The Pros And Cons Of Electronic Dictionaries

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As long as English language learning has existed, monolingual and bilingual dictionaries have been widely used by learners. When there is an unfamiliar word, most of the learners are directed to look it up in dictionaries by educators. Champeau de Lopez (1987) asserts that students should not just be allowed to use dictionaries in class and on exams; they should be required to do so. The majority of the learners were even taking their dictionaries to the places they tripped. Even today, the number of learners who carry dictionaries with them cannot be underestimated. However, thanks to technological improvements, the majority of people do not need to carry the printed dictionaries as they have been replaced by electronic dictionaries. The printed version of dictionaries entails lots of man-hours to be prepared and as soon as it is completed, even though it has many entries, after some time it becomes outdated. Renewing the information and style may also need many hours. For instance, the first edition of Oxford English Dictionary, was completed in fifty years (Meyer, 2002). The printed dictionaries are also difficult to analyze. Learners who are in need of a…show more content…
The users moved to electronic dictionaries as extra functions that language learners can benefit from. For instance, most of the electronic dictionaries come with embedded pronunciation functions hence learners are able not simply to see the transcription (which many learners do not understand), but also hear the correct form of the word. The content can also be updated according to the latest database, including recent words that the printed dictionaries may not include. Moreover, some of the electronic dictionaries allow learners to investigate hypertext information as alternative explanations like pictures, info from encyclopedias and different dictionaries, etc. (Guo,

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