The Image of the Monolingual Dictionary Across Europe. Results of the European Survey of Dictionary use and Culture

Abstract

The article presents the results of a survey on dictionary use in Europe, focusing on general monolingual dictionaries. The survey is the broadest survey of dictionary use to date, covering close to 10,000 dictionary users (and non-users) in nearly thirty countries. Our survey covers varied user groups, going beyond the students and translators who have tended to dominate such studies thus far. The survey was delivered via an online survey platform, in language versions specific to each target country. It was completed by 9,562 respondents, over 300 respondents per country on average. The survey consisted of the general section, which was translated and presented to all participants, as well as country-specific sections for a subset of 11 countries, which were drafted by collaborators at the national level. The present report covers the general section. IntroductionResearch into dictionary use has become increasingly important in recent years. In contrast to 15 years ago, new findings in this area are presented every year, e.g. at every Euralex or eLex conference. These studies range from questionnaire or log file studies to smaller-scale studies focussing on eye tracking, usability, or other aspects of dictionary use measurable in a lab. For an overview of different studies,

The attitude of dictionary users towards automatically extracted collocation data: A user study

“…Bergenholtz and Johnsen, 2013;Müller-Spitzer, 2014;Lew and De Schryver, 2014). More recently, existing approaches were also critically evaluated and surpassed (Bogaards, 2003;Tarp, 2009;Lew, 2015;Kosem et al, 2018a).…”

“…Over the past few years, important steps have been taken, such as the development of a user typology (Arhar Holdt et al, 2016), the research of user needs in relation to selected language problems (Čibej et al, 2016;Arhar Holdt et. al, 2017), the participation in an international study on user attitudes to general monolingual dictionaries (Kosem et al, 2018a(Kosem et al, , 2018b, and the development of methodologies for user inclusion and tracking within the framework of a responsive dictionary (Arhar Holdt et al, 2018).…”

Automatic Assessment to Enhance Online Dictionaries Consultation Skills

“…Online dictionaries are a key tool to learn new languages and to deepen the knowledge of one's mother tongue. Unfortunately, their use is not so widespread, as reports by the researchers cooperating in the European Network of e-Lexicography (ENeL) and in the European survey of dictionary use have shown that, in many countries, dictionaries and dictionary use have even been excluded from the curricula of high schools (Kosem et al, 2019). The cause of it could be seen in their design or their cost, which make them not accessible to everyone.…”

Attitudes of Slovenian Language Users Towards General Monolingual Dictionaries: an International Perspective

“…As Figure 1 shows, the aim of getting a heterogeneous sample of participants in each country was achieved. 8 Furthermore, in all the countries, with the notable exception of Georgia, students represented only a small portion of the total participants, meaning that the survey overcomes some of the shortcomings of 8 For a detailed analysis of the sample, see Kosem et al (2018).…”

“…Preliminary results of the survey were presented at the eLex conference in 2017 (Kosem et al 2017), and a more in-depth analysis is offered in Kosem et al (2018). These two reports focus on the overall results of the survey and thus provide a general picture of dictionary use and attitudes towards (monolingual) [92] dictionaries by the participants, and in some aspects offer specific comparisons between the participants from different countries involved in the survey.…”