[词典讯] [词典人物]山田　茂

First, Shigeru Yamada looks critically at current MLDs, pointing out various
shortcomings, and suggesting various ways that these could be tackled. The
main shortcomings discussed are: 1) after a period of considerable evolution,
since the mid-1990s development has somewhat stagnated, with the various
MLDs now resembling each other too much and therefore offering the user
too little choice; 2) definitions in MLDs should not be restricted to a ‘defining
vocabulary’; also, they rely too heavily on the sentence format; 3) there are
problems with the ubiquitous use of semantic labels; 4) with regard to the
ordering of senses, there is an over-reliance on corpus frequency data; 5) the
focus on specific, statistically corpus-derived, collocations may lead the learner
to use only these; 6) MLDs often provide no explanations, or examples, to differentiate
alternative forms at phrase level. To help address these problems,
Yamada recommends: increased education of dictionary users; electronically
enhanced presentation; the abolition of the defining vocabulary; and the
increased involvement of both non-native speakers and language teachers in
the dictionary-making process