The Effectiveness of Using a Bilingualized Dictionary for Determining Noun Countability and Article Selection

Alice Yin Wa Chan

doi:10.5788/27-1-1399

Abstract

This article discusses the use of a bilingualized dictionary, namely Oxford Advanced Learner's English–Chinese Dictionary 8 (OALECD8), by advanced Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners in the determination of noun countability and associated article use. A homogenous group of 30 English majors in a local university participated in the study, which consisted of a noun countability and article selection task without and with the use of the dictionary. The results show that although bilingualized dictionaries are useful in helping learners determine noun countability and associated article use, learners often misinterpret dictionary information and model on inappropriate structures, resulting in article errors and/or wrong countability judgments. Chinese translations are also sometimes sources of errors. The results of the study provide lexicographers with signposts to the selection of noun information to be included in a learner's dictionary. More explicit information about noun countability and related article use should be provided in a more user-friendly arrangement. ESL teachers are also advised to engage advanced learners in analyses uncovering the different syntactic requirements of equivalent vocabulary items in the target and source languages when using a bilingualized dictionary.

Highlights

The acquisition of English articles by second language learners has often been found to be a difficult process (Huebner 1983; Master 1987; Parrish 1987; Pica 1985; Thomas 1989; Murphy 1997; Robertson 2000; Zobl 1980), especially for learners whose native languages lack articles (Ionin, Zubizarreta and Maldonada 2008; Snape 2008), like Chinese
Twentyfour had received a C or above in the Hong Kong Advanced Level Use of English (UE)2 exam, 7.5 or above in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test, or 5 or above in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary education (HKDSE)3, and the rest had received a D in HKALE, 7 in IELTS, 4 in HKDSE, or C in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE)
The results of the study show that learners may be aware of the importance of contexts on word usage and that different senses of the same word may be associated with different linguistic structures (Chan 2012a), they may not possess the ability to identify the correct sense of a target noun in a certain context so as to determine the countability of the noun and/or its associated article use

Summary

Introduction

The acquisition of English articles by second language learners has often been found to be a difficult process (Huebner 1983; Master 1987; Parrish 1987; Pica 1985; Thomas 1989; Murphy 1997; Robertson 2000; Zobl 1980), especially for learners whose native languages lack articles (Ionin, Zubizarreta and Maldonada 2008; Snape 2008), like Chinese. Article use with abstract nouns is even more difficult than with concrete nouns, resulting in more article errors (Hua and Lee 2005; Ogawa 2008). Whether the perceptual system of noun countability that native English speakers use is "describable, explainable or acquirable by second language learners" (Yoon 1993: 284) is, questioned. Deviant countability judgments often result in learner errors, such as the pluralization of uncountable nouns (e.g. advices, equipments), which has been argued in the literature as fairly common (Schneider 2011). There exist conflicting findings that the countable use of uncountable nouns is highly infrequent when compared with usage that matches native speaker norms (Hall, Schmidtke and Vickers 2013), ESL/EFL learners' difficulties with the use of English articles as a result of indeterminate noun countability are well-attested (Xue 2010)

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