From Paper To Electronic: How Technology Will Shape The Future Dictionary

Lexicography, as an academic discipline dedicated to dictionary making and dictionary research, has established its own traditions in the course of its development that spans the last five centuries and more. Many of these traditions, closely related to the medium of paper on which dictionary is printed, are facing major challenge nowadays as the tide of information technology brings forth the new generation—the electronic dictionary, which is gradually taking over the place of the paper-and-ink dictionary. How will the electronic dictionary re-define and improve the traditional lexicographical theories and practices? How will technology and the new electronic medium shape the future dictionary? And what principles and practices will be the mainstay of the future lexicographical studies? This thesis attempts to explore these questions.The thesis sets out with a retrospective survey of the lexicographical traditions established with paper as the medium, then moves on to a comprehensive survey of the current electronic dictionary scene, giving introduction to and critique on representative sub-categories like the desk-top electronic dictionary, the pocket electronic dictionary and the online dictionary. Keeping these changes in context, the thesis then maps out how the information technology and lexicography, together with pertinent linguistic theories and user experience studies, would likely to interact and contribute to the presumably best practice for the future dictionary:hardware in the form of a completely digitized, integrated handheld personal digital device that extends best support to the functionality of the dictionary and scores high on the user experience chart, and software boasting the combination of interactive macrostructure and microstructure, along with an encyclopedic and multimedia outside matter. The synergy created by the hardware and the software and the interactive user experience will allow the future dictionary to achieve height that traditional paper dictionary could never be able to reach.