Johanneke Sytsema OULS Subject Consultant (Linguistics) Katherine Melling

1. WISER Humanities: Online language dictionaries Johanneke Sytsema OULS Subject Consultant (Linguistics) Katherine Melling OULS Subject Consultant (French & Italian)

2. Aims of the session • What are the advantages and uses of online dictionaries? • What kinds of dictionary are available online? • How can I access these dictionaries? • Demonstration • Oxford Reference Online • Xrefer • OED • Humbul

3. Online dictionaries • The future of dictionaries?... • “Online dictionaries surely embody the future for word browsers. New technologies allow word definitions, and their histories, to be conjured up with the click of a mouse. And now, instead of having to print new books each time the dictionary is updated, the online version can be altered in no time.” • The British Library • http://bllearning.co.uk/live/text/mean/oedonline/

4. Online dictionaries • Why use online dictionaries? • Available from any internet connection – free to uni members and not limited to library opening hours • Can allow for more sophisticated searching • Can be less cumbersome and easier to manipulate than printed tomes! • Can be more rapidly updated by publisher • Hyperlinks allow for better cross-referencing

5. Things to look out for… • Authority – who, when, wny? • Know exactly what you are consulting – check for exact bibliographic details, compare to print version if possible • Does the dictionary provide the level of detail, guidance, and explanation available in a print version? • Do not rely on one resource esp. if you’re studying for a language degree – you’ll still need to use print monolinguals, for example

6. What is available? 1 • Dictionaries via OxLIP • Usually electronic versions of dictionaries published in print, e.g. Oxford English Dictionary, Collins bilingual dictionaries • Guaranteed quality – compiled and edited to academic standards by professional lexicographers; published by renowned companies • OULS pays for these – only available to university members • Athens password needed to access from home

7. What is available? 2 • Free dictionaries on the web • Easy to find hundreds of free dictionaries through Google etc. • Better to look through an academic gateway such as Humbul • *SEVERE HEALTH WARNING*! – could have been created by any random person… • But there are some academic-quality projects freely available

8. xreferplus • Digital reference library including various dictionaries: • Collins bilinguals for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin • Collins and Chambers English dictionaries • Available through OxLip, Athens password needed for remote access • Better for Italian and Portuguese • Allows browsing and searching (phrase, wildcard) • Automatically searches both sides of a bilingual, great cross-referencing

9. Oxford Reference Online • Contains ca.100 OUP reference works, including mono- and bilingual dictionaries • Available through OxLip, Athens password needed for remote access • Better for French and German?... • Allows browsing and searching (phrase, wildcard) • You have to search each side of a bilingual separately, can’t cross-reference between the two • Contains better explanatory information that xreferplus

10. Be careful with free translators They don‘t guarantee a reliable translation Examples: Geht er schon in die Schule? http://freetranslation.com/ Free translators

11. Het is mooi weer vandaag (It is a nice day today) Example

12. Choose the ‘professional translation’ option Better translations are possible if you’re willing to pay… Any better options? I want professional translation

13. Freedict free online dictionary found through Google No information about number of entries No information about editors Results dubious Results unusable Free online dictionaries

14. www.humbul.ac.uk • Humbul Humanities Hub provides description and evaluation of the source • Bilingual dictionaries • Oxford Reference Online • Lexicool.com • links to over 4000 bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries freely available on the Internet • Links to specialist dictionaries • Choose dictionary for your search

15. Lexicool (1) Number of entries per dictionary

16. Lexicool (2) Search ‘Schule’, choose a meaning… Choose dictionary …or view the context

17. Meaning and context

18. OED • Online dictionary paid for by Oxford University Library Services • Electronic Resources / OxLip • Accessible directly from Oxford • Accessible with Athens password from anywhere • Monolingual descriptive dictionary

19. OED features • Historical dictionary • First published in 1884-1928 • English from 1150AD to date • English from across the globe • Number of word forms defined and/or illustrated: 615,100 • Pronunciations: 139,900 • Etymologies: 219,800 • Quotations: 2,436,600

20. OED functions • Find Word Search – searches main dictionary entries • Full text Search – simple search, searches all dictionary text • Advanced Search – Bolean operators, search words near to each other • Sort results • Highlight specific parts of the entry • Save results to a file • Use wild cards • Browse function – Lost for Words?

21. Welcome to OED Add OED to your browser Search box Find Word Find Word help Get random entry help Simple search will bring up search box above Advanced search

22. Entry

23. Quotations quotations

24. Etymology etymology List by entry

25. Advanced: NEAR/NOT NEAR Options for NEAR/NOT NEAR (Second search term +) 1 word before NEAR (bolean operator)

27. Advanced search Search quotations

28. Sort and print 447 results Sort by date Change to ‘500 per page’ for printing Print

29. In results list click ‘print’ In print version choose ‘file’ and ‘save as’ Follow instructions in pop-up box Save to file is a way of building a text corpus for linguistic research OED suitable for linguistic research since quotations are available from 1150 AD. Searching by date is possible Investigate the use of a word over a certain period Save to a file

30. E-mail • You can e-mail an entry, not a results list • The link to the entry will remain life for three days • For research purposes, saving as a file is more advisable

31. Wild card search • Not sure how to spell? Use a wild card: • The question mark ? represents the occurrence of any one single character • The asterisk * represents the occurrence of any number of characters (or no character at all) • c?t finds cat, cot, cut • c*t finds cat, caught, commencement, conflict, consent, cot, cut, etc.

32. Advanced wild cards (1) • A set of characters enclosed in square brackets ([]) represents a single character which can be any one of the bracketed characters. For example • s[pt]eak will find speak and steak. • A hyphen can be used to abbreviate a range of characters in a square-bracketed expression. For example, [l-p] means the same as [lmnop] • s[l-p]eak will find sleak, smeak, sneak, and speak (but not steak).

33. Advanced wild cards (2) • A caret (^) meaning NOT can be used at the start of a square-bracketed expression, to indicate that the character represented by the expression is not to be any of those included in the brackets. • s[^p]eak will find sneak, steak, etc., but not speak. • A set of strings (separated by commas) enclosed in braces ({}) represents a string which can be any one of the bracketed strings. For example • walk{s,ed,ing} will find walks, walked, and walking.

34. Click ‘simple search’ to open up the ‘full text’ panel Type the phrase into the top input box Search a phrase Input phrase Simple search

35. And finally… Assessment form at: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/courses/feedback/index.xsp Thank you for attending today