Corpora as game changers: The growing impact of corpus tools for dictionary makers and users

Abstract

English lexicography is undergoing a transformation so profound that both dictionary makers and users need new strategies to cope with the challenges of today's technologies and to take full advantage of their potential. Rundell has rightly stated that dictionaries have finally found their ideal platform in the electronic medium (2012: 15), which provides quicker and more sophisticated access to large data collections that are no longer subject to space restrictions. But the innovations go far beyond storage space and ease of access - customization, hybridization and user-input are amongst the most promising trends in electronic lexicography. Customization means that dictionaries can be adaptable, i.e. manually customized by the user, or even adaptive, i.e. automatically adapted to users’ needs on the basis of their behaviour (Granger, 2012: 4). Paquot lists genre, domain as well as L1 as examples of fruitful areas for customization (2012: 185). In the electronic medium, the barriers between different language resources such as dictionaries, encyclopaedias, databases, writing aids and translation tools are disappearing, a development referred to as hybridization (Granger, 2012: 4). And the concept of user-input is exemplified by the well-known platforms Wiktionary and Urban Dictionary, both of which are online reference works based on contributions by users.