Improving learner's dictionaries: a discussion based on an interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

Learner's Lexicography has reached a high standard of quality in language description. However, it is still necessary to face an old and, at the same time, always new challenge: increasing the user-friendliness of learner's dictionaries. This work deals with how to improve learner’s dictionaries, focusing on the user profile and the user's needs. To achieve this aim, notions from Psycholinguistics, Contrastive Linguistic, Applied Linguistics, Lexicology and Cognitive Psychology were central for this research. This study covered the delimitation of the user profile and the relevance of their mother tongue and the user's learning needs in relation to their proficiency level in the foreign language. At last, I carry out a brief analysis of entries in learner's dictionaries to discuss how straightforward and user-friendly the information provided is. This work allows the conclusion that an interdisciplinary approach can improve the user-friendliness of learner's dictionaries, particularly EFL and SFL dictionaries.

Keywords

• Lexicography
• Learners' dictionaries
• Teaching-learning foreign languages