Encyclopedic Information Treatment In English Advanced Learner's Dictionary: A User's Perspective

Numerous technical terms came into and have settled down in common language of daily use due to high-tech products'pouring into people's life. Dictionaries truthfully describe one or, more languages. Apart from the information that describes language, dictionaries also incorporate information that reflects the objective world, i.e. encyclopedic information. Though target users are different, types of learner's dictionaries include encyclopedic information unanimously. There has been, so far, no fixed criterion to measure the appropriate amount of encyclopedic information and the way it is conveyed in dictionaries. Acting as an important referent tool, dictionaries are crucial to EFL learning. The present thesis tries to address the following questions:1) How encyclopedic information is represented in human mind? 2) What are the characteristics of encyclopedic information treatment in current English advanced learner's dictionaries? 3) How to incorporate encyclopedic information strategically to better assist, especially Chinese EFL learners?In order to solve these research questions, the author probes into cognitive representation of knowledge, carries out a survey to learn the needs of El from Chinese learners, and makes a comparison among the "Big Five". Main results of the present investigation are as follows:Firstly, learning a language involves learning its culture and related encyclopedic information. It is necessary to include El in learner's dictionaries because the proportion of encyclopedic information goes into learner's dictionaries is the kind of information which came into and, has already settled down in social language.Secondly, result of the survey suggests that the majority of informants often encounter, or consult encyclopedic information in their language learning process, whereas encyclopedic information treatment in learner's dictionaries is not satisfying. It also reveals that a combination of definitions and examples is most helpful in EFL learning.Thirdly, a contrastive study of "Big Five" displays that there exist inadequacies in the treatment of encyclopedic information in current English advanced learner's dictionaries.The above results speak loudly that there exist inadequacies in learner's dictionaries, improvements are urgently called for. Based on the findings, the author proposes a model based on SAM to better the treatment of encyclopedic information in learner's dictionaries. Suggesting four steps in the process of encyclopedic information treatment, the model, aims to provide encyclopedic information in the form of a combination of definitions and examples.