A
strategy for supplementing dictionary with concordance
examples
A
response to some of the limitations of our dictionaries is to have learners use
concordances and dictionaries together. For example, they might confirm or
refine dictionary information with corpus evidence for specific target words.
This would, first, oblige learners to notice some of the concordance information
that is missing from the dictionary entry, and at the same time to meet new
items in a natural mix of more clear and less clear contexts. The figure below
shows such a worksheet based on the LDOCE entry in Figure 3 of the main paper.
Learners may enjoy this activity because they get a chance to test the
dictionary information, and for teachers it is a simple cut-and-paste job from
the LDOCE website.
This
exercise works in two directions: it supplements the LDOCE information with more
examples, forcing learners to consider many more realizations of the target item
to make their sentence selections, and at the same time it uses the dictionary
entry's structure to impose some order on the raw data of the
concordance. (Note
that S2,W3 in the LDOCE means that the word is in the most common 2000
words of spoken English, 3000 of written, and hence is a little more common in
speech than in writing.)
LDOCE-Concordance
worksheet
|
Concordance-Dictionary
Worksheet
Check
your dictionary's information against the data! Use concordance searches
from three corpora: Brown, BNC-Spoken and BNC-Written (available at
Lexical Tutor, http://132.208.224.131/Concord.htm).
| |
|
LDOCE's
information |
Your
confirmation |
|
complain
|
What
are the proportions spoken and written in the BNC
corpora? Total: _______
# Spoken:
________# ________% Written:
________# _________% Circle
one: S2,W3 - confirmed
/ disconfirmed |
|
1 [intransitive,
transitive not in passive] to say that you are annoyed, dissatisfied, or
unhappy about something or someone: They've
already been given a 10% raise so why are they
complaining? | “You never ask my
opinion about anything,” Rod complained. |
Find
another example in a corpus for each of these uses of complain and write it in the spaces
provided. 1. |
|
[+ about]: She often complains
about not feeling appreciated at work. |
complain
(that): People complain
|
2. |
|
| complain
to sb:
Neighbours complained
to the police about the dogs barking. |
3. |
|
2
can't complain
spoken used to say that a
situation is satisfactory generally in spite of the fact there may be a
few problems: Old age is creeping up,
but I can't complain. |
4. |
|
complain
of sth phrasal
verb [transitive]
|
5. |