Contrastive Study Of American And British English Dictionaries

Lexicography is a branch of Applied Linguistics, which has two basic divisions: lexicographic practice, or dictionary-making and lexicographic theory, or dictionary research. The former is often associated with commercial book publishing, the latter with scholarly studies in such disciplines, but strict boundaries are difficult to maintain and, in any case, are being bridged by such means as professional training, societies, conferences and publications. Under the influence of relative theories of cognitive linguistics, the research of lexicography turns to cognitive lexicography. Cognitive lexicography intends to put the learners into native speakers'position, that is to say, to make the learners percept language just like native speakers so that they can identify and understand the special usages properly and study or acquire foreign language efficiently. To acquire necessary lexical competence, learners'thought should be very similar with native speakers'. Dictionaries are indispensable to language learning, language teaching, and translation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility and feasibility to design a user friendly bilingual cognitive learners'dictionary. The author compares the British and American editions of MACMILLAN English Dictionaries for Advanced Learners through data collection and analysis and makes some theoretical analysis from the perspectives of lexicography and cognitive linguistics. The author thinks the two dictionaries can be compiled into one dictionary which has emphasis on American English, at the same time the merits of the two editions will be kept. At last the conclusion can be drawn that we can establish a project to design a bilingual learners'dictionary from cognitive perspective, which contains British and American English and lays emphasis on American English. The new American and British English one-volume edition dictionary, based on cognitive principles, will benefit language learners, language teachers, and translators. The new designed learners'dictionary can imitate native speakers'mental lexicon so that the learners can acquire lexicon competence which is similar with native speakers'mental lexicon. Furthermore, the design of this kind of dictionary will increase efficiency of learning. This thesis is divided into six chapters and arranged as follows: Chapter1 briefly introduces the study; Chapter 2 gives theoretical framework and related literature, including lexicography, the classifications of dictionaries and cognitive lexicography; Chapter 3 introduces the method of the study, including the comparison of the British edition and American edition of MACMILLAN English dictionary for advanced learners; Chapter 4 gives the results of the comparison of the two editions, including the advantages and disadvantages; In chapter 5, the author proposes to establish a project to design and compile a cognitive learner's bilingual dictionary and explores the possibility and feasibility; Chapter 6 gives a conclusion with a summary of the research, reliability and validity, as well as limitations and further research that may be required.