The article presents the results of a survey on dictionary use in Europe, focusing on general monolingual dictionaries. The survey is the broadest survey of dictionary use to date, covering close to 10,000 dictionary users (and non-users) in nearly thirty countries. Our survey covers varied user groups, going beyond the students and translators who have tended to dominate such studies thus far. The survey was delivered via an online survey platform, in language versions specific to each target country. It was completed by 9,562 respondents, over 300 respondents per country on average. The survey consisted of the general section, which was translated and presented to all participants, as well as country-specific sections for a subset of 11 countries, which were drafted by collaborators at the national level. The present report covers the general section.
IntroductionResearch into dictionary use has become increasingly important in recent years. In contrast to 15 years ago, new findings in this area are presented every year, e.g. at every Euralex or eLex conference. These studies range from questionnaire or log file studies to smaller-scale studies focussing on eye tracking, usability, or other aspects of dictionary use measurable in a lab. For an overview of different studies,
The emergence of COVID-19 affects the world population in many ways, resulting in its own specialised discourse. In addition to providing a source of data for analysis, this discourse has also led to a rethinking of multifarious research methods. This section presents a series of articles by scholars from different parts of the world with macro-and micro-linguistic perspectives, ranging from corpus-based analysis to content analysis studies. At the macro level, these scholars explored ways through which government bodies communicate with the public. Official announcements, parliamentary proceedings and COVID-19-related corpora are examined and a comparative textual analysis between the Malaysian and British governments is provided. At the micro level, the scholars analysed selected corpora with lexical, semantic, and discourse foci and personal posts of short narratives and photos to encapsulate meanings from human life and experience. The main takeaway from these studies is the application of a wide range of methods for different focus and perspectives that may be customised to the researcher's unique context.
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