BILINGUALIZED TECHNICAL DICTIONARIES
Jirapa Vitayapirak
Faculty of Industrial Education
King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Thailand
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Abstract
This paper presents the lexical needs of Thai engineering students. The first part is devoted to a review of the major research into dictionary users and uses, focusing on the EFL and ESP situation at tertiary educational level. The second part reports on an investigation into aspects of dictionary use among engineering students. The subjects were a population of 350 undergraduates, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL), Thailand. SPSS for MS WINDOWS was used to analyse the data from questionnaires. The results show that the students’ reliance mainly on bilingual pocket English-Thai dictionaries. The main purpose in using dictionaries was to decode text to access meaning. They use dictionaries in the context of translating English texts into Thai (94.2%) and reading textbooks (93.5%). The top three purposes of dictionary use were for (1) decoding meaning (99.7%), (2) checking spelling (73.2%), and (3) pronunciation (53.3%). The participants’ preference among the dictionary samples tested was for the bilingualized version.
1. INTRODUCTION
In order to compile a technical dictionary to support language learning, one must first appreciate both what a technical dictionary is, and what kinds of information it is designed to convey. However, the needs of ESP learners in particular areas have been little analysed or reported in the literature of dictionary-making. Most studies focus on general monolingual dictionaries. It is rare among ESP students to find a lexicographical product that has been based on research results gained from what actually goes on in the teaching and learning of ESP. The need for empirical research on ESP users’ needs seems obvious.
2. RESEARCH ON THE USE OF MONOLINGUAL, BILINGUAL, AND BILINGUALIZED DICTIONARIES
Research on foreign language learners and their dictionaries stretch from the pioneer works of the 1970s to recent investigations of the 2000s. There has been a substantial amount of research on the study of dictionary making and the question of the interaction between learners and dictionaries. There are two main groups of relevant research on two headings: (1) Works on Monolingual/Bilingual Learners’ Dictionary (e.g. Hartmann 1983; Tomaszczyk 1979; Baxter 1980; Bensoussan and et al 1981; Atkins and Knowles 1990), (2) Works on Bilingualized Learners’ Dictionary (e.g. Hartmann 1994b; Laufer and Melamed 1994; Laufer 1995; Laufer and Kimmel 1997; Laufer and Levitzky-Aviad 2006; and Tsakona 2007). Despite the different parameters of language context, users, and approaches, their works converged in some of their findings.
The first major conclusion is that most of EFL students prefer bilingual dictionaries rather than monolingual dictionaries (Tomaszczyk (1979), Baxter (1980), Bensoussan and et.al. (1981), and Hartmann (1983), Tickoo (1989). This finding was confirmed by one of the most comprehensive studies of this kind, empirical project on the use of dictionaries by over 1,100 learners of English in seven different European countries (Atkins and Knowles 1990). Their finding was that 75% of the students use a bilingual dictionary and only 25% a monolingual. It seems that L2 learners, even those who have achieved a good level of L2 proficiency and have been trained in academic skills, including dictionary use, still reach out for a bilingual dictionary. In Piotrowski’s (1989) survey of studies of dictionary use, he concluded that “no matter what their level of competence foreign learners and users use their bilingual dictionaries as long as they use dictionaries at all”. Why do the EFL students prefer bilingual to monolingual dictionaries? The main reasons are that the monolingual dictionaries are too difficult for the learner to use. Though the monolingual ones introduce the user right into lexical system of L2, the bilingual ones are ideal for quick consultation (Kharma 1985). Tickoo (1989) commented that certainly many students are not aware of the riches that monolingual dictionaries contain.
The second common finding was that most of the students were unable to use monolingual dictionaries effectively (Kharma 1985, Hert and Stein 1987). The EFL students are rarely trained in dictionary use (Griffin 1985, Iqbal 1987). This was demonstrated in Tickoo’s study (1989) of dictionary among Asian students. He wanted to find out whether tertiary-level students develop the essential reference skills after they enter the university. He used entries from two English dictionaries and gave a few dictionary-based tasks to 60 undergraduates. Most of them were unable to take advantage of the additional features that make the Monolingual Learner’s Dictionary (MLD) a more powerful learning tool. They know little about its grammar codes or about how to use them as an aid to their own use of words, word-forms and word-meanings.
Actually EFL learners should have dictionaries that combine the pedagogic features that they need to learn, with whatever user-friendly features it is possible to give them. Moreover, in most countries of the world, language learning incorporates some degree of use of the mother tongue. When left to the local publishing industry, this usually finds expression in simple bilingual non-pedagogical dictionaries. Bilingual dictionaries can only encourage use of the indirect or translation method in foreign language teaching, which is obviously not the aim of these education systems. Therefore, these monolingual dictionaries are not compatible with the students’ requirements. They are imposed upon the students for want for more appropriate dictionaries. If this is the learner reality, then a hybrid dictionary which contains the two types of information (monolingual and bilingual) seems to be the most appropriate product of lexicographers’ effort. Since a good product is expected to satisfy the needs and preferences of its consumers. This realization has generated bilingualized versions of general English dictionaries over the last decade. They are an emerging genre in EFL pedagogical lexicography, still at an exploratory stage.
In comparison with all the research into bilingual and monolingual dictionary use, there is little in the use of bilingualized dictionaries. Among the learner’s dictionaries on the market, the ‘bilingualized learner’s dictionary’ is a separate development of monolingual, bilingual and pedagogical lexicography. The bilingualized (BLD) learner’s dictionary is a type of dictionary based on a monolingual (MLD) dictionary, whose entries have been translated in full or in part into another language. Since a bilingualized learner’s dictionary is based on a MLD, its entries are much richer in grammar than those of the L2>L1 section of a bilingual dictionary (Marello 1998). Translations in most BLDs are provided, as L1 shortcut definitions of the L2 entries. The reasons for creating the bilingualized learner’s dictionary is the need to integrate the dictionary into language learning process, to provide more information for both encoding and decoding, as well as the need to take into account problems of L1/L2 interference (Nakamoto 1995). The most important task of the bilingualized dictionary is to overcome its current limitation to passive decoding activities, and move on to innovative formats that can help promote active encoding, and thus interlingual communication (Hartmann and James 1998). There is an overwhelming evidence that if learners are going to make mental associations between their mother tongue and their target language, it is more productive to provide a tool which offers appropriate help than something which potentially affords less than adequate support (Hartmann 1994). With its translation equivalents of headword and/or examples, the BLD makes the EFL dictionary more user-friendly for the student who is still pretty dependent on his/her mother tongue. It means that the bilingualized dictionary is a more effective resource than the monolingual and bilingual dictionaries for some study activities (Cowie 1999). Clearly the bilingualized dictionary is suited for passive decoding (reading) (Hartmann 1992). A close examination shows that BLDs can differ considerably from each other, even if they are called bilingualized dictionaries. For instance, the Hornby-based BLDs differ from each other, despite their common parent dictionary.
3. DICTIONARY NEEDS ANALYSIS OF THAI ENGINEERING STUDENTS
There are two basic motives for undertaking this study of dictionary needs of Thai engineering students. Firstly, all of the users’ needs research has been conducted outside the context of Thailand, e.g. Poland, Germany, France, Japan, Jordan, or China, etc. There has never been any research on dictionary use at any level in Thai educational system, and the lexicographical input to bilingual dictionaries had never been very sufficiently discussed. The Thai language system has its own features derived mainly from Pali and Sanskrit and the learning context in Thailand differs from other countries, so the problems in learning English are different from those of say Polish, French, or Chinese. It is obvious that the needs of Thai students will be different from those of other language communities around the world. Therefore, the previous studies are not necessarily applicable to Thai learning contexts.
Secondly, the immediate concern is to make technical dictionaries for language learners that are more sophisticated in content and format in order to make them better tools for language learning and teaching. The existing technical dictionaries are no more than straightforward technical glossaries which merely aim to provide equivalents of technical terminology. The major previous research into dictionary users and use concerns the general dictionaries not ESP ones. Our understanding of the ESP students’ reference skills and their interaction with dictionaries is quite limited. We thus need to uncover the needs of the intended user (Thai) and target situation in relation to the information categories to be corporated in the ESP dictionary, to gain insights into how to improve the scope of ESP dictionaries and to enhance language learning.
3.1 Methodology and Data Analysis
This inquiry into the lexicographical needs of Thai engineering students is intended to relate pedagogical lexicography to the context of ESP. Series of specific questions were formulated, to obtain background information in this area. They included (1) the students’ experience in dictionary use at school level, (2) dictionary use at university level, (3) preferences among three types of dictionary: monolingual, bilingual, or bilingualized. The subjects were a population of 350 undergraduates (third and fourth year).
3.2 Selected Findings and Discussions
3.2.1. Student Survey: Reference Skills/Dictionary Use Prior to University
When asked about at which stage they started using dictionaries and when they used dictionaries most often, more than half of the students (66.5%) used dictionaries at the elementary level of education, but they made very little use of them (1.5%). The remaining 32% of the students indicated that they started using dictionary at the preparatory stage. They use dictionaries with greater frequency at the preparatory stage (21.1%) than at the elementary level. The amount of use increased steadily when they were at Secondary and Tertiary level (31.7% and 44.3% respectively) as shown in Graph 1 below:
Graph 1: Dictionary Use at School
The graph effectively shows how slowly the students develop the habit of using their English dictionaries. This goes with the fact that the need to read in English develops only gradually through the secondary years. Students were also asked how they started using dictionaries and under what influences/factors. The results show that the English teacher influenced students’ decisions (73.5%), personal initiative (16.9%), and other advisers (9.5%). Other researchers have also reported that the learner’s choice of dictionary is often recommended by teacher. But when a monolingual learner’s dictionary is first acquired, usually on the advice of a teacher or taken on teacher’s authority (Stake 1990), a wide gap often exists between a student’s positive perception of the dictionary and his or her capacity to make full and proper use of it. We can see that teachers’ role is important here and they require good judgment and sharper criteria for judging the usefulness of dictionaries. Generally, bilingual dictionaries were recommended for elementary levels and monolingual dictionaries for more advanced learners. Teachers should be able to take advantage of the dictionary features that make them an effective learning tool.
3.2.2 The Type and Size of Dictionaries
Information was also obtained as the types and sizes of dictionaries used before joining the university. Here in Table 1 is a summary of responses:
Dictionary Size / Dictionary Type / %Large
Large
Large
Pocket / English-Thai
English-English
English-Thai
English-English
Thai-English
Thai-English / 77.2
6.5
6.2
4.3
3.1
1.8
Table1: Types and Sizes of Dictionaries Used at School
This table clearly indicates the students’ reliance on bilingual pocket English-Thai dictionaries (77.2%) during their school education, not the pocket monolingual ones (6.5%). It is interesting to note that Thai-English dictionaries (i.e. ones for encoding) were hardly used (1.8%). The main purpose in which students used dictionaries at the pre-university level was reported to be overwhelming concerned with decoding i.e., ‘Meaning’ (87.4%). The only encoding purposes noted are for Pronunciation (6.2%), Spelling (3.7%) and Grammar (0.6%) respectively.
Purposes / %Meaning
Pronunciation
Spelling
Grammar / 87.4
6.2
3.7
0.5
Table 2: Students’ Main Purposes in Using Dictionaries at Pre-university Level
3.2.3 Dictionaries use in university contexts
For the ESP lexicographer, it is helpful to know in which communicative situations the ESP learners are engaged while consulting a dictionary.
(1) Strategies for Dictionary Use
The students were asked about their reading strategies. The results showed that while reading, 66.5% of them tried to guess the meanings of unfamiliar words or phrases first, before deciding to consult a dictionary. The second strategy reported by about two thirds of them (62.2%) was checking on how to use an English word that they know already. 51.4% said they looked up the meanings of all unfamiliar words or phrases. Between them these findings show that many students attempt some sort of guessing while reading before consulting a dictionary. However, when asked about their use of dictionaries, the vast majority of them (students 94.5%) say they use dictionaries frequently. It means that they find dictionaries useful after all.
(2) The Situations of Dictionary Use
When asked about the activities in which they used English-Thai dictionaries 67.9% of the students said they used them in translating and 23% in Reading, 86.9% for Writing, and 83.3% for Translating. For the students writing (7.1%) is almost as unimportant as listening and speaking by the rankings below.