Linguistic and cultural strategies in ELT dictionaries

Abstract

There are three main types of ELT dictionaries: monolingual, bilingual, and bilingualized. Each type of dictionary, while having its own advantages, also hinders the learning of English as a foreign language and culture in so far as it is written from a homogenizing (linguistic- and culture-centric) perspective. This paper presents a new type of dictionary that tries to overcome the linguistic and cultural limitations of its predecessors. This is achieved by means of a series of strategies that have to do with localization, delocalization, globalization, and glocalization of language and/or culture. It is hoped that the presentation of the linguistic and cultural strategies underlying this new kind of dictionary will (1) help the ELT community to improve students’ linguistic and cultural competencies, (2) help teachers evaluate the efficacy of different ELT dictionaries, and (3) promote the creation of more effective ELT dictionaries.