονων προσεγγίσεων στη διατύπωση των λεξικογραφικών ορισμών, με βάση την επίδοση των μαθητών σε δύο τεστ (παραγωγή προτάσεων και κατανόηση σημασίας). Το ποσοστό των σωστών απαντήσεων για τους μαθητές που συμβουλεύτηκαν τους προτασιακούς ορισμούς ανέρχεται στο 72,4%, ενώ τα ποσοστά των σωστών απαντήσεων των μαθητών που συμβουλεύτηκαν τους παραδοσιακούς ορισμούς με δυσκολότερο και απλούστερο λεξιλόγιο ανήλθαν στο 22,9% και 26,6% αντίστοιχα. Ειδικότερα, παρατηρήθηκε ότι οι προτασιακοί ορισμοί βοήθησαν στην αποτελεσματικότερη κατανόηση της σημασίας μιας λέξης αλλά και στην ενεργοποίηση παραγωγικών μηχανισμών σύνδεσης της περιγραφόμενης σημασίας με τις πραγματολογικές καταστάσεις στις οποίες αυτή συνήθως χρησιμοποιείται. Η δήλωση των συμφραστικών επιλογών και των σημασιολογικών προτιμήσεων μιας λέξης μέσα στο κείμενο του ορισμού, σε ρέοντα φυσικό λόγο, βοηθά την ορθή χρήση και την ορθή αναγνώριση της σημασίας των λέξεων, ενώ ειδικότερα στην παραγωγή προτάσεων ενεργοποιεί συνδέσεις μεταξύ συστηματικών σημασιολογικών σχέσεων μέσω λογικών συναγωγών, που βοηθούν τους μαθητές να χρησιμοποιούν παραγωγικότερα τις λέξεις στα δικά τους κείμενα. Η δήλωση της συντακτικής συμπεριφοράς μέσα στο κείμενο του ορισμού βοηθά τους μαθητές να αναπαραγάγουν σε ικανοποιητικό βαθμό τη συντακτική δομή των λέξεων κατά τη δημιουργία δικών τους προτάσεων. Τέλος, με βάση και τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας, διατυπώνονται προτάσεις και δραστηριότητες για την εκπαίδευση των μαθητών στην αποτελεσματικότερη χρήση και αξιοποίηση των λεξικογραφικών ορισμών. / In the present thesis, we discuss issues concerning the design of Greek pedagogical dictionaries and the teaching of dictionary use. More specifically, emphasis is given on issues concerning the design of definitions in these dictionaries as well as students’s training for more effective use of dictionary definitions. We discuss traditional and contemporary defining approaches and we conduct an experimental research in order to investigate the effectiveness of these approaches, as they are represented by three Greek pedagogical dictionaries. The research aims at revealing which defining approach contributes more effectively in the comprehension and production of word’s meaning by students of senior primary school. In the Part I, we present the contemporary framework of pedagogical lexicography and we discuss the need for research on dictionary use. In order to better illustrate the contemporary scene of pedagogical lexicography, we present the component parts of dictionaries, as well as the structure of the lexicographic entry in the monolingual pedagogical dictionaries, and we summarise how computer has influenced the form and the content of the contemporary dictionary. In the Part II, we summarise the different views in the relevant bibliography regarding the term “definition”, and we also present traditional and contemporary defining techniques that seem to influence the content and the form of definitions, and accordingly their accessibility by the dictionary users. In the framework of traditional techniques, we examine the conventional dictionary definition, which, as regards its content, focuses in the description of the essential characteristics of the word meaning and, as regards its form is characterised by elliptical phrases, the use of synonyms and derivatives, certain formulaic defining components, and normally difficult vocabulary. As an alternative to the traditional defining approach, we examine the example of full-sentence definitions, which instead of elliptical phrases they make use of the full sentence scheme, in order to explain not only the meaning of words but also the most typical instances of the words’s use. In the Part III, we make a review of the methodological considerations on the research of dictionary use, illustrating thus the general framework according to which our own research is viewed. Next, we discuss issues concerning teaching of the so-called reference skills of the dictionary users, aiming at a most effective use of the dictionary in general and in a more effective grasp and exploitation of the dictionary definitions in particular. The Part IV presents the experimental research with 351 Greek native speakers, students of senior primary school. The aim of the research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the traditional and the more contemporary defining approaches that was analysed in the theoretical part of the study, measuring students’s performance in two tasks. The subjects that took part in the experiment were accidentally separated in three different teams; the first team consulted traditional definitions without vocabulary restrictions, the second team consulted traditional definitions with easier vocabulary, and the third team consulted full-sentence definitions. In the first task, students were asked to produce their own sentences, after they have read the relevant definitions for six (6) words, and in the latter task they were asked to identify the right meaning of nine (9) words in multiple choice exercises. At the end of this part we summarise the conclusions of the experiment. In both production and identification tasks, the full-sentence definitions yielded 72,4% correct answers, while the traditional definitions with difficult and less difficult vocabulary yielded 22,9% and 26,6% respectively. More specifically, it was observed that the full-sentence definitions, focusing on the description of prototypical characteristics, were proved more effective in helping students understand word meaning and also more effective in activating productive mechanisms towards linking of the described meaning to its typical instances of use. Inclusion of semantic preferences and syntactic structure of a word in its definition helped students to use the described word more effectively in their own sentences. Moreover, the definition’s simple vocabulary and simple structure made meaning of a word more accessible. Finally, the use of a full-sentence instead of an elliptical phrase directs the attention of students to the whole phrasing of the definition, thus helping them avoid basing interpretation of the word’s meaning in one word or one phrase of the definition, a behaviour that was proved to be triggered by the traditional definitions. In the Part V, taking in account the experiment’s results, we present classroom activities for training students towards more effective consulting and use of dictionary definitions.

Cette étude s’appuie sur l’enseignement de la lecture-compréhension en français pour un public universitaire débutant en FLE au Brésil. Après avoir fait le point sur cette approche didactique et les enjeux de l’enseignement-apprentissage de la lecture en langue étrangère, dans lequel l’acquisition lexicale joue un rôle important, nous rappelons des notions-clés de la lexicologie et de la sémantique lexicale et présentons le cadre des travaux développés en lexicographie pédagogique, où nous situons plus précisément notre travail. En effet, malgré la diffusion de cet enseignement parmi les étudiants en Amérique latine et sa constante réélaboration afin de rendre compte de nouvelles situations d’apprentissage, il présente des lacunes importantes. Ces lacunes se trouvent autour d’un point névralgique pour une grande partie des lecteurs : le déficit lexical. Un déficit qui n’est pas lié qu’à un simple manque de vocabulaire, mais qui passe aussi par un savoir-apprendre les mots. Cette situation est mise à l’épreuve dans cette thèse par deux recherches expérimentales. Une première recherche à caractère plutôt prospectif vise à repérer le rôle du dictionnaire, et particulièrement du dictionnaire bilingue lors de la lecture et l’effet de son usage sur la construction du sens. Une deuxième recherche met en rapport l’emploi de deux outils lexicographiques, un dictionnaire bilingue et un dictionnaire pédagogique destiné à des apprenants de FLE. Ces recherches nous donnent des pistes essentielles pour l’intégration de l’étude lexicale à ce genre d’enseignement et sont complétées par l’analyse des dictionnaires disponibles pour ce public particulier. Ce parcours nous aide à tracer les principes méthodologiques pour l’élaboration d’un dictionnaire pédagogique d’appui à la lecture et à l’acquisition lexicale fondés sur la lexicographie fonctionnelle. / This study is based on the teaching model of reading French as a foreign language by university students who are beginners in this language in Brazil. After presenting the essential topics of this didactic approach and the issues related to the teaching-learning process when reading in a foreign language, in which the lexical acquisition plays a major role, we present the basics of lexicology and lexical semantics, and finally we portray the works developed in pedagogical lexicography, in which we place this study. Regardless of its dissemination among Latin America students and of its continuous reformulation to account for new learning situations, this teaching method contains some gaps. The gaps refer to a critical issue for a large number of readers: the lack of lexical knowledge. This issue relates not only to a lack of vocabulary knowledge, but also to the ability of word learning. In this study, this question has been further studied based on two experimental researches. The first one, using a more prospective approach, aims at identifying the role of the dictionary–especially bilingual dictionaries–in the reading process and the effects of dictionary use in the construction of meaning. The second one compares the use of two lexicographic instruments: a bilingual dictionary and a pedagogical dictionary for learners of French as a foreign language. Both researches yield important information about the integration of a lexical study with this teaching model; additionally, they are complemented by the analysis of the dictionaries available to this target audience. In this way, we can set methodological principles to build a pedagogical dictionary that helps students in reading activities and that supports vocabulary acquisition on the basis of functional lexicography.