The arrival of the modern computer set in motion a series of lexicographers’ dreams without equal in the history of dictionary making. Achieving the wildest of those electronic-dictionary vistas has the potential to result in reference works beyond all recognition. This potential, alas, remains to be realised. The aim of this article is to analyse the major achievements and future prospects when it comes to ‘human-oriented electronic dictionaries’ (for short EDs). In the first two sections the scene is set by revisiting this article’s title. In the third section various ED typologies are presented, including a new three-step access dictionary typology. The latter is used as a frame in section four, where forty pros and cons of paper versus electronic products are reviewed. This study clearly shows that ED dreams are indeed not without a solid basis. The next two sections then deal with the ED dreams proper, first in the form of a brief diachronic perspective singling out main dreams and main actors (section five), then in a much more detailed fashion sorting and scrutinising one hundred and twenty dreams found throughout the literature (section six). Section seven concludes with some observations

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Lexicographers' Dreams in the Electronic‐Dictionary Age

Intelligent Educational Systems (IESs) need large amounts of educational content that is typically not provided by the creators of these systems. In this paper we discuss a new approach for authoring practical IESs where core authoring is done by professional design teams, while the educational content is mainly developed by teachers who use the system in their classes. The major bottleneck of this approach is the lack of intelligent authoring support tools that allow regular teachers to author intelligent content that an IES needs in order to perform its functions. As a contribution to solving this problem, we present our recent work on authoring support for an adaptive vocabulary acquisition system, ELDIT. The paper describes the ELDIT system, the needs and challenges of language content authoring by teachers, and the two authoring support components that we have developed for two essential kinds of language learning content: illustrative examples and educational texts.

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Supporting teachers as content authors in intelligent educational systems

Some Rights Reserved

This paper is a project report of the lexi-cographic Internet portal OWID, an Online Vocabulary Information System of German which is being built at the In-stitute of German Language in Mann-heim (IDS). Overall, the contents of the portal and its technical approaches will be presented. The lexical database is structured in a granular way which al-lows to extend possible search options for lexicographers. Against the back-ground of current research on using elec-tronic dictionaries, the project OWID is also working on first ideas of user-adapted access and user-adapted views of the lexicographic data. Due to the fact that the portal OWID comprises diction-aries which are available online it is pos-sible to change the design and functions of the website easily (in comparison to printed dictionaries). Ideas of implement-ing user-adapted views of the lexico-graphic data will be demonstrated by us-ing an example taken from one of the dictionaries of the portal, namely elexiko .

https://pageperso.lif.univ-mrs.fr/~michael.zock/ColingWorkshops/CogALex-3/cogalex-3/documents/Proceedings-COGALEX-2010.pdf

22nd International Conference on Computational Linguistics

This paper presents the results of our investigations of the use and usability of dictionaries of Australian Indigenous languages for speakers and language learners. We report results from task-based and qualitative observational studies with seventy-nine people from three Indigenous language groups, and sixteen of non-Indigenous background, working with nine different dictionaries, including elementary and comprehensive dictionaries, and paper and computer dictionaries. We examine competing pressures placed on the lexicographer by demands for completeness of coverage and ease of access, by the need to accommodate low levels of literacy in English and the vernacular, by the range in users’ knowledge of the vernacular, and by the shortage of resources. Our conclusions echo informal remarks to this effect by other linguists working with Indigenous populations. This paper adds the results of a number of previous studies, some results from comparing paper and computer dictionary usability, and practical suggestions for improving the situation. ‘The perfect dictionary is one in which you can find the thing you are looking for preferably in the very first place you look.’ (Haas 1962: 48)

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How Useful and Usable are Dictionaries for Speakers of Australian Indigenous Languages

In the following presentation, ELDIT, a bilingual (German-Italian, Italian-German) electronic
Learn(ers') dictionary, will be introduced. The "basic vocabulary dictionary" ELDIT was conceived to
contain about 3,000 entries and to encourage the users' active use of vocabulary. The process of dictionary
formation and elaboration is substantially supported by hypermedia technology. Electronic media
facilitate a visual representation of lexical entities which is particularly oriented towards the learner.
ELDIT is structured in such a way as to take into account a wide range of interrelations between the
numerous lexical entities on a variety of levels (predominantly on the semantic, paradigmatic, and syntagmatic
levels). The conception and elaboration are based on psycholinguistic studies which seem to
corroborate the assumption that the human brain organises lexical information in form of paradigmatic,
syntagmatic, "pragmatic" and tonal fields.

Andrea Abel

Papers

ELDIT – A Prototype of an Innovative Dictionary

Word Formation in an Electronic Learners' Dictionary: ELDIT

New Answers to Old Questions about Lexicon Acquisition and Dictionary Use

Describing Verb Valency in an Electronic Learner’s Dictionary: Linguistic and Technical Implications

Evaluation of the Web-based Learners Dictionary ELDIT