Thesis (DLitt)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation attempts a study in the design of school dictionaries for their use in the mother tongue or first language education. Pedagogical dictionaries have undergone changes, which are also due to changes, which had taken, place in the teaching of the mother tongue and in descriptive linguistics from the 1950s onwards. Features of the pedagogical model also have been affected by the development in language-teaching methodology. The teaching of the mother tongue is now less concerned with the knowledge and critical exploration of texts than with competence in oral and written expression.

Thesis (DLitt (English)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / The policy to preserve and implement mother tongues as medium of education in Gabon will lead to the establishing of a bilingual education system. This system will involve mother tongues and French, the official language. In many countries people are nowadays more and more aware of making provision for a multilingual education. In education this has been regarded as the new way and key to development over the last decades. It means that the implementation of a bilingual education system must also include a trilingual vision. Different and new approaches to the role of dictionaries, also in the context in Gabon, lead to diverse areas of particular concern, which are challenging for the metalexicographical research. Accordingly, Part I of the dissertation first presents a comprehensive draft of the structural possibilities of the formulation and compilation of a new type of dictionary. This draft provides for the motivations for the formulation of a Specialized Fang-French- English multi-volume School Dictionary in Gabon, as a type of dictionary, which can fit into the current situation of the national languages and education in Gabon. This comprehensive draft is followed by a complete analysis of the intended target users, who are, among others, students, teachers, educational psychologists, experts in charge of the compilation of textbooks and other study materials, lexicographers and linguistics. This analysis includes the characteristics, the user situations and the user problems or needs of this heterogeneous intended target user group of the proposed dictionary...