The Effectiveness of LDOCE Definitions for Concrete and Abstract Nouns in Headword- and Picture-Identification Tasks

Abstract LDOCE uses a defining vocabulary to make their definitions intelligible to the user. Critics claim this policy may result in imprecise definitions, something especially noticeable in certain concrete and abstract words that are difficult to define by a definition only. This paper examines t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of lexicography 2022-06, Vol.35 (2), p.153-175
Main Authors: Kamiński, Mariusz, Bilynsky, Michael, Szymańska-Czaplak, Elżbieta, Kamińska, Małgorzata
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract LDOCE uses a defining vocabulary to make their definitions intelligible to the user. Critics claim this policy may result in imprecise definitions, something especially noticeable in certain concrete and abstract words that are difficult to define by a definition only. This paper examines to what extent LDOCE definitions of such words help learners identify the objects and words being defined. In our experiment on 381 learners of English as a foreign language, three groups of participants viewed different definition types: simplified definitions of LDOCE, unsimplified definitions of MWC, and definitions written in the learners’ mother tongue (UDPL/TR). The results show that the LDOCE definitions proved significantly more useful in the identification tasks than the definitions in MWC, and slightly more useful than in UDPL/TR. Learners with a limited receptive vocabulary size (RVS) did not benefit from LDOCE as much as high-RVS users.
ISSN:0950-3846
1477-4577
DOI:10.1093/ijl/ecab026