Dictionaries, lexicography and language learning

This 1985 collection in the ELT Documents series provides multiple insights for the successful teaching of dictionary use in the language classroom.

It contains initial sections which shed light on types of dictionaries (comparing the merits of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries) and parts of dictionaries (considering features such as word formation, grammar, pronunciation and collocations, as well as challenges of information retrieval). Applications of and alternatives to dictionaries are then discussed, including consideration of how learners can make use of dictionaries and other tools such as non-alphabetical word lists, thesauruses, topic dictionaries, reference books on academic or specialist subjects, and concordances. The final part of the book contains a single contribution by a lexicographer, about the process of producing a dictionary.

This book is free to download below as a pdf file.

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