Lexikos

Der Effizienz- und Intelligenzbegriff in der Lexikographie und künstlichen Intelligenz: kann ChatGPT die lexikographische Textsorte nachbilden?

Iván Arias-Arias — 2024-04-12

Efficiency and Intelligence in Lexicography and Artificial Intelligence: Can ChatGPT Recreate the Lexicographical Text Type?

By means of pilot experiments for the language pair German–Galician, this paper examines the concept of efficiency and intelligence in lexicography and artificial intelligence (AI). The aim of the experiments is to gain empirically and statistically based insights into the lexicographical text type ”dictionary article” in the responses of ChatGPT-3.5, as well as into the lexicographical data on which this chatbot was trained. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used for this purpose. The analysis is based on the evaluation of the outputs of several sessions with the same prompt in ChatGPT-3.5. On the one hand, the algorithmic performance of intelligent systems is evaluated in comparison with data from lexicographical works; on the other hand, the ChatGPT data supplied is analysed using specific text passages of the aforementioned lexicographical text type. The results of this study not only help to evaluate the efficiency of this chatbot regarding the creation of dictionary articles, but also to delve deeper into the concept of intelligence, the thought processes and the actions to be carried out in both disciplines.

Keywords: lexicography, AI, ChatGTP-3.5, dictionary article, concept of efficiency, concept of intelligence, lexicographical text type, training data, lexicographical data

This, Thing, Fervor, Fulfilment: The Treatment of Pronunciation and Spelling in Dictionaries of the Slovenian Immigration

Donna M.T.Cr. Farina — 2024-05-10

In the second half of the 19th century, dictionaries increased in importance among Americans. They began to be perceived as authorities by the U.S. population; users expected them to provide answers to their questions about language. At the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, on both sides of the Atlantic, the first independent Slovenian publications appeared, intended for Slovenian immigrants to the U.S. The goal of the present article is to examine the treatment of pronunciation and spelling, both in the front matter and in the body of dictionaries of the Slovenian immigration. We examine four dictionaries created by three authors (Kubelka 1904, Kubelka 1912b, Košutnik 1912, Kern 1919). They were published at a time when there were no readily available resources on English pronunciation or spelling written in Slovenian. This article documents the dictionary authors' explanations of pronunciation and how these explanations were presented to the intended audience. It also documents the treatment of spelling of words with predominantly American and predominantly British variants, at a time when both variants were widely circulating within American society.

Keywords: Slovenian immigration to U.S., bilingual dictionaries, English–Slovenian dictionaries, Slovenian–English dictionaries, pronunciation, IPA, respelling, spelling, British English, American English

Making Lexicography Sustainable: Using ChatGPT and Reusing Data for Lexicographic Purposes

Pedro A. Fuertes-Olivera — 2024-04-23

In 2014, the International Centre for Lexicography, a research group at Valladolid signed a contract with Ordbogen A/S (a Danish language technology company) and the University of Valladolid for developing a lexicographic project, the so-called Diccionarios Valladolid-UVa (Fuertes-Olivera 2019, 2022a, 2022b; Fuertes-Olivera et al. 2018; Tarp and Fuertes-Olivera 2016). Each partner gave around €180,000 (the International Centre for Lexicography's contribution came from several research projects funded by the Spanish Research Agency), to be employed in the design and construction of Spanish dictionaries (in particular, a general dictionary of Spanish, a Spanish dictionary of accounting, a bilingual Spanish–English/English–Spanish dictionary and a bilingual Spanish–English/English–Spanish accounting dictionary). The above project has produced several results, with the recent publication of the Diccionario Digital del Español (DIDES) its most relevant result (https://diesgital.com). Within the framework of these projects, this paper offers a general introduction of the project (Section 1), refers to the concept of sustainable lexicography (Section 2), indicates that sustainability lexicography implies a better understanding of lexicographic data (Section 3), and increasing lexicographic productivity, e.g., by crafting definitions for AI translations (Section 4) and using generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT in the day-to-day lexicographic work.

Keywords: ChatGPT, DeepL Translate, DICCIONARIOS VALLADOLID-UVA, lexicographic productivity, sustainable lexicography, public funding, generative AI

Learnability and Algorithmic Complexity in German Monolingual Learner Lexicography. A Case Study

Alberto Galván-Santana — 2024-05-21

This paper analyzes the algorithmic complexity (also known as Kolmogorov complexity or descriptive complexity) of the lemma corpus included in the Wortfamilienwörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache (WfWG) as a function of its macrostructural arrangement. The results show that, compared to the alphabetical order, the WfWG word-family arrangement produces an algorithmically more compressible, and therefore less complex version of the lemma corpus. This observation points to a higher degree of learnability and cognitive accessibility of the lemma corpus arranged in word families.

Keywords: monolingual learner's dictionary, macrostructure, navigation, learnability, algorithmic complexity, compression

How Can We Raise Strategic Dictionary Use in the Classroom: The Effect of a Dictionary Awareness Program on Dictionary Use Strategies

Zoe Gavriilidou — 2024-04-17

This study investigates the impact of an explicit and integrated dictionary awareness program on primary school pupils' dictionary use strategies. The survey involved a total of 150 participants, aged 10–12 years old, from mainstream and intercultural schools. Data was collected before and after the implementation of the program using the Strategy Inventory for Dictionary Use (SIDU), a reliable and validated self-report tool that accurately profiles paper dictionary users' reported use in real-life contexts (Gavriilidou 2013). The dictionary awareness program consisted of targeted activities and was implemented to a group of 75 students, including 50 from mainstream schools and 25 from an intercultural school. The findings suggest that there is a lack of dictionary culture among students attending Greek schools, as evidenced by the moderate strategic use of dictionaries and the incomplete integration of dictionaries as reference tools in the educational process. Additionally, the comparison of the percentage of each strategy category before and after the implementation of the program showed a significant effect of the program on all categories of Dictionary Use Strategies (DUS) employed by the experimental group. This study contributes to the discussion of the "teachability" of dictionary use strategies by highlighting the effectiveness of dictionary awareness programs in promoting a dictionary culture.

Keywords: dictionary use strategies, dictionary awareness program, explicit and integrated strategy instruction, dictionary culture, CALLA, strategy based instruction, look up strategies, lemmatisation strategies

Training an AI-based Writing Assistant for Spanish Learners: The Usefulness of Chatbots and the Indispensability of Human-assisted Intelligence

Ángel Huete-García — 2024-03-19

This article deals with the relationship between human and artificial intelligence in the context of an ongoing Spanish Writing Assistant project, where ChatGPT is used to assist in four key tasks related to either training the underlying language model or preparing future user communication. The project is an interdisciplinary collaboration between lexicographers with experience in language teaching and IT experts from a high-tech company. The article first describes the methodology of the overall project and the specific role of the lexicographers. It then discusses the three tasks in which the latter are directly involved: the construction of a set of two parallel Spanish corpora, one correct and the other with induced errors, the generation of validation material, and the writing of extended grammatical explanations for Spanish learners. Based on a large amount of empirical data, including 35,000 carefully reviewed sentences, the article details the different steps of the interaction between human and chatbot, as well as the experiences and reflections drawn from this process. It concludes that the two parts engage in very different types of relationships depending on the concrete task, and that human knowledge, culture, skills and language intuition are crucial for the chatbot to work properly.

Keywords: Spanish writing assistants, language learning, chatbots, human-assisted intelligence, training of language model, corpus building

Dictionary Use Training in Secondary School EFL Textbooks in Taiwan

Wai-on Law — 2024-04-15

As a rare study on English language textbook design for dictionary use training, this research examines four series of secondary school textbooks available on the Taiwan market. The content analysis method was adopted in finding out (1) how effectively the existing secondary English textbooks can help learners develop the necessary dictionary skills based on the guidelines from the government; and (2) how the existing textbooks could be improved to better meet learners' needs for dictionary skills training. The results show that none of the surveyed series follow the Curriculum Guidelines of the Ministry of Education (2018) regarding dictionary use training, although they all claim to have designed the book based on the government-set curriculum. Suggestions are made regarding how the present textbook designs could incorporate dictionary skills, with recommended resources. The study reveals the conspicuous neglect of dictionary use skills training in secondary school textbooks, and calls for similar review to be made in other countries to fully appreciate the (un)availability of dictionary use training in secondary schools. The study should provide useful information to relevant government authorities, dictionary compilers, textbook writers, and English language teachers and researchers alike for improving the situation.

Keywords: dictionary use training, Taiwan, secondary school EFL textbook, content analysis

Grammatical Data in the Dictionary of Montenegrin National and Literary Language

Sonja Nenezić — 2024-06-13

Dictionaries are generally consulted to ascertain the meaning of a word. However, the meaning is inseparable from its grammatical features, which often determine it. Therefore, this article examines the type, scope, and method of presenting grammatical data in a comprehensive general dictionary. The aim is to analyze and ascertain the morphological and syntactic characteristics of all types of words recorded in what is currently the only such dictionary of the newly standardized Montenegrin language. Attention is also given to the applied metalanguage, representing a combination of transparent abbreviations and natural language. The initial hypothesis about the heavy reliance on the inherited Serbo-Croatian lexicographic practice is confirmed, but certain deviations from this tradition are also noted, which aligns with the dictionary's goal of presenting grammatical data more accessibly and comprehensively to its target users.

Keywords: grammatical data, grammatical marker, general descriptive dictionary, Dictionary of Montenegrin National and Literary Language, Serbo-Croatian language dictionaries

Le Processus de Numérisation de la Lexicographie en Roumanie: Présent et Perspectives

Elena Isabelle Tamba — 2024-02-08

Digitalization Process of the Lexicography in Romania: Present and Perspectives.

In Romania, the lexicographic research is in a continuous development, in a natural process of digitalization. This step is absolutely mandatory for creating electronic instruments and resources, which are necessary for supporting the Romanian language and culture.

The Romanian academic specialists in linguistics and applied informatics, as well as in computational linguistics fields, have initiated research projects by which they valorise the non-digitized resources by acquiring them in electronic formats or by which they create dictionaries and new resources and instruments directly in electronic format.

The digitalization process put the Romanian academic lexicography at a level comparable to the international lexicography and allows the connection with lexicographic projects from abroad and the inclusion of Romania in the sphere of interest of the great international lexicographic networks.

Keywords: Romanian lexicography, e-lexicography, electronic lexicographic corpus, digitalization, digital lexicographical resources, evolution, perspectives

The Current State of the OBI DICT Project: A Bilingual e-Dictionary of Oracle-Bone Inscriptions with AI Image Recognition

Yang Jin — 2024-06-04

This article reports on the current state of the OBI DICT project, a bilingual e-dictionary of oracle-bone inscriptions (OBI), incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) image recognition technology. It first provides a brief overview of the development of the lexicographical works on oracle bones. Subsequently, it identifies deficiencies in existing oracle-bone dictionaries and underscores the pressing demand for the compilation of a new dictionary. In the subsequent two sections, the article delineates the project's initiation and objectives and then outlines its design. The four principal phases of the project, that is, material collection, literature review, content and user interface design, and search engine and AI image recognition design, are described in detail in the third section. In the concluding section, it expounds on how the OBI DICT addresses users' search requirements and maximizes usability, thereby offering substantial support to contemporary oracle-bone research, streamlining the learning process for novices, and expanding the readership interested in oracle bones.

Keywords: oracle-bone inscriptions, oracle-bone lexicographical works, oracle-bone databases, bilingual dictionary, AI image recognition, machine learning, dictionary compilation

Defining Feminine Personal Nouns in Polish: A Practical and Postulative Overview Based on the Dictionary of Polish Female Nouns

Agnieszka Małocha — 2024-07-02

This article considers and analyses various ways of defining feminine personal nouns in Polish-language lexicography. It deals with the techniques of defining products of the feminitive word-formation category which have been recorded in historical and modern dictionaries. It aims to determine the best way to define feminine personal nouns from the perspective of what the modern user needs and how they perceive the world. Against the recognised definition practices, a proprietary method developed at the Formation of Feminine Personal Nouns Research Section at the Institute of Polish Studies of Wrocław University, Poland, has been proposed. It has become the basis for lexicographic description used in Słownik nazw żeńskich polszczyzny (Dictionary of Polish Female Nouns). This article puts forward a rationale for defining lexical items in which a reference to the generic masculine, i.e. a systemic motivation typical of presentations of Polish word formation, has been abandoned.

Keywords: feminine personal nouns, feminitive, Polish word formation, dictionary, definition

On the Inclusion of Neologisms in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (10th edition)

Anmin Wang — 2024-03-27

Adding neologisms to a dictionary in its revision helps keep it abreast of time, which applies to a learner's one like Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (10th edition) (henceforth OALD 10), its latest edition. English Learner's dictionaries like OALD 10 get revised regularly. In this article, the neologisms included in OALD 10 have been approached from different perspectives. In terms of the part of speech, 71.1% of the neologisms are nouns, which could speak for the nouny nature of English. Content words like nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs make up almost 96% of the neologisms. Judging by the word-formation, the top three ways to form the neologisms are compounding, derivation and blending in decreasing order. According to the form the compounds take, which are mostly nouns, the open, hyphenated and tight ones come in decreasing order. 623 compounds make up more than half of the neologisms, which provides strong evidence for compounding to be the most frequently used way of creating neologisms. For neologisms formed by derivation, most of them are also nouns. However, 170 out of 300 neologisms formed by derivation have already appeared as derivatives of headwords in OALD 9. For 34 blends, 75% of them are partial in nature, which means at least one word in making a blend is in its full form. When it comes to the new words with regional labels, nearly 80% are labeled as belonging to British and North American usages, a sign of the hidden Anglo-centrism. The status of some words counted as neologisms is questionable, as they have been in use for a very long time. The impact of science and technology on the inclusion of neologisms in OALD 10 is quite visible. There are still many opportunities for further exploration concerning OALD 10.

Keywords: neologism, OALD 10, part-of-speech, word-formation, regional label, Anglo-centrism, dictionary revision, sci-tech influence

Hou Min. A Dictionary of Chinese Neologisms (2000–2020).

Yongwei Gao — 2024-05-24

Review of Hou Min. A Dictionary of Chinese Neologisms (2000–2020).

Heming Yong, Jing Peng and Xiangming Zhang. Chinese Lexicography in the Twentieth Century.

Yuanwen Zhang — 2024-06-06

Review of Heming Yong, Jing Peng and Xiangming Zhang. Chinese Lexicography in the Twentieth Century.