Johanneke Sytsema OULS Subject Consultant (Linguistics) Katherine Melling

WISER: Workshops in Information Skills and Electronic Resources

Johanneke SytsemaOULS Subject Consultant (Linguistics)

Katherine MellingOULS Subject Consultant (French & Italian)

WISER Humanities: Online language

dictionaries


Aims of the session What are the advantages and uses of

online dictionaries? What kinds of dictionary are available

online? How can I access these dictionaries? Demonstration

Oxford Reference Online Xrefer OED Humbul


Online dictionaries The future of dictionaries?...

“Online dictionaries surely embody the future for word browsers. New technologies allow word definitions, and their histories, to be conjured up with the click of a mouse. And now, instead of having to print new books each time the dictionary is updated, the online version can be altered in no time.” The British Library

http://bllearning.co.uk/live/text/mean/oedonline/


Online dictionaries

Why use online dictionaries? Available from any internet connection – free

to uni members and not limited to library opening hours

Can allow for more sophisticated searching Can be less cumbersome and easier to

manipulate than printed tomes! Can be more rapidly updated by publisher Hyperlinks allow for better cross-referencing


Things to look out for… Authority – who, when, wny? Know exactly what you are consulting – check

for exact bibliographic details, compare to print version if possible

Does the dictionary provide the level of detail, guidance, and explanation available in a print version?

Do not rely on one resource esp. if you’re studying for a language degree – you’ll still need to use print monolinguals, for example


What is available? 1 Dictionaries via OxLIP

Usually electronic versions of dictionaries published in print, e.g. Oxford English Dictionary, Collins bilingual dictionaries

Guaranteed quality – compiled and edited to academic standards by professional lexicographers; published by renowned companies

OULS pays for these – only available to university members

Athens password needed to access from home


What is available? 2 Free dictionaries on the web

Easy to find hundreds of free dictionaries through Google etc.

Better to look through an academic gateway such as Humbul

*SEVERE HEALTH WARNING*! – could have been created by any random person…

But there are some academic-quality projects freely available


xreferplus Digital reference library including various

dictionaries: Collins bilinguals for French, Italian, German, Spanish,

Portuguese, Latin Collins and Chambers English dictionaries

• Available through OxLip, Athens password needed for remote access

• Better for Italian and Portuguese• Allows browsing and searching (phrase, wildcard)• Automatically searches both sides of a bilingual,

great cross-referencing


Oxford Reference Online

Contains ca.100 OUP reference works, including mono- and bilingual dictionaries

Available through OxLip, Athens password needed for remote access

Better for French and German?... Allows browsing and searching (phrase, wildcard) You have to search each side of a bilingual separately,

can’t cross-reference between the two Contains better explanatory information that xreferplus


Free translators

Be careful with free translators

They don‘t guarantee a reliable translation

Examples: Geht er schon in die

Schule? http://freetranslation.com/


Example

Het is mooi weer vandaag (It is a nice day today)


Any better options?

Choose the ‘professional translation’ option

Better translations are possible if you’re willing to pay…

I want professional translation


Free online dictionaries

Freedict free online dictionary found through Google

No information about number of entries

No information about editors

Results dubious Results unusable


www.humbul.ac.uk Humbul Humanities Hub provides description

and evaluation of the source Bilingual dictionaries Oxford Reference Online Lexicool.com links to over 4000 bilingual and multilingual

dictionaries and glossaries freely available on the Internet

Links to specialist dictionaries Choose dictionary for your search


Lexicool (1)

Number of entries per dictionary


Lexicool (2)

Choose dictionary

Search ‘Schule’, choose a meaning…

…or view the context


Meaning and context


OED

Online dictionary paid for by Oxford University Library Services

Electronic Resources / OxLip Accessible directly from Oxford Accessible with Athens password from

anywhere Monolingual descriptive dictionary


OED features Historical dictionary First published in 1884-1928 English from 1150AD to date English from across the globe Number of word forms defined and/or illustrated:

615,100 Pronunciations: 139,900 Etymologies: 219,800 Quotations: 2,436,600


OED functions Find Word Search – searches main dictionary

entries Full text Search – simple search, searches all

dictionary text Advanced Search – Bolean operators, search

words near to each other Sort results Highlight specific parts of the entry Save results to a file Use wild cards Browse function – Lost for Words?


Welcome to OED

Simple search will bring up search box above

Find Word

help

Get random entry

Advanced search

Find Word

help

Add OED to your browser

Search box


Entry


Quotations

quotations


Etymology

List by entry

etymology


Advanced: NEAR/NOT NEAR

NEAR

(bolean operator)

Options for NEAR/NOT NEAR

(Second search term +) 1 word before


Advanced searchSearch quotations


Sort and print

447 results

Sort by date

Print

Change to ‘500 per page’ for printing


Save to a file In results list click ‘print’ In print version choose ‘file’

and ‘save as’ Follow instructions in pop-up

box Save to file is a way of

building a text corpus for linguistic research

OED suitable for linguistic research since quotations are available from 1150 AD.

Searching by date is possible Investigate the use of a word

over a certain period


E-mail

You can e-mail an entry, not a results list The link to the entry will remain life for three

days For research purposes, saving as a file is more

advisable


Wild card search

Not sure how to spell? Use a wild card: The question mark ? represents the occurrence

of any one single character The asterisk * represents the occurrence of any

number of characters (or no character at all) c?t finds cat, cot, cut c*t finds cat, caught, commencement, conflict,

consent, cot, cut, etc.


Advanced wild cards (1)

A set of characters enclosed in square brackets ([]) represents a single character which can be any one of the bracketed characters. For example

s[pt]eak will find speak and steak. A hyphen can be used to abbreviate a range of

characters in a square-bracketed expression. For example, [l-p] means the same as [lmnop]

s[l-p]eak will find sleak, smeak, sneak, and speak (but not steak).


Advanced wild cards (2)

A caret (^) meaning NOT can be used at the start of a square-bracketed expression, to indicate that the character represented by the expression is not to be any of those included in the brackets.

s[^p]eak will find sneak, steak, etc., but not speak. A set of strings (separated by commas) enclosed in

braces ({}) represents a string which can be any one of the bracketed strings. For example

walk{s,ed,ing} will find walks, walked, and walking.


Search a phrase

Click ‘simple search’ to open up the ‘full text’ panel

Type the phrase into the top input box

Simple search

Input phrase


Assessment form at: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/courses/feedback/index.xsp

Thank you for attending today

And finally…

Johanneke Sytsema OULS Subject Consultant (Linguistics) Katherine Melling

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