On The Representation Of The Lexical Semantic Network In English-Chinese Electronic Dictionaries

Based on the related theories in mental lexicon and the cognitive principle that learning is a process of categorization,vocabulary acquisition is the association of new words with the already acquired ones.This association includes phonological, morphological and semantic relations between words.Furthermore,an individual's acquired vocabulary is not alphabetically arranged in the brain like that in a traditional dictionary,but is represented in a way similar to a network consisting of nodes and paths.To represent this organization of one's mental lexicon,the lexical semantic network is so far the most satisfactory model.In a lexical semantic network,words are represented as nodes,connected to one another by virtue of having phonological, morphological or various semantic relations,with the distance between the nodes determined by different degree of association between words.Vocabulary learning is not only a process of learning new words,but also a process of establishing the relationship between words.Therefore,applying a lexical semantic network in a learners' dictionary to reveal various relations between words will maximally benefit learners in their vocabulary acquisition.However,due to limited space and technology in printed dictionaries,it is quite difficult,if not impossible,to construct a well-organized lexical semantic network in them like that in the mental lexicon.Both alphabetically and conceptually arranged dictionaries nowadays only provide a fragmentary lexical semantic network.On the other hand,electronic dictionaries,having almost unlimited space and many technological advantages,can set a good example in applying the lexical semantic network to the dictionary.Actually,many English monolingual learners' dictionaries (CD-ROM version) have achieved fruitful results in this regard.But the English-Chinese electronic dictionaries produced in China's mainland still have much room for improvement in the representation of a complete and well-organized lexical semantic network.At the same time,some researches and studies(Shao Xiaoxia,2007;Wu Mei, 2001) have explored the applications of semantic network in foreign language learning, but their studies are mainly concerned about constructing the word links within a schemata during the teaching of text materials,while neglecting the phonological, morphological and semantic relations among words.Besides,so far,few people have done researches in the representation of lexical semantic network in electronic dictionaries,especially in English-Chinese electronic dictionaries.Therefore,under the guidance of related theories of linguistics,psycholinguistics, and lexicography,this thesis first improves existing lexical semantic network,and clarifies its components and relations,which are in turn used as standards to analyze and evaluate the practices adopted in the Big Five(CALD,COBUILD,LDOCE, MEDAL and OALD) to construct lexical semantic networks.By referring to these practices,it then tentatively suggests some methods to represent a complete and well-regulated lexical semantic network in English-Chinese electronic dictionaries.