| Abstract: |
English learners' dictionaries on CD-ROM are attracting more and more attention, given the enormous potential afforded by the new technologies to enhance language description. McCorduck (1996) states that this "shows the exciting promise of the application of multimedia computer technology to lexicography and language learning" (p. 225). As an electronic resource, a dictionary on CD-ROM is based on its printed counterpart, "a synchronic monolingual dictionary intended to meet the demands of
the foreign user" (Herbst, 1990, p. 1379).
This review focuses on the latest editions of five advanced learners' dictionaries of English on CD-ROM, each of which comes packaged with their printed editions. The review highlights their most outstanding characteristics and constraints and compares them over ten dimensions:
graphical user interface, accessibility and information retrieval, macrostructure, microstructure, thesauruslike consultation, complex searches, copy and print functions, extras, multimedia resources, and customization. The comparison also addresses the advantages of computer-aided lookup over paper-based consultation methods. |