design features of monolingual urdu pedagogical dictionary...
TRANSCRIPT
Design Features of Monolingual Urdu Pedagogical Dictionary for Advanced Learners of Urdu Language
By
Asma Ashraf
Department of English
Bahauddin Zakariya University
Multan, Pakistan
Design Features of Monolingual Urdu Pedagogical Dictionary
For Advanced Learners of Urdu Language
BY
Asma Ashraf
Ph.D (Linguistics)
Supervisor
Prof. Dr. Zafar Iqbal
A thesis submitted in the partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in English (Ph.D Linguistics)
Department of English
Bahauddin Zakariya University
Multan, Pakistan
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the thesis “Design Features of Monolingual Urdu Pedagogical
Dictionary for Advanced Learners of Urdu Language" is the work of my independent
investigation except where I have indicated my indebtedness to other sources. I also
declare that this thesis has not been submitted for any other degree elsewhere.
Date: ______________ _________________________ (Asma Ashraf) Candidate
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is all by the grace of Almighty Allah, the Lord of the worlds, the Beneficent, the
Merciful, that I am able to complete my research work.
I feel extremely appreciative to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Zafar Iqbal,
Department of English, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, who helped me and
motivated me throughout my research work and created a great intellectual environment
to do research work. He always motivated me in difficult times and listened all the
problems with patience and tolerance and shaped my thoughts according to my research
topic. He always encouraged intellectual curiosity in me and provided inspirations and
new insights to think and to work hard.
I would also like to appreciate Prof. Dr Saiqa Imtiaz, Chariperson Department of
English, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan for all the cooperation and help she
extended during my studies.
I am extremely thankful to Mr Ramesh Krishnamurthy, lecturer of English
Studies, Aston University, Birmingham, UK, who guided me at every step during my
research when I was in the UK. He made me explore new and innovative dimensions in
my research work.
I am also obliged to the library staff of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan,
Punjab University, Lahore and Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad.
I would also express my gratitude for my research fellows, friends and colleagues
who motivated me and helped me every possible way in completing this great task.
I am thankful to my sisters and brothers for their best wishes and constant moral
support. They encouraged me throughout the years of my study especially Usama and
Jahanzeb, my younger brothers who missed me a lot whenever I was away from home.
Last but not the least, I would also pay my deepest homage for my brother
Mubasher (Late) whose absence was felt the most when I was declared as pass in the
exam of PhD.
Asma Ashraf
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page Dedication
Declaration
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
List of Appendices
Abstract
Chapter 1: Introduction 17
1.1. Background to the study 18
1.2. Learners’ Dictionaries of English and Other Languages 20
1.3. Design Features of Monolingual Pedagogical Dictionaries 21
1.4. Statement of the Problem 22
1.5. Present Study 23
1.6. Key Objectives 24
1.7. Research Questions 24
1.8. Hypotheses 25
1.9. Suggested Format 25
1.9.1. Macro Structure 25
1.9.2. Micro Structure 26
1.10. Significance of the Study 26
1.11. Delimitations of the Study 27
1.12. Conclusion 27
Chapter 2: Sociolinguistics of Urdu 28
2.1. The Use of Urdu Language: An Historical Perspective 28
2.1.1. Stage 1 (1526 to 1707) 30
2.1.2. Stage 2 (1707 to 1815) 30
2.1.3. Stage 3 (1815 to 1905) 31
2.2. Role of Fort William College in Promoting Urdu 32
2.3. Educational Policies with Special Reference to Urdu 33
2.3.1. A Movement for the Promotion of Urdu in Pakistan 34
2.3.2. The National Commission for Education 1959 35
2.3.3. Language Policies in Bhutto’s regime 37
2.3.4. The National Language Policy 1978 38
2.3.5. The Existing Language Policy 39
2.4. Teaching of Urdu in Pakistan 41
2.5. Teaching of Urdu in Foreign Countries 42
2.5.1. India 42
2.5.2. China 43
2.5.3. Iran 43
2.5.4. Saudi Arabia 44
2.5.5. Qatar 44
2.5.6. Independent and Occupied Kashmir 45
2.5.7. United Kingdom 45
2.5.8. Mauritius 46
2.5.9. America 46
2.5.10. Canada 46
2.5.11. Japan 46
2.5.12. South Africa 47
2.6. Standardization of Urdu and National Language Authority 47
2.7. Conclusion 50
Chapter 3: Role of Dictionaries in Language Learning 51
3.1. The Role of Dictionary in Vocabulary Learning 51
3.2. The Role of Dictionary in Decoding Activities 59
3.3. The Role of the Dictionary in Encoding Activities 62
3.4. Pedagogical Significance of Monolingual Dictionary 63
3.5. Conclusion 65
Chapter 4: Literature Review 66
4.1. Literature Review of Questionnaire- Based Research 66
4.1.1. Barnhart (1962) 67
4.1.2. Quirk (1975) 68
4.1.3. Tomaszczyk (1979) 69
4.1.4. Baxter (1980) 70
4.1.5. Bejoint (1981) 71
4.1.6. Nesi (1984) 72
4.1.7. Griffen (1985) 73
4.1.8. Kipfer (1985) 74
4.1.9. Iqbal (1987) 75
4.1.10. Battenburg (1989) 76
4.1.11. El-Badry (1990) 77
4.1.12. Diab (1990) 78
4.1.13. Li (1998) 78
4.1.14. Boonmoh (2009) 79
4.2. Literature Review of Design Features-based Literature 79
4.2.1. Hausmann (1990) 79
4.2.2. Cowie (1996) 80
4.3. Literature Review of Corpus-based Literature 80
4.3.1. The Brown Corpus 82
4.3.2. The LOB Corpus 82
4.3.3. The London Lund Corpus 82
4.3.4. The Bank of English 83
4.3.5. The British National Corpus (BNC) 83
4.4. Urdu Corpus Literature 84
4.4.1. The EMILLE Project (2004) 84
4.4.2. Becker & Riaz (2002) 85
4.4.3. Anwer, Wang & Wang (2006) 85
4.4.4. Hussain & Ijaz (2008) 86
4.4.5. Hussain (2008) 86
4.4.6. Afzal & Hussain 87
4.5. A Review of Currently Used Monolingual Urdu Dictionaries 88
4.5.1. Feroz ul Lughat 89
4.5.2. Ilmi Urdu Lughat 90
6.6. Conclusion 91
Chapter 5: Research Methodology 92
5.1. Theoretical Framework of the Study 92
5.1.1. A Review of Questionnaire- Based Research 93
5.1.2. A Review of Design Features-Based Research 102
5.1.3. A Review of Corpus-Based Research 103
5.2. Types of Research 105
5.2.1. Selection of Topic 106
5.2.2. Reviewing the Literature 106
5.3. Deciding on the Research Method 109
5.3.1. Deciding the Research Techniques 110
5.3.2. Questionnaire Construction 111
5.3.3. Method to Construct the Questionnaire 112
5.3.4. Construction of Question 113
5.3.5. Opinion Question (Subjective measurement) 113
5.3.6. Likert Scale 114
5.3.7. A Cover Letter 114
5.4. Technique to collect data 115
5.5. Data Analysis Approach 115
5.6. Participants 116
5.7. Conclusion 116
Chapter 6: Survey of the Learners and Teachers of Urdu as Users of
Urdu Monolingual Dictionaries 117
6.1. An analysis of Attitudes and Strategies of Advanced Urdu Learners
As Monolingual Urdu Dictionary Users 117
6.1.1. Description of Results (strategies) 118
6.1.2. Description of Results (Attitudes) 127
6.1.3. Discussions on Results 133
6.1.4. Concluding Remarks on Learners’ Survey 134
6.2. A Study of the Attitudes of Teachers towards Monolingual
Urdu Dictionaries 135
6.2.1. Description of Results 136
6.2.2. Discussions on Results 150
6.2.3. Concluding Remarks on Teachers’ Survey 151
6.3. Conclusion 152
Chapter 7: Design Features of Pedagogical Monolingual Learner’s
Dictionary for Advanced Learners of Urdu 153
7.1. The Process of Corpus Development 154
7.1.1. The Main Corpus 155
7.1.1.1. Selection of the Representative of Language 155
7.1.1.2. Identifying and Acquiring the Texts 158
7.1.1.3. Seeking Copyright Permissions 158
7.1.1.4. Texts in Speech Form 159
7.1.1.5. Procedure of Capturing Selected Texts on Computer 159
7.1.1.6. Correcting the Corpus 160
7.2. Reserve Corpus 160
7.3. Design Features of a Pedagogical Monolingual Urdu
Learners’ Dictionary 161
7.3.1. Macro Structure 162
7.3.2. Micro Structure 163
7.3.2.1. Spelling 163
7.3.2.2. Etymology 164
7.3.2.3. Pronunciation 165
7.3.2.4. Grammatical Information 168
7.3.2.4.1. Space for Grammar 171
7.3.2.5. Meaning 171
7.3.2.5.1. Polysemy, Homonyms and Metaphors 172
7.3.2.6. Definitions 173
7.3.2.7. Examples 174
7.3.2.8. Pictorial Illustrations 176
7.3.2.9. Stylistic Information (formal or informal) 177
7.4. Conclusion 177
Chapter 8: Conclusion and Recommendations 178
8.1. Major Findings 178
8.1.1. Survey-based Findings 179
8.1.2. Corpus Collection Possibilities 180
8.1.3. Design Feature of a Monolingual Urdu Learners’ dictionary 180
8.2. Contribution of this Study 181
8.3. Limitations of the Study 183
8.3.1. Limitations in the Methodology 183
8.3.2. Limitations in the Scope 184
8.4. Future Recommendations 185
Bibliography 187
Appendices
LIST OF TABLES
No. Description Page 1 Using Dictionary at Secondary Level 118 2 Using Dictionary at Intermediate Level 119 3 Using Dictionary to Look up Meaning 119 4 Using Dictionary to Look up Pronunciation 119 5 Using Dictionary to Look up Usage 120 6 Using Dictionary to Look up Etymology 120 7 Using Dictionary to Look up Grammatical Information 120 8 Asking Teachers about Meaning 121 9 Asking Teachers about Pronunciation 121 10 Asking Teachers about Symbols 122 11 Asking Teachers about Grammatical Categories 122 12 Using Dictionary in the Classroom 122 13 Using Dictionary Available in Library 123 14 Writing Meaning on the Text 123 15 Using more than one Dictionary 123 16 Guessing the Meaning from the Context 124 17 Writing Meaning in a Note Book 124 18 Browsing the Pages of Dictionary 124 19 Referring to the Introductory Pages 125 20 Referring to the Glossaries 125 21 Referring to the General Information 125 22 Finding Required Information in Glossaries 126 23 Finding Comprehensive Definition of the Words 126 24 Following the Abbreviated Information 126 25 Significance of a Dictionary 127 26 Information in a Dictionary 127 27 Using Dictionary is Boring 128 28 Dependence on one Dictionary 128 29 Information Provided by the Glossaries 128 30 Possession of at least one Dictionary 129 31 Use of a Dictionary on Teachers Recommendation 129 32 Effectiveness of Monolingual Dictionaries 130 33 Inclusion of Dictionary Skills Exercises in Course of Urdu 130 34 Use of Pocket Dictionaries 130 35 Role of Dictionary in Language Learning 136 36 Role of Dictionary in 2nd Language Learning 136 37 Importance of Monolingual Urdu Dictionary 137 38 Using Dictionary in Looking up Meaning 137 39 Using Dictionary in Looking up Pronunciation 137 40 Using Dictionary in Looking up Grammatical Categories 138 41 Using Dictionary in Looking up Usage 138
42 Dependence on one Dictionary 138 43 Teaching Dictionary Use 139 44 Ownership of Dictionary 139 45 Learners’ Encouragement to Use Dictionaries 139 46 Role of a Dictionary in Reading 140 47 Role of a Dictionary in Writing 140 48 Role of a Dictionary in Speaking 140 49 Use of a Dictionary while Teaching 141 50 Use of a Dictionary in Lesson Preparation 141 51 Encouragement of Learners to Buy Dictionaries 141 52 Teaching Dictionary Use 142 53 Information Provided in Glossaries 142 54 Dependence on Glossaries 142 55 Avoiding the use of Pocket Dictionaries 143 56 Using Learners’ Dictionaries 143 57 Using a Dictionary in the Classroom 143 58 Browsing the pages of a Dictionary 144 59 Pronunciation Guide in Currently Used Dictionaries 144 60 Grammatical Information in Currently Used Dictionaries 144 61 Usage of the Words in Currently Used Dictionaries 145 62 Revision of Monolingual Urdu Dictionaries 145 63 Inclusion of Definition in Dictionary 145 64 Comprehensive Pronunciation Guide 146 65 Explanation of Abbreviated Words 146 66 Inclusion of Illustration 146 67 Inclusion of Notes on Usage 147 68 Designing Dictionaries on Lexicographic Principles 147 69 Role of a Dictionary in Learning Spoken Urdu 147 70 Significance of Urdu Monolingual Dictionary for Foreign
Learner
148
LIST OF FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
No. Title Page
Figure 1 Language- wise Books Publication 41
Figure 2 Dictionaries Published by National Language Authority 49
Figure 3 Knowing a Word 53
Figure 4 The Stages of Vocabulary Knowledge Acquisition 54
Figure 5 Reviewing the Literature 107
Figure 6 Construction of a Questionnaire 112
Figure 7 Graphical Representation of the Results (Learners’ Strategies) 131
Figure 8 Graphical Representation of the Results (Learners’ Attitude) 132
Figure 9 Graphical Representation of the Results (Teachers’ Attitude) 149
Figure 10 Atkins et al’s Taxonomy for Selection the Material for Corpus 156
Figure 10 From IPA to SAMPA 165
LIST OF APPENDICES
No. Description Page
A Questionnaire for Advanced Urdu Learners i
B Questionnaire for Advanced Urdu Teachers v
C Results of the survey of advanced learners of Urdu (Strategies) viii
D Results of the survey of advanced learners of Urdu (Attitudes) x
E Results of the survey of Teachers of Urdu xi
F List of Colleges Selected for Data Collection xiv
ABSTRACT
Design Features of Monolingual Urdu Pedagogical Dictionary
For Advanced Learners of Urdu Language
The lexicographic tradition in Monolingual Urdu Dictionaries is very old but the
implications of modern postulates of lexicography are not evident in compiling Urdu
monolingual dictionaries. The present study deals with a description of design features of
a pedagogical monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary for the advanced learners of Urdu
on the tradition set by the COBUILD dictionary. Basically the study looks at three
perspectives: the opinions of the user (learners and teachers of Urdu) of monolingual
Urdu dictionaries, assessing the possibilities of collecting a database or corpus of Urdu as
a basis of a monolingual advanced learners’ dictionary of Urdu and design features of a
pedagogical Urdu monolingual advanced learners’ dictionary.
The study is descriptive. The data regarding the opinions of the learners and
teachers of Urdu was collected through a questionnaire. The theoretical framework was
based on the questionnaire based studies conducted by Diab (1998) and Iqbal (1987). The
responses collected from the teachers and learners of Urdu were statistically analyzed by
securing the mean score against each statement. The second perspective of the study was
to see how far it is possible to collect a corpus of Urdu as a basis of a monolingual
learners’ dictionary of Urdu.
A number of studies (The EMILLE Project 2004, Becker & Riaz 2002, Anwer,
Wang & Wang 2006, Hussain & Ijaz 2008, Hussain 2008, Chohan & Bukhari 2009) have
been reported in the area of Urdu corpus. CRULP (Center of Research in Urdu Language
Processing) collected a corpus of 19 million words which is used to design an Urdu-
English dictionary. These studies maintain that there is a great potential as far as the
collection of a corpus is concerned. The third and the central concern of the study is to
design the features of a pedagogical monolingual learners’ dictionary for advanced
learners of Urdu language and for this purpose the design features of the COBUILD
dictionary were taken as model. This choice is made on the grounds that this dictionary is
meant both for teachers and students; it bears some unique features in its design and has
got the appraisal of many critics (see Boguraev 1990, Aarts & Meijs 1990,
Krishnamurthy 2002, 2001). Moreover the results drawn from the above mentioned
surveys of both the learners and teachers of Urdu also provided insights to determine the
essential features of a pedagogical monolingual learners’ dictionary for the advanced
learners of Urdu. The results concluded that there is a great need to design a monolingual
learners’ dictionary for advanced learners of Urdu and the compiling a corpus based
monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary for advanced learners will bring innovative
changes in learning and teaching of Urdu and lexicographic tradition of Urdu. Finally, the
design features of a pedagogical monolingual Urdu dictionary for the advanced learners
of Urdu were established. These features were based on these aspects: the possibility of
the application of the method adopted in the COBUILD and the possibility of collection
the corpus of Urdu and the availability of the technical and technological needs while
collecting the corpus of Urdu. The study concluded that greater possibilities are there to
collect a corpus of Urdu and the selected model of COBUILD dictionary can also b
applied on a corpus based monolingual Urdu dictionary for advanced learners of Urdu.
17
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Dr Johnson said that dictionaries are as valuable as watches: to have the worst is
better than to have none. They are the sum total of the whole vocabulary of a language.
Their significance, contribution and effectiveness in learning or teaching a language can
never be denied. This fact calls for a need to search creative and innovative dimensions in
the field of dictionary designing. These dimensions include learners as well as teachers in
collecting the information on dictionary use as a basis of dictionary research. The
inclusion of dictionary users in dictionary research and exclusion of intuitive knowledge
of dictionary compiler leads towards the modern postulates of dictionary research or
lexicography.
Lexicography can be defined as “the professional activity and academic field
concerned with dictionaries and other reference works” (Hartmann & James.1998: 85).
There are two basic divisions according to the above mentioned definition: lexicographic
practice (dictionary making) and lexicographic theory (dictionary research).
Lexicographic practice is concerned with the professional activity of compiling reference
works and lexicographic theory is the scholarly studies in the disciplines like Linguistics
especially Lexicology. It has been maintained for many years that lexicography only
covers the practice of dictionary making, as Landau (1984) called it the ‘art and craft’. In
recent years, however, the scholarly field of lexicography or dictionary research has been
increasingly recognized. Wiegand (1984) divided the field into four areas: history of
lexicography, general theory of lexicography, research on dictionary use and criticism of
18
dictionaries. Pedagogical lexicography is currently a dominating area of inquiry of
dictionary research. Pedagogical lexicography consists on scholarly studies in designing,
compiling, evaluating and using learner’s dictionaries. Research into dictionary use and
dictionary requirements can further be investigated in a number of different ways.
Hartmann (1987), in his paper for EURALEX-Leeds seminar, identified four categories of
investigation:
resrearch into the information categories presented in dictionaries
(dictionary typology),
research into specific dictionary user groups (user typology),
research into the contexts of dictionary use (needs typology), and
research into dictionary look-up strategies (skills typology).
The present research concentrates on designing a dictionary by looking at the
attitudes and strategies of the learners at one hand and the attitudes of Urdu teachers
towards using monolingual dictionaries on the other. This study is concerned with the
lexicographic theory or designing the features of pedagogical Urdu monolingual
dictionary by making an attempt to look at the possibilities of collecting a corpus of Urdu
as the basis of a learners’ dictionary.
1.1. Background to the study
The history of the Urdu language begins with the Mughal period (1526-1858). The
Mughal Empire that preceded the rule of the East India Company in India was a
multilingual empire. People of different ethnic, linguistic and cultural background with
diversity of dialects constituted the Mughal Empire. It literally means “a camp language”
19
for it was spoken by the imperial troops of first Mughal king Babar that was from the
Central Asia as they mixed with the speakers of local dialects of the northern India. When
the Mughal army constituted, it included soldiers from all over the South Asian regions
and the surrounding territories like Iran, Afghanistan, Arab, Russia and Turkey. The
soldiers had problem in intra-army communication because of language variation. These
soldiers gradually developed a new language for containing words from all the languages
of all the soldiers. Hence an amalgamation of all the spoken languages resulted in the
formulation of a new language. Early Urdu was quite different from today’s and was not
a very fine form. Like all other languages, Urdu has to go through the stages of evolution.
After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Urdu took birth as a new language. New words
were created which belong only to Urdu; thence Urdu began to become famous because
of its flexibility. When the British came to India, they needed to communicate in Urdu
that is why they set up an Urdu center at the Fort William College in Calcutta to teach
British employees the Urdu language. The college helped promote the Urdu language.
John Gilchrist, head of the Department of Urdu in Fort William College, was the person
who wrote the first grammar of the Urdu language. He had full command of the Urdu
language and he decided to compile an Urdu dictionary. It was an English - Urdu
dictionary.
After the partition many steps were taken to promote Urdu as the national
language of Pakistan. Apart from having Urdu as a compulsory and optional subject in
the curriculum, many institutions were established for the promotion of Urdu and Urdu
dictionaries. These institutions include Urdu Tarraqi Board, Urdu Dictionary Board,
Muqtadra Quomi Zaban, Feroz Sons, etc. These institutions compiled a number of
20
monolingual Urdu dictionaries. These dictionaries claim to meet the needs of learners but
they are not compiled on the principles of pedagogical lexicography that are proposed by
the linguistics and lexicography after the advent of Linguistics in 20th century. Currently,
the user perspective approach in dictionary theory as well as in practice of dictionary
research is very much in vogue. In Pakistan, however, this approach is still not very much
popular. The dictionaries are compiled on the basis of the intuitive knowledge of the
compilers and the innovation idea of collecting and using a corpus (details of corpus in
chapter 6) as the basis of dictionary is still not practiced in Pakistan.
1.2. Learners’ Dictionaries of English Language
In the past thirty years, learners’ dictionaries have become increasingly a subject
of interest for language teachers, applied linguists and lexicographers. After the
publication of Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English (OALD) existed
for more than thirty years without a competitor, The Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English (LDOCE) was brought onto the market in 1978. This new
dictionary received much acclaim for its innovative and user- friendly features such as a
controlled defining vocabulary, a clear access structure and a mnemonic grammatical
coding system. The arrival of the LDOCE set off the development of a competitive
market for learners’ dictionaries, so that lexicographically, English became “the best-
described language in the world” (Herbst 1996: 321). In 1987, the COBUILD appeared.
COBUILD was regarded as revolutionary in breaking with some lexicographic traditions
and conventions. It was the first dictionary that defined words in a full sentence format
presented a larger number of examples for words and avoided cluttering the entries with
21
codes, symbols and abbreviations by banning technical information into an extra column.
The COBUILD dictionary is considered to be the latest and the most user- friendly
dictionary. That is why, the present research attempts to design the features of a
monolingual dictionary on the set of parameters adopted by the COBUILD.
1.3. Design Features of Monolingual Pedagogical Dictionaries
Pedagogical dictionaries are the dictionaries that meet the language needs of non
native speakers. The top most rated pedagogical dictionaries in English are the following:
Cambridge International Dictionary of English
Collins COBUILD
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
The pedagogical dictionaries are considered unique for some distinctive features of
their design that are listed below:
The pedagogical dictionaries use a specific and controlled vocabulary to be used
while defining the words.
The definitions were designed by using a corpus based contextualized texts.
The examples are taken from the natural or authentic language.
The nonverbal illustrations are used for supporting the definitions (Kwary, from
www.kwery.net ).
22
1.4. Statement of the Problem
Urdu, the national language of Pakistan is the most important language of literacy,
literature, office and court business, media and religious institutions of the country. In
Pakistan it is taught from primary to intermediate level as a compulsory subject and as an
optional subject at degree level. Textbooks are written in the Urdu language from
Primary to Secondary level. At Intermediate and degree level most of the students of
Humanities and Social Sciences choose Urdu as a medium of education. Urdu is not an
indigenous language in Pakistan and suffers from a lot of pressures of different ethnic and
linguistic groups. It is taught as a compulsory subject from primary to intermediate level
and as an optional subject at degree level. In Pakistan, only 8 % of the total population
speaks Urdu as its first language and rest of the population learns it as its second
language. Another problem in this regard is that the teachers of the Urdu language are not
trained themselves what dictionary they should recommend to the learners. Mostly, the
learners are not at all advised to purchase a dictionary even at the beginning level when
they learn it as a second language. Moreover Urdu is taught as a foreign language in
many countries of the world. A dictionary plays a very vital role in teaching or learning a
second/foreign language. That is why it is required to design a Learners’ Dictionary for
Advanced Learners studying Urdu not only in Pakistan but also in foreign countries.
Although many monolingual dictionaries are available on the market and some of them
even claim to be the learners’ dictionaries in their orientation, they are unable to meet all
the didactic needs of the learners and they are not compiled on the recognized principles
of modern pedagogical lexicography. There is a great need to take initiative to put
23
forward the idea of collecting a corpus of Urdu language as the basis of learners’
dictionaries.
1.5. Present study
The present study looks at designing a monolingual Urdu Dictionary for Advanced
Learners of Urdu and finding out the possibilities of collecting a corpus of Urdu as the
basis of a dictionary following the traditions set by English, French and German
lexicographers. The study deals with the status of Urdu as a national language in Pakistan
and as a foreign language in other countries of the world. It deals with the teaching and
promotion of the Urdu language in Pakistan and in foreign countries as well. Although
many monolingual Urdu dictionaries are available on the market but they are not
designed according to the principles of pedagogical lexicography. This study As far as
the theoretical implications of the research are concerned, it will provide the
lexicographic principles for designing a monolingual Urdu learner’s dictionary while the
pedagogical implications are concerned with the evaluation of the effectiveness of
different dictionaries and finally the recommendation of suitable dictionaries to learners.
This particular dictionary will focus on the corpus based on the evaluation of the
currently used monolingual Urdu dictionaries and collected from the Urdu textbooks
taught in the institutions as well as from daily life conversation. The proposed design
features of the proposed dictionary are adopted on the lines of COBUILD dictionary. In
this dictionary, pronunciation will be given in I.P.A (international phonetic alphabets)
and it will be very helpful for the foreign learners in learning the Urdu language. A key to
the sounds and the symbols used in the proposed model will also be designed for the ease
24
of the learners. Hopefully, it will be useful for those Pakistanis who live in foreign
countries and want to learn the Urdu language.
1.6. Key Objectives
The key objectives of the research are as under:
To conduct a survey to collect opinions of teachers and the advanced learners of
Urdu regarding monolingual Urdu dictionaries they use
To find out the possibilities of collecting corpus of Urdu as a basis of a learners’
dictionary and
To design essential features of a monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary for the
advanced learners of Urdu.
1.7. Research Questions
After studying the related literature the researcher is able to put following research
questions.
Do the teachers and advanced learners of Urdu feel the need of a proper
monolingual Urdu dictionary?
To what extent it is possible to design a pedagogical Urdu monolingual dictionary
for advanced learners of Urdu?
To what extent it is possible to design a corpus based Urdu monolingual
dictionary in Pakistan?
25
1.8. Hypotheses
The teachers and advanced learners of Urdu feel the need of a proper Urdu
monolingual dictionary.
A pedagogical Urdu monolingual dictionary is essential for the advance learners
of Urdu.
It is vital to design a corpus based Urdu monolingual dictionary in the Pakistani
context.
1.9. Suggested format
While designing the features of this dictionary the two main structures of a
dictionary have bee kept under consideration:
Macro Structure
Micro Structure
1.9.1. Macro structure
Macro structure refers to the overall list of items that allows the compiler and the
user to locate information in a reference work. In the proposed dictionary the most
common format i.e. the alphabetical word list will be adopted supplemented by outside
matter in the front, middle or back of the work. It includes the introductory section or the
front matter of the dictionary having a guide for the use of the dictionary. These
introductory pages include the explanation of the abbreviated words used in the
dictionary, description of grammar in general, key to the pronunciation of the words and
the explanation of other symbols or key words used in the dictionary.
26
1.9.2. Micro structure
Microstructure refers to the internal design of a reference work. In this proposed
dictionary, the research will focus on the following set of information to be provided:
(a) Spelling
(b) Pronunciation
(c) Grammatical information
(d) Definitions
(e) Examples
(f) Stylistic information (formal or informal)
1.10. Significance of the study
In Pakistan, Urdu is taught as a compulsory subject. So, it is the need of the
learners that they should have a learner’s dictionary in which there is no unnecessary
coinage. Although many monolingual dictionaries have been compiled, no such project
has been conducted until now. Perhaps this study would be the very first one in the field
of Urdu pedagogical monolingual lexicography. This dictionary will help the non-
native speakers as well as the native speakers in learning Urdu. The present research
will initiate the theory of modern principles of lexicography to be applied on Urdu
lexicography.
27
1.11. Delimitations of the study
It has already been discussed that in designing this dictionary the pronunciation
will be given in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabets). However it will be only on
segmental level. This study does not deal with supra segmental features of the Urdu
language which includes the stress and intonation pattern of the language. This research
pertains only to designing a learner’s dictionary for advanced learners of the Urdu
language. Although there is a need to do research on other aspects as Urdu learners’
dictionary for beginners, this study will focus on the learners of advanced level.
1.12. Conclusion
This chapter outlines the background, significance and rationale of the study. The
present research aims at establishing and designing the design features of a pedagogical
monolingual Urdu learner’s dictionary. The next chapter deals with the sociolinguistics
of Urdu with a special focus on language policies and the standardization of Urdu as the
national language of Pakistan.
28
CHAPTER 2
SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF URDU
This chapter outlines a detailed introduction of the history of Urdu starting from
the evolution of Urdu as a language to its standard form. The chapter discusses the use of
Urdu in different stages of history, language policies regarding Urdu before and after
partition of the subcontinent and the influence of different language groups in Pakistan.
The chapter also deals with the description of teaching Urdu in Pakistan and in foreign
countries. A comprehensive overview of the process of standardization of Urdu and the
role of National Language Authority (NLA) is also included to determine the current
status of Urdu as a national language of Pakistan.
2.1. The Use of the Urdu Language: An Historical Introduction
There are many assumptions pertaining to the origin of Urdu, differing in both
time and geographic location. Urdu is an Indo-European language originated in India,
most likely in Delhi, from where it spread to the rest of the subcontinent. Other major
metropolitan areas with a strong tradition of the language include Hyderabad, Lukhnow
and Lahore. Another view is that the Urdu language was originated during the Mughal
period (1526-1858). It was borne out of the socio-administrative needs of Muslim rulers.
It literally means “a camp language”, “troops”, or “army” for it was spoken by the troops
of Mughal Empire when the soldiers from Central mixed with the speakers of local
dialects of northern India. When the Mughal army constituted by king Babar, it included
29
the soldiers from all over the regions of South Asia and the surrounding states like Iran,
Afghanistan, Arab, Russia and Turkey. Hence an amalgamation of all the spoken
languages resulted in the formulation of Urdu. Initially it was emerged as a synthesis of
Khari Boli (Hindi), Braj Bhasha Rajhistani and Punjabi with some Arabic and Persian
vocabulary.
During the first two centuries of its development, i.e. during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, ‘Urdu, cutting across the regional barriers’ (Beg 1996:40) not only
became popular far and wide but also spread and developed linguistically. Thus, Urdu
became a lingua franca or link language for communicating between the troops from
foreign lands and the native people. Pandit regarded the Khadi Boli style of Urdu as ‘the
Northern lingua franca’. He writes:
“The lingua franca, with the continuous deployment of armies to South India,
eventually got established in the Muslim kingdoms of the South: there it was
known under the name Dakni, (Daccan = South) (1977:57).
Like all other languages, Urdu had to go through the stages of evolution and
development. New words were created that belonged only to the Urdu language. Urdu
began to become famous because of its flexible nature to absorb the words from other
languages. Increasingly, words and grammatical structure of Persian, the official
language of the Mughal administrators, were incorporated until Urdu attained its stylized,
literary form in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Urdu has always been written
using the Persian script.
30
Looking back to the history of the evolution of Urdu language from its birth
during the Mughal period 1526 to 1905, we can divide the period into three stages.
2.1.1. Stage 1 (1526 to 1707)
The kingdom of Mughals started with the throne of Babar in 1526 but moved
towards the south when Aurangzeb was died in 1707.
Nayyer (2003) stated that the word ‘Urdu’ is a Turkish word that stands for a
“military language” or “horde”. Urdu had not taken its complete form in this era. It was
actually the mixture of the dialects spoken by the Muslims who had been ruling over the
South Asia from 14th century. The form of the language as a result of mixing various
dialects was known as Dakhni or the speech of the South may be traced back to the 15th
century (Kashmiri 2003). Its use was confined only to Daccan and South India and was
used in literature by the Muslims of these regions, who were less influenced by the local
Hindi spirit of the dialects and languages of North India than the Muslims living in North
India. This difference becomes quite clear from the fact that the Perso-Arabian script was
used in the Daccan from almost the beginning. Gradually, the literature increasingly came
under foreign influence in the sense that it became more and more Muslim and Persian in
its attitude and attributes Urdu, however, continued to adopt and use a great collection
from Indian vocabulary till the end of the 17th century (Nayyer 2003).
2.1.2. Stage 2 (1707 to 1815)
This era commenced when Aurangzeb died in 1707 and ended with the third
Maratha war in 1818 and Urdu was brought forth as a language during this period. Delhi
and Lukhnow were the two central places which received much influence of the
31
development of Urdu (Nayyer 2003). There was a significant contribution of both Arabic
and Persian languages seen in the development and expansion of Urdu. A strong need for
the rehabilitation of the ethical and socio economic condition was felt when the situation
in the Muslim society became worse due to the weaknesses in the royal authorities. The
Muslim scholars decided upon brining the Muslim community together by reforming the
society on religious grounds. Arabic was considered to be the channel to meet the needs
of religious rethinking among the Muslims (Beg 1996). The Muslim society was agreed
upon a thought to adopt a language that would show their linguistic identity and Urdu
served this purpose quite successfully in the 18th century.
Chutterji explained that:
“By 1750, Delhi Urdu entered upon its new and triumphant career, and Delhi
Urdu helped to establish the Hindustani Speech all over India’’ (1960:210).
When the British came to India, they realized the need to communicate in Urdu,
which is why they set up an Urdu center at the Fort William College in Calcutta to teach
British employees the language. The college helped promote Urdu too.
2.1.3. Stage 3 (1815 to 1905)
During 1815 to 1905, Urdu was flourished as a language of communication. A
major development during this era was that Urdu was introduced as a language of
literature. Nayyer (2003) explained that the language, which was born in the camps of
military troops from the Hindi Khari/Khadi Boli during the later Mughal period,
developed into a language of expression for religious and philosophic ideology. An Urdu
translation of the Holy Quran was made in 1791. I was during this period that Urdu
32
became popular as a spoken language and replaced Persian as the language of the
educated people. During this period, Lukhnow and Rampur were the centers of Urdu. The
Aligarh Movement by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan promoted to modernize Urdu literature at
the beginning of the fourth quarter of the 19th century. It was just because of the
movement by Aligarh that a large number of prose writers, historians and essayists
contributed their share to the Urdu literature.
Kashmiri (2003) added that with the passage of time, Urdu became to be regarded
as the language of the Muslims. Muslim leadership demanded before the Hunter
Commission (between 1883 to 1890) in Bengal that special and urgent step should be
taken for the primary education of Hindus and Muslims. They stressed that Urdu should
be made the medium of instruction in education. During these years, Urdu press was
launched and the books and reading material started to be published. As Indian Muslim
started identifying themselves with this language and Urdu was regarded as the language
of the Muslims, it became a bone of contention between the Muslims and the Hindus.
2.2. Role of Fort William College in Promoting Urdu
Fort William College was established in 1800. The primary purpose of the
establishment of the college was to teach the machinery of the government the language
of the people of India in order to expand and strengthen its empire. Wellesley, the
Governor General and one of the most eminent founder and promoter of the college
raised the notion that the officials of the British government needed to communicate with
the local people and this communication is not possible without learning Hindustani
languages (Sadaid 1991: 224).
33
Kashmiri (2003) stated that before the establishment of Fort William College,
Wellesley and Gilchrist had already started teaching the Hindustani languages to the
British officials in an institution called the Oriental Seminary founded by Gilchrist.
Considering the importance of the knowledge of the local languages, on 3rd January 1799,
Governor General Wellesley had declared the competence of the local languages an
important condition for the eligibility of the government officers. He ordered the junior
civil servants that they should join the lessons of Hindustani languages being conducted
in the Oriental Seminary of Gilchrist. But afterwards a gulf was created between the
Directors of the Company and Wellesley on the matter of the college. On 27th of March
1802 the Court of Directors of the Company informed Wellesley that the college could
not be permitted to continue its practice on economical grounds.
All these circumstances led to the termination of the college on 24th of June 1802.
Wellesley resigned in August 1805 and this college was converted into a school for
British servants in Bengal. Fort William College went through different stages afterwards
and, at last, was closed on 24th of January 1852 with an order from Lord Dalhousie. Meer
Amman’s Bagh-o-Bahar was the most representative literary work of Fort William
College, Calcutta that was written in Urdu language.
2.3. Educational Policies with Special Reference to Urdu
When Pakistan was emerged on the face of the world, its main demand was to
satisfy the two conflicting requirements of ‘nationism’ and ‘nationalism’ (Bell 1976: 168-
69). The urge of nationalism was satisfied by declaring Urdu as the national language and
a sign to unite the masses of Pakistan. Mansoor (1993) explains that an appropriate status
34
for Bengali, that was the language of the East Pakistan, was demanded that proved a
sense of resentment on declaring Urdu as the only national language. After the Dacca
language riots, Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan and Khawja Nazimuddin suggested that there
could be only one lingua franca or a link language in order to link the people of different
provinces of the country and that language should be Urdu and cannot be any other
regional language (Haque 1982: 6).
Haque (1982) further explains that the question of deciding upon a national
language was left unresolved after Jinnah was died. English filled in the need for
‘nationism’, which was the requirement of the new government officials to start the
machinery of the state at operational level. English, therefore, was decided to be the
official language. The main reason behind the decision to choose English as an official
language was that it could serve as a link language with East Pakistan.
2.3.1. A Movement for the Promotion of Urdu in Pakistan
The policy that was made by adopting English as an official language, the
language of British rulers, and an attempt to maintain the balance of status between
English and Urdu was soon criticized and pressurized by those who were the protagonists
of promoting Urdu. They demand a policy in which English would totally be replaced by
Urdu in official use. Mansoor (1993) stated that efforts to abandon English to replace it
with Urdu have been a consistent and continuous policy of the government for the last 40
years and the tools used by almost all the governments to achieve this purpose of national
unity were to gain authentic control of the syllabus, curriculum and the use of Urdu as a
medium of instruction in the classroom. All these efforts were made to strengthen Urdu
35
so that government could make it sure that a uniform policy has been implemented
throughout the state. She further added that the emergence and construction of a new
system of education, however, was the only one reason and rationale to convince the
people on the subject of national unity.
Rahman (1997) explained that Urdu, which is not an indigenous language to
Pakistan, came to occupy the position of the national language of Pakistan and the most
commonly used medium of instruction in government schools. Rahman quoted that
according to the Census of 1951:
“Urdu is the normal medium of instruction in primary and middle schools in West
Pakistan except where instruction is given in Sindhi, Pushto or English and even
there Urdu is taught as the second language. In West Pakistan therefore as a
general rule most people who can write at all, write Urdu.” (1997: 146)
2.3.2. The National Commission for Education 1959
The basic objective of the recommendation presented in Sharif Commission was
that after about 15 years Urdu would developed to the point where it could become the
medium of instruction at the university level. Recommendations in this regard included:
1. National language should be developed and the terminology of scientific knowledge
should be standardized.
2. Special trainings should be arranged to train the teachers in the national language.
3. Special governing bodies i.e. boards should be set up to assist the education sector in
preparing the text books and translation for the learners.
36
4. The study of English should also be continued as a second language since sources of
advanced knowledge found in English was only required for advanced study and
research (Sharif 1959: 281-89).
Those who favoured Urdu argued that English should be replaced by Urdu as a
medium of instruction as majority of learners faced difficulties in attaining required
proficiency level while learning a foreign language which caused the wastage of time.
They are of the view that learning a foreign language is an extra burden on learners and
they could not comprehend the language properly and as a result the whole process of
learning a foreign language ruins the standards of education (Qureshi, 1975, 175-190).
The decision to adopt Urdu as a national language was also justified with the reason of
remove class discrimination and to create a sense of nationhood and it was also
recommended that the affinitive strength of Urdu be positively utilized by making it
function as a representative language of West Pakistan. This could be made possible by
absorbing the words from other languages (Zaman 1981, 134: Sharif 1959, 283).
In Sind, a great resistance was observed against this shift to adopt Urdu as a
medium of instruction where Sindhi was used for classroom instruction till class X (grade
10). The recommendations and suggestions, however, were appreciated and practiced in
Punjab, Baluchistan, Bahawalpur and Karachi where Urdu had already been used as the
medium of instruction for so many years. Since the masses of Sind were quite conscious
of their literary heritage, they had a deep desire to use their own language for study
purposes. The implementation of Urdu caused an opposing attitude against the Muhajirs,
and their mother tongue, Urdu. The attention of young Sindhis was attracted toward the
37
slogan of ‘Long Live Sind’ (Jiay Sind) and resulted in creating tensions and conflicts in
the institutions of higher education and universities. The demand for Sindhi was taken as
an assault on the national language by those who favoured Urdu. The university
syndicate decided that Sindhi should be used as the language of education at secondary
level at Sind University after the break-up of ONE UNIT in July 1970 (Zaman 1981,
132).
2.3.3. Language Policies in Bhutto’s Regime
Mansoor (1993) stated that in Bhutto’s era, educational system was promised to
design an educational policy by the eminent educationists for brining a revolution. All the
schools and colleges of the private sector were nationalized and education was made
universal and free to class X. However, in Butto’s era, the language policy was not rigid
as the problem of language was a sensitive one and many riots had already been reported
in Karachi in July 1972. Education was regarded as an issue of provincial subject and the
decision of the choice of the language of instruction was left to the approval of provincial
assemblies. In 1973, the provincial governments of N.W.F.P and Baluchistan decided to
adopt Urdu as the official language. This decision was a bid by the opposition to
embarrass the central government at that time (Haque 1983). Karachi University and
Punjab University decided to adopt Urdu as the medium of teaching and Peshawar
University decided to use English as the medium of instruction (Mansoor 1993).
Hayes (1987) stated that the inability and procrastination in adopting Urdu for
classroom instruction and as a national language caused many misunderstanding among
those who were the protagonists of Urdu. He further added that a main reason for these
38
apprehensions was that many English medium schools were setting up in the state and
were gaining popularity. The conflicts and tensions arose at that time about the problem
of the medium of instruction at all levels were blamed on unsuccessful implementation of
language policy by the provinces.
2.3.4. The National Language Policy in 1978
All the steps taken to promote Urdu as the national language of Pakistan and a
language of instruction were proved insufficient for those who extremely favoured Urdu.
The constitutional provision to consolidate the status of Urdu as the national language of
Pakistan was also considered ineffective (Mansoor 1993). She explained that the National
Education Policy in the era of Zia-ul-Haq, Chief Martial Law Administrator and
president, focused specifically at Islamization of the curriculum. This policy aimed at
revising the curriculum so that a high degree of priority should be assigned to Islamiat
and Arabic. In this policy, it was decided that Islamiat and Arabic should be the
compulsory subjects for all students. It was planned that 30 language centers of Arabic
would be set up with the help of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU). The private
institutions, which were nationalized in the previous policy, were once again allowed to
re-open. Strict observations were made for the implementation of Urdu as the medium of
instruction in all educational institutions. Throughout the country, English medium
schools were required to adopt Urdu or an approved provincial language as the medium
of instruction and the schools where the medium of instruction was only English were
closed. Haque (1983) asserts that in 1979, the first class 1 was commenced with Urdu as
39
the only language of classroom instruction to matriculate in 1989 and it was a
fundamental change which would affect the whole fiber of educational system.
In 1982, study group was established on the teaching of languages to meet the
requirements of the present educational policy and justifications were presented to
convert all the schools from English medium to Urdu medium and the compulsion of
teaching Arabic was also justified. It also gave suggestions and recommendation on how
10,000 Arabic teachers would successfully be trained by 1984 for a better
implementation of the policy (Haque 1982: 32-3). The group had to face a bitter criticism
on the contradiction of the objectives of the policy as far as English is concerned and
another point which was badly criticized was that this policy had assigned no status to
regional languages as the group was not a representative character of the whole state
(Faruki 1982: 969).
In 1986, the policy to abandon English as medium of instruction was proved to be
an absolute failure and the recommendations were presented to use English as a medium
of instruction for science and mathematics and it was decided that by 1988, this would be
applied to all subjects (Akhter 1989: 374).
2.3.5. The Existing Language Policy
Rahman (1999) narrated that the new language policy of Pakistan was a
continuation of the pre-partition policies when Pakistan came into being out of Hindu-
majority Indian subcontinent. Urdu was adopted as the national language whereas
English, the elitist language, was welcomed to flourish as the 'official' language-the
language of the domains of power (governance, administration, judiciary, military,
40
commerce, media and education) at the higher levels. Both policies favoured the ruling
elite: Urdu, by favouring the West-Pakistani elite which used Urdu; English, by favouring
the Westernized upper classes which got easier access to jobs within the country and
abroad because of English.
The language policies that have been made in Pakistan in the past 50 years
satisfied the need of nationalism. A great emphasis has always been given to integrate the
needs of modern changes and the national issues. There has been lesser interest to
develop the regional languages. A continued conflict can be seen between Urdu and
English on the issue of the choice of medium of instruction. The changeover of replacing
English by Urdu was seen as a great failure because of improper planning and ineffective
cooperation. The new language policy of the state also favours the elite class as Tariq
(1999) sated that Urdu is favoured by the elite of Western Pakistan and English is greatly
welcomed by the westernized upper class and both the classes take advantage of their
languages in gaining control on offices and government.
The above given discussion reveals that there has always been an urge to make
Urdu the national language and the language to link the people of the four provinces of
Pakistan. The existing language policy also aims at promoting the language inspite of the
prevailing conflicts ad confusions regarding the status and significance of English which
is considered the language of the ruling elites.
41
2.4. Teaching of Urdu in Pakistan
Urdu is the most important language of literacy in the country. Urdu has a highly
developed Arabic script and bears close resemblance to regional languages. It also has a
vast literature. In Pakistan Urdu is taught from primary to intermediate level as a
compulsory subject and as an optional subject at degree level. Textbooks are written in
Urdu language from Primary to Secondary level. At Intermediate and degree level
students of Humanities and Social Sciences can opt Urdu as a medium of education. .
Urdu has a vast literature. Every year the average of the books published in Urdu
language is higher than that of those published in regional languages or English. See the
chart below:
Figure No. 1
1061
551
43
1048
398
76
563
235
30
720
318
34
698
304
340
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Language-wise Books Publication
Urdu English Other Languages
From: Mustafa & Shah (2004)
42
Only a small number of learners after doing intermediate are able to write correct
Urdu. Inspite of this widespread exposure of the Urdu language only 8%of the total
population of our country acquires Urdu as their first language. According to the CIA
World Fact Book (2004) the percentage of the major languages as native language or first
language in Pakistan is as following: Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Siraiki10%, Pushto 8%,
Balochi 3%, Urdu 8%, Hindko 2%, Barohi 1%, Others 19%. However, as time goes by,
more and more people of Punjabi and other backgrounds are speaking Urdu as their first
language. It is evident that the percentage of native Urdu speakers is increasing in urban
centers.
2.5. Teaching of Urdu in Foreign Countries
Urdu is taught almost in twenty one countries where the government of Pakistan
has established a Chair of the Urdu language. According to Javed (1996), following are
the major countries in which Urdu is taught at different levels:
2.5.1. India
India, the land where Urdu originated, developed and passed the stages of its
evolution. Every thing was happened without any proper planning as it is evident that in
the age of Aurangzeb the official language was Persian but people spoke a common
language that was Urdu. In India, Urdu is spoken as a mother tongue by many in the
northern and central states. While, in India, Muslims might ostensibly be seen as tending
to identify more with Urdu, Hindus and Sikhs naturally speak Urdu regardless of religion,
especially when they have grown up in such traditional Urdu-strongholds such as
43
Lucknow and Hyderabad. Some would agree that the form of "Hindi” spoken in
Bollywood films is in fact closer to Urdu than Hindi, especially in the songs.
As far as teaching of Urdu in India is concerned, it is taught as a subject on all
levels in government institutes. Facilities of teaching Urdu are available from primary
level to Ph.D. (Islahi 1996).
2.5.2. China
In China, the teaching of Urdu was started in September 1954, in Beijing
University with the establishment of department of Urdu in Oriental Department. In the
department of Urdu of this university students learn Urdu language. A four year’s course
is offered at degree level and the people who successfully complete this course are called
‘Urdu Graduates’. A precious treasure of book on Urdu language and literature is there in
the library of the university. This huge collection of books and the cultural exchange of
the students show the popularity of the language among Chinse. Six students from China
come to Pakistan to learn Urdu and they offered the admission in the department of Urdu
in Institute of Modern Languages (Mirza, 1996).
2.5.3. Iran
Persian, the national language of Iran has contributed a big deal in the vocabulary
and grammar of Urdu. The government of Pakistan established the department of Urdu in
‘Danishgah-e-Tehran’ that is known as ‘Kursi Zuban-e-Urdu o Pakistan Shanasi’. In Iran,
Urdu is taught at degree level. In Tehran the center of teaching Urdu is Pakistan College.
In this college the medium of instruction is Urdu and English and its curriculum is
44
according to the Federal Education Board of Islamabad. This institution is only for the
nationals of Pakistan. Although the national and official language of Iran is Persian, but a
large majority of people who live along with the borders of Balochistan and Afghanistan
can communicate in Urdu very well (Noshahi, 1996).
2.5.4. Saudi Arabia
The national and official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic but a considerable
portion of the population consists of Urdu speakers as many Pakistanis, Indians and
Bengalis have been settled the in Saudi Arabia. There are also a large number of people
from Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan who can understand Urdu. In Saudi Arabia many schools
and colleges are established in Jeddah, Riyadh, Taif and Al-Khubre in which Urdu is
taught at various levels. In these institutions the most prominent is Pakistan Embessy
School and College in Jaddah. In this institution student receive education from Primary
to Intermediate level (Shahid, 1996).
2.5.5. Qatar
In Qatar, Urdu was flourished with the partition of Indo-Pak Subcontinent when
people started leaving the Subcontinent and settling in foreign countries. Noshahi (1990)
stated that the sign boards written in Urdu are found everywhere on the roads, markets
and even in the hospital of Doha. Urdu is considered the third most widely spoken
language in Qatar. The teaching of Urdu is started with the establishment of the first non
government school named as Pak Shama School in 1965. Students receive education
from Primary to Intermadiate level in both English and Urdu medium. In English medium
45
Urdu is taught as a subject here and now a days it is known as Pakistan Education centre
(Rashid, 1996)
2.5.6. Independent and Occupied Kashmir
In Azad Kashmir Urdu is regarded as an official language of the state. Urdu is the
medium of instruction in education up to secondary level and it is also taught as a
separate subject as well. Urdu is taught from primary to PhD level in both Independent
and Occupied Kashmir. Almost 28 colleges offer Urdu as optional subject in Occupied
Kashmir and any of the two languages have to be selected to be studied among Urdu,
English and Hindi (Wani 1996).
2.5.7. United Kingdom
In United Kingdom teaching of Urdu was started in1818 with the establishment of
Oriental Institute in London. In 1917, School of Oriental and African Studies was
established and in 1930 the department of Urdu was established and research on the Urdu
language was started. In 1963 the Readership of Urdu was established under the
supervision of Professor Ralph Russell. He designed a course for the learners of the Urdu
language that is taught in the schools of U.K even up to present. In the curriculum of
U.K, Urdu is included as a subject along with other languages. According to a survey
conducted in Birmingham and Bradeford, the most widely spoken Asian language is
Punjabi and Gujrati and Urdu are the second most widely used language (Ziyyai 1996).
46
2.5.8. Mauritius
In Mauritius, Urdu is taught from secondary to degree level. In Mauritius a large
number of students are interested in learning of Urdu but administration body of the
schools and colleges does not encourage the teaching of Urdu. However, about 64,000
people speak Urdu and parents teach it to their children at homes (Began 1996).
2.5.9. America
The department of Urdu of Voice of America and Urdu service of B.B.C have
contributed much to introduce the Urdu language in America. Many Urdu newspapers
and magzines are published in America including weekly ‘Millat’, weekly ‘Asian Times’
and ‘Jung’ etc. In Chicago University, department of South Asian Languages and
Civilizations offers Urdu as a subject at degree level. A programme is broadcasted on
radio in the Urdu language (Tabassam, 1996).
2.5.10. Canada
In Canada the teaching of the Urdu language is included in the syllabus of Mc
Gill University upto degree level. Students from Pakistan and India learn Urdu with a
great inerest. Moreover in the East Asia Studies Centre of British Colambia University,
Urdu is taught as a subject (Faizi, 1996).
2.5.11. Japan
Tokyo School of Foreign Languages is contributing much in promoting and
teaching Urdu in Japan. A four year’s course at graduate level and one year’s course at
47
masters level is offered by the institute that is transformed into a university in 1949.
Osaka is the second big city of Japan where teaching of Urdu started with the
establishment of Osaka School of Foreign Language. It was given the degree of a
university afterwards and named as Osaka University of Foreign studies. In the
department of Hind-o-Pakistan, teaching of Urdu and Hindi is provided as two different
subjects. Urdu is taught at advanced level in this university. Currently Urdu is being
taught in four institutions at degree level. They are following: Daito Bunka University
Saitama, Traing Centre of Nihonmatsu of JIACA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
and Osaka University of Foreign studies (kashmiri, 1996).
2.5.12. South Africa
In South Africa Urdu enjoys the status of one of the home languages. In the
schools established by the Muslims Urdu is taught as a subject and the medium of
instruction in education in these schools is Urdu (Began, 1996).
Apart from these countries, Urdu is widely spoken and taught at different levels in
Turkey, Afghanistan, Kwait, France, Norway and U.A.E.
2.6. Standardization of Urdu and National Language Authority
Urdu is a symbol of integrity and unity of the four provinces. Wright (2004) says
that in the struggle of achieving a separate state “the question of national language” is
central for gaining distinction from others. Muslims of India distinguished their language
Urdu from Hindi that became the sign of the Pakistan Movement. After Pakistan came
into being, it was given a prestigious place of the national language of Pakistan.
48
National Language Authority (Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban) or Urdu Language
Authority was established in 1979 for the promotion and standardization of the national
language of Pakistan. The major aim of the organization was to promote Urdu as a
national language of Pakistan but with the passage of time the objectives expanded to the
linguistic and orthographic research in Urdu for example lexicography (Zia, 1999).
Rehman (2004) explains that the first software of Urdu called Nuri Nastaliq was
exhibited in Urdu Science College in August 1980. Jang Group of newspapers started
publishing their newspapers in it. It was also very warmly welcomed by Dr Ishtiaq
Hussian Qureshi, Chairman of the Muqtadra, in 1980 (Jameel, 2002).
After that, many other soft wares like Shahkar, Surkhab, Nastaliq, Nizami and Mahir
were introduced by PDMS (Pakistan Data Management Services). One of them, Nizami,
was installed and used by the National Language Authority in 1995 (Rehman 2004). He
further adds that there was another organization CRULP (Centre for Research in Urdu
Language Processing) established at FAST University. The issue of the standardization of
Urdu code plate was resolved in a seminar held at the university. It was decided that, with
the advent of Modern age, Urdu layout should be developed and improved for teleprinters
and information processing. (Afzal, 1997)
As a result of these efforts started in 1998 Urdu Zabta Takhti (UZT) was
developed that was used in the projects like computerization of National Identity Cards.
Later in 2000, UZT 1.01 was standardized for all kinds of electronic computing,
communications, and storage (Afzal & Hussain, 2002). This organization played a vital
role in the field of Urdu language processing ang the use of the language in computer.
Computer assisted translation has also been made possible (Ahmad, 2002).
49
Center of Excellence for Urdu Informatics (CEUI) is the Urdu IT section of
National Language Authority. Dr Attash Durrani is the project Director of the section.
This section is conducting advanced research and development activities in all matters
relating to Urdu standardization for computers and localization. National Language
Authority has also published several general and technical dictionaries. The Qaumi
English – Urdu dictionary was designed on the lines of Webster’s Dictionary. Urdu –
Urdu dictionaries published by NLA are following:
Fig. 2
Waris Serhindiوارث سرہندی Jama e Amsaalجامع االمثال
Shah Hussain Haqeeqatشاه حسین حقیقت Khazeena tul Amsaalخزینتہ االمثال
M Abdullah Khanمحمدعبدهللا خان خویشگی *aFarhang e Aamrفرہنگ عامره
Dr Akber Hussain Qureshiڈاکٹر اکبر حسیین قریشی Farhang e Fasana Azadفرہنگ فسانہ آزاد
Mohammad Rafiq khawerمحمد رفیق خاور Urdu Thesaurusاردو تھیسارس (طبع سوم)
Dr Akber Hussain Qureshiسین قریشی ڈاکٹر اکبر حFarhang e Talism Hoshrubaفرہنگ طلسم ہوشربا
Shan ul Haq Haqqiشان الحق حقی Farhang e Talaffuzفرہنگ تلفظ (طبع دوم)
Arabic andاردو میں مستعمل عربی فارسی ضرب االمثال
Persian proverbs in Urdu
Maqbool Elahiمقبول الہی
Dr Akber Hussain Qureshiڈاکٹر اکبر حسین قریشی Farhang e Bostan Khyalخیالفرہنگ بوستان
(Dictionaries Published by National Language Authority)
From: National Language Authority http://www.nla.gov.pk/beta/imgs/booklist.doc
Having an overview of the above discussion it is obvious that much effort has
been put to standardize Urdu language but little attention is given to the compiling Urdu
50
monolingual dictionaries on modern principles to promote as a major language of literacy
in Pakistan. Although many bilingual dictionaries were complied and published by the
National Language Authority, the quest to modernize the monolingual Urdu dictionaries
is yet unsatisfied.
2.7. Conclusion
The discussion on the status of Urdu clearly indicates that it is one of the most widely
spoken and understood language of the world and there is a strong need for the
standardization of this language as being the national language of Pakistan. Although
National Language Authority of Pakistan has made efforts for its promotion and
standardization, more attention is required in the field of compiling monolingual Urdu
learners’ dictionaries on modern lexicographic principles. The next chapter deals with the
role of dictionaries in language learning.
51
CHAPTER 3
ROLE OF DICTIONARIES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING
Dictionaries are very rich mines of information on languages (Bogaards
1999:113). The research in the field of language learning has revealed that a dictionary
plays a vital role in learning and teaching a language in that it provides the sufficient
information needed for learning a language. The role of the dictionary can best be
explained in terms of vocabulary learning, decoding (reading comprehension) and
encoding (writing) and these activities are the central criterion of assessing whether the
learning process is successfully completed or not. This chapter reveals the significance of
the use of a dictionary in the above mentioned activities to access the extent to which a
dictionary do to enhance the knowledge of the learners about native or non native
languages. This chapter highlights the role of a dictionary in learning vocabulary,
decoding and encoding activities. The chapter further discusses the previous researches
that have been conducted in the respective field of lexicography.
3.1. The Role of Dictionary in vocabulary learning
Vocabulary can be defined as ‘the sum total of the words used by a speaker or for
dictionary making’ (Hartmann and James 1998: 154). All the languages are ever
changing and have potential to absorb new words and discard the obsolete ones. The
significance of learning vocabulary while learning a language is well established. It is
obvious by the fact that, in certain context, a sentence, a paragraph or even the whole text
52
might be made incomprehensible by the occurrence of a single vocabulary item which is
unfamiliar to the learners. Many studies have shown that the general language ability is
mainly associated with the ability to learn the vocabulary. Examples which are added to
the definition of the words enhance the process of learning vocabulary. Defining a word
with compact and comprehensible examples makes the word more imaginable and
according to Paivio (1971) more imaginable vocabulary items are also more memorable
and examples that are provided in a dictionary to elaborate the definitions might make
them more readily accessible. Moreover, while using a dictionary, examples might be
referred to the personal observations and experiences of the learner and this association
results in additional cognitive processing involved in learning process (Nesi 2000: 18).
According to Craik and Tulving (1975), this additional processing assists the word to be
memorized for a long time.
Abbot, Black and Smith (1985) add in this connection that information associated
with the existing knowledge is often less memorable and that difficult texts or vocabulary
items demand more effort to be comprehended and thus, are better memorized. Learning
a new lexical item, however, is an intricate and integrated process. Nation (1990)
classified the stages to explain the process of knowing a word. She concludes that words
in spoken form are learnt quite different from those presented in written form. Same is
the case with the placement or the position of the words in certain text followed by the
functional use of the words and the meaning attached to them.
53
She explains the stages of vocabulary learning in the following way:
Figure No. 3
Knowing a word (source: Nation (1990: 31)
(R = receptive knowledge, P = productive knowledge)
54
On the contrary Tono (2001) presented the stages of vocabulary learning in terms
of ‘knowledge acquisition’. The stages are given as under:
Figure No. 4
Primacy P/R Knowledge category
1
R
Meaning / concept Form / recognizing the word through spelling and sound
P
Meaning / concept Form / spelling and pronouncing the word correctly
2
R
Position / grammatical patterns (part of speech) Position / collocations
3
P
Position / grammatical patterns Position / collocations
4
R/P Function / frequency and appropriateness
R/P Meaning / association
The stages of vocabulary knowledge acquisition (source: Tono (2001:18)
Tono (2001) divides the language in reception and production of the words. Stage
1 (as discussed in figure no 2) that is quite similar to that of stage 1(as discussed in figure
no 1) given in the classification of Nation (1990: 31) when she talks about the form of the
word and divides it in spoken and written form. At first stage the knowledge of a word is
a concept that is recognized through sounds and is produced correctly. The second stage
is the identification of grammatical category of a word and the collocations and to use the
word in its correct grammatical form and with correct collocations. The third stage deals
with the frequency of the use of that word and the way it is used most appropriately. The
final stage is to associate more words with the learnt words.
55
Following are some of the researches conducted to access the usefulness of a
dictionary on vocabulary learning. Although all the studies that have been reported in this
chapter take English monolingual and bilingual dictionaries but they contribute to the
present research as they provide a theoretical and methodological framework for the need
of designing a monolingual advanced learners’ dictionary of Urdu.
Summers (1988) studied the effects of the use of the dictionary on vocabulary
learning. Summers along with her colleagues conducted a study in which they examined
the effectiveness of different entry organizations in presenting information both for
comprehension (encoding) and production (decoding). They developed a reading passage
in which eight unfamiliar words were selected by the subjects. They prepared three index
cards for these eight entries. The sample entries were written for each of the eight words,
one consisting entirely of examples, the second including entirely abstract definitions and
the third type consisting totally of the normal abstract definitions and examples. The
learners were asked to answer multiple choice comprehension questions by using these
index cards. The result showed that there was no difference in comprehension scores
among the three types of entry. All the three types help improving comprehension
substantially. The results of the production (decoding activity) were less terminated but
overall it was proved that the definitions and examples seemed to be the most successful
combination in this regard.
Laufer (1993) examined what type of dictionary information improves the process
of vocabulary learning. The hypothesis behind her study is that guessing unfamiliar
words from the context is better than using a dictionary. She explains that the use of a
dictionary must also be linked with a sound mental processing that contributes to learn
56
vocabulary effectively. The result reported that new words were best learnt when they
were both defined and illustrated through examples. This study revealed that the
definitions are more influential and helpful in learning vocabulary. The results also
showed that the comprehension of the subject was remarkably improved when definition
were added than when examples were added. This was a significant study in exploring
which component of the dictionary contributes much in learning a language.
As she states:
“it is in everyone’s interest to provide the lexicographer with any available
information on how learners actually use dictionaries, information which will be
used in designing a more effective learner’s dictionary (ibid: 133).”
Laufer and Melamed (1994) investigated the difference in the effectiveness of
three types of dictionaries: monolingual, bilingual and bilingualised on the
comprehension and the production of 15 low frequency words in English language. 123
subjects were given the test in which they were given a list of 15 entries with their
dictionary entries. Their comprehension was checked through a multiple choice test. All
the dictionaries were checked with 5 entries to each dictionary. After the research was
over they concluded that in encoding activities or in comprehension the bilingualised
dictionary was more effective than the other two. There was no difference between the
monolingual and bilingual dictionaries. On the other hand, in production, it was found
that there was no difference between the bilingualised and bilingual dictionaries while
both of the dictionaries contributed much in learning a language.
Luppescu and Day (1993) conducted a research to find out a comparison between
the amount of learning of the vocabulary item when the learners used a dictionary while
57
reading and when they read without using a dictionary. The participants in this study
were 293 Japanese students. The subjects were divided into experimental and control
groups. The experimental group was free to use the dictionary while reading. On the
other hand, control group was not allowed to use dictionary while reading. The test was a
multiple choice test. The results derived from the scores of the subjects showed that,
overall, using dictionary had a significant effect on the performance of the subjects in
learning vocabulary. A close look at the individual items showed that using dictionaries
while reading had a misleading effect when the learner was unable to find out the suitable
or appropriate meaning among the possible listed meaning.
Knight (1994) investigated the effects of the dictionary on learning vocabulary in
reading process. A controlled experiment was designed in which the groups of two
different verbal ability groups (high and low) were assigned to conditions with a
dictionary and without a dictionary. They were provided with two types of texts. They
were asked to work on reading tasks and all the looked-up entries and reading times were
recorded in the individual log files. The results showed that “high verbal ability students
learn more words than those who do not” (ibid: 292). Knight stated that the common
practice to encourage all students for guessing meaning of the words form context must
be re examined, and concluded that the use of dictionary does nothing to the process of
comprehension (ibid: 295).
Boggards begins with summarizing current opinion for and against the use of
monolingual dictionaries by the language learners. He set out to investigate the
usefulness of a bilingual dictionary and two types of monolingual dictionary for the
language learners, in terms of vocabulary retention and task performing. The subjects in
58
this study were Dutch-speaking first year university students of French. 44 took part in
the first stage of the experiment and 55 in the second stage. The subjects were divided
into four groups using:
1) a bilingual dictionary (not named)
2) Dictionnaire du Francais Langue Etrangere Larousse (a learner’s dictionary)
3) Petit Robert (a dictionary for native speakers of French)
4) No dictionary
They were asked to underline those words in the Dutch text which they had
looked up. The second stage of the experiment took place fifteen days later, without any
advance warning. The subjects were asked to translate into French the 17 difficult words
from the translation passage. Baggard found that the users of bilingual dictionaries chose
to look up the most words, and produced the most translations. The least successfully
translations were made by the fourth group with no dictionary at all. In the vocabulary
translation test, 15 days later, the success of the learner’s dictionary and a bilingual
dictionary was reversed. Users of Dictionnaire du Francais Langue Etrangere Larousse
made the most correct translations – 51.6% and the bilingual dictionary users came
second – 48.5% followed by the users of Petit Robert – 44.7%.
As Boggards suggests, these results indicates that the use of any kind of
dictionary leads to better results in translation and vocabulary learning. The findings of
his research show that a monolingual dictionary is more effective in vocabulary learning
while a bilingual dictionary is more effective for translation.
59
Evaluating the study conducted by the Boggards, Nesi points out that:
“Boggards does not discuss the difference between the style of the two
monolingual dictionaries in any detail, but one explanation for the disparity in
results between group 2 and 3could be because the French learners’ dictionary is
written in a livelier and more thought provoking style (2000: 22)
3.2. The Role of Dictionary in Decoding Activities
The study of dictionary is primarily associated with reading comprehension as it
is the only learning activity in which the use of a dictionary is the most possible. It is
because during the process of speaking and listening and the use of a dictionary while
writing is not very much common. Although dictionary is a significant tool for self
learning in L2, the opinions are divided among language teachers (Tono: 2001).
Tono (2001) further explained that many language teachers maintain that the use
of dictionary intervene the natural process of reading. The reason behind this thought is
that the frequent dictionary look-up will often interfere with short term memory and thus
disturb the comprehension process. He further added that guessing unknown words from
context aids vocabulary learning, since it requires deeper processing of new words, and
the more effort is invested in the word, the better it will be remembered. This approach to
learning is known as the mental effort hypothesis.
Bensoussan, Sim and Weiss (1984) investigated the effect of dictionary use in
language tests. The major areas investigated by them are: to what extent the set of
monolingual or bilingual dictionaries affect the performance of the learners during
examination and to what extent the use of dictionaries affects the mount of time taken to
60
complete the tests. The paper showed the results of three studies. The first study was
conducted at Ben Gurion University (subjects n=91), the second at the University of
Haifa (n=670) and the third at Haifa as well (n=740). In the first study, the subjects were
randomly assigned to the following three groups: the bilingual dictionary group, the
monolingual dictionary group and the no-dictionary group. For the second and third
study, the subjects brought their own dictionaries. The results show that in all three
studies, dictionary use did not affect test scores and the same results were obtained of the
type of dictionary whether the learners used a monolingual dictionary, a bilingual
dictionary or no dictionary at all.
Luppescu and Day (1993) studied the effectiveness and impact to the use of a
dictionary while reading. The hypotheses under consideration in this study were:
1. the measure of the vocabulary learnt with the help of a bilingual dictionary and
the one that is learnt without a dictionary are not significantly different and
2. reading a text require more time on the part of a dictionary user than the one who
do not use a dictionary while reading a text.
The results obtained in the test score disapprove the first hypothesis and approve the
second hypothesis as the dictionary users took more time to read the text. Luppescu and
day maintained that the confusion is the main reason of taking more time while reading.
They added that:
“perhaps the use of a dictionary in some cases may be misleading or confusing,
that is, if a student is not able to find the appropriate meaning in the dictionary
from among all the possible meaning listed” (1993: 273)
61
Hulstijn (1993) concluded after the research related to the affect of dictionary use
while reading comprehension that subjects who had larger vocabularies looked-up fewer
words than the subjects who had smaller vocabularies. The study also maintained that
high inferring ability need not result in less dictionary use than low inferring ability.
Tono (1989) conducted a research into the long term effect of dictionary use in
decoding activities. The subjects he selected were specially trained in dictionary skills.
The results of the test which was conducted in this regard were compared according to
the learners’ levels of proficiency in dictionary skills. As he rightly narrates:
“this does not indicate automatically that a positive relationship exists between
dictionary reference skills and reading comprehension itself”
(1989: 193)
The results drawn by the test indicate that dictionary skills are marked by the
correlation with the score of the test in reading comprehension. It proves that better
reading comprehension is directly conditioned to higher proficiency level in skills of
dictionary use.
Summers (1988), which was quoted in the last section, should be mentioned here
once again. He, in his research project, also examined the relation of using dictionaries
with reading comprehension along with learning vocabulary. He concluded from the
results of the tests given to the subjects that comprehension was improved in all the cases
by using the dictionary entries.
62
3.3. The Role of the Dictionary in Encoding Activities
It is commonly held that dictionaries can best be used in decoding activities and
less research has been conducted on dictionary use in encoding activities. However there
is awareness that dictionaries should play a fundamental role in productive activities of
the language (writing) as they do in decoding activities. Although dictionaries are
considered useful only for reading and comprehension of texts, the growing
communication through internet has realized the language teachers and learners the
significance of dictionary use in fulfilling the communicative needs of the learners while
expressing their ideas in writing in e-mails or talking on some on-line chat.
Ard (1982) employed direct observation techniques on learners’ dictionary use
during composition writing. His study was covered only by two subjects: a female who
habitually used bilingual dictionary and a male who never used a bilingual dictionary.
Ard concluded that the use of a bilingual dictionary along with the knowledge of L1
contributed to lexical errors.
Hatherall (1984) conducted a study on the use of dictionary while writing and
concluded the study with the findings that dictionaries were consulted for content words,
learners tended to translate word for word and advanced learner translated more than
elementary learners.
Yokoyama (1994) investigated dictionary use in L2 writing with bilingual
dictionaries. The results show that examples are the most useful information for L2
writing and extra columns and the notes of usage and syntactic codes were not ignored by
the learners largely. Harvey and Yuill (1997) conducted a research pertaining to the
significance of dictionary in productive skills and concluded that the primary role of
63
dictionaries while writing is checking spelling and meaning. He further added that
examples and definitions were used very often by the students while engaged in writing
skill.
3.4. Pedagogical Significance of Monolingual Dictionary
Wingate (2002) explained that in the 1970s, the prevailing view was that words
should only be decoded by contextual clues. However, with the increased interest in the
teaching and learning the vocabulary that arose in 1980s, there was a greater awareness
of the fact that inferring word meanings from context is often impossible for learners and
that the dictionary had to be given a more prominent role in language learning. The
debate then turned to the best suitable dictionary type for learners, and many language
educators give preference to the monolingual dictionary over bilingual.
Piotrowski explains,
“Monolingual dictionaries seem to be indispensable within the framework of all
‘direct’ methodologies, which equate foreign language acquisition with thinking
in the foreign language.”(1989: 72).
There is, as Piotrowski points out, no psycholinguistic evidence which offers
argument for or against monolingual or bilingual dictionaries (ibid).
The use of monolingual dictionaries is supposed to enhance and accelerate the
learning process. The definitions in monolingual dictionaries help learners in developing
their ability to paraphrase and define an important skill especially when learners’
vocabulary is rather limited. It is also important to mention that prolonged use of and
64
dependency on bilingual dictionaries tend to slacken the development of proficiency in
second language.
According to Bejoint and Moulin (1987), monolingual dictionaries have the merit
of introducing the user directly to the lexical system of the target language, while the
bilingual dictionary is suitable for quick consultation. It is widely accepted that
monolingual dictionaries offer more and comprehensive information about the
grammatical categories, explanation of idiomatic expressions, collocations and semantic
or stylistic restriction of words and last but not the least the correct pronunciation of the
language.
Snell Hornby describes the advantage of monolingual dictionaries for advanced learners
as follows:
“…experience in advanced language teaching and in translation teaching shows
that the learner can understand a foreign language text better if unknown words
are explained in terms of their own language system and against their own
sociocultural background without being rendered as foreign language equivalents
which are often inadequate and contrived (1983: 164).
Wingate (2002) maintained that there is one psycholinguistic theory which
supports the preference for the monolingual dictionary. The depth of ‘processing theory’
(Craik and Tulving 1975) assumes that information which has been obtained through
deeper cognitive processing will retain better. In relation to vocabulary learning this
means that the more attention and mental effort is involved in understanding the meaning
of a word, the better it will be learnt. In relation to dictionary consultation, it is obviously
65
the monolingual dictionary that demands more mental effort to understand the meaning
of a word than a bilingual dictionary which describes the translation of the words only.
The above given linguistic and lexicographic evidences maintain that a dictionary
is a very important tool in learning and teaching a language, whether native or non native.
A monolingual dictionary for the advanced learners of Urdu, in this context, is necessary
to be designed to meet the needs of the learners needs.
3.5. Conclusion
The above given discussion maintains that the significance of using dictionary to
improve the vocabulary learning and encoding and decoding of the words can never be
denied. Monolingual dictionaries are of much importance in that they involve a great deal
of mental effort and as a result prove to be more effective to learn, encode or decode a
language. The next chapter will explain the review of the related studies conducted in the
field of lexicography, corpus based approach of lexicography and the research that has
been conducted so far in Urdu corpus.
66
CHAPTER 4
LITERATURE REVIEW
The present study looks at three perspectives: studying the strategies and attitudes
of the learners and teachers of Urdu towards Urdu monolingual learner’s dictionaries,
finding out the possibilities of collecting a corpus of Urdu as the basis of a dictionary and
designing essential features of a monolingual Urdu learner’s dictionary. The first part of
this chapter deals with the theoretical framework of researches done in pedagogical
lexicography. It overviews the surveys, based on a questionnaire, conducted to measure
the different aspects of dictionary use. The second part looks at the researches related to
designing features of monolingual dictionaries. The third one lists the major corpus
studies in general and with special reference to the Urdu language. The last but not the
least is a review of two most widely used monolingual Urdu dictionaries; Feroz- ul-
Lughat and Ilmi Urdu Lughat.
4.1. Literature Review of Questionnaire- Based Research
Questionnaire-based research is the most convenient method of research in the
use of dictionaries and dictionary requirements. Questionnaire based research is favoured
in that it provides a wide range of information to be collected from the respondents where
other methods of research become unable to get desired information. In the following
section, I shall discuss some major questionnaire based studies that have been reported in
67
the literature of dictionary requirement, and attitude of both learners and teachers towards
the use of dictionary.
4.1.1. Barnhart (1962)
Barnhart’s (1962) study is considered to be a pioneer research work in user-
oriented lexicographic research. He lay stress that the purpose of a dictionary is to answer
the questions that the user of the dictionary wants to ask and that ‘dictionaries on
commercial market will be successful in proportion to the extent to which they answer
these questions the buyer’. Barnhart conducted this survey in 1955. He distributed 108
questionnaires among college professors of English writing in 99 colleges in selected
from the 27 States of USA. The objective of the research was to study the significance of
the information categories provided by most often consulted dictionaries for American
colleges. The teachers were asked to rate six types of information according to their
usefulness. The se information categories include meaning, spelling, pronunciation,
synonyms, notes on usage and information regarding the origin of the words. The
findings of the study indicted that the top most consulted information were meaning,
spelling and pronunciation. Then the synonyms and notes on usage were considered as
important entries in the dictionary and information regarding the origin of the words was
reported as the last in priority. The results also showed that one of the main hindrances to
identify the spelling of derivatives was that the learners could not recognize the root of
the word. While presenting critical comments on user oriented studies, Hartmann
describes that the sample of population for this survey was not of sufficient size (1987:
13).
68
Another point of criticism was that the results drawn by Barnhart depended only
on the indirect elicitation of the users. The findings of the survey were not based on
observing them directly. Apart from all criticism the valuable contribution of Barnhart
can not be denied. Although the study was conducted more than 40 years ago but the
most significant element of his research was that it introduced a new direction and an
innovative perspective in lexicography (Diab 1990: 22).
Nesi (2000) remarked that the study is also significant because the results drawn
from his research have been replicated in many other studies. the critical comments on
the study enabled the researcher to select a larger group of learners as subjects and the
information should be collected directly from the learners about their use of dictionaries.
Since an active participation of teachers of Urdu should also be valuable in the present
study, their opinion should be taken by conducted a separate survey aiming at measuring
their attitudes..
4.1.2. Quirk (1975)
The second contribution in the field of this tradition was that of Randloph Quirk
(1975). According to Hartmann (1987) Quirk’s survey was the first scholarly study in
Britain for the assessment of the attitudes of dictionary users. His research was concerned
with the users directly. He studies the use of dictionaries by 220 undergraduate British
students at the University College, London. The data was collected with the help of a
questionnaire. 30 questions were included in the questionnaire focusing on different
aspects of using dictionaries. These aspects included the ownership of a dictionary,
purpose and frequency of the use dictionary and issues related to facing difficulties in the
69
process of looking dictionary. The responses of the subjects showed that 71% of the
subjects used their dictionaries at least once a month and that they primarily looked up
the meaning of the words and also looked at the synonyms and the antonyms of the
words. His results pertaining to the different types of information for the user are similar
to that of Barnhart that showed the meaning and spelling as the most frequently looked
up types of information.
Quirk, on the basis of his findings, concluded that dictionary makers and
dictionary users have different priorities:
“Some of the dictionary features which seem of particular centrality to
lexicographer are decidedly peripheral to the ordinary user” (1975: 80).
Quirk’s survey was more comprehensive as compared to that of Barnhart.
Although the context of the research is limited, the methodological grounds of the study
were very sound and this would be of a great help while determining the course of
research in the present study.
4.1.3. Tomaszczyk (1979)
Tomaszczyk (1979) was the first to work on the needs of non native users of
dictionary. The main purpose of his study was to collect information regarding producing
better dictionaries as he was motivated by the observation that there was a great
dissatisfaction with dictionaries among foreign learners of English:
“The study … was undertaken in the hope that an examination of the ways in
which language learners use dictionaries, and of their attitudes and expectations
towards them would provide some information about the extent to which various
70
group of users depend on dictionaries, help pinpoint those of the current
lexicographical solutions that are, as well as those that are not, felt to meet their
needs, and give lexicographers some clue they might want to use in their attempts
to make better dictionaries” (1979: 103).
Tomaszczyk’s study was more detailed and covered a variety of subjects than the
first three researches. Tomaszczyk’s questionnaire contained fifty seven items concerning
personal and language learning history, current language use, use of dictionaries and the
evaluation of the information contained in them (1979: 104).
The results drawn in his study revealed that bilingual dictionaries were
exclusively used for translation and L2-L1 dictionaries were more appreciated by the
subjects than L1- L2 dictionaries. The findings reported monolingual L2 dictionaries to
be of secondary importance to the users.
4.1.4. Baxter (1980)
Baxter (1980) collected data from 342 subjects to evaluate the significance of
monolingual dictionaries in comparison with bilingual dictionaries. The subjects in this
study were Japanese students. The data were collected through questionnaire from three
national universities in Japan. The questions were not retrospective but, in the majority of
cases, required to provide factual information about dictionary ownership. In
Tomaszczyk’s study, the use of a monolingual dictionary was reported as being less
frequent than the use of a bilingual dictionary. Many students criticized monolingual
dictionary on various grounds. Baxter, in his study, provided no indication of the types of
the monolingual dictionaries his subjects were using. Baxter, however, concluded that his
71
subjects preferred to use bilingual dictionaries because they were easier to use than
monolingual English dictionaries.
4.1.5. Bejoint (1981)
Bejoint (1981) contributed a very informative and the most influenced study in
the field of user- oriented lexicography. His study is considered to be most frequently
cited and well known survey in pedagogical lexicography. Bejoint claims that his survey
was influenced by that of Tomaszczyk’s remarks (1979: 103) that the need of the popular
commercial dictionary user had been neglected and explored ‘the virtually unknown
territory of the users’ reference skills and habits’ (Bejoint 1981: 208).
Bejoint administered the questionnaire containing 21 questions to 122 French
students of English at the University of Lyon. The questions covered the aspects of
dictionary use like dictionary ownership, dictionary typology, reason for choosing a
particular dictionary, preferences; frequency of use, information looked up, context of
dictionary use, attitudes towards dictionaries and problems in dictionary use.
The result revealed that 96% students possessed a monolingual dictionary for
example OALD, DOCE, COD, ect. 85% of the subjects reported that they had chosen
their dictionary because it had been recommended by their teachers. 87% of the
respondents placed meaning among the three most looked up piece of information in a
dictionary but only 25% reported spelling and pronunciation. The least mentioned
information category was etymology. The results also reported variations in the use of
dictionary according to the study level and age of the students. Students seemed to prefer
and satisfied with the dictionary they habitually use or worked with. The dictionary that
72
covered the most vocabulary items obtained more value. Bejoint also recorded that
dictionaries were used mostly for decoding purposes. Nesi stated that there was one issue
with the questions asked from the subjects. She regarded some questions required rather
too much from the students’ power of critical analysis, retrospection and recall and they
were expected to provide from their memory the detailed accounts of their look-up habits.
In fact many of them were unable to remember much about pervious dictionary
consultation while they were expected to pass critical judgment on the dictionaries they
used (2000: 08). It is quite difficult to compare the findings of Bejoint’s study with the
findings of the survey conducted by Baxter and Tomaszczyk regarding bilingual
dictionaries as this study was limited to the examination of monolingual dictionaries
alone. However, Bejoint’s contribution is of much interest for the present research as it
brought into focus many important issues of interest of both language teachers and
lexicographers.
4.1.6. Nesi (1984)
The main purpose of this study was to see the extent to which three learner’s
monolingual English dictionaries – the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD),
the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), and Chambers Universal
learners’ Dictionary (CULD) became a cause of errors committed by learners in speech
and writing. A lexical error analysis approach was adopted by Nesi while conducting this
research. The errors were collected through various sources.
Pedagogical lexicographers and the publishers of learners’ dictionaries would
wonder to know the findings as shown by the research conducted by Nesi. The study
73
reported that the above mentioned three learners’ dictionaries failed to provide the
sufficient information to the users that they required as these dictionaries have been set
out to fulfill a relatively wide range of needs. The pedagogical significance of this
research is quite obvious but it would be wrong to say that dictionaries alone are
responsible for errors. Nesi remarked that dictionaries should provide all the information
if ‘they claim to cater for the reader, for the writer, the listener and the speaker form any
cultural background and speaking any native language’ (Nesi 1984: 50).
4.1.7. Griffen (1985)
Griffen’s survey was in fact a pilot study among ESL students at Southern Illinois
University. The basic purpose of this study was to develop a ‘dictionary skill unit’. The
questionnaire containing 10 items was given to 128 respondents who were the
representatives of 13 different language backgrounds. They were grouped into four
proficiency levels, from the level of beginners to the advanced level. The questions
included were about the use of dictionary, such as types of dictionaries they own,
frequency of use, reading fore matter and other points of a general nature. The results of
the research showed that the subjects were not fully aware of the use of dictionary. The
study reported that many students did not use dictionary in the class room but preferably
at home. It was also reported that the students at advanced level felt themselves
embarrassed while looking up a bilingual dictionary in the class even if they might have
felt a need to use it. It was also observed from the results that a large majority of the
respondents did not take much pain in consulting the front or the back matter of the
74
dictionary Griffin’s project was very positively welcomed by the learners as they showed
a great interest in the issue of lessons of dictionary skills. Griffin explained:
“A few students started with the attitude that this lesson was unnecessary because
they already know how to use a dictionary, but some students, while working on
the exercises, acknowledged this limited knowledge of the complications of
dictionary use.” (1985: 58)
I hope that Griffin’s study would be of a great help in the present study as it
would add some different aspects regarding to the learners’ attitudes and the relationship
between learners and the dictionaries they use.
4.1.8. Kipfer (1985)
Kipfer examined the impact of teaching and learning dictionary skills on the
attitudes and needs of the students at intermediate level. The questionnaire was
administered on 292 American High-school students during 1983-84. The main objective
of the questionnaire was to collect basic information on different aspects of using
dictionaries. After the administration of the questionnaire, she conducted three tests with
a particular focus on writing, reference and lexical skills of the students. Kipfer found
that the subjects were taught or learned the dictionary skills and the subjects used
dictionaries incorrectly. She reported that the subjects were unwilling to consult
dictionaries as they were afraid of being looking illiterate in this respect. The major
looked up information was meaning, spelling and sometimes pronunciation. Kipfer
adopted an ‘outsider’ approach in collecting data from the subjects. She gave the subject
75
three days to fill in the questionnaire at home as the school did not oblige her in
conducting a test on this much broader level (Kipfer 1985: 11). Her ‘outsider’ approach
was criticized for the validity of the results and the answers were considered doubtful as
far as reliability is concerned. In the present research, this approach is being avoided and
it is made sure that the data have been collected in researcher’s own presence. This would
help in collecting more reliable answers form the subjects involved in the present study.
4.1.9. Iqbal (1987)
Iqbal conducted a study of various aspects of learners’ dictionaries with a special
reference to the needs of the learners in Pakistani context. The main objective of this
study is to determine the language needs and reference skills of the learners at advanced
level in Pakistan. The questionnaire was consisted on 54 questions which were designed
to collect information about reference skills, needs, dictionary use and evaluation of
semantic and phonetic information in dictionaries. The subjects were 700 second year
undergraduates who were selected randomly from four provinces of Pakistan. Iqbal did
not include BSc students because that their course in ‘English Language was much more
limited and oriented more towards sciences’ (1987: 36). The results of the study were
directly concerned with the format and content of four learners’ dictionaries of English:
the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDCE), the Oxford Advanced
Learner’ Dictionary (OALD), Chamber’s Universal Learner’s Dictionary (CULD), and
Collins English Dictionary (CED). The study aimed at to asses the effectiveness of these
dictionaries in meeting and measuring up the needs of advanced learners of English in
Pakistan. The study reported that the majority of the respondents were not very much
76
familiar with monolingual English dictionaries and OALD is reported to be the most
widely used and known dictionary as compared to the rest of three dictionaries. A large
majority of respondents were strongly agreed that there was no proper guide available at
the institution to use dictionaries and that they were not taught how to use these
dictionaries at school level even. The subjects were not given training in reference skills.
The high frequency was reported in looking up the information about meaning of the
words followed by spelling and pronunciation. Iqbal proposed that design features should
be designed for Pakistani Advanced Learners for a monolingual dictionary keeping in
mind the language needs of the learners. Although the questionnaire designed and
administered for the data collection, but the comprehensive analysis of all the items
makes the study a valuable addition in pedagogical lexicography. The research
methodology adopted by Iqbal would be of much worth for the present study because of
the relevance of context and field of research.
4.1.10. Battenburg (1989)
Another questionnaire based study that is reported was that of Battenburg’s. He
conducted his survey in 1984 and collected information from 60 non native speakers at
Ohio University. The respondents were divided according to three proficiency levels:
elementary, intermediate and advanced. The respondents represented seven different
language backgrounds but majority of them belonged to the Chinese or Arabic language.
Battenburg reported that difference in .language background did not affect on the
dictionary- using behaviour. The study revealed that majority of the subject possessed
bilingual dictionaries and the native speaker dictionaries were owned by a smaller
77
number of subjects. Battenburg also reported that there was a corelation between the use
and ownership of a dictionary. . Bilingual dictionaries were owned by all the elementary
level respondents and all the advanced learners use monolingual dictionaries. All the
respondents expressed preference to look up the definitions and less interest had been
shown by the subjects towards looking up etymological information. Battenburg’s
questionnaire was shorter than that of Bejoint and he did not include questions regarding
unsuccessful look-up while using a dictionary. Unlike Bejoint, Battenburg’s decision to
divide the respondents into three groups according to their proficiency level was a good
idea but the findings suggested that these groups did not represent a true language
learning continuum. Battenburg reported very similar results of Tomaszczyk and Bejoint
when he asked the respondents to suggest the ways to improve the existing dictionaries.
.
4.1.11. El-Badry (1990)
El-Badry’s research was concerned with the use of general bilingual English-
Arabic dictionaries. The main objective behind the project was designing a new
dictionary. The tool of research was a questionnaire consisted on 30 items. The
questionnaire was sent to 950 users at research centers and universities. 493 copies were
received. El-Badry found that bilingual English-Arabic dictionaries were more frequently
used than monolingual dictionaries. The results showed that most of the subjects (95%)
indicated that they need to use a dictionary. The OALD was used by 24% of the subjects.
As far as the use of the dictionary is concerned, meaning was reported to be the most
often looked-up category followed by spelling and synonyms, usage and pronunciation.
78
The work of El-Badry if of particular relevance as her project aimed at designing features
of a general purpose dictionary followed by a questionnaire based study of different
aspects of the use of dictionary and the users.
4.1.12. Diab (1990)
Diab examined the use of dictionary by nurses in Jordan. The data was collected
through a questionnaire from 405 students. The questionnaire was designed to collect the
information about the need strategies and attitudes of the subjects towards dictionary use.
Diab found that over 80% were using one or two English-Arabic bilingual dictionaries
for decoding nursing texts written in English. The questionnaire designed by Diab is of
much worth as it covered almost all the areas of the various aspects of the dictionary use
in and outside of the classroom. The questionnaire used in the research conducted by
Diab has proved very helpful for designing the data collection tool in the present study.
4.1.13. Li (1998)
Li reported the results of a questionnaire on the use of dictionaries. The subjects
under study were 691 Chinese students and 110 university teachers. The results showed
that all of them owned bilingual dictionaries. The subjects preferred to use English-
Chinese dictionaries for comprehension but less than half of the sample owned Chinese-
English dictionaries. Li also reported a translation test followed by the questionnaire and
supported Tono’s (1984) results that the use of dictionary was very helpful in accurate
translation. The survey conducted by Li is of much interest for the present study as it
focused the language teachers’ training in dictionary skills. This idea is of involving the
79
issue to train teachers in dictionary skill is a great inspiration for the present study as
well.
4.1.14. Boonmoh (2009)
Boonmoh investigates the attitudes of language teachers towards the use of PEDs
(Pocket size electronic dictionary). The data is collected by a questionnaire aimed at
gathering the opinions of the teacher regarding the use of pocket size electronic
dictionary. The findings of the study suggest that the attitudes of language teachers affect
the learners’ choice and use of dictionary in and outside of classroom. As far as
lexicographic research in Urdu is concerned, no study is reported to be based on the
measurement of the attitudes of teachers towards the monolingual Urdu dictionaries. The
methodology involves in this study proved to be very helpful for the improvement of this
research and suggesting the new fields of research i.e. the research on the use of pocket
size Urdu monolingual dictionary.
4.2. Literature Review of Design features-based literature
4.2.1. Hausmann (1990)
Hausmann discussed the essential features required for a French monolingual
learner’s dictionary to be used for classroom learning. The elements are collocation,
figurative usage, visual aids, synonyms and antonyms, and emphasis on context. This
study is of much interest for me as it has provided me with the rationale of designing the
essential features for native speakers as far as learning and teaching is concerned. The
trend of designing features for a monolingual dictionary for learners’ is quite obvious as
80
far as the native speakers are concerned. The study conducted by Hausmann strengthens
the idea to design features of a pedagogical monolingual learners’ dictionary for the
advanced learners of Urdu language.
4.2.2. Cowie (1996)
Cowie designed the significant features of the monolingual Italian dictionary
(1992). He presented many refined and well defined examples by the lexicographers in
the entries, collocations that are limited to two or three phrases and the use of
terminological tables and detailed illustrations.
In his research papers (1987, 1989), he has discussed many dimensions of
dictionary design and use. In 1989, Cowie conducted a study in which he looked at the
design of dictionary entries. He mentioned how meaning of a word can successfully be
illustrated with the help of examples. He discussed the role of syntax in dictionary, the
significance of cohesion across example sentences and the contribution of syntax and
cohesion to the achievements of learners. This research, like the one conducted by
Hausmann, is also another evidence of designing monolingual dictionary for native
speakers (Dolezal & McCreary 1999: 24, 25).
4.3. Literature Review of Corpus-based Literature
The review of literature in corpus is two fold. The first part reviews the corpus
studies in general and the second part consists on the research conducted so far in Urdu
corpus.
81
Corpus refers to a collection of linguistic data, either compiled as written texts or
as a transcription of recorded speech. The main purpose of a corpus is to verify a
hypothesis about language - for example, to determine how the usage of a particular
sound, word, or syntactic construction varies. Corpus linguistics deals with the principles
and practice of using corpora in language study. A computer corpus is a large body of
machine-readable texts. (Crystal, David. 1992. An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language
and Languages. Oxford: 85)
Language corpora are becoming available cheaply, sometimes free. The likely
impact on language teaching will be profound--indeed the whole shape of linguistics may
alter at speed (Sinclair, 1997: 38).
The purpose of a corpus, static or dynamic is to record naturally occurring samples of
language or texts. This notion implies that a corpus does not necessarily to be electronic.
Corpora were non-electronic for centuries and especially in biblical studies and these pre-
electronic corpora were used for:
“biblical and literary studies from the 18th century, based on manually produced
concordances of content words;
lexicographic investigations to provide literary examples for dictionaries such as
the Dictionary of the English Language and the Oxford English Dictionary;
dialect studies in the 19th century to describe lexical variation;
foreign language education innovations such as the work of Thorndike in the
1920s;
grammatical inquiries, such as the one by Fries in the U.S., and more recently
Quirk's Survey of English Usage (SEU) Corpus.” (Horváth, 2000)
82
4.3.1. The Brown Corpus
The first electronic or machine-readable corpus has been designed by Francis and
Kucera in 1961 and published in 1964. Its focus was on collecting texts from informative
texts (non fiction) and imaginative texts fiction). The Brown Corpus is designed to
represent the wide range of written American English. Additional information as origin
of each sample text and line numbering is also given.
4.3.2. The LOB Corpus
The second stance in this regard is the Lancaster—Oslo/Bergen Corpus by
Johansson, Leech and Goodluck. This corpus is a representative of British English as
opposed to the Brown Corpus. This is a combined project of university of Lancaster and
Oslo, and the Bergen based centre for Norwegian Humanities Computing participating.
The corpus and its manual are available through ICAME, the International Computer
Archive of Modern English (Johansson, Leech, & Goodluck, 1978).
4.3.3. The London Lund Corpus
The LLC is developed in Sweden. It is based on previously stored corpus, the
SEU Corpus. This is the first copra in which spoken evidences were used. Although it is
not considered as satisfactory as far as it representativeness is concerned, it has set a trend
to include spoken data in corpora. (Horváth, 2000).
83
4.3.4. The Bank of English
With seven million words of the Main COBUILD Corpus, the Bank of English is
the largest collection of written and spoken English text stored on computer. Its initial
feature and aim was to "help learners with real English" by enabling applied linguists to
do research into the contemporary language primarily for language education (Collins
COBUILD English Language Dictionary, the original 1987 edition and the 1995
revision). The revolutionary contribution the corpus project has made to the development
of learner dictionaries has been the most influential result. A joint effort of Collins
Publishers and the English Department of Birmingham University, it has provided new
approaches (see, for example, Sinclair, 1987b) to lexicography. (Horváth, 2000). The
Bank of English has continued to innovate in all the related work: in the way corpus
evidence is incorporated in learner dictionaries, in study guides and recently in a special
series of concordance samplers, in the application of a lexical approach to grammar, and
in the theoretical and technical field of marking up the corpus. (Sinclair, 1991)
The corpus is still progressing and more words have been added to make it more
up to date and close to real English.
4.3.5. The British National Corpus (BNC)
The BNC focuses such academic, commercial and public entities as the British
Library, Chambers Harrap, Lancester University's Unit for Computer Research in the
English Language, Longman, Oxford University Computer Services and Oxford
University Press (Horváth, 2000).The majority of its content, 90 percent, is written, with
10 percent made up of spoken samples, running to a total of 100 million words in over 6
84
million sentences. Any of its constituent texts is limited to 40,000 words (Burnard, 1996).
Aston (1996, 1998) evaluates the benefit of BNC for advanced FL students in Italy in
how they conduct linguistic inquiries. Aston reports that by accessing and studying this
large corpus, students were highly motivated, primarily because of their critical attitude
to published reference works that they can contrast with the results of their own
conclusions.
4.4. Urdu Corpus Literature
The research in Urdu corpus is in its infancy and little attention is given to
collecting the corpus of Urdu as the basis of a dictionary. But these studies provide a
rationale, resources and tools to collect the corpus of Urdu to compile a monolingual
Urdu learners’ dictionary. The following are some of the studies conducted so far in the
field of Urdu corpus.
4.4.1. The EMILLE Project (2004) The EMILLE project (2004) was established to create a 67 million word corpus
for South Asian Languages. The project dealt with a number of issues related to the
collection and creating the corpus of South Asian Languages. This project had three
major goals: to create corpora of South Asian Language, to develop the GATE LE
architecture and to develop LE tools. The project consisted of three components:
monolingual, parallel and annotated corpora. There were monolingual corpora of seven
languages. These languages were Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Hindi, Sinhala, Urdu and
Gujrtai. (http://www.emille.lancs.ac.uk/)
85
The EMILLE monolingual corpora contained approximately 58,880,000 words
(including 2,627,000 words of transcribed spoken data for Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi,
Punjabi and Urdu). The parallel corpus consisted of 200,000 words of text in English and
its accompanying translations in Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and Urdu.
Grammatical tagset for the Urdu language was also developed.
4.4.2. Becker & Riaz (2002)
In 2002, Becker & Riaz conducted a research aims at in sorting the Urdu language
in the Unicode character set, in its native script (Arabic) and in marking up according to
the Corpus Encoding Standard (CES) XML Document Type Definition (DTD). All the
tags and metadata were given in English. The corpus was based entirely on the data taken
from BBC’s Urdu website. The corpus presented marks up on paragraph level so that it
may be used as input for natural language processing (NLP) tasks.
In 2003, Becker et al discussed some of the issues collecting corpus for south
Asian Languages. The issues were related to collecting monolingual written corpora,
parallel corpora and spoken corpora with a particular reference to EMILLE project. The
author suggested that there is a need to work more on South Asian languages to develop
the existing corpora as well as to create the new ones.
4.4.3. Anwer, Wang & Wang (2006)
Another study reported by Anwer et al in 2006 aimed to presents some aspects of
Urdu language processing in corpus based studies. This study is a vital contribution in the
natural language processing in Urdu. The study presented a review of the researches
86
conducted in Urdu language processing and suggests that there is a need to enhance and
establish the programmes for analyzing Urdu language on the lines European languages
are analyzed. The suggestions proposed by this research would be of much help in
improving the process of natural processing as far as the collection of a database of Urdu
is concerned.
4.4.4. Hussain & Ijaz (2008)
Hussain & Ijaz highlighted some of the issues and questions regarding the
orthographical aspect of the Urdu language while developing a corpus (corpus
acquisition, pre-processing, tokenization, cleaning e.g. typos, name recognition etc). At
the end some of the developments in the Urdu lexicon were suggested by the authors. The
study claims that Unicode standard supports the Urdu language completely as it provides
even the multiple orthographical style of the same word. The study proposed the software
of SAMPA. SAMPA represented the conversion of IPA for Urdu into some modified
form to be used as phonetic representatives of Urdu.
4.4.5. Hussain (2008)
Hussain aimed to highlight the summary of the resources, both lexical and corpus,
being developed for Urdu by the CRULP. The author presented an overview of the
EMILLE project. Hussain presented an overview of the corpus collected in one of the
project of CRULP. He explained that a raw corpus of 19 million words of Urdu text was
collected mostly from Jang News. It was reduced to 18 million words after cleaning.
There were 6 categories namely Sports/games, News, Finance, Culture/Entertainment,
87
Consumer Information and Personal Communication for the distribution of words.
Another available source used by the CRULP is the tagset developed by Hardie (2003).
The second resource explained by the author was Urdu online dictionary available
from the website of CRULP. This dictionary contained 120,000 entries. He further
discussed the development made for Urdu language processing. This online dictionary is
a very good effort of the Ministry of Information Technology Pakistan. The first page
displays the alphabets of Urdu and we can get access to all of the words starting with that
letter by clicking on it. A virtual key board is available for typing Urdu for searching a
particular word. The information about words is available in the short and detailed form.
This dictionary contains information about etymology, and word class of the words.
However, some flaws are there in this dictionary for example an authentic guide to
pronunciation of the words is missing and the examples are taken from the very old
sources. The present study aims at designing the features of a pedagogical monolingual
learners’ dictionary for advanced learners of Urdu in a way that they meet the
requirements of the potential learners and can be proved helpful in teaching Urdu as well.
4.4.6. Afzal & Hussain (2001)
Afzal & Hussain present an overview the brief history of the studies conducted in
the development of the Urdu software. The list of the standard alphabets approved by the
National Language Authority is presented and the various codes of the soft wares are
introduced in this study. The study concluded that the presently developed software
namely Urdu Zabta Takhti would provide and serve the best fro keyboarding the Urdu
88
language. Recommendations are made for the improvement of the model of Unicode
developed by Zia ( Zia 2000).
4.5. A Review of Currently Used Monolingual Urdu
Dictionaries
The history of monolingual Urdu dictionaries is quite old. The first Urdu
dictionary Behr ul Fazail fi Munafe al Afzal was compiled by Muhammad Bin Qawam
Karkhi and it was an Urdu-Persian dictionary. Moreover, Tuhfat ul Hind by Mirza
Muhammad Bin Fakahruddin and Gharayb ul Lughat by Molvi Abdul Wasay Taunsvi
were also Urdu-Persian dictionaries. Many Urdu monolingual dictionaries were compiled
after the tradition of bilingual dictionaries compiled by Sarajuddin Ali Khan Aarzoo
(Nawadir ul Lughat), John T. Platz (Urdu, Hindi and English dictionary) and Ameer
Meenai (Ameer ul Lughat). The first edition of Feroz ul Lughat, compiled by Maulvi
Ferozuddin, was published in 1897 and it is one of the most old and most widely used
monolingual Urdu dictionaries. There are, however, many other dictionaries like Farhang
e Asifia by Munshi Syed Ahmad Dehlvi, Noor ul Lughat by Maulvi Noor ul Hassan
Nerkakori and Jamei ul Lughat by Abdul Majeed BA. Feroz ul Lughat is still very much
popular among the learners and teachers of Urdu. The following lines present the review
of two dictionaries: Feroz ul Lughat as it is the oldest monolingual Urdu dictionary and
Ilmi Urdu Lughat as it claims to be designed on the needs of the target users of Urdu (see
preface Feroz ul Lughat).
89
4.5.1. Feroz ul Lughat (2006 edition)
In this edition of the dictionary, an attempt is made to include more and more old
and new words of Urdu. Compound words, proverbs, phrasal verbs, scientific and literary
terms are also included in this edition. This dictionary claims to meet the needs of the
learners ranging from the beginners to the advanced level. The words that are obsolete
and are specifically used in Dakhni Urdu are also listed in this dictionary. Words are
listed in terms of primary and secondary words. The primary or head word is listed close
to the margin and the secondary words are listed with a space from the margin. Diacritic
marks are put to avoid ambiguity and the pronunciation is given by dividing words in
parts or chunks. The gender of each noun is described and the words have been
categorized in terms of four basic parts of speech ( مصدر)اسم، ضمیر، صفت، . Words from
other languages that have become the part of the vocabulary are also listed in the
dictionary. It is stated in the preface that this dictionary is revised after every twenty or
twenty five years. (Feroz ul Lughat 2006 (Preface).
Although the dictionary attempts to meet the needs of maximum range of learners
but target learners are not specified. Words are not defined. In many cases only the
synonyms or the equivalents of the words are found to be listed in the dictionary.
Examples are not given along with the words. The pronunciation that is given with each
words is difficult to follow and confusing. The number of the words listed in the
dictionary is not specified. The front matter of the dictionary contains a list of symbols
and abbreviated words with their relative explanations. The last six pages are given to the
90
conclusion in which certain words are listed but in the preface, the reason of listing these
words in the end is not specified.
4.5.2. Ilmi Urdu Lughat (2006 Edition)
Ilmi Urdu Lughat is one of the most popular and widely used dictionaries among
the learners of Urdu. This dictionary was compiled by Waris Sirhindi. This edition of the
dictionary is not very much different from that of the previous editions. The number of
dictionary entries is not specified. The grammatical information is very much similar to
that of Feroz ul Lughat. In this dictionary words are divided basically in four parts of
speech including ( اسم، ضمیر، صفت، مصدر ). Definitions and examples are not given
with the words. Synonyms and equivalents of the words are given in the dictionary.
Pronunciation guide is not given in the front matter and words are described in brackets
by breaking them into parts in front of words. The target learners or users are not
specified. The stylistic features are ignored and no notes on the usage of certain words are
found.
Although both the dictionaries aim at to satisfy the needs of the learners at all the
levels but they are not regarded as pedagogical dictionaries on the following grounds:
it is not compiled on any corpus
the words are not defined
the example are not given
illustrations are not given importance.
To conclude the above given discussion it could safely be said that the lexicographic
tradition in Urdu requires to be revolutionized so that dictionaries should be compiled by
91
keeping the target learners in the mind while designing the framework of a pedagogical
monolingual Urdu dictionary. This is what the present study aims to do.
4.6. Conclusion
The discussion on the literature review provides the space to this research in that
it provides the methodological grounds the questionnaire based researches. It also
supports the idea of designing a dictionary on the lines of COBUILD dictionary and
finally the sources of collecting a corpus of Urdu as the basis of a pedagogical
monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary. The next chapter will study the methodology and
a comprehensive research design of the present study.
92
CHAPTER 5
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
According to Creswell (1998) research methodology is “the systematic study of
methods that are, can be, or have been applied within a discipline”. In other words it is a
specific procedure or set of procedures that are used to conduct the research.
Methodology refers to the ways information is gathered or the way research is done.
Methodology can also be explained in terms of the approaches, methods, techniques and
procedures which assist in collecting and analyzing the gathered information. In other
words methodology is a series of some particular steps or procedures which are
responsible to monitor the activities of collecting information, analysis and design
(Creswell 2003). The present research was conducted to design the essential features of a
monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary for advanced learners of Urdu following the
model of COBUILD dictionary and finding out the possibilities of collecting corpus of
Urdu as the basis of a learners’ dictionary for advanced learners of Urdu.
5.1. Theoretical Framework of the Study
Before designing the methodology for the present study, it is important to review
the methodologies used by other researchers in the field of pedagogical lexicography.
93
The methodologies used in the previous studies provide a theoretical and methodological
space for the present study.
5.1.1. A Review of Questionnaire- Based Research
Questionnaire-based research is the considered as the most convenient method of
research in many fields of social sciences and linguistics. This is also true in the case of
research into user oriented lexicography. In what follows, I shall discuss some major
empirical studies that have been reported in the literature of dictionary requirement, and
attitude towards the use of dictionary.
Barnhart (1962) contribution is considered to be the first research work in
user-perspective tradition of lexicographical research. He laid stress that the main
purpose of the dictionary is to ‘answer the questions that the user of dictionary asks’ and
that ‘dictionaries on commercial market will be successful in proportion to the extent to
which they answer these questions the buyer’. He conducted the survey in 1955 and 108
questionnaires were delivered to college professors of English writing in 99 colleges in
27 States. The purpose of the study is to obtain the significance of the information
categories presented in the Dictionaries used in colleges in America. The teachers were
asked to rate six types of information e.g. meaning, spelling, pronunciation, synonyms,
usage notes and etymologies. The findings of the surveys indicted that the meaning was
the most frequented reported category followed by spelling and pronunciation. After
them the synonyms and usage came and etymological information was the last in the
given priorities. While presenting a critical review on user oriented researches, Hartmann
94
describes that the study conducted by Barnhart dealt only with a small sample and the
results were not reported numerically. (1987: 13).
Diab commented on the study and said that:
“His results were based on the indirect responses made by the teachers. These
results were not the outcome of the direct observations of the target user. Apart
from all criticism the valuable contribution of Barnhart can not be denied.
Although the study was conducted about three decades ago but the most
remarkable feature of his study was that it brought a new approach and a
significant perspective in lexicography” (1990: 22).
The study is also of a great worth as the results drawn from his research have been
replicated in many other researches. I learned from the study and critical evaluation of
Barnhart’s study that the group of subjects in the present research should be a larger one
covering the maximum variety of the learners and that data should be collected directly
from the learners themselves. The statistical data should also be presented in this study.
The second contribution in the field of this tradition was that of Randloph Quirk
(1975). According to Hartmann (1987) Quirk’s survey was the first scholarly study in
Britain for the assessment of the attitudes of dictionary users. His research was concerned
with the users directly. He studies the use of dictionaries by 220 undergraduate British
students at the University College, London. The data was collected with the help of a
questionnaire. 30 questions were included in the questionnaire focusing on different
aspects of using dictionaries. These aspects included the ownership of a dictionary,
purpose and frequency of the use dictionary and issues related to facing difficulties in the
process of looking dictionary. The responses of the subjects showed that 71% of the
95
subjects used their dictionaries at least once a month and that they primarily looked up
the meaning of the words and also looked at the synonyms and the antonyms of the
words. His results pertaining to the different types of information for the user are similar
to that of Barnhart that showed the meaning and spelling as the most frequently looked
up types of information.
Quirk, on the basis of his findings, concluded that dictionaries compilers and the
users of dictionaries have different priorities:
“Some of the dictionary features which seem of particular centrality to
lexicographer are decidedly peripheral to the ordinary user” (1975: 80).
Nesi identified two issues in this study: the first was the question of the accuracy
of the responses elicited by the subjects and the second issue was concerned with the type
of questions asked in the questionnaire. She commented that:
“Quirk’s questionnaire asked users to comment on what already existed in their
dictionaries and despite the invitation to suggest improvements, there was little
encouragement to think laterally and suggest departure from the traditional
dictionary use.” (2000: 5)
Quirk’s survey was more comprehensive as compared to that of Barnhart. Although
the context of the research is limited, the methodological grounds of the study were very
sound and this would be of a great help while determining the course of research in the
present study. The results drawn by Quirk were replicated in the research conducted by
Jackson (1988). The questionnaire he used was relatively easy to follow than that of
Quirk’s for it was precise and comprehensive.
96
Tomaszczyk (1979) was the first to work on the needs of non native users of
dictionary. The main purpose of his study was to collect information regarding producing
better dictionaries as he was motivated by the observation that there was a great
dissatisfaction with dictionaries among foreign learners of English:
“The study … was undertaken in the hope that an examination of the ways in
which language learners use dictionaries, and of their attitudes and expectations
towards them would provide some information about the extent to which various
group of users depend on dictionaries, help pinpoint those of the current
lexicographical solutions that are, as well as those that are not, felt to meet their
needs, and give lexicographers some clue they might want to use in their attempts
to make better dictionaries” (1979: 103).
Tomaszczyk’s study was more detailed and covered a variety of subjects than the
first three researches. Tomaszczyk’s questionnaire contained fifty seven items concerning
personal and language learning history, current language use, use of dictionaries and the
evaluation of the information contained in them (1979: 104).
The results drawn in his study revealed that bilingual dictionaries were mainly
used for translation and L2-L1 dictionaries were more often used by the subjects than L1-
L2 dictionaries. The findings reported monolingual L2 dictionaries to be of secondary
importance to the users. In this study, some questionnaires were mailed to obtain data.
Diab asserted that mailed questionnaires might be unreliable and the data obtained
through this method might not be valid (1990: 26).
97
Nesi, while criticizing Tomaszczyk’s study for its contradicted responses on the
part of the subjects, said:
“ Although flaws in the research design render some of his finding’s suspect, a
number of important findings do emerge from the survey. Unlike the respondents
in the surveys conducted by Quirk, Tomaszczyk’s subjects attached far greater
importance to grammatical information, and registered less satisfaction with the
dictionary they use” (2000: 07).
Baxter (1980) collected data from 342 subjects to evaluate the significance of
monolingual dictionaries in comparison with bilingual dictionaries. The subjects in this
study were Japanese students. The data were collected through questionnaire from three
national universities in Japan. The questions were not retrospective but, in the majority of
cases, required to provide factual information about dictionary ownership. In
Tomaszczyk’s study, the use of a monolingual dictionary was reported as being less
frequent than the use of a bilingual dictionary. Many students criticized monolingual
dictionary on various grounds. Baxter, in his study, provided no indication of the types of
the monolingual dictionaries his subjects were using. Baxter, however, concluded that his
subjects preferred to use bilingual dictionaries because they were easier to use than
monolingual English dictionaries.
Bejoint (1981) contributed a very informative and the most influenced study in
the field of user- oriented lexicography. His study is considered to be most frequently
cited and well known survey in pedagogical lexicography. Bejoint claims that his survey
was influenced by that of Tomaszczyk’s remarks (1979: 103) that the need of the popular
98
commercial dictionary user had been neglected and explored ‘the virtually unknown
territory of the users’ reference skills and habits’ (Bejoint 1981: 208).
Bejoint administered the questionnaire containing 21 questions to 122 French
students of English at the University of Lyon. The questions covered the aspects of
dictionary use like dictionary ownership, dictionary typology, reason for choosing a
particular dictionary, preferences; frequency of use, information looked up, context of
dictionary use, attitudes towards dictionaries and problems in dictionary use.
The result revealed that 96% students possessed a monolingual dictionary for
example OALD, DOCE, COD, ect. 85% of the subjects reported that they had chosen
their dictionary because it had been recommended by their teachers. 87% of the
respondents placed meaning among the three most looked up piece of information in a
dictionary but only 25% reported spelling and pronunciation. The least mentioned
information category was etymology. The results also reported variations in the use of
dictionary according to the study level and age of the students. Students seemed to prefer
and satisfied with the dictionary they habitually use or worked with. The dictionary that
covered the most vocabulary items obtained more value. Bejoint also recorded that
dictionaries were used mostly for decoding purposes. Nesi stated that there was one issue
with the questions asked from the subjects. She regarded some questions required rather
too much from the students’ power of critical analysis, retrospection and recall and they
were expected to provide from their memory the detailed accounts of their look-up habits.
In fact many of them were unable to remember much about pervious dictionary
consultation while they were expected to pass critical judgment on the dictionaries they
used (2000: 08). It is quite difficult to compare the findings of Bejoint’s study with the
99
findings of the survey conducted by Baxter and Tomaszczyk regarding bilingual
dictionaries as this study was limited to the examination of monolingual dictionaries
alone. However, Bejoint’s contribution is of much interest for the present research as it
brought into focus many important issues of interest of both language teachers and
lexicographers.
Another questionnaire based study that is reported was that of Battenburg’s. He
conducted his survey in 1984 and collected information from 60 non native speakers at
Ohio University. The respondents were divided according to three proficiency levels:
elementary, intermediate and advanced. The respondents represented seven different
language backgrounds but majority of them belonged to the Chinese or Arabic language.
Battenburg reported that difference in .language background did not affect on the
dictionary- using behaviour. The study revealed that majority of the subject possessed
bilingual dictionaries and the native speaker dictionaries were owned by a smaller
number of subjects. Battenburg also reported that there was a corelation between the use
and ownership of a dictionary. . Bilingual dictionaries were owned by all the elementary
level respondents and all the advanced learners use monolingual dictionaries. All the
respondents expressed preference to look up the definitions and less interest had been
shown by the subjects towards looking up etymological information. Battenburg’s
questionnaire was shorter than that of Bejoint and he did not include questions regarding
unsuccessful look-up while using a dictionary. Unlike Bejoint, Battenburg’s decision to
divide the respondents into three groups according to their proficiency level was a good
idea but the findings suggested that these groups did not represent a true language
100
learning continuum. Battenburg reported very similar results of Tomaszczyk and Bejoint
when he asked the respondents to suggest the ways to improve the existing dictionaries.
Griffin (1985) conducted a pilot study among ESL students at Southern Illinois
University. The basic purpose of this study was to develop a ‘dictionary skill unit’. The
questionnaire containing 10 items was given to 128 subjects representing 13 different
language backgrounds. They were divided into four proficiency levels, from beginners to
advanced level. The questions were about dictionary use, such as types of dictionaries
they own, frequency of use, reading forematter and other points of a general nature. The
results of the research showed that the subjects were not fully aware of the use of
dictionary. The study reported that many students did not use dictionary in the class room
but preferably at home. It was also reported that the students of higher level tended to feel
embarrassed about using a bilingual dictionary in the class even though they might have
need for using it. Moreover the majority of the students did not bother to consult the front
or the back matter of the dictionary. The results of the experiment showed that the
subjects showed interest and expressed a positive attitude towards the project. Griffin
(1985) explained:
“A few students started with the attitude that this lesson was unnecessary because
they already know how to use a dictionary, but some students, while working on
the exercises, acknowledged this limited knowledge of the complications of
dictionary use.” (1985: 58)
I hope that in conducting this research Griffin’s study would be of a great help to
me. The study added to our knowledge regarding to the learners’ attitudes and the
interaction between learners and their dictionaries. Griffin study focused at getting four
101
type of information and demonstrated some worthwhile methodology concerning the
teaching of the use of dictionary.
Kipfer (1985) examined the influence and dictionary skills on the attitudes and
language needs of intermediate students. A questionnaire was administered on 292
American High-school students in 1983-84. The main objective of the questionnaire was
to collect the basic data on different aspects of dictionary use.. Kipfer found that the
subjects had not been taught or learned dictionary skills and the subjects used dictionaries
incorrectly or sparingly. He reported that the subjects showed unwillingness to refer to
dictionaries for fear of appearing ignorant. The major looked up information was
meaning, spelling and sometimes pronunciation. Kipfer used an ‘outsider’ approach in
collecting data from the subjects. She gave the subject three days to fill in the
questionnaire at home ‘because the school maintained no obligation to conduct a large
scale testing for an outsider’ (Kipfer 1985: 11). Her ‘outsider’ approach was criticized for
the validity of answers. In my research, I tried to avoid this approach and made it sure
that the data have been collected in researcher’s own presence. This helped me to collect
more reliable answers form the subjects involved in my study. The notion of teaching
dictionary skills to the advanced Urdu learners would be also helpful in this research
while preparing the research tool.
Li (1998) reported the results of a questionnaire on the use of dictionaries. The
subjects under study were 691 Chinese students and 110 university teachers. The results
showed that all of them owned bilingual dictionaries. The subjects preferred to use
English-Chinese dictionaries for comprehension but less than half of the sample owned
Chinese-English dictionaries. Li also reported a translation test followed by the
102
questionnaire and supported Tono’s (1984) results that the use of dictionary was very
helpful in accurate translation.
The above given discussion proves that many studies have been reported to use
questionnaire as a basic tool of collecting data. The groups of the subjects in the above
mentioned studies were large enough to be interviewed and some there are many type of
information that can be sought only by the help of a questionnaire. Nesi (2000)
recommended that questionnaires should be modified and revised in the light of expertise
to avoid ambiguity and to get maximum reliable data.
5.1.2 A Review of Design Features-Based Research
Hausmann (1990) discussed the features needed for a French monolingual
learner’s dictionary to be used for classroom learning. The elements are collocation,
figurative usage, visual aids, synonyms and antonyms, and emphasis on context. This
study is of much interest for me as it has provided me with the rationale of designing the
essential features for native speakers as far as learning and teaching is concerned.
Cowie (1996) notes several significant features of the monolingual Italian
dictionary (1992) including numerous and well defined examples by the lexicographers
in the entries, numerous collocation that are limited to two or three phrases and the use of
terminological tables and detailed illustrations.
In various research papers, he has explored many dimensions of dictionary design
and use. In 1989, Cowie conducted a study in which he looked at the design of dictionary
entries. He mentioned how one might successfully illustrate the meaning of a lexical item
through the use of examples. He discussed the role of syntax in dictionary, the
103
importance of cohesion across example sentences and the contribution of syntax and
cohesion to the learner’s achievements. This research, like the one conducted by
Hausmann, is also another evidence of designing monolingual dictionary for native
speakers (Dolezal & McCreary 1999: 24, 25).
5.1.3. A Review of Corpus-Based Research
The first electronic or machine-readable corpus has been designed by Francis and
Kucera in 1961 and published in 1964. Its focus was on collecting texts from informative
texts (non fiction) and imaginative texts fiction). The Brown Corpus is designed to
represent the wide range of written American English. Additional information as origin
of each sample text and line numbering is also given.
The second stance in this regard is the Lancaster—Oslo/Bergen Corpus by
Johansson, Leech and Goodluck. This corpus is a representative of British English as
opposed to the Brown Corpus. This is a combined project of university of Lancaster and
Oslo, and the Bergen based centre for Norwegian Humanities Computing participating.
The corpus and its manual are available through ICAME, the International Computer
Archive of Modern English (Johansson, Leech, & Goodluck, 1978).
The LLC is developed in Sweden. It is based on previously stored corpus, the
SEU Corpus. This is the first copra in which spoken evidences were used. Although it is
not considered as satisfactory as far as it representativeness is concerned, it has set a trend
to include spoken data in corpora. (Horváth, 2000).
With seven million words of the Main COBUILD Corpus, the Bank of English is
the largest collection of written and spoken English text stored on computer. Its initial
104
feature and aim was to "help learners with real English" by enabling applied linguists to
do research into the contemporary language primarily for language education (Collins
COBUILD English Language Dictionary, the original 1987 edition and the 1995
revision). The revolutionary contribution the corpus project has made to the development
of learner dictionaries has been the most influential result. A joint venture of Collins
Publishers and the English Department of Birmingham University, it has provided new
approaches (see, for example, Sinclair, 1987b) to lexicography. (Horváth,2000). The
Bank of English has continued to innovate in all the related work: in the way corpus
evidence is incorporated in learner dictionaries, in study guides and recently in a special
series of concordance samplers, in the application of a lexical approach to grammar, and
in the theoretical and technical field of marking up the corpus. (Sinclair, 1991)
The corpus is still progressing and more words have been added to make it more
up to date and close to real English.
The British National Corpus BNC focuses such academic, commercial and public
entities as the British Library, Chambers Harrap, Lancester University's Unit for
Computer Research in the English Language, Longman, Oxford University Computer
Services and Oxford University Press (Horváth, 2000).The majority of its content, 90
percent, is written, with 10 percent made up of spoken samples, running to a total of 100
million words in over 6 million sentences. Any of its constituent texts is limited to 40,000
words (Burnard, 1996). Aston (1996, 1998) evaluates the benefit of BNC for advanced
FL students in Italy in how they conduct linguistic inquiries. Aston reports that by
accessing and studying this large corpus, students were highly motivated, primarily
105
because of their critical attitude to published reference works that they can contrast with
the results of their own conclusions.
The present study has used COBUILD’ considerations and recommendations for
designing the features of a monolingual learners’ dictionary for advanced learners of
Urdu as the purpose of this dictionary is not only to provide information to native speaker
but also to the international users. The defining style is comprehensive and grammatical
information is given by adding a third column in the dictionary.
After analyzing the theories and different methodologies used in previous studies
the present study is designed. The comprehensive methodology used in the present study
is discusses in the following section.
5.2. Types of Research
There are two main types of research which are secondary research and primary
research. According to Blumberg et al (2005), in secondary research we tend to use the
information that has already been gathered by the other people through primary research.
In other words secondary research is the information that has already been done and
reported by someone else for some other purpose. Secondary research deals with the
study of secondary sources of data. The sources of secondary data can be obtained from
the company itself and this is called as internal secondary data. On the contrary, external
secondary data is data that has been published by some other organization. (Blumberg et
al 2005).
The primary research is carried out for collecting data for a particular purpose.
Primary research aims at collecting genuine and original data about the market and the
product. Primary research data does not exist before. In the collection of primary data,
106
there is a field research, which includes personal one to one interviews or telephonic
interviews. Moreover the advantages of primary research are that it is latest, more
specifically designed according to the aims and objectives of the research, collects data
that has not been used before and the information are always confidential. Primary
research can either be qualitative or quantitative (Blumberg et al 2005).
The research design of this research is as under:
5.2.1. Selection of Topic
A topic according to current important issues regarding the modern principles of
lexicography and their application in Urdu was selected to design the features of a
monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary for the advanced learners.
5.2.2. Reviewing the Literature
The preliminary data for this research was collected through a literature review and the
use of a questionnaire based survey of advanced learners of Urdu in Pakistan. The
literature review was done through books, conference proceedings, the Internet, and
leading English and Linguistics journals. In this step, opinion of advanced learners about
monolingual dictionaries was identified through a detailed review of published linguistics
papers, recent magazines, newspapers and via Internet.
107
Figure No. 5
Rationale for conducting the literature review Primary 1.Academic Research journals.
. 2. Refereed conferences. 3. Dissertation/theses.
4. Reports, Occasional papers. 5. Official publications
Knowledge source Secondary 1. Text Books 2. Newspapers, Magazines Tertiary 1. Dictionaries 2. Encyclopaedias 3. Handbooks 4. Internet/Websites Note taking Organising Literature review Critical appraisal
(Reviewing the Literature)
A review of the past literature has contributed a great deal in the choice of an
appropriate research approach for this study. The research design for the present study
has been selected from the recent user-oriented approach of lexicographic research.
An overview of the previous studies shows that most of them have used
questionnaire. In many cases the questionnaire were mailed or emailed. They were not
administered by the researchers themselves. In this research the researcher administered
the questionnaire personally to collect the data.
108
Diab (1990) explains six possible means of data collection in dictionary research.
They are described as under:
The critical review
The case Study
The questionnaire
The interview
The protocol
The experimental test
After analyzing the various techniques especially used in earlier studies, time
duration and feasibility and availability of the respondents for my research, I decided to
collect data through questionnaire partly because this technique has been used frequently
in pedagogical lexicographic research and partly because the data collected through a
questionnaire is easy to collect, interpret and analyze. The questionnaire is capable of
‘eliciting a large quantity of data about a large number of people in less time and with
less expenses’ (Diab 1990: 60-61). However, to avoid the delimitation of using
questionnaire as the source of data collection, it was discussed with the experts and
teachers time and again so that it would become the most appropriate in its design before
implementation process.
As far as pedagogical lexicography is concerned, there is a good deal of studies
based on the use of English monolingual or bilingual dictionaries in both native and non
native contexts. Little research has been conducted on the Urdu learners as Urdu
monolingual dictionary users in Pakistan. Considering the situation, I decided that my
109
research would explore this aspect of lexicographic research in Pakistan where Urdu is
regarded as the national language. This study is limited to the southern Punjab, Pakistan.
5.3. Deciding on the Research Method
After detail literature review, direction of research was easily determined. Yin
(1994) expressed that a research design is an action plan for getting from ‘here’ to ‘there’,
where here may be defined as the initial set of questions to be answered, and ‘there’ is
some set of conclusion (answers) about these questions. Between ‘here’ and ‘there’ may
be found a number of major steps, including the collection and analysis of relevant data.
There were two options.
1. Qualitative Research.
2. Quantitative Research.
According to Babbie (1997) Qualitative research is the non numerical study to
interpret the observations, to discover the implied meanings and relationship pattern. In
other words qualitative research involves the processes of collecting, analyzing, and
interpreting data through observation. Moreover it refers to the meanings, concepts,
definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and descriptions of things. Whereas
quantitative research, it deals with the count and measures of the things. (Creswell J W
1994).
Qualitative research tends to be more subjective than quantitative research and
various methods are adopted to collect information in which the most common is the in-
depth interviews and focus groups of the individuals (Bryman and Bell 2003). The
research is exploratory and often open-ended. A small numbers of people are interviewed
110
in-depth and/or a relatively small number of focus groups are conducted. Participants
respond to the questions and the interviewer or group moderator explores and
contemplates on their responses to conclude the perceptions, opinions and the attitudes
towards the under discussion topic and finally determines the degree of agreement or
disagreement as is shown by the group or individuals (Bryman and Bell 2003). The
validity of the findings obtained from this sort of research depends largely on the skills,
experience and sensitivities of the interviewer or group moderator (Creswell J W 1994).
The qualitative research is inductive as the researcher constructs abstractions, concepts,
hypotheses, and theories from details (Lincoln 2000).
The present research uses a combination of both qualitative and quantitative
methods for a concise and comprehensive analysis of the data.
5.3.1. Deciding the Research Techniques
After literature review and decision of research approach, it was finally decided
to construct a questionnaire. The questionnaire was close ended to get focused
information from the learners and the teachers of Urdu at advanced level the data was
collected by the researcher to get the following advantages:
1. Authentic Research.
2. Speedy work.
3. Consultation
111
5.3.2. Questionnaire Construction
After deciding research approach, I clarified my dimensions for progress working
and started questionnaire construction. Following are the factors which helped me in
construction of questionnaire:
1. Literature review.
2. All the sample questionnaires which were attached with journals.
3. Diab (1990) provided comprehensive questionnaires designed to collect data for
pedagogical lexicography.
The questionnaires were designed for both the learners and the teachers of Urdu.
The questionnaire for the learners covered the strategies and the attitudes of the learners
while using a monolingual Urdu dictionary while the questionnaire for teachers covered
the attitudes of the teachers towards monolingual Urdu dictionaries and their use in and
outside of the class room.
112
5.3.3. Method to Construct the Questionnaire
Figure No. 6
Identify the first thought questions How to construct a Questionnaire Formulae the final questionnaire Check questionnaire wordings Open ended Type of Question Format Closed ended Factual Questions Checklist Grid Rating scale Opinion Question (Subjective measurement) Likert scale*** Ranking Semantic differential scale Criteria for construction a Questionnaire A Pilot study The Covering Letter
(Construction of a Questionnaire) Selection of questions can be made to determine the appropriateness of either
closed-ended or open ended question depends on a number of factors. Lazarsfeld (1944)
suggested the following considerations to determine appropriateness of which type of
question to ask:
1. The objectives of the questionnaire.
2. The respondents’ level of information about the topic in questions.
3. The extent to which the topic has been thought through by the respondents.
113
4. The ease of the respondents.
5.3.4. Construction of Question
Simple process for construction of question is
Research Objectives
+
Literature review
Lead to
Issues, topic and ideas
Lead to
Questions
5.3.5. Opinion Question (Subjective measurement)
There are several formats for opinion type of questions. 1. Checklist
2. Grid
3. Rating Scale
4. Likert scale
5. Numerical rating Scale.
6. Ranking.
114
7. Semantic Differential Scales
5.3.6. Likert scale Finally, I decided to use the Likert scale because:
1. Mostly previous researchers used this technique.
2. Easy to use and understand.
3. Our available formula was adjustable with this scale.
4. This type of scaling is similar to the rating scale, except the questions consist of
attitudinal statements on the survey object.
5. Warwick also recommended it concise.
5.3.7. A cover letter
Nachmias and Nachmias (1996) wrote that a cover letter must succeed in
overcoming any resistance or prejudice the respondent may have against the survey. It
should identify the sponsoring organization or the person conducting the study, explain
the purpose of the study, tell why it is important that the respondent answer the
questionnaire, and assure the respondent that the information provided will be held in
strict confidence.’
According to Bell (1996) a review of the tool of research is helpful in identifying
the flaws of the questionnaire so that subjects in your main study will experience no
difficulties in completing it and so that you can carry out a preliminary analysis to see
whether the wording and format of question will present any difficulties when the main
data are analyzed.
115
The questionnaire was further improved on getting the suggestions of the
following expertise in Linguistics.
1. Prof. Dr Zafar Iqbal Department of English, BZU Multan 2. Dr Shamim Haider Tirmizi Department of Education, BZU Multan 3. Ramesh Krishnamurthy Aston University, Birmingham, UK
5.4. Technique to collect data
Questionnaires were distributed and collected personally by the researcher. In
view of the feasibility of availability and proportion of the respondents, questionnaires
were distributed to the learners and teachers of Urdu at advanced level. A questionnaire
was designed as a tool of research. Personal sources were used for questionnaire
collection as well.
5.5. Data Analysis Approach
The collected data were analyzed by using the statistical technique of deriving
arithmetic mean against each statement.
The following formula was used to get the arithmetic mean:
M = N
fx
Where
M = Arithmetic mean ∑fx = Sum of the mid points/scores obtained
By the students on a given answer weighed by their frequencies/answers
N = Total number of the learners.
116
5.6. Participants
The subjects involved in this study were advanced learners and teachers of Urdu.
The sample was the 10% of the total population which make 400 students and 87 teachers
of Urdu which were selected randomly according to the availability of respondents and
the access of the researcher. The aim of the study was to cover this sample as dictionary
users for data collection.
5.7. Conclusion
The above given methodology paved the path of the present study to collect data
and the analysis of the findings of the data. This research follows an interactive model of
research where one method of research strengthens the base of another one. The next
chapter discusses the detailed descriptions and results of the surveys conducted for
securing a rationale for the present study.
117
CHAPTER 6
SURVEY OF THE LEARNERS AND TEACHERS AS USERS
OF URDU MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARIES
This chapter deals with the strategies and opinions of the learners and the teachers
as dictionary users. The chapter describes two surveys that are following:
1. An analysis of attitudes and strategies of advanced Urdu learners as monolingual
Urdu dictionary users.
2. A Study of the Attitudes of Teachers towards Monolingual Urdu Dictionaries.
The chapter will state the statistical analysis of both the surveys and a brief
description and discussion on the results of the survey of the advanced learners of Urdu
and then discuss the survey of the teachers of Urdu.
6.1. An Analysis of Attitudes and Strategies of Advanced Urdu
Learners as Monolingual Urdu Dictionary Users
The survey was conducted to measure the frequencies of the strategies of the
advanced learners of Urdu while using monolingual Urdu dictionaries and their attitude
towards the use of monolingual Urdu dictionary. In view of the feasibility of availability
and proportion of the respondents, 242 learners from the Government colleges and 158
learners from Private colleges were selected. The total sample selected for the study was
400. The division of the number of learners from Government was 97 male and 145
118
females while from private sector males were 72 and females were 86. Although the data
was collected on five point rating scale but for the ease of tabulation and analysis the
information collected by the learners and the teachers has been condensed (See Diab
1990) in the following way:
Strategies
Always + Often = High
Average= Average
Rarely + Never = Low
Attitudes
Strongly Agree + Agree = Agree
Undecided = Undecided
Disagree = Strongly Disagree = Disagree
6.1.1. Description of Results (Strategies)
The following results were drawn from the data collected from the learners of the
Urdu language.
Table.1. Using Dictionary at Secondary Level
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You used monolingual dictionary at secondary level.
75 79 246 2.24
The statement shows the frequency of the use of monolingual Urdu dictionary at
secondary level. The mean score determines that a low frequency is shown by the
respondents when they are asked about the use of a monolingual Urdu dictionary at
secondary level.
119
Table 2. Using Dictionary at Intermediate Level
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You used monolingual dictionary at intermediate level.
166 81 153 3.0
The statement was developed to recognize the use of a monolingual Urdu
dictionary at higher secondary or intermediate level. The mean score shows that the use
of a monolingual Urdu dictionary is more frequent as compared to the secondary level
and this reflects some tendency towards the need of an advanced learners’ dictionary.
Table 3. Using Dictionary to Look up Meaning
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You use dictionaries to look up meaning.
256 69 75 3.88
The statement was developed to assess the frequency of the use of a monolingual
Urdu Dictionary for looking up meaning or definition of the words. The higher frequency
and the mean score reveal that the learners used dictionary to look up the meaning and
definition of the words.
Table 4. Using Dictionary to Look up Pronunciation
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You use dictionaries to look up pronunciation.
217 89 94 3.51
The use of a dictionary for looking up the pronunciation of the words is reported
as highly frequent followed by the definitions and meanings. The mean score suggests
120
that the monolingual Urdu dictionary is used by majority of the learners to learn the
pronunciation of the words.
Table 5. Using Dictionary to Look up Usage
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You use dictionaries to look up usage/ verbal illustration.
270 65 65 3.93
Words can be understood when they are illustrated with verbal evidences. They
are made clearer with the usage notes in a dictionary. The frequency of looking up usage
has a greater resonance. The mean score maintains that learners consult dictionaries for
the usage of words more than looking up meanings of words.
Table 6. Using Dictionary to Look up Etymology
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You use dictionaries to look up origin of words.
31 11 358 1.40
The use of a dictionary for looking up the origin of the words shows a very low
frequency. The mean score suggests that etymology is not very much looked up by the
majority of the learners.
Table 7. Using Dictionary to Look up Grammatical Information
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You use dictionaries to look up grammatical information.
308 53 39 4.17
Comprehensive grammatical information leads to the better understanding of
words in a language. A high frequency in this regard is shown by the learners. The mean
121
score shows that the grammatical information is the most frequent looked up component
while consulting a dictionary.
Table 8. Asking Teachers about Meaning
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You ask the teachers of Urdu about the meaning of words.
316
68
16
4.3
The learning process has always been dependent on teachers and a tendency to
asking meaning of words from teacher was a major source of learning. High frequency of
response to this statement favours that the teachers should also be trained in dictionary
skills.
Table 9. Asking Teachers about Pronunciation
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You ask the teachers of Urdu about pronunciation.
240
72
88
3.6
Speaking correctly is an art it can be developed with a true concept and practice
under strong guidance of a Monolingual dictionary. The respondents show a high
frequency in asking the pronunciation of words to teachers. This shows that they could
not find sufficient information.
122
Table 10. Asking Teachers about Symbols
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You ask the teachers of Urdu about symbols used in a dictionary.
309
74
17
4.2
While learning the English there are shorter terms used to indicate certain
messages. The frequency of asking teachers about symbols used in dictionary by the
teacher is higher as it is shown by the mean score.
Table 11. Asking Teachers about Grammatical Categories
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You ask the teachers of Urdu about grammatical categories of the words.
287
82
32
4.1
Learning process is incomplete without an active part of the teachers and a
tendency to asking teachers about grammatical categories of words from teacher was a
major source of learning. The mean score indicates that the strategy of asking teachers
about grammatical categories is highly favoured by the respondents / learners.
Table 12. Using Dictionary in the Classroom
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You use a dictionary in the class room
179 89 132 3.1
This statement aims at to assess the significance of using dictionaries in the
classroom and how often the respondents use dictionaries in the class room. The mean
score is above three that shows that majority of the students use dictionaries in the
classroom.
123
Table 13. Using Dictionary Available in Library
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You use the dictionaries available in the library of your institution.
232 81 87 3.56
The notion of using dictionaries available in the library carries a greater mean
score that shows that the respondents / learners use the dictionaries available in the
libraries of their institution.
Table 14. Writing Meaning on the Text
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You write the meaning of looked- up words on the text you read.
225 84 91 3.5
The strategy of writing meanings on the text books is another highly frequent
reported strategy. The mean score is above 3 which indicates that majority of the
respondents write the meanings of the words on the text books while reading any piece of
writing.
Table 15. Using more than one Dictionary
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You use more than one dictionary to look-up the same word.
65 73 262 2.17
The statement was developed to see the tendency of the respondents / learners
towards consulting more than one dictionary. A low frequency is reported in this regard
and the lesser response shows the negative response to the usage of more than one
dictionary.
124
Table 16. Guessing the Meaning from the Context
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You try to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading?
198 92 110 3.4
Guessing the unfamiliar words from their context is also an important strategy. A
high mean score shows that respondents / learners often try to guess the meaning of the
words from their context and they do not use a dictionary for this purpose.
Table 17. Writing Meaning in a Note Book
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You write the meaning of looked- up words in a special note book.
173 109 118 3.2
After consulting the detail dictionary preview for searching meaning of words,
there is tendency of writing it in special note book. The response from learners is higher
towards this activity. The mean score obtained against the statement shows that it is
highly exercised during the dictionary usage.
Table 18. Browsing the Pages of Dictionary
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You browse through the dictionary pages without having a particular purpose.
120
113
99
3.04
Usually the idea of browsing through the dictionary pages without having a
particular purpose is not popular. But among the advanced learners of Urdu, it is highly
appreciated as high response of mean score is evident for it.
125
Table 19. Referring to the Introductory Pages
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You refer to the introduction of the dictionary pages.
188 113 99 3.3
The respondents/ learners report that they refer to the introductory pages quite
often for getting additional information about certain features in a monolingual
dictionary. High mean score indicates that introduction of a dictionary is always very
valuable.
Table 20. Referring to the Glossaries
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You refer to the glossaries usually found at the beginning or the end of the textbook.
279 54 67 3.9
In most of the reading materials or the text book, glossaries are given either in the
beginning or the end. A high mean score against the enquiry of this strategy indicates that
they refer to these glossaries to get meaning of the words.
Table 21. Referring to the General Information
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You refer to the general information in dictionary appendices (e.g. table of measurements etc.).
210
75
115
3.4
There is a great deal of information found in the appendices of the dictionaries.
The respondents/ learners show a high frequency in that they refer to the appendices of
the dictionaries.
126
Table 22. Finding Required Information in Glossaries
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You find the required information completely about the word from the glossaries found at the end of the book
118
192
90
3.12
The notion of finding comprehensive information in a dictionary is also
important. A high frequency is found in the responses against average followed by a high
frequency. The mean score in this regard maintain to some extent the satisfaction of the
respondents/ learners in this strategy. The inclination of mean score is average as well.
Table 23. Finding Comprehensive Definition of the Words
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
The dictionary you use provide the comprehensive definition of the looked-up words.
130
101
169
2.88
Finding comprehensive information in a dictionary has always been under
consideration. The respondents/ learners show that they do not find definitions in the
Urdu monolingual dictionaries they use. The mean score maintains a low frequency of
getting compact definition in the dictionary.
Table 24. Following the Abbreviated Information
Statement
Strategies High Average Low Mean score
You follow all the abbreviated Information given in the dictionary.
106 108 186 2.67
Abbreviations are used in almost all the dictionaries. A low frequency in
understanding the abbreviation of the words given in the Urdu monolingual dictionaries
127
is reported by the respondents/ learners. Mean score is average and its favour to statement
is medium.
6.1.2. Description of Results (Attitudes)
The following results have been drawn from the responses of the advanced
learners:
Table 25. Significance of a Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
It is important for the learners of Urdu language to use dictionaries during their studies.
383 13 Zero 4.59
The use and significance of dictionary for advanced learners of Urdu is highly
agreed upon by the respondents/ learners. Mean score value indicates that a large
majority of the learners agree that the use of a dictionary is vital in learning Urdu.
Table 26. Information in a Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
All dictionaries contain the same information.
232 85 83 3.6
The respondents/ learners showed a strong agreement that all the monolingual
Urdu dictionaries they use contain the same information. Mean score also verifies this
statement.
128
Table 27. Using Dictionary is Boring
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
The use of dictionaries is boring.
18 56 326 1.8
The statement aims at to access if the respondents/ learners enjoy using
dictionaries or think it a boring activity. A strong disagreement reported by the
respondents/ learners shows that they do not consider the use of a dictionary a boring
task.
Table 28. Dependence on one Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
To depend on one dictionary is enough.
74 62 264 2.2
The respondents/ learners have shown a strong disagreement about the notion of
depending on one dictionary. They think that depending on one dictionary to look up a
word is not enough which is quite evident from the mean score.
Table 29. Information Provided by the Glossaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Glossaries that are given at the beginning or the end of the text books are enough to learn Urdu language.
41
43
316
1.87
The respondents/ learners do not report that glossaries that are found at the end or
the beginning of a book do not provide sufficient to learn Urdu language. A very low
129
mean score is recorded in this regard that clearly indicates that glossaries do not meet all
the lexical and linguistic needs of the learners.
Table 30. Possession of at least one Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Every Urdu language’ learner should have at least one dictionary.
330 60 10 4.2
The importance of dictionary is no doubt recognized among learners as
understanding of language without one is very difficult especially for the advanced
learners. The respondents/ learners strongly agree that every learner of Urdu should have
at least one dictionary.
Table 31. Use of a Dictionary on Teachers Recommendation
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should use a dictionary that is recommended by teachers.
212 86 102 3.4
Teachers’ recommendation has always been a great help for the learners. The
opinion about using a dictionary on the recommendation of teachers is highly favoured
by the respondents/ learners. Mean score is strongly in favour of teachers’
recommendation while choosing a dictionary.
130
Table 32. Effectiveness of Monolingual Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Monolingual dictionaries help learners to learn Urdu language effectively.
231 96 73 3.6
Dictionaries play a vital role in learning or teaching a language. The effectiveness
of a monolingual dictionary to learn Urdu is highly favoured by the respondents/ learners.
The mean score clearly indicates that they considerably regard a monolingual dictionary
as a useful source to learn language.
Table 33. Inclusion of Dictionary Skills Exercises in Course of Urdu
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
It would be better if present course of Urdu include exercises on Urdu-Urdu dictionaries and how to use them.
279
78
43
3.86
The respondents/ learners have shown a strong agreement that the skills to use a
dictionary must be included in the course. The mean score maintains that the inclusion of
the dictionary exercises and dictionary skill would helpful for learning a language.
Table 34. Use of Pocket Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Urdu language learners should avoid using pocket dictionaries.
311 41 48 4
The respondents/ learners strongly agree with the notion that the pocket size
dictionaries should be avoided. The obtained mean clearly indicates that pocket size
dictionaries are precise and do not contain all the information about the word.
133
6.1.3. Discussions on Results
The results drawn from the responses obtained from the learners quite clearly
indicated that they are much aware of the notion of dictionary and its use. A larger
number of students reported to use dictionaries at Intermediate level than at Secondary
level. Learners showed a tendency of using dictionaries for looking up meaning,
pronunciation, grammatical information and the usage of the words and the same
information were reported to be asked by the teachers by them. A high frequency was
calculated when the learners were asked about the use of dictionaries available in the
institution, referring to the appendices of the dictionaries, and writing the meaning of
words on the text they read. A low frequency, however, was reported about getting
enough information about the words from the glossaries of the text books as they did not
provide all the information about words. Again a low frequency is reported about using
more than one dictionary for looking up the same words. The learners expressed that they
did not get satisfactory and comprehensive definitions of the looked up words from the
dictionaries they use. A low frequency was reported by the learners in following all the
abbreviated information given in the dictionaries which clearly indicated that the
currently used dictionaries need to be modified and revised on the lines of modern
postulates of lexicography.
In the second section of the questionnaire respondents indicated mean score
higher than 3.00 in the responses of the statement pertaining to the significance of the use
of dictionaries while learning a language. The responses of the learners were very much
in favour of possessing at least one dictionary by every learner. The learners were
strongly approved the notion of including exercises about the use of dictionaries in their
134
course of Urdu language. Majority of the learners indicated agreement to the statement
that dictionaries should be recommended by the teachers. So teachers should not
recommend the dictionaries on their intuitive knowledge rather it must be based on the
knowledge of the empirical studies done in the field of pedagogical lexicography.
Majority of the sample reported that they did not think it enough to depend on one
dictionary or the glossaries of the text books. The respondents expressed a stronger
opinion about the effectiveness of using monolingual dictionaries for learning a language.
The learners are of the view that the use of pocket dictionaries should be avoided.
6.1.4. Concluding Remarks on Learners’ Survey
A dictionary or a reference work is a very essential and effective tool in learning a
language. In this research I have focused on the strategies and attitudes towards using
dictionaries as it is the best way to explain their basic concepts about dictionaries and
their use. The learners’ use of dictionaries and their strategies of looking up words are
very helpful in revising and evaluating the monolingual Urdu dictionaries. Urdu
monolingual dictionaries are greatly needed to be designed on the user-perspective
approach of lexicography. While buying dictionaries, learners rely overwhelmingly on
the advice of their teachers (Cowie: 1999). So, teachers should have the knowledge about
the effectiveness and suitability of a particular dictionary at different levels and for
different activities. Learners enjoy using dictionaries and they would be more motivated
if they can get an adequate guidance on the part of the teacher. This is however only one
area that can make it possible to go for further researches on the way to design a perfect
Urdu Monolingual learners’ dictionary.
135
6.2. A Study of the Attitudes of Teachers towards Monolingual
Urdu Dictionaries
Lexicographic research in the context of dictionary use is very much in vogue
these days. A number of studies have been conducted on the user-oriented approach of
lexicography and, for most of the time; the major focus has been the learners. Chi (2003:
106) states that these ‘second stakeholders of lexicographic triangle’, who are the most
important link between dictionary compilers and users should be the subjects of
lexicographic research. The contribution of language teachers in the ‘art and craft’ of
dictionary is as much vital as that of learners or lexicographers (Landau 1984). Boonmoh
(2009) investigates the attitudes of language teachers towards the use of PEDs (Pocket
size electronic dictionary). The findings of the study suggest that the attitudes of language
teachers affect the learners’ choice and use of dictionary in and outside of classroom. As
far as lexicographic research in Urdu is concerned, no study is reported to be based on the
measurement of the attitudes of teachers towards the monolingual Urdu dictionaries. The
recommendations by Chi (2003) and the study conducted by Boonmoh (2009) at the
University of Warwick are the source of inspiration for this research.
In view of the feasibility of availability and proportion of the respondents, the
questionnaires were distributed to 126 teachers of Urdu teaching at college level. 34
teachers were from private colleges and 92 were from the government colleges. Selection
of teachers were made on the basis of there field of expertise (Urdu), experience and
teaching level (teachers of advanced level). Total 87 questionnaires were received out of
the distributed 126 questionnaires. The turn out of questionnaire was 69%.
136
6.2.1. Description of Results
The following results were drawn from the data collected from the teachers of the
Urdu language.
Table 35. Role of Dictionary in Language Learning
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Dictionaries play a significant role in learning a language.
87 Zero Zero 4.58
The learning process is also dependent on the sources of knowledge. The best
source of learning is dictionaries. Significance of dictionary in language learning is
highly favoured by the respondents/ teachers. Mean score show higher response towards
dictionaries’ prominent role in language learning.
Table 36. Role of Dictionary in 2nd Language Learning
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Dictionaries are very important in learning a second language (like Urdu in Pakistan).
82
05
Zero
4.57
The teachers/ respondents show a strong agreement towards the importance of
dictionaries in learning a second language. Mean score shows that they strongly favour
the notion.
137
Table 37. Importance of Monolingual Urdu Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
It is important for the learners to use an Urdu – Urdu dictionary.
65 13 06 4.11
Monolingual dictionaries help learners in better understanding the words. The
respondents/ teachers maintain that the use of Urdu to Urdu dictionaries is very important
for the learners and mean score verifies this view point.
Table 38. Using Dictionary in Looking up Meaning
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up meaning of words.
70 09 08 4.05
Dictionaries provide a lot of information about the words. One of them is
meaning. The respondents/ teachers show a strong agreement about the notion that a
dictionary is a useful tool for looking up the meaning of the words. The mean score
shows that a large majority of teaches are in favour of this statement.
Table 39. Using Dictionary in Looking up Pronunciation
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up pronunciation of the words.
61
21
05
3.20
Accurate guide to pronunciation is another feature of a dictionary. The
respondents/ teachers strongly agree that an Urdu-Urdu dictionary is useful for looking
up the pronunciation of the words.
138
Table 40. Using Dictionary in Looking up Grammatical Categories
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up grammatical information.
66
17
04
3.98
Providing sufficient grammatical information about a word is another significant
feature of a dictionary. The response in this regard show that the respondents/ teachers
consider the dictionary as a useful source to provide the grammatical information as is
shown by the high mean score.
Table 41. Using Dictionary in Looking up Usage
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up the usage of words.
73
14
Zero
4.26
The use of word is a crucial issue while learning or teacher a language. Words
tend to change their meaning in certain context or by adding words with to them. The
respondents/ teachers strongly agree that a dictionary proves to be very helpful for
looking up the meaning of words. No response of disagreement is recorded against this
statement.
Table 42. Dependence on one Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should depend on one dictionary.
10 17 60 2.08
Dependence on one dictionary is strongly discouraged by the respondents/
teachers. The mean score shows that they consider the use of a single dictionary as
insufficient.
139
Table 43. Teaching Dictionary Use
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should be taught how to use dictionaries.
70 12 05 4.0
The respondents/ teachers are strongly agreed with the notion of teaching the
dictionary skills to the students in the class room. The mean score clearly favours the
above given notion.
Table 44. Ownership of Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should have at least one Urdu – Urdu dictionary.
78 07 02 4.36
It is quite understood that one cannot learn any language without any proper
guidance. Dictionaries are the best support for learners and the respondents/ teachers
strongly agree that at least one Urdu-Urdu dictionary should be with advanced Urdu
learners. Mean score show higher score for compulsory favour.
Table 45. Learners’ Encouragement to Use Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should be encouraged to use dictionaries while learning Urdu language.
71
13
03
4.08
A teacher can not be with a learner all the time. That is why the respondents/
teachers strongly agree that learners should be encouraged to use a dictionary. The mean
score also favours the statement that attempts to measure the ownership of a dictionary by
the learners.
140
Table 46. Role of a Dictionary in Reading
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in reading comprehension.
64 19 03 3.95
A dictionary plays a vital role in reading comprehension or the decoding
activities. The respondents/ teachers are highly in favour of the statement. The mean
score shows that a dictionary is a very useful tool in reading comprehension.
Table 47. Role of a Dictionary in Writing
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in improving writing skill.
57 23 07 3.90
Writing skill is related to grammatical competence and vocabulary which can be
improved by using dictionaries frequently. The respondents/ teachers are strongly agreed
with the notion. Mean value shows that majority of the teachers think that a dictionary is
very helpful in improving writing skills.
Table 48. Role of a Dictionary in Speaking
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in improving speaking skill.
64 18 04 4.04
Speaking skill is dependent on replacement of best to better word. A dictionary, if
contains a practical guide to the sound system of language, can play a significant role in
improving speaking skill. The responses of the respondents/ teacher and mean score
strongly favour the notion.
141
Table 49. Use of a Dictionary while Teaching
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Teachers of Urdu should use Urdu – Urdu dictionaries while teaching Urdu.
70 17 Zero 4.09
A strong agreement is reported by the respondents/ teachers that teacher of Urdu
use monolingual Urdu dictionaries while teaching Urdu. Mean score verifies the above
given statement.
Table 50. Use of a Dictionary in Lesson Preparation
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Teachers of Urdu should use a dictionary while preparing their lessons.
53
29
05
3.90
Learners depend on teacher in the classroom during lessons. Teachers should
consult Urdu dictionaries while preparing their lesson to cope the demands of the learners
in the class. Mean score shows stronger agreement to the statement.
Table 51. Encouragement of Learners to Buy Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Teachers of Urdu should encourage the learners to buy certain dictionaries.
62 23 02 3.97
The teacher should not only use dictionaries themselves but also encourage the
learners to buy dictionaries. The mean score shows that this statement is favoured by
majority of the respondents/ teachers.
142
Table 52. Teaching Dictionary Use
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Teachers of Urdu should explain how to use dictionaries.
67 19 01 4.25
Teacher should explain to learner how to use certain dictionaries to develop their
dictionary skills. Teachers should guide learners in order to develop their interest in using
dictionaries. Mean score maintains that a large majority of the respondents/ teachers
agree with the statement.
Table 53. Information Provided in Glossaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Glossaries given at the end of the text books are sufficient to provide all information about the words.
15
13
59
2.28
Glossaries are given at the ends of the books but they do not provide sufficient
information like dictionaries. The mean score shows that majority of the teacher do not
agree that the glossaries are sufficient to learn a language.
Table 54. Dependence on Glossaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should depend on the glossaries given at the end of the text books.
15
20
52
2.40
As this has already been maintained that glossaries do not provide sufficient
information about the words, the notion of depending on the glossaries is also rejected by
143
the respondents/ teachers. The mean score proves that majority of the teacher disagree
with the statement.
Table 55. Avoiding the use of Pocket Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should avoid using Pocket dictionaries.
43 14 30 3.16
Pocket size dictionaries contain limited information about the words. The
respondents/ teachers agree with the notion that learners should avoid using pocket
dictionaries.
Table 56. Using Learners’ Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should use Learners’ Dictionaries.
55 18 14 3.75
Learners’ dictionaries are specially designed for the language learners and contain
requirement. Mean score clearly indicates that majority of the respondents/ teachers agree
that the learners should use learners’ dictionaries.
Table 57. Using a Dictionary in the Classroom
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should use dictionary in the class room.
49 19 19 3.51
In classroom activities, the use of a dictionary strengthens the learning process.
The statement is highly favoured by the respondents/ teachers. Mean score show that the
use of dictionaries in the classroom is recommended.
144
Table 58. Browsing the pages of a Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Learners should browse the pages of the dictionaries without having a particular purpose.
46
25
16
3.50
Browsing the pages of a dictionary leads to the accidental learning of vocabulary.
The respondents/ teachers favour the notion. The mean score depicts that majority of the
teachers are in favour of browsing the pages of the dictionary without having a particular
purpose.
Table 59. Pronunciation Guide in Currently Used Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
The currently used dictionaries provide the effective guide to the pronunciation of the words.
21
06
60
2.37
The statement is given to evaluate the attitude of the teacher towards current
monolingual Urdu dictionaries. The respondents/ teachers quite disagree that the
currently used Urdu provides the effective guide to the pronunciation of the words.
Table 60. Grammatical Information in Currently Used Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
The currently used dictionaries provide sufficient grammatical information of words.
19
18
50
2.37
The second aspect to be evaluated is the grammatical information provided in
currently used dictionaries. The respondents/ teachers disagree that they provide
sufficient information about the grammatical categories of the words. The mean score
verifies the disagreement of the teachers.
145
Table 61. Usage of the Words in Currently Used Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
The currently used dictionaries provide the effective guide to the usage of words.
18
14
55
2.42
This statement aims at to evaluate to determine if the currently used Urdu
dictionaries provide the information on the usage of words. The respondents/ teachers
disagree with the notion that they provide the information on the usage of words and this
is evident by the mean score as well.
Table 62. Revision of Monolingual Urdu Dictionaries
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should frequently be revised.
66 15 06 4
Updating the dictionaries according to the current usage of the words is necessary.
The respondents/ teachers strongly agree that the Urdu to Urdu dictionaries are required
to be revised frequently. Frequently its addition should be done and should be revised.
Table 63. Inclusion of Definition in Dictionary
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Definition of the words should be given in the dictionary along with the equivalents.
73
11
03
4.27
Almost all the current monolingual Urdu dictionaries focus on giving equivalents
or meanings rather than the definitions. The respondents/ teachers strongly agree that
words should be defined along with the meaning in a dictionary for the better
146
understanding. The mean score indicates that the majority of the teachers are in favour of
the statement.
Table 64. Comprehensive Pronunciation Guide
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Pronunciation guide should be more comprehensible in a dictionary.
70 11 06 4.09
For the improvement of speaking skill, Pronunciation guide should be very clear
and practical. The respondents/ teacher strongly agree that the pronunciation guide needs
to more comprehensible in an Urdu monolingual dictionary.
Table 65. Explanation of Abbreviated Words
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
All the abbreviated words should be given in full in the front pages of the dictionary.
51
18
18
4
Abbreviations are usually used to shorten the words. The respondents/ teachers
strongly agree that the abbreviated words should be explained in the front matter of the
dictionary. Mean score clearly indicates that majority of the teachers favour the notion.
Table 66.Inclusion of Illustration
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Illustration (verbal & pictorial) must be provided in a dictionary for better understanding of the words.
55
19
13
3.83
Illustrations, both verbal and pictorial, enhance the understanding of new words.
The respondents/ teachers agree that dictionaries should have verbal or pictorial
illustrations. Mean score shows that illustrations should be included in a dictionary.
147
Table 67. Inclusion of Notes on Usage
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Notes on the usage of the words in certain context should be given in the dictionary.
63
21
03
4.20
Notes on the usage of the words in certain context can help in learning the wider
range of the use of the words. Mean score and a strong agreement shown by the
respondents/ teachers favour the inclusion of notes on usage in the dictionary.
Table 68. Designing Dictionaries on Lexicographic Principles
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Dictionaries should be designed on modern principals of lexicography.
63 21 03 4.01
Research work in lexicography is day by day improving. Linguistics factors are
increasing and development is highly appreciated. The respondents/ teachers strongly
agree that dictionaries should be designed according to these principles. Mean score
suggest that a considerable majority of teachers are in favour of the statement.
Table 69. Role of a Dictionary in Learning Spoken Urdu
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should be helpful for learning spoken Urdu.
47 21 09 3.39
The dictionary should improve the decoding as well as encoding skills. Dictionary
should also include features from the spoken language. The respondents/ teachers agree
that a monolingual Urdu dictionary should help the learners in speaking Urdu.
148
Table 70. Significance of Urdu Monolingual Dictionary for Foreign Learner
Statement
Attitudes Agree Undecided Disagree Mean score
Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should be designed in a way that it may be helpful for a foreign learner in learning the Urdu language.
66
19
02
4.13
The idea of designing a monolingual dictionary in a way that it should be helpful
for the international learners is strongly favoured by the respondents/ learners.
150
6.2.2. Discussions on Results
The results show that Urdu language teachers are aware of the fact that a
dictionary plays a significant role in learning a second language and it is also important
for a learner to use monolingual Urdu dictionary in learning a language like Urdu. Usage
of words is reported to be the most useful item to be looked up in a dictionary for a
learner followed by meaning, grammatical information and the pronunciation of words.
The respondents were reported a strong disagreement when they are asked about the
dependence of learner on one dictionary while a strong agreement is there when the they
are asked about teaching dictionary skills to learners and the issue of the ownership of at
least one dictionary. The teachers of Urdu also approve that learners should be
encouraged to use dictionaries while learning Urdu. A strong attitude is seen when the
effectiveness of dictionary use is reported to improve reading comprehension, writing
skill and speaking skill.
The teachers show a high frequency in the agreement of using monolingual Urdu
dictionaries in teaching Urdu language. They also report that using a dictionary while
preparing the lesson will help in better teaching and learning. A large number of teachers
favour that learners should be encouraged and guided by their teachers for buying certain
dictionaries as glossaries which are given at the end of the text book do not provide
sufficient information about words. The teachers disapprove the dependence of learners
on the information given in those word- meaning lists given in the last pages of text
books.
151
The notions of using learners’ dictionaries, using dictionaries in the classroom and
browsing the pages of a dictionary without a specific purpose are highly favoured by the
teachers.
Dissatisfaction is expressed by the teachers when they were asked to give opinion
about currently used monolingual Urdu dictionaries. They disagree that currently used
dictionaries provide sufficient information on grammatical categories, effective guide to
pronunciation and usage of the words. Majority of the teachers agree that the currently
used Urdu-Urdu dictionaries need to be revised.
The teachers think highly of including definition of words in the monolingual
Urdu dictionaries along with their equivalents, pronunciation should be more
comprehensible, the abbreviated words should be explained in the front matter, verbal
and non verbal illustrations and notes on usage should be included in a monolingual Urdu
dictionary.
Majority of the teacher approve that a monolingual Urdu dictionary should be
designed on the modern principles of lexicography and it should be compiled in a way
that it should also be of great help in learning spoken language not only for learners in
Pakistan but also for the foreign learners who want to learn Urdu.
6.3.3. Concluding Remarks on Teachers Survey
Teachers are binding connection between learners and dictionary compilers or
lexicographers. Their valuable suggestions and opinions in using, designing and
evaluating dictionaries can be of great worth because in some cases learners depend on
their teachers to choose and use a dictionary. They have a wide experience of classroom
152
activities and they can best coordinate by sharing their experiences in improving the
standards of dictionaries. This perspective of inculcating teachers’ ideas in compiling
dictionaries can make it possible to go for further researches on the way to design a
perfect Urdu Monolingual learners’ dictionary and all are on firm agreement that an Urdu
Monolingual learners’ dictionary for advance learners is needed.
6.4. Conclusion
The discussion on the results drawn in both the surveys are very strong evidence
that both the advanced learners and the teachers do not find sufficient information in
currently used monolingual Urdu dictionaries and want them to be modified according to
the lexicographic principles. These findings would also help in designing the feature of
pedagogical monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary for advanced learners. Chapter 7
deals with the development of a corpus of Urdu and design features of pedagogical Urdu
monolingual learners’ dictionary for advanced learners.
153
CHAPTER 7
DESIGN FEATURES OF URDU MONOLINGUAL
PEDAGOGICAL LEARNER’S DICTIONARY FOR
ADVANCED LEARNERS OF URDU
As we have discussed in chapter 1, pedagogical monolingual dictionaries share some
basic features in common. These features include the following:
The pedagogical dictionaries use a corpus as a basis of the dictionary.
The pedagogical dictionaries use a specific and controlled vocabulary to be used
while defining the words.
The definitions were designed by using a corpus based contextualized texts.
The examples are taken from the natural or authentic language.
The nonverbal illustrations are used for supporting the definitions (Kwary, from:
www.kwery.net ).
Considering the above given features of a pedagogical monolingual dictionary, this
chapter aims at a brief description of the process of corpus development and designing
the features of a monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary following the tradition set by
English monolingual learners’ dictionaries. Almost all the English monolingual
dictionaries have used a corpus for their design. In this chapter an attempt is made to
discuss the process of the development of a corpus and to design the features of Urdu
monolingual learners’ dictionaries by keeping in view the available sources for collecting
154
a corpus for Urdu. A detailed overview of corpus and Urdu corpus studies has already
been given in chapter 3. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part deals with
how a corpus is built and how far the previous researches and studies would help us if an
attempt is made to collect a corpus of Urdu as a basis of a dictionary. In the second part,
an attempt is made to establish the design features of a monolingual learners’ dictionary
for advanced learners of Urdu. A detailed review of the corpus has already been given in
the literature review. In the following section the process of the development of a corpus
is discussed with special reference to the possibilities of collecting corpus of Urdu.
7.1. The Process of Corpus Development
Atkins et al specified the following stages of the development of a corpus:
Designing the plan of collecting a corpus in order to determine the type of the
corpus that is being collected, inclusion of the samples of the texts, the varieties of
language that are included in the sample and specification of time period,
selection of written and spoken language and the mode to encode data in
electronic form.
Seeking copyright permissions for using the textual data to be captured by the
electronic machines and spoken texts to be transcribed and used for the purpose
through some legal consultant so that the problem of copyright should be resolved
at earlier stages.
Capturing the data by scanning the written material and where necessary by
keyboarding it manually.
155
Designing the tools (e.g. soft wares) to fulfill the special requirements of a
specific language along with using those that are already available for tagging,
labeling etc.
Developing a corpus and getting feedback from the users either they have found it
easy and useful or not. (1991: 2-6)
The development of corpus can further be divided into two main fields:
The Main Corpus
The Reserve Corpus
7.1.1. The Main Corpus
The design of the main corpus involves the process of selection, acquisition and
digitizing of data for corpus (Renouf 1984).
7.1.1.1. Selection of the Representative of Language
The first attempt towards the development of a corpus is to collect a sample of the
language representing the whole. Yang (1985) takes a library as a microcosm of written
sample. Another possible answer to the problem of selecting sample is to use
bibliographical sources as adopted in LOB corpus (Hofland and Johannsson 1982).
Atkins et al classified the taxonomy of the text types for a lexicographic corpus that is
given as under:
156
Figure No. 10
Spoken: Dialogue
Private Face to face conversation Structured Unstructured Distanced conversation Classroom interaction Public Broadcast discussion/debate Legal proceedings Monologue Commentary Unscripted speeches Demonstrations Written: To be spoken Lectures Broadcasts (news/ documentary) Drama scripts Published Periodicals Magazines Newspapers Journals Newspaper supplements Books Fiction Non fiction General Official reports (Auto) biography Reference (discursive) Educational textbooks Miscellaneous Brochures Leaflets Manuals Adverts Unpublished Letters Personal Business Memos Reports Minutes of meetings
157
Essays Others Notes
(Atkins et al’s Taxonomy fro Selection the Material for Corpus)
COBUILD (1987) aimed at identifying the significant aspects of English language
with special reference to the international users. The sample of the representative
language they defined was as follows:
language both written and spoken form
general language rather than technical
a recent usage of language from 1960s
naturally occurring speech
prose, including fiction and excluding poetry
language used by the adults, 16 years or over
standard English, excluding dialects predominantly British English, with some
American and other variants (Sinclair 1987: 02).
The above given taxonomy and strategies defined by the COBUILD can be employed
in selecting a representative corpus of the whole for the collecting a corpus of Urdu
language. Urdu has a rich treasure of written materials and the sample given by Sinclair
can be collected easily. The sample of spoken language can also be obtained and
transcribed as IPA symbols are available for Urdu language. Besides IPA, phonetic
alphabets have also been converted to SAMPA for the ease of machine translation
(CRULP 2007: 5). There is, however, some consideration in maintaining the balance of
the components of the corpus. These issues can be resolved dividing the percentage of the
authorship of both male and female, language varieties and written and spoken form.
158
7.1.1.2. Identifying and Acquiring the Texts
The first question in the creation of a corpus in this regard is to define and
determine what is text? This inquiry can be investigated by consulting the experts who
are directly or indirectly involved in teaching or learning. The literary societies,
institutions and publishing authorities e.g. National Language Authority or Oxford
University Press Pakistan can be consulted to know the titles current best sellers of both
fiction and non fiction written material. Text book boards, Pakistan are a reliable source
for collecting written material of text books written in Urdu to be used as the basis of a
corpus. A huge collection of translated works may also be found to serve this purpose.
For maintaining the balance of the above given view, COBUILD adopted another
approach. British Council Libraries all over the world were asked to make a list of the
literary works that have been famous and read by the readers for a long time. The
publishers were also asked to give the titles of the best sellers (Renouf 1987: 4). Urdu
language is spoken India and Pakistan and all over the world where the speakers of the
language are resided. The catalogues of the titles of popular works can be collected from
the organizations, institutions and publishing bodies in Pakistan and outside of Pakistan
where Urdu is spoken and understood.
7.1.1.3. Seeking Copyright Permissions
After collecting the written material, it is important to seek permissions from the
right holders for using the data for a specific purpose. The permission can be secured by
writing a letter which includes the present and future strategies of the whole plan of
159
creating a corpus. The letter should explain in what ways the obtained set of text would
be exploited in the whole process and what is the specific purpose of using a particular
text and for what reasons this texts is obtained. After securing the permission from the
copyright holder the texts can be purchased, borrowed or photocopied (Renouf 1987).
7.1.1.4. Texts in Speech Form
Spoken texts are more difficult to obtain than the written texts. Arrangement of
special sessions to collect spoken data for this purpose may lead to a conscious and
artificial language and, no doubt, a long term process. It is better to exploit the pre-
existing spoken materials for this purpose as they represent the authentic language.
Requests can be made to the authorities who can provide the appropriate data, recorded
or transcribed. A lot of data can also be collected from the universities that have been
recorded or transcribed for different researches. In the case of Urdu, this spoken data can
be obtained from the radio Pakistan. This department can provide the recordings of the
programmes broadcast in Urdu. Another important source of collecting spoken material
in transcribed from is the television channels which transcribe their data regularly.
Reports, documentaries, interviews and talk shows are a rich source of lexis in this
regard.
7.1.1.5. Procedure of Capturing Selected Texts on Computer
The obtained text is captured in a machine in two different ways:
manually or by keyboarding
by scanning the whole text (Renuof 1987: 5)
160
Spoken data is needed to be transcribed and keyboarded manually. In the case of Urdu,
Urdu inpage is available for key boarding the text manually. As far as the programme for
machine reading and for mark up is concerned, Riaz and Becker (2002) have successfully
used Corpus Encoding Standard (CES) XML Document Type Definition (DTD) for
marking up the texts from Urdu. The programme can further be improved or some
amendment can be made according to the requirements of the nature of the work.
The next step in processing the text on computer is to define a system to code
concordances. In COBUILD, a series of letters can be seen along with the concordances
which indicate the origin of the texts. There are some codes which tell that the specific
piece of language has been taken from which book of which author of which cultural
back ground (Renouf 1987).
7.1.1.6. Correcting the Corpus
While digitizing the texts, many uncorrected items, if necessary, are removed or
ignored. Some times it is felt that these uncorrected lexical units are quite appropriate for
the corpus. However in concordances, these erroneous elements are sorted out and
grouped separately (Renouf 1987).
7.2. Reserve Corpus
After completing the main corpus, there is a reserve corpus which is stored for the
sake of future researches and references purposes. In COBUILD project, reserve corpus
was used for collating the concordances of main corpus with that of reserve corpus
(Renouf 1987).
161
The above discussion reveal that almost all the expertise and sources are available
for collecting a corpus of Urdu as a basis of a learners’ dictionary. The first software of
Urdu called Nuri Nastaliq was exhibited in Urdu Science College in August 1980. Jang
Group of newspapers started publishing their newspapers in it. It was also very warmly
welcomed by Dr Ishtiaq Hussian Qureshi, Chairman of the Muqtadra, in 1980 (Jameel
2002). After that, many other soft wares like Shahkar, Surkhab, Nastaliq, Nizami and Mahir
were introduced by PDMS (Pakistan Data Management Services). One of them, Nizami,
was installed and used by the National Language Authority in 1995 (Rehman 2004).
In 2000, UZT (Urdu Zabta Takhti) 1.01 was standardised for all kinds of electronic
computing, communications, and storage (Afzal & Hussain 2002). This organization
played a vital role in the field of Urdu language processing and the use of the language in
computer. Computer assisted translation has also been made possible (Ahmad 2002).
CRULP is contributing a big deal of research work in natural language processing and
corpus development of Urdu. Much advancement has been made and a limited corpus of
19 million words of Urdu text has already been collected from Jang News (Riaz &
Becker 2002). The evidences reveal that there is a need to take a step ahead that is the
collection of Urdu corpus as a basis of a monolingual Urdu dictionary for the advanced
learners of Urdu.
The next part of this chapter will focus on the design features of a pedagogical
monolingual learners’ dictionary for the advanced learners of Urdu.
7.3. Design Features of a Pedagogical Monolingual Urdu
Learners’ Dictionary
162
Wingate stated that:
Language learning is a long continuum from the very beginning stage up to the
level of almost native like competence……… considering the variety of learners’
dictionaries, surprisingly little has been said about their suitability for learners”
(2002:01).
The above mentioned words clearly indicate that there is a need to specify the
type of users or the learners while designing a dictionary. The fact is that the design
features of a dictionary depend upon the level of the user. In the present study,
COBUILD dictionary is taken as a model for designing the features of a monolingual
Urdu learners’ dictionary partly because this particular dictionary is designed for the
advanced learners and partly because it also addresses to the international users. There
are also other characteristics that make this dictionary quite different from the other
monolingual English dictionaries for advanced learners for example the codes,
abbreviations, brackets, and symbols are avoided as they make a dictionary difficult to
use (COBUILD dictionary 1993).
While designing the features of a monolingual learners’ dictionary for the advanced
learners of Urdu, the two main structures of the dictionary has been kept into mind:
macro and micro structure.
7.3.1. Macro Structure
James and Hartmann (1998) define macro structure as the overall list of lexical
items that helps the compiler and the learner to search and look up information in a
dictionary. In the proposed dictionary the most common format i.e. the alphabetical word
163
list will be adopted supplemented by outside matter in the front, middle or back of the
work. It includes the introductory section of the dictionary having a guide for the use of
the dictionary. The front matter includes a comprehensive guide to alphabets and
pronunciation, the guide to look up the dictionary and an introduction of the dictionary.
Some EFL dictionaries include syntactic and grammatical information and the
explanation of keys and symbols used in the dictionary. The middle matter may include
the notes of usage and description of everyday vocabulary etc.
7.3.2. Micro Structure
Microstructure refers to the internal design of a reference work. As the main
concern of the study is to follow the model proposed by the COBUILD, micro structure
will focus the methodology of the COBUILD while designing the features of a
monolingual learners’ dictionary for the advanced learners of Urdu. The following are the
key components of the micro structure of a dictionary.
7.3.2.1. Spelling
The orthography of Urdu is quite different from that of English. Urdu has 57
alphabets and 15 diacritic marks. Many words written in the same orthographical style
are pronounced in different ways because of these diacritic marks. although many words
having same orthography are differently pronounce but their pronunciatrion can easily be
acquired from the transcription. Some of them are following:
,(the whole) کل (Yesterday) کل .1
164
(a large vessel) خم (Arch) خم .2
(who) کن (to be done) کن (A piece) کن .3
(In a form) مشکل (Difficulty) مشکل .4 But there are some stances where the absence of these diacritic marks can lead
towards the incorrect pronunciation or writing of the word. That is why it is
recommended that these diacritic marks should be placed appropriately so that the words
should be pronounced correctly (Humayun 2006).
For example:
اعلی .1
اخالقا .2
مذاقا .3
معلی .4
رافو .5
7.3.2.2. Etymology
Etymology provides information about the origin of words. Etymology is not very
much in vogue in lexicographic research. Ilson (1983) challenged the assumption that
etymological information has no pedagogical relevance as far as monolingual English
dictionary is concerned. Since Urdu is known as horde language and the amalgamation of
many languages as Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Hindi and even English. It would
165
be of great deal of help if the origins of the words are described with them. Etymological
information, in the case of Urdu monolingual learners’ dictionary, can serve the learners
better as it disambiguates, relates, illuminates and motivates them (Ilson 1983).
The following are some of the words from Urdu along with their etymological
information.
Persian (training) تربیت .1
Arabic (philosophy) فلسفہ .2
English (a planet) پلوٹو .3 Hindi (to confuse) الجھانا .4
Turkish (to blame) اشلک .5
Sanskrit (the world) جگت .6
7.4.2.3. Pronunciation
The pronunciation guide should be easy to follow. It was proposed in chapter 1
that the pronunciation should be given in a systematic format. IPA (International
Phonetic Symbols) are available fro Urdu while SAMPA (Speech Assessment Methods
Phonetic Alphabet) is another programme designed at FAST University, Lahore, for
Urdu language processing. In this programme the IPA symbols have been converted to
use in Urdu language processing (Ijaz & Hussain 2007).
166
The following table shows Urdu letters and diacritics, their corresponding IPA
and then corresponding SAMPA.
Figure No. 11
URDU Orthography IPA SAMPA Consonants
p р پ b b ب рh р_h پھ bh b_h بھ m m م mh m_h مھ
t t_d ط,ٺ th t_d_h ٺھ d d_d دہد dh d_d_h n n ن nh n_h نھ
Ŋ N نگ ʈ ť ٹ ɖ ď ڈʈh ٹھ ť-h ɖ ڈھ h ď_h k k ک g g گ kh k_h کھ gh g_h گھ q q ق ? ʔ ع f f ف v v و
ص,سٽ, s s z z ز,ظ,ض,ذ
S ∫ ش ʒ Z ژ γ 7 غ x X خ h h حھ t∫ t_h چ t∫h t-S-h چھ ʤ d-z ج ʤh d-Z-h جھ r r ر
167
هر rh r-h r ŕ ڑ rh ŕ-h ڑه j j ى l l ل lh l-h لھ vh v-h وھ jh j-h یھ
Vowels
i I ى e E ے } æ ے u U ۇ o O و O ּכ و ɑ A آ,ا` I I
ε E
U ט ,´‚ ٔ◌ @ ~I i ِ◌یں ~e e یں
~} æ َ◌یں ~Ũ u ۇں ~õ o ۄں ~ɑ A اں
~Õ O َ◌ۄں Special symbols IPA SAMPA Syllable boundary . - Stress marker ’ " Word Boundary # #
(From IPA to SAMPA Sourece: Ijaz & Hussain (2007: 5-7)
168
The symbols from both IPA and SAMPA can be used as a guide for
pronunciation. The present study has proposed to use IPA as these symbols are precise
and are easier to be followed by the learners both native and non native. The following
words have been transcribed by using IPA for Urdu.
Words Meaning Phonetic Transcription
/ɑ g/ (Fire) آگ .1
/qɑbɪl / (Eligible) قابل .2
/l әmb ɑ / (Tall) لمبا .3
/rәn ʤɪʃ/ (Unhappiness) رنجش .4 /ʊrdʊ/ (A language) اردو .5
/gʰәr/ (Home) گھر .6
/xәn ʤә/ (Knife) خنجر .7 7.4.2.4. Grammatical Information
“The two interpenetrating ways of looking at language forms are grammar and
lexis….. Every morpheme in a text must be described both grammatically and
lexically…. Each successive form in a text is a lexical item or part of one and
there are no gaps where only grammar is to be found.” (Sinclair 1966: 411-423).
Grammatical information can either be given with specific codes like OALD or
LDOCE does or by adopting a unique presentation of grammatical information that is
found in the COBUILD where a third column is introduced for explaining the possible
169
grammatical use of the word. This strategy is helpful in using the word correctly. Sinclair
(1987) is of the view that abbreviated information of grammatical categories may leads to
confusion. He says that:
“The grammatical codes are difficult to remember….. And the information given
by the codes often diverse. The user is obliged to refer elsewhere, and is often told
only the obvious when he gets there. The grammatical coverage is unsatisfactory;
if detailed it has only partial coverage, and if broad ranging it has little detail”
(1987:106).
In learners’ dictionaries, information about grammatical categories is more
detailed and comprehensive as they communicate not only with the native but also the
non native learners of the language. They include detailed notes on the usage of syntactic
patterns of the language. Inflectional forms of the words are also listed in a
comprehensive way.
The grammatical information includes tenses, nouns (singular, plural &
masculine, feminine), verbal nouns, adjective, adverbs, preposition, interjections,
imperatives, inflectional forms and demonstratives.
For example:
مصدر ) is a verbal noun (to teach) سکھانا .1 )
and it (rights) حقوق its plural form is ,( اسم ) is a noun or (right) حق .2
is used as masculine (مذکر ).
) is an adjective (partial) جزوی .3 .( اسم صفت
and is used for masculine ( حرف اضافت ) is a preposition (of) کا .4
170
.(مذکر)
.(مؤنث ) and is used for feminine (حرف اضافت) is a preposition or (of) کی .5
ۓہا .6 (alas) is an interjection ( تاسف کلمہ ) and is used to express grief or sorrow.
.used to indicate the activity done in the past (فعل) is a verb (learnt) سیکھا .7
There are many other grammatical categories. Consider the following examples:
تڑپا دینا .1 مصدرمرکب( )
2. (متعلق فعل ) پے در پے، سر شام
3. رسما، (تابع فعل) مذاقا
4. مگر، لیکن (حرف استدراک )
(صفت فاعلی) مترنم .5
مترتب صفت مفعولی) .6 )
7. کلمہ تحسین) واه (
(اسم ضمیر،اسم اشاره) وه 8
Urdu has also a rich and huge collection of phrasal verbs )(محاورے and
proverbs (ضرب االمثال). These phrasal verbs and proverbs play a significant role in
learning Urdu language. These محاورے are recommended to be included in the sub
entries of the head words. As regards proverbs (ضرب االمثال), they should be listed in
the back matter of the dictionary as they do not looked up frequently by the learners
171
either for study purposes or for the sake of learning a language. The following phrasal
verbs are given in Feroz ul Lughat under the entry of چادر:
چادراتارنا .1
چادراڑھانا .2
چادرپڑنا .3
چادرچڑھانا .4
چادردیکھ کے پاؤں پھیالنا .5
چادرڈالنا .6
چادر سے باہرپاؤں پھیالنا .7
چادرہالنا .8
7.4.2.4.1. Space for Grammar
Although a detailed description of grammar require more space in the dictionary,
its effectiveness can not be denied. In the COBULD dictionary, a third column has been
introduced to provide the information of grammatical categories and it is a novel addition
in the field of lexicography. This detailed description helps the learners to use a language
aptly. In the case of the proposed model of a monolingual Urdu learner’ dictionary, it is
strongly recommended that a new column for the description of the grammar should be
introduced so that the learners could make the most of the dictionary as far as grammar is
concerned. The grammatical categories should not be abbreviated to avoid ambiguity for
the learners.
7.4.2.5. Meaning
172
“The meaning of a word, expression or gesture is the thing or idea that it refers to
or represents and which can be explained using other words.” (Definition of
‘meaning’ from Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary: 1987)
The above given definition does not only provide a criteria of the meaning but it
also takes the context into account while explaining the words (Moon 1987). Sinclair says
that most of the words that we use in language daily have several meanings and the
occurrence of the word could stand one of the meanings (1986:60). Different meanings of
the same word are the outcome of the different contexts in which it is used.
See the following examples from Urdu:
(To blossom) پھول کھلنا .1
(To become happy) دل کھلنا
(Liver: A body part) جگر .2
(A close friend, informal) جگر
Moon says that the context can best be identified through concordances and the
words or characters that are present on each side of the words are sufficient to make the
contextual meanings of the words clear (1987: 87).
7.4.2.5.1. Polysemy, Homonyms and Metaphors
Moon asserted that lexicographers tend to be more considerate with the
theoretical grounds than linguists as linguists think that polysemy is linked with
homonymy and metaphor alike. She further adds that according to a linguist if the
173
meanings of the item are not related, it would be homonymy. On the other hand if they
are related, it may be the extension or the metaphor for the other (1987: 87)
She further writes:
“One of the decisions that need to be made when designing a dictionary is how to
handle homonymy…. The COBUILD database was structured on a synchronic,
semantic basis. It therefore seemed undesirable to treat as homonyms noun and
verb forms.”(1987:88).
In the light of above given suggestion, it is recommended for the proposed
dictionary that the concept of homonymy should not be considered. There should only be
a single root for the words serves as head word. Only the alphabet or some abbreviated
words or acronyms should be entered as single entry in the dictionary as head words and
all the possible variants should be listed as the sub entries of the root or head word.
Synonyms and antonyms may be included as they are required for the translation of the
words.
7.4.2.6. Definitions
Pedagogical dictionaries pay more importance to define a word than the general
purpose dictionaries. Definitions are the core of the dictionaries and carry the information
about the meaning of the words. Different dictionaries adopt different methods to define
and explain a word. Some dictionaries define the words in a phrase as OALD does. Some
introduce semantic classes given in the parenthesis as LDOCE and CED do.
Hanks further points out that:
174
“The COBULID solution to this problem was to invent strategies that look
remarkably similar to ordinary prose…. Every COBUILD entry consists of one or
more paragraphs. The paragraph is the basic explanatory unit……. Each
explanation consists of two parts. The first part represents a departure from the
lexicographic tradition in that it actually places the word being explained in a
typical structure. One of the simplest strategies that is that used for many count
nouns, for example
A brick is …………….” (1987: 117)
Hanks further adds that the proceeding part of the definition follow the tradition
for the identification of the word. He completes the above given definition of the ‘brick’
“……….. A rectangular block used for building walls, houses, etc.”
(1987: 118).
This defining style is novel and very helpful not only for the native but also for
non native learners of the language. These are some of the words taken from Feroz ul
Lughat and an attempt is made to define these words keeping in view the method adopted
in COBUILD.
۔1 پری
ر ان (ا) پری اس خوبصورت خیالی عورت کو کہتے ہیں جس کے پر ہوتے ہیں او
- کی مدد سے وه اڑتی ہے
(ب) پری اس عورت کو کہتے ہیں جو بہت خوبصورت ہوتی ہے
175
۔ پل2
ری کے پل اس تعمیر کو کہتے ہیں جو دریا، ندی، نالے، سڑک یا ریل کی پٹ
-اوپر سے گزرنے کے لۓ بنی ہوتی ہے
۔ صالح3
صالح اس شخص کو کہتے ہیں جو نیک اور پرہیزگار ہوتا ہے۔
7.4.2.7. Examples
Sincliar (1991) emphasizes on the use of authentic evidences from the authentic
language. Fox (1987) says that examples help the students to know how a word can be
used and in what context. He further adds that:
“The use of examples in the dictionary means that students can scan longer
entries and identify the particular sense they are seeking by finding the examples
that are similar to the one they need or have in front of them.”
He further suggests that the examples or evidences should be based on real life
language like COBUILD dictionary does. He says that it is the deployment of examples
176
that leads COBUILD dictionary to be viewed as both decoding and encoding dictionary.
(1987: 138). Sinclair (1984) discusses the concept of natural language and concluded that
well formed are quite different from that of grammatical sentences. He suggested that the
examples in a dictionary should focus only the sentences which are taken from the real
and natural language. Fox (1987) also maintained that the example should not only
contain the looked up word in it but it should also provide some additional information
about the word.
He stated the example given in the COBUILD for the entry ‘television’ and
explained:
“……. a well chosen example such as ‘I turn on the television to watch the news’
can show that in English we ‘turn on’ radio and television……. Also we watch
television rather than ‘see’ or ‘look’ at it.” (1987: 137)
These are some of the examples taken from Feroz ul Lughat and modified
according to the criteria proposed by COBUILD:
۔ پری1
ایک خوبصورت پری پرستان میں رہتی تھی
وه لڑکی پری کے جیسی ہے
سست ۔2
سست لوگ ہر کام میں دیر کرتے ہیں
ذہین۔ 3
177
ذہین شخص کے پاس ہر مسلے کا حل موجود ہوتا ہے .
7.4.2.8. Pictorial Illustrations
Pictorial illustration can help understanding words. Everyday vocabulary is best
taught through the pictorial illustrations but at the same time they may cause confusion if
they are not presented properly. If pictures of certain objects are to be added, they should
be very vivid and related to a particular word alone. Although COBUILD does not
include any pictorial illustration on various grounds but in the proposed design of a
monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary it is recommended as many words that are not
learnt only by giving the idea, can be learnt through the help of pictorial illustration.
Everyday used vocabulary can be presented through pictorial illustrations.
7.4.2.9. Stylistic Information (formal or informal)
Stylistic information should also be given in the dictionary.
Formal (You) آپ .1
Informal (You) تم،تو .2
آپکا .3 (Yours) Formal
Informal (Yours) تمہارا .4
178
Many imperatives are used informally in Urdu language for example:
سن (Listen), دیکھ (look), بیٹھ (sit) etc.
7.6. Conclusion
‘Words, as is well known, are the greater foes of reality’ (Conard :1911(1957):
11. The above mentioned clearly shows that enough evidences of research are available
to determine that the possibilities of collecting a corpus as a basis for Urdu dictionary.
The computer expertise is there at CRULP where the research on natural language
processing is conducted and much advancement have been seen so far which has been
discussed in this chapter and the review of related literature.
The discussion on the description of spellings, meaning, grammar, definitions,
and exemplification of the words shows that the model adopted by the COBULID can be
applicable for designing the features of a monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary for
advanced learners of Urdu. In the next chapter the conclusion of the present research will
be discussed and recommendation will be given by looking over the limitations of the
context and methodology of the research.
179
CHAPTER 8
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
In this chapter the summary of the findings, the idea of innovating the existing
monolingual Urdu dictionaries and the contribution of the research in the field of Urdu
lexicography and research potential in monolingual Urdu lexicography is described. The
chapter also discusses the application and significance of the opinions of teachers and
learners of Urdu for the present study followed by the limitation and future
recommendation of research in the future.
8.1. Major Findings
The present study aims at to design the features of a monolingual Urdu learners’
dictionary designed on pedagogical principles of lexicography. Pedagogical lexicography
considers the learners and the teachers of a language as the centre of any lexicographic
research. The major objectives of the present study were to conduct a survey to collect
opinions of teachers and the advanced learners of Urdu regarding monolingual Urdu
dictionaries they use, to find out the possibilities of collecting corpus of Urdu as a basis
of a learners’ dictionary and to design essential features of a monolingual Urdu learners’
dictionary for the advanced learners of Urdu following the model proposed by
COBUILD. The findings of the research can be divided according to the objectives and
the research questions of the study. The findings are given as under:
1. Findings of the surveys of both the learners and teachers.
180
2. Findings that determine the possibilities of collecting a corpus of Urdu as a basis
of a monolingual learners’ dictionary.
3. Findings that determine to what extent it is possible to adopt the model of
COBUILD for designing the features of monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary.
8.1.1. Survey-based Findings
Two surveys were included in the study. One that took learners of Urdu as
respondents and the other that deals with the opinion of Urdu language teachers. In the
first instance, the strategies that are usually adopted by the learners while using
monolingual Urdu dictionaries and their attitudes regarding the dictionaries were
measured. The findings of the survey suggested that Urdu learners frequently use
monolingual Urdu dictionaries and there were certain features that were more frequently
looked up. These included meaning, definitions, grammatical information and usage of
the words. These findings helped in determining which features should be emphasized in
a dictionary and in proposed dictionary these features have been described in detail. The
attitude of both the Urdu teachers and the learners of Urdu toward the use of a dictionary
were reported quite favourable and there were much information recorded to be missing
or need to be improved in the currently used monolingual Urdu dictionaries such as
pronunciation guide and the definitions of the words. The respondents reported the
absence of a dictionary based on the principles of lexicography and strongly
recommended that the currently used monolingual Urdu dictionaries were required to be
revised and modified. Both the teachers and the learners strongly agree that the dictionary
skill should be taught in the class room and that the teachers should also be trained in
181
dictionary skills. All the needs and opinions of the learners have been taken into account
while designing the features of a monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary. The model
adopted for designing the features of the proposed dictionary was that of COBUILD
which served the purpose successfully.
8.1.2. Corpus Collection Possibilities
The second objective and research question was to maintain the extent to which
the collection of a corpus for Urdu is possible. A review of the past studies showed that
there was enough research that had been conducted in the field of corpus. Many studies
dealt with the language processing of Urdu and there is also a sufficient research on the
collection of Urdu corpus, tagging of the data and annotation of the data collected for
Urdu corpus. It is concluded that a great deal of possibilities are there to collect the
corpus of Urdu as both expertise and the sources for the required database are available in
Pakistan.
8.1.3. Design Feature of a Monolingual Urdu Learner’s Dictionary
After getting the opinions of the learners and teachers of Urdu and having an
overview of the possibilities of collecting a corpus of Urdu as a basis of a dictionary, the
design features of the proposed monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary were evolved. The
findings in this section reveal that a great deal of research has been done in the field of
corpus studies and the language processing of Urdu. Phonetic Alphabets of both IPA and
SAMPA (Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) are available for the phonetic
transcription of the words. COBUILD dictionary was taken as a model and the
182
components of the proposed dictionary were seen to be defined on the lines adopted by
the COBUILD. Many other features that were necessary to be discussed and included in
the design of the proposed dictionary were also included for a comprehensive model of a
monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary. The question of designing a monolingual
dictionary for the advanced learners of Urdu was answered to a great extent.
8.2. Contribution of this Study
The aim of this study was to design the features of a monolingual Urdu learners’
dictionary by examining the process and possibilities of collecting a corpus for Urdu. The
rationale of the study was strengthened by the involvement of the learners and teachers of
Urdu and their opinion was also considered before working on the theoretical grounds of
the research. The contribution of the present research is explained in term of the research
question of the study. An analysis of the research questions of the study are given as
under:
1. Do the teachers and advanced learners of Urdu feel the need of a proper
monolingual Urdu dictionary?
For getting the answer of this question, a survey was conducted of both the learners
and teachers of Urdu. The learners of Urdu were asked to response several questions to
collect the data about the strategies and attitudes of the learners. Their responses helped a
lot in determining the design features of pedagogical monolingual Urdu dictionary.
Strategies, reported by the learners, reveal several features that are most often looked up
by the learners. The findings of the survey contributed to start a new age of Urdu
183
lexicography which is not based on the intuitive knowledge of a person, an organization
or a publishing authority. The dictionary that is proposed in the research followed the
opinion of the learners. Another survey was conducted to record the opinion of the
teachers to assess if their attitude is positive towards the dictionary use and designing a
new pedagogical monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary. This survey contributed to feel
the need to conduct research in the field of Urdu pedagogical lexicography as they are the
‘second stakeholder’ in the triangle of the dictionary research (Chi 1998). Thus the
findings of the surveys contributed to the research in that they have provided a strong
foundation to the need to design a pedagogical monolingual Urdu learners’ dictionary.
2. To what extent it is important to design a pedagogical Urdu monolingual
dictionary for advanced learners of Urdu?
The discussion we had in describing the contribution regarding to the first research
question clearly indicates that the user oriented lexicography or the pedagogical
lexicography has a greater scope in Pakistan. The opinions of the learners and the
teachers contributed a lot to the development of new dictionaries. The response of both
the teachers and the learners was somehow casual in the beginning of the data collection.
But as the objectives of the study were explained to them, they took it quite seriously to
contribute in the research on dictionary use. The research represents almost the first user-
oriented approach in the field of Urdu.
184
3. To what extent it is possible to design a corpus based Urdu monolingual
dictionary in Pakistan?
The answer of this question led the methodology of the study to a diversified
direction. The concept of corpus was introduced as the basis of a pedagogical
monolingual learners’ dictionary for the advanced learners of Urdu. As the tradition of
corpus based learners’ dictionary has already been set by the English learners’
dictionaries, it was decided to measure the possibilities of collecting the corpus of Urdu
as a basis of a dictionary. The corpus needs years to collected, annotated and used for
designing a dictionary. That is why is important to see if there are sufficient expertise to
collect a corpus for Urdu. The study contributed in answering the question in that it
record a lot of studies conducted in the field of Urdu corpus studies. Finally, a new model
of a pedagogical monolingual Urdu dictionary was designed by following the COBUILD
dictionary.
8.3. Limitations of the Study
Every research work has some limitation in its scope and the methodology. These
limitations provide the space of more research in a specific field. The limitation of the
present study has been divided into two parts: limitations of methodology and limitations
of the scope of the research.
8.3.1. Limitations in the Methodology
The research tool used to collect data in this research was a questionnaire. Although the
previous research has shown a great deal of research conducted through the
185
questionnaire, multiple techniques of data collection can provide more data about the
dictionary users. Theses techniques include interview, protocols, open ended
questionnaire. The following methodology was adopted because research attitude has not
developed yet in Pakistan. Various methodologies that are mentioned above require more
time on the part of the respondents. Questionnaire was the only tool that could save the
time of both the learners and the teachers of Urdu. The data for the surveys of the learners
and the teachers was collected by random sampling by looking at the feasibility and
availability of the respondents.
Another limitation of the stud is that it deals only with providing the theory of
lexicography as the lexicographic practice or the compiling dictionary on the modern
postulates of lexicography need a lot of time. Lexicographic practice is a team work in
which the lexicographer, experts of computing the texts and the publishing authorities
work in collaboration.
8.3.2. Limitations in the Scope
The limitations in the scope of the research is that it focuses on the advanced
learners and teachers of Urdu as the study addressed to design features of a pedagogical
monolingual learners’ dictionary for advanced learners of Urdu. Another limitation is the
model adopted for the dictionary. After reviewing the recent corpus based dictionaries
and the possibilities of collecting corpus of Urdu, the COBUILD dictionary was adopted
as model with a specific focus on definitions, examples, meaning and information on
grammatical information. The study aimed at design features alone and did not draw any
model for a Urdu monolingual learners’ dictionary.
186
8.4. Future Recommendations
The concept of pedagogical lexicography is wide ranging and covers a lot of topics. The
present study attempts to present a theory to organize the tradition of Urdu dictionary
making / compiling on the lexicographic principles. This study can be regarded as only a
humble effort to initiate the lexicographic research in Urdu. The researchers of Urdu have
paid a little attention on this part of the researchable area that is much influenced in
learning and teaching a language. A significant objective of the present study is to direct
the attention of the researchers in following the study up in various other contexts so that
the bridge of the needs of the advanced learners and the information provided in currently
monolingual Urdu dictionaries can be gapped (cf. Diab 1990). The context of the
research is limited to the southern Punjab. More researches can be conducted in the other
areas of Pakistan to replicate the findings of the study and attempting to make a detailed
profile of the research in this field.
The present research focuses only on the advanced learners’ dictionary for Urdu
learners. However extension of research can be made by conducting research on
designing features of a learners’ dictionary of Urdu for beginners and for intermediate
learners. The effectiveness of the currently used monolingual Urdu dictionaries can also
be evaluated through experimental method. Other methods of research can also be
implied for collecting data from the learners.
Finally the study deals only with the design features of a general purpose
dictionary of Urdu. Research in the field of specialized dictionaries and even bilingual
dictionaries (from Urdu to English or from English to Urdu) is still dissatisfied and it is
strongly recommended that the lexicographer, experts on computing and publishers
187
should work in collaboration to paved the way of the present theory of Urdu monolingual
learners’ dictionary to practical concerns.
188
Bibliography Abdullah, S. (1976). Pakistan Mein Urdu Ka Masla. Maktaba Khayaban-e-Adab. Lahore. Abbot, V., Black J. and E. Smith (1985): The Representation of Scripts in Memory. –
Journal of Memory and Language. 24, 179-199. Abedi, R. (1978). Higher Education: Higher Education Review. Vanguard.Lahore. Afzal, M. (1997). Urdu Software Industry: Prospects, Problems and Need for
Standards.Paper presented on 4th National Computer Conference. Islamabad. Afzal, M. and Hussain, S. (2002). Urdu computing standards: development of Urdu Zabta Takhti. (UZT) 1.01. Proceedings of the Multi Topic IEEE Conference (INMIC 2001) Technology for the 21st Century. Ahmed, T. (2002). Urdu Machini Mutarajam ke Mojid Tafsir Ahmed. Interview by Aleem Ahmad. In Muqtadra 2002: 42-46. Ahmad, K. et al. (1994). A Description of a Text in a Corpus: virtual and real corpora. In
EURALEX 1994 Proceedings. 390-402. Amsterdam. Ahmed, T. (2002). ‘Urdu Machini Mutarajam ke Mojid Tafsir Ahmed’. Interview by Aleem Ahmad. In Muqtadra 2002: 42-46. Aitchison, J. (1994). Words in the Mind. Blackwell. Cambridge. Oxford. Akhter, R. (1990).Pakistan Year Book (ed). 1990. Alvi, H. (1987). Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and ideology. In Rahman, T. (2003). Language Policy, Multilingualism and Language Vitality in Pakistan. From: http://www.sil.org/asia/ldc/parallel_papers/tariq_rahman.pdf Anwer, W., Wang, X. & Wang, X. (2006). A survey of automatic Urdu language processing. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Machine Learning and Cybernetics, Dalian, 13-16 August 2006. Appleby, R. (2000). Reviews. ELT Journal; 54 (1): 89 - 91.
189
Ard, J. (1982) The use of bilingual dictionaries by EFL students while writing. ITL: Review of Applied Linguistics 58: 1-27. Aston, G. (1996). The British National Corpus as a language learner resource. Paper presented at TALC 96 [Online]. From http://info.ox.ac.uk/bnc/using/papers/aston96a.html Aston, G. (1998). A very large corpus, in or out of the classroom. Paper presented at the 32nd International IATEFL Conference, Manchester. Atkin, S. et al. (1991). A Reading Report on Corpus Design Criteria. Presented at workshop on European Texual Corpora and published in Literary and Linguistic Computing 1992. Atkins, B. (1985). Monolingual and Bilingual Learners’ Dictionaries: a comparison. In R. Ilson (ed.), 15-24. Austin, J. (1962). How to do Things with Words. Clarendon. Oxford. Ayto, J. (1983). Semantic Analysis and Dictionary Definitions. In R. Hartmann (ed.), 89-98. Babbie, E. (1986). The Practice of Social Research. Wadsworth. USA. Balet, S. (1984). Getting the Students to Talk about Themselves. Modern English Teacher, 12 (2), 12-13. Baker, P and Hardie, A and McEnery, AM and Jayaram, BD (2003) Corpus Data for South Asian Language Processing. In: EACL 2003 Workshop on Computational Linguistics for South Asian Languages -- Expanding Synergies with Europe, 12-17 April 2003, Budapest. Barnhart, C. (1962). Problems in Editing Commercial Monolingual Dictionaries, In
190
Householder & Saporta (eds.) 161-181. Barnhart, C. (1980). What Makes a Dictionary Authoritative? In L. Zgusta (ed.) Theory and Methods in Lexicography: Western and non Western Perspectives. Hornbeam Press. South Carolina. Battenburg, J. (1989). A Study of English Monolingual Learners’ Dictionaries and their Users. PhD thesis. Purdue University. Battenburg, J. (1991). English Monolingual Dictionaries: A User Oriented Study. Lexicographica Series Maior. Tubingen. Niemeyer. Baxter, J. (1980). The Dictionary and Vocabulary Behaviour: a single word or a handful? TESOL Quarterly, 14, 3: 325-336. Beatie. N. (1973). Teaching Dictionary Use. Modern Languages, 54 (4), 161-167. Becker, D & Riaz, K. (2002). A Study in Urdu Corpus Construction. Paper presented on Workshop on Asian Language Resources and International Standardization. Taiwan. Beg, M. K. A. (1996). Sociolinguistic Perspective of Hindi and Urdu in India. Bahri Publications. New Delhi. Began, G.H. (1996). Mauritius Main Urdu (Urdu in Mauritius) In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Bejoint, H & Mouline, A. (1987). The Place of the Dictionary in EFL Programme.- In: U. Wingate: The Effectiveness of Different Learner Dictionaries. Tubingen: Niemeyer (Lexicographica series maior). Bejoint, H. (1981). The foreign Student's Use of Monolingual English Dictionaries: a study of language needs and reference skills. Applied Linguistics 2 (3), 207- 222.
191
Bell, J. (1987). ‘Doing Your Own Research Project’. Open University Press. England & USA. Bell, T. R. (1976). Sociolinguistics: Goals and Approaches and Problems.: B.T.Batsford. Ltd. Great Britain Bensoussan, M., Sim, D. and Weiss, R. (1984). The effect of dictionary usage on EFL test performance compared with student and teacher attitudes and expectations. Reading in a Foreign Language. 2: 262-76. Berg, B. L. (2004). Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Pearson. Boston. Biber, D. (1996). Investigating language use through corpus-based analyses of association patterns. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 1 (2), 171- 197. Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus linguistics: Investigating language structure and use. Cambridge approaches to linguistics. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Boogards, P. (1996). Dictionaries for Learners of English. International Journal of Lexicography. 9(4), 277-320.
Boonmoh, A. (2009). The use of pocket electronic dictionaries by Thai learners of English. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
Boonmoh, A. & Nesi, H. (2008). A survey of dictionary use by Thai university staff and students, with special reference to pocket electronic dictionaries. Horizontes de Ling??stica Aplicada 6 (2) 79-90.
Burnard, L. (1996). Introducing SARA, an SGML-aware retrieval application for the British National Corpus. Paper presented at TALC 96.
192
Butler, C. (1985). Statistics in Linguistics. Blackwell. Oxford. Bygate, M. (1987). Speaking. Oxford University Press. London. Byren, D. (1979). Teaching Writing Skill. Longman. London. Carter, R. (1987). Vocabulary: Applied Linguistic Perspectives. Allen and Unwin. London. Carter, R. & M. McCarthy (eds.) (1988). Vocabulary and Language Teaching. Longman. London. Census (1951) Census of Pakistan. Karachi as cited in Rehman, T. 1997. The medium of instruction controversy in Pakistan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 18 (2). Retrieved on 6 November, 2008. Chatterji, S.K. (1960). Indo-Aryan and Hindi. 2nd edition. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopandhyay.
Chi. M. L. A. (2003). An Empirical Study of the Efficacy of Integrating the Teaching of Dictionary Use into a Tertiary English Curriculum in Hong Kong. Language Centre, University of Hong Kong. ISBN 962-7607-21-5
CIA. (2004). CIA The world fact book. From the World Wide Web: www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook Clear, J. (1987). Computing. In Sinclair (1987b). 41-61. Cohn, L. & L. MAnion. (1985). Research Methods in Education. Croom Helm. London.
193
Cowie, A.P. (1987b). The Dictionary and the Language Learner. Lexicographica Series maior. Tubingen: Niemeyer. Cowie, A.P. (1996). Problems of syntax and the design of a pedagogic dictionary Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata 10, 2: 255-264. Craik, F. & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of Processing and the Retention of Words in Episodic Memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,104 (5) 268- Creswell, J. W. & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research. Sage Thousand Oaks, CA. . 294. Crystal, D. (1971). Linguistics. Penguin. Harmonsworth. Crystal, D. (1981). Dictionaries in Applied Linguistics. Academic Press. London. Crystal, D. (2000). Language Death. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Diab, T. (1990). ‘Pedagogical Lexicography’: a case study of Arab nurses as dictionary users. Tubingen: Niemeyer. Dolezal, F. T, Mc Creary, D. R. (1999). ‘Pedagogical Lexicography Today’: a critical bibliography on learner’s dictionaries with special emphasis on language learners and dictionary users. Tubingen: Niemeyer (Lexicographica series maior). Drysdale, P. (1987). The Role of Examples in a Learners’ Dictionary. In A. Cowie (ed.) 2 (3), 236- 249. El- Badry, N. (1990). The Development of the Bilingual English- Arabic Dictionary from the Middle of the 19th Century to the Present. In Haertmann (ed.) (1986b), 57-64. FAizi, S. (1996). Canada Main Urdu (Urdu in Canada) - In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad.
194
Fishman, J. (1971). Advances in the Sociology of Language I. Mouton Publishers. The Hague. Fox, G. (1987). The Case for Examples. In Sinclair (1987b). 137-149. Griffin, P. (1985). Dictionaries in the ESL classroom. (unpublished MA Thesis; Carbondale: Southern Illinois University). Grosgen, F. (1982). ‘Life With Two Languages’: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Havard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusset & London. Hanks, P. (1987). Definitions and Examples. In Sinclair (1987b). 116- 136. Haque, A.R. (1982). Report Study Groups on the Teaching of Languages, University Grants Commission. Ferozsons. Rawalpindi. Haque, A.R. (1983). The Position and Status of English. In World Language English, 2 (1). Pergamon Press. Great Britian. Hartmann, R.R.K. and James, G. (1998). ‘Dictionary of Lexicography’. Routledge. London. Hartmann, R. (1986b). The History of Lexicography. Vol. 40. John Benjamins. Amsterdam & Philadelphia. Harvey, K & Yuill, D. (1997): A study of the use of a monolingual pedagogical dictionary by learners of English engaged in writing. – Applied Linguistics 18 (3), 253– 278. Hasan, R. (1983). ‘Urdu English, Urdish’. Higher Education Review. Vanguard. Lahore. Hatch, E. and Farhady, H. (1982). Research Design and Statistics for Applied Linguistics. Newbury House Publishers, Inc.
195
Hatherall, Glynn. (1984). "Studying dictionary use: Some findings and proposals". In: Hartmann, (1984) ed.: 183-189. Hausmann, F. J. & Gorbahn, A. 1989. COBUILD and LDOCE II A comparative review.
International Journal of Lexicography, 2 (1): 44 - 56. Hayas, C.D. (1987). ‘The Crises of Education in Pakistan’. Vanguard. Lahore. Hofland, K. & S. Johansson. (1982). Word frequencies in British and American English. Bergen: Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities/London: Longman. Hofland, K. & S. Johansson. (1986). The tagged LOB Corpus: KWIC concordance. Microfiche. Bergen: Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities. Horváth, J. (2000). Advanced Writing in English as a Foreign Languge. A PhD Dissertation. FROM: http://www.geocities.com/writing_site/thesis/index.html (retrieved on 13th January 2009). Hulstijn, J.H. (1993). When do foreign-language readers look up the meaning of unfamiliar words? The influence of task and learner variables. The Modern Language Journal, 77, 139-147. Humayun, M (2006). Urdu Morphology, Orthography and Lexicon Extraction. MSc thesis. Chalmers Goteborg University. Sweden. Hussain, S. (2008) Resources for Urdu Language Processing. Paper presented on the 6th Workshop on Asian Language Resources. Hyderabad, India. http://www.nla.gov.pk/beta/imgs/booklist.doc Hussain, S. (2008). Resources for Urdu Language Processing. Paper presented on the 6th Workshop on Asian Language Resources. Hyderabad, India.
196
Hussain, S. & Ijaz, M. (2008). Corpus based Urdu lexicon development. Paper presented on the 6th Workshop on Asian Language Resources. Hyderabad, India. Ilson, R. (1987). Illustrations in Dictionaries. In A. Cowie (ed.) 193-212. Ilson, R. (1983). Etymological information: can it help our students? ELT Journal; 37 (1):
76 - 82. Iqbal, Z. (1987). ‘Aspects of the Learner’s Dictionary with Special Reference to Advanced Pakistani Learners of English’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Aston, Birmingham. Islahi, S. (1996). Bharat Main Urdu (Urdu in India) - In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Jackson, H. (2002). ‘Lexicography: An Introduction’. Routledge. London. Jackson, H. (1988). Words and Their Meaning. Longman. London. Jameel, Ahmad Mirza. (2002). ‘Nuri Nastaleeq ki Kahani Ahmad Mirza Jameel ki zubani’, Interview by Khan, Raziuddin and Siddiqui, Wajih Ahmed. In Muqtadra 2002: Originally published in Science Digest [Karachi] 1983. Javed, I.H. (1996). Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Johansson, S., Leech, G. N., & Goodluck, H. (1978). Manual information to accompany the Lancaster--Oslo/Bergen Corpus of British English, for use with digital computers [Online]. FROM http://www.hd.uib.no/lob-www.html Johns, T. (1991b). Should you be persuaded: Two examples of data-driven learning. ELR Journal, 4, 1-16.
197
Kashmiri, T. (2003). Urdu Adab Ki Tareekh, Ibtada Se 1857 Tak. [The History of Urdu Literature], Sang-e-Meel Publications. Lahore. Kashmiri, T. (1996). Japan Main Urdu (Urdu in Japan) – In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Kelkar, A.R. (1968). Studies in Hindi-Urdu1: Introduction and Word Phonology. Daccan College. Poona. Kennedy, G. (1998). An introduction to corpus linguistics. Studies in language and linguistics. London: Longman. Khan, A.A. (1989) ‘Myth and Reality’, The Muslim. Islamabad. Kirkness, A. (2004). Three Advanced Learner’s Dictionaries. ELT Journal 58 (3) 294 -
300Oxford University Press:. Oxford
Knight, S. (1994). Dictionary use while reading: The effects on comprehension and
vocabulary acquisition for students of different verbal abilities. Modern Language Journal,
78, 285-299.
Kipfer, B. (1985). Dictionaries and the Intermediate Students: Communicative Needs and the Development of User Reference Skills. In Cowie (ed.) (1987 b), 44-54. Koul, O.N. & Schmidt, R.L. (1983). Kashmiri, a Sociolinguistic Survey. Indian Institute of Language Studies. Patiala. Krashan, A. (1984). Writing: Research, Theory, and Applications. Pergamon. Oxford. Krishnamurthy, R. & Orasan, C. (2000) An Open Architecture for the Construction and Administration of Corpora (pp 793-801, Vol II, Proceedings,
198
LREC 2000, Athens, Greece, 31 May - 2 June, 2nd International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, eds. Maria Gavrilidou, George Carayannis, Stella Markantonatou, Stelios Piperidis, Gregory Stainhauer; ELRA, Paris, France). Krishnamurthy, R. & Orasan, C. (2002). A corpus-based investigation of junk emails, pp 1773-1780 in Proceedings of LREC 2002, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, 29th-31st May; (eds.) Manuel Gonzalez Rodriguez and Carmen Paz Suarez Araujo; ELRA, Paris. Krishnamurthy, R., & Kosem, I. (2007). Issues in creating a corpus for EAP pedagogy and research. Journal of English for Academic Purposes (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jeap.09.003. Krishnamurthy, R.(1987). The Process of Compiling. In Sinclair (1987b). 62-85.
Krishnamurthy, R. (2008). Corpus-driven Lexicography, International Journal of Lexicography 21/3, 231-242.
Krishnamurthy, R. (2001). Language Corpora: How can Teachers and Students use these valuable new resources?, pp 59-65 in Selected Papers from the 10th International Symposium on English Teaching, ETA/ROC, Taipei, Nov 2001, ISBN 986-7971-05-1
Krishnamurthy, R. (2002).Classroom cornucopia: The new COBUILD dictionary and the Bank of English corpus, (paper originally presented at Thai TESOL 2001), in Corpus Studies in Language Education (special volume from The English Teacher), ISBN 974-615-076-6, IELE Press
Laufer, B. (1990). Ease and Difficulty in Vocabulary Learning: some teaching implications. Foreign Language Annals. 23/2: 147-55. Laufer, B. (1993). The effect of dictionary definitions and examples on the use and
comprehension of new L2 words. Cahiers de Lexicologie 63(2), 131-142. Laufer, B. and L. Melamed. (1994). Monolingual, bilingual and 'bilingualised'
199
dictionaries: which are more effective, for what and for whom? EURALEX 1994, eds. W. Martin et al. Amsterdam. 565-576. Laufer, B. 1998. The development of passive and active vocabulary in a second language: same or different? Applied Linguistics 12: 255-271. Laufer, B., P. Meara, and P. Nation (2005). Ten best ideas for teaching vocabulary. The Language Teacher (Japan) 29/5. Laufer, B. (2003).Vocabulary acquisition in a second language: do learners really acquire most vocabulary by reading? Canadian Modern Language Review 59, 4: 565-585 Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. Longman. London. Landu, I. Sidney. (1984). ‘Dictionaries: the art and craft of lexicography’. Simultaneously published in U.S.A and Canada. Likert (1932). A technique for the measurement of attitudes. Archives of Psychology,
22(140). Pershing (2000). The Design and Development of Survey Instruments. Retrieved onNovember 2003 from http://www.uscg.mil/hq/rtc/ptc/downloads/survey%20jobaid.pdf.
Luppescu, S. and Day, R. (1993). Reading dictionaries and vocabulary learning. Language Learning 43 2, pp. 263–287. Lyons, John (1981). Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Lyons, John (1982). Language, Meaning and Context. Fontana. London. Mansoor, S. (1989). ‘Analyzing Learning Needs’, Pakistan Women’s Institute, 15/3. Kinnaird College. Lahore.
200
Mansoor, S. (1993). ‘Punjabi, Urdu, English in Pakistan’. Vanguard. Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad. Mansoor, S. (1993). Punjabi, Urdu, English in Pakistan: a sociolinguistic study. Vanguard. Lahore. Mirza, A. (1996). Cheen main Urdu (Urdu in China) - In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Mirza, M. (1986). Aaj ka Sindh (Today’s Sindh). Preogressive Publishers. Lahore. Moon, R. (1987). An Analysis of meaning. In Sinclair (1987b). 86-103. Moon, R. (2008). Sinclair, Phraseology, and Lexicography. International Journal of
Lexicography 21(3):243-254; doi:10.1093/ijl/ecn027. Mukattash, L. (1980a). Yes/No Questions and the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. ELT Journal. 34 (2), 133- 145. Nation, I. S. P. (1990): Teaching and Learning vocabulary. Newbury House. New York. Naushahi, A. (1996). Iran Main Urdu (Urdu in Iran). - In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Nesi, H (1984). Dealing with Lexical Errors. MSc dissertation. University of Aston, Birmingham. Nesi, H. (2000). ‘The Use and Abuse of EFL Dictionaries’. Tubingen: Niemeyer (Lexicographica series maior). Nesi, H (2002). Review: Research on Dictionary Use. International Journal of Lexicography, 15 (3) 251-252.
201
Nesi, H (2008). Learners’ monolingual and bilingual dictionaries on CD-Rom and the Internet. in: Cowie, A. P. (ed) The Oxford History of English Lexicography. Oxford: Oxford University Press Nunan, D. (1986). ‘Research Methods In Education’. Cambridge University Press. United Kingdom. Online Urdu Dictionary. From: http://www.crulp.org/oud/default.aspx Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. New York. Pandit, P.B. (1977). Language in a plural society: The Case of India. Dev Raj Chanana Memorial Committee. New Delhi. Quirk, R. (1975). The Social Impact of Dictionaries in the UK. In McDavid, R. Qureshi, I.H. (1975). Education in Pakistan. M.A. Arif Ltd. Karachi. Qureshi, I.H. (1995). ‘Education in Pakistan’. M.A. Arif: Karachi.
Rai, A. 1984. A House Divided: the Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi. Oxford
University Press. Delhi
Rahman, T (1997). The Medium of Instruction Controversy in Pakistan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Vol. 18, No. 2. Rahman, T. (1999). ‘Language, Power and Ideology in Pakistan’. Oxford University Press. Karachi. Rahman, T. (2003). Language Policy, Multilingualism and Language Vitality in Pakistan. From: http://www.sil.org/asia/ldc/parallel_papers/tariq_rahman.pdf Retrieved on December 3, 2008.
202
Rahman, T. (2004).Language Policy and Localization in Pakistan: Proposal for a Paradigmatic Shift. Retrieved on 5 November, 2008. SCALLA 2004 Conference. Kathmandu, Nepal. 5-7 January. Rahman, T. (2002). Language, Ideology and Power: Language-Learning Among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India Karachi: Oxford University Press. Revised edition published by Orient Longman, Delhi, 16 Jan 2008. Rashid, M.M. (1996). Qatar Main Urdu (Urdu in Qatar). - In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Renouf, A. (1987). Corpus Development. In Sinclair (1987b). 1- 40 Richards, J. (1976). The Role of Vocabulary Teching. TESOL Quarterly, 10 (1), 77-89 Sadaid, A. (1991). Urdu Adab Ki Mukhtasir Tareekh (A Brief History of Urdu Literature). Maqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Sadiq, M. (1984). A History of Urdu literature. Oxford University Press. Delhi. Schimmel, A. (1975). Classical Urdu literature from the beginning to Iqbål. Harrassowitz. Wiesbaden. Schmied, J. (1996). Second-language corpora. In S. Greenbaum (Ed.), Comparing English worldwide: The International Corpus of English (pp. 182- 196). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shahid, H.M. (1996). Saudi Arab Main Urdu (Urdu in Saudi Arab) - In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad.
203
Sharif, S.M. (1959). Report of the Commission on National Education. Pakistan. Sinclair, J. M. (1987). Grammar in the dictionary. In: Sinclair, (1987 b): 104-115. Sinclair, J. M. (1997). Corpus evidence in language description. In A. Wichmann, S.Fligelstone, T. McEnery, & G. Knowles (Eds.), Teaching and language corpora (pp. 27-39). Applied linguistics and language study. Longman. London. Sinclair, J. (1989). Corpus creation. In Language, learning and community, eds. Candlin and T McNamara, 25-33: NCELTR Macquarie University. Sinclair, J. M. (1987). Looking up. An account of the COBUILD Project in lexical computing. London: Collins ELT. Sinclair, J. M. (1991). Corpus, Concordances, Collocation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, J. M. (2004). Trust the Text - Language, Corpus and Discourse. Routledge.
London. Summers, D. (1988). The role of dictionaries in language learning – in Tono, Y. (2001) Research on Dictionary Use in the Context of Foreign Language Learning. Tubingen: Niemeyer. (15-36). Tabassam, T.M. (1996). America Main Urdu (Urdu in America) - In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad. Tomaszczyk, J. (1979). Dictionaries: users and uses, Glottodidactica 12: 103- 119. Tono, Y. (1984). On the Dictionary User's Reference Skills. Unpublished B.Ed.
204
dissertation, Gakugei University. Tokyo. Tono, Y. (2001). ‘Research on Dictionary Use in the Context Of Foreign Language Learning’. Tubingen: Niemeyer (1996). Tono, Y. (1989). Can a dictionary help one read better? On the relationship between EFL learner’s dictionary reference skills and reading comprehension. – In G. James: Lexicographers and their works. Exeter University Press. Verma, M. K. (1996). Sociolinguistic Perspective of Hindi and Urdu in India. Bahri Publications. New Delhi. Wells, J. C. (1998). Computer-coding the IPA: A Proposed Extension of SAMPA. From http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/ipasam-x.pdf Whitcut, J. (1988). Lexicography in Simple Language. International Journal of Lexicography. 1 (1), 49-55. Widdowson, H. (1979). Exploration in Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press. Oxford. Wingate, U. (2002). The Effectiveness of Different Learner Dictionaries. Tubingen: Niemeyer (Lexicographica series maior). Wingate, U. (2004). Dictionary use- the need to teach strategies. Language Learning Journal, 29, pp. 5 – 11. Woods, A. et al. (1986). Statistics in Language Studies. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Wright, S. (2004). Language Policy and Language Planning - From Nationalism to Globalization. Macmillan. London. Wynne, M. (ed). (2004). Developing Linguistic Corpora: a Guide to Good Practice. AHDS Literature, Languages and Linguistics, University of Oxford,
205
UK. Yang, H. (1985a). The JDEST Computer Corpus of texts in English for science and technology. ICAME News, 9, 24–25. Yang, H. (1985b). The use of computers in English teaching and research in China. In R. Quirk & H. G. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the world: teaching and learning the language and literature. 86–100. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Zaman, M. (2002). Report on a Language Survey Trip to the Bishigram Valley. From: http://www.geocities.com/kcs_kalam/ushoji.html Zia, K. (1999). Towards Unicode Standard for Urdu”, in the Proceedings of 4th
Symposium on Multilingual Information Processing (MLIT-4), Yangon, Myanmar, CICC, Japan.
Zia, K. (1999). Standard Code Table for Urdu. 4th Symposium on Multilingual Information Processing, (MLIT-4), Yangon, Myanmar. CICC, Japan. Retrieved on 12 November, 2008. From: http://www.nla.gov.pk/beta/imgs/booklist.doc Ziayyai, A. (1996). Bertanya Main Urdu (Urdu In the Great Britian). - In Javed, I.H. Barooni Mumalik Mein Urdu [Urdu: Urdu in Foreign Countries]. Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban. Islamabad.
i
APPENDICES
Appendix A. Questionnaire for Advanced Urdu Learners
Department of English Language and Linguistics
Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan.
Dear Students,
This questionnaire is a part of a PhD thesis I am currently carrying out at BZU Multan. The
research is concerned with Pedagogical Lexicography in relation to the problems and needs of
the learners of Urdu language.
The information you will give by answering the questions and this questionnaire is especially
important as it will contribute to the development and evaluation of currently used monolingual
Urdu dictionaries.
While appreciating your participation in the research, I would like to assure you that the
information provided in this questionnaire will be treated strictly confidential and will be used
only for research purposes.
Your contribution is highly appreciated.
Asma Ashraf
BZU Multan.
ii
SECTION 1
Note. Please encircle the number that indicates your answer. The numbers mean
1. Always, 2. Often, 3. Sometime, 4. Rarely, 5. Never
1. Before joining advanced level, you have used Urdu monolingual dictionaries (regardless
of their type and size)
At secondary level 1 2 3 4 5 At intermediate level 1 2 3 4 5
2. You use dictionaries to look up:
- meaning. 1 2 3 4 5 - Pronunciation. 1 2 3 4 5
- Usage/ Verbal illustration. 1 2 3 4 5
- Origin of the words. 1 2 3 4 5 -Grammatical information 1 2 3 4 5
3. You ask the teachers of Urdu about
- Meaning of words 1 2 3 4 5 - Pronunciation 1 2 3 4 5 - Symbols used in dictionaries 1 2 3 4 5 - Grammatical Categories of the words 1 2 3 4 5
4. You use a dictionary in the
class room. 1 2 3 4 5
iii
5. You use the dictionaries available in the library of your institution. 1 2 3 4 5
6. You write the meaning of looked- 1 2 3 4 5 up words on the text you read.
7. You use more than one dictionary
to look-up the same word. 1 2 3 4 5
8. You try to guess the meaning of
unfamiliar words while reading? 1 2 3 4 5
9. You write the meaning of looked- up words in a special note book. 1 2 3 4 5
10. You browse through the dictionary
pages without having a particular purpose. 1 2 3 4 5
11. You refer to the introduction of the
dictionary pages. 1 2 3 4 5
12. You refer to the glossaries usually found at the beginning or the end of the text book. 1 2 3 4 5
13. You refer to the general information in
dictionary appendices (e.g. table of measurements etc.). 1 2 3 4 5
14. You find the required information completely about the word from the glossaries found at the end of the book 1 2 3 4 5
15. The dictionary you use provide the
comprehensive definition of the looked-up words. 1 2 3 4 5
16. Do you follow all the abbreviated
iv
information given in the dictionary? 1 2 3 4 5 SECTION 2 Note. Please encircle the number that indicates your opinion next to each of following numbers below. The numbers mean:
1. Strongly agree 2.Agree 3. Undecided 4. Disagree 5. Strongly disagree
17. What do you think of the following statements?
- It is important for the learners of Urdu language to use dictionaries during their studies. 1 2 3 4 5
- All dictionaries contain the same information 1 2 3 4 5 - The use of dictionaries is boring. 1 2 3 4 5 - To depend on one dictionary is enough. 1 2 3 4 5
- Glossaries that are given at the beginning or the end of the text books are enough to learn Urdu language. 1 2 3 4 5
- Every Urdu language’ learner should have
at least one dictionary. 1 2 3 4 5
- Learners should use a dictionary that is recommended by teachers. 1 2 3 4 5
- Monolingual dictionaries help learners to learn
Urdu language effectively. 1 2 3 4 5 - It would be better if present course of Urdu include exercises on Urdu-Urdu dictionaries and how to use them. 1 2 3 4 5
- Urdu language learners should avoid using pocket dictionaries. 1 2 3 4 5
v
Appendix B: Questionnaire for Advanced Urdu Teachers
Department of English Language and Linguistics
Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan.
Dear Teachers,
This questionnaire is a part of a PhD thesis I am currently carrying out at BZU Multan. The
research is concerned with Pedagogical Lexicography in relation to the attitudes of the Urdu
teachers towards the significance of dictionaries in language learning.
The information you will give by answering the questions and this questionnaire is especially
important as it will contribute to the development and evaluation of currently used monolingual
Urdu dictionaries.
While appreciating your participation in the research, I would like to assure you that the
information provided in this questionnaire will be treated strictly confidential and will be used
only for research purposes only.
Your contribution is highly appreciated.
Asma Ashraf
BZU Multan
vi
Questionnaire:
Note. Please tick in the box that indicates your opinion (SA, A, U, D, SD) next to each of
following statements below. The abbreviations mean:
S = Strongly agree
A= Agree
U= Undecided
D= Disagree
S= Strongly disagree
No Statements SA A U D SD
1 Dictionaries play a significant role in learning a language.
2 Dictionaries are very important in learning a second language (like Urdu in Pakistan).
3 It is important for the learners to use an Urdu – Urdu dictionary.
4 An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up meaning of words.
5 An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up pronunciation of the words.
6 An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up grammatical information.
7 An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up the usage of words.
8 Learners should depend on one dictionary.
9 Learners should be taught how to use dictionaries.
10 Learners should have at least one Urdu – Urdu dictionary.
11 Learners should be encouraged to use dictionaries while learning Urdu language.
12 An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in reading comprehension.
13 An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in improving writing skill.
vii
14 An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in improving speaking skill.
15 Teachers of Urdu should use Urdu – Urdu dictionaries while teaching Urdu.
16 Teachers of Urdu should use a dictionary while preparing their lessons.
17 Teachers of Urdu should encourage the learners to buy certain dictionaries.
18 Teachers of Urdu should explain how to use dictionaries.
19 Glossaries given at the end of the text books are sufficient to provide all information about the words.
20 Learners should depend on the glossaries given at the end of the text books.
21 Learners should avoid using pocket dictionaries.
22 Learners should use Learners’ Dictionaries.
23 Learners should use dictionary in the class room.
24 Learners should browse the pages of the dictionaries without having a particular purpose.
25 The currently used dictionaries provide the effective guide to the pronunciation of the words
26 The currently used dictionaries provide sufficient grammatical information of words.
27 The currently used dictionaries provide the effective guide to the usage of words.
28 Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should frequently be revised.
29 Definition of the words should be given in the dictionary along with the equivalents.
30 Pronunciation guide should be more comprehensible in Urdu-Urdu dictionaries.
31 All the abbreviated words should be given in full in the front pages of the dictionary.
32 Illustration (verbal & pictorial) must be provided in a dictionary for better understanding of the words.
33 Notes on the usage of the words in certain
viii
context should be given in the dictionary. 34 Dictionaries should be designed on the
modern principals of lexicography
35 Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should be helpful for learning spoken Urdu.
36 Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should be designed in a way that it may be helpful for a foreign learner in learning the Urdu language.
ix
Appendix C: Results of the survey of advanced learners of Urdu (Strategies)
Strategies Frequency Mean ScoreHigh Average Low
Using Urdu Monolingual Dictionary at Secondary level
n 75
79
246
2.24
Using Urdu Monolingual Dictionary at Intermediate level
n 166 81
153
3.0
Looking up dictionary for Meaning/definition
n 256
69
75
3.88
Looking up dictionary for Pronunciation
n 217 89
94
3.51
Looking up dictionary for Usage/verbal Illustration
n 270
65
65
3.93
Looking up dictionary for Origin of Words
n 31
11
358
1.40
Looking up dictionary for Grammatical information
n 308
53
39
4.17
Asking teachers about Meaning of the words
n 316
68
16
4.3
Asking teachers about Pronunciation
n 240
72
88
3.6
Asking teachers about Symbols Used in Dictionary
n 309
74
17
4.2
Asking teachers about Grammatical Categories of words
n 287
82
32
4.1
Using a dictionary in class room
n 179
89
132
3.1
Using a dictionary available in the library
n 232
81
87
3.56
Writing the meaning of words on the text
n 225
84
91
3.5
Using more than one dictionary
n 65
73
262
2.17
Guessing the unfamiliar words
n 198
92
110
3.4
Writing meanings in a note book
n 173
109
118
3.2
Browsing through the dictionary pages
n 120
154
126
3.04
Referring to the introductory pages of the dictionary
n 188
113
99
3.3
Referring to the text glossaries
n 279
54
67
3.9
x
Referring to the general information in dictionary
n 210
75
115
3.4
Finding comprehensive information in a dictionary
n 118
192
90
3.12
Finding comprehensive definition of words
n 130
101
169
2.88
Understanding the abbreviated information
n 106
108
186
2.67
xi
Appendix D: Results of the survey of advanced learners of Urdu (Attitudes)
Statements
Attitude Mean Score Agree Undecided Disagree
It is important for the learners of Urdu language to use dictionaries during their studies
n 383
13
Zero
4.59
All dictionaries contain the same information
n 232
85
83
3.6
The use of dictionaries is boring.
n 18
56
326
1.8
To depend on one dictionary is enough.
n 74
62
264
2.2
Glossaries that are given at the beginning or the end of the text books are enough to learn Urdu language.
n 41
43
316
1.87
Every Urdu language’ learner should have at least one dictionary
n 330
60
10
4.2
Learners should use a dictionary that is recommended by teachers
n 212
86
102
3.4
Monolingual dictionaries help learners to learn Urdu language effectively
n 231
96
73
3.6
It would be better if present course of Urdu include exercises on Urdu-Urdu dictionaries and how to use them
n 279
78
43
3.86
Urdu language learners should avoid using pocket dictionaries
n 311
41
48
4
xii
Appendix E: Results of the survey of Teachers of Urdu:
Statements
Attitudes
Mean Score
Agree
Undecided
Disagree
Dictionaries play a significant role in learning a language.
n 87
zero
zero 4.58
Dictionaries are very important in learning a second language (like Urdu in Pakistan).
n 82
05
zero
4.57
It is important for the learners to use an Urdu – Urdu dictionary.
n 65
13
06
4.11
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up meaning of words.
n 70 9
8
4.05
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up pronunciation of the words.
n 61 21 5 3.20
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up grammatical information.
n 66
17 4 3.98
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary is very useful for looking up the usage of words.
n 73 14 Zero 4.26
Learners should depend on one dictionary.
n 10 17 60 2.08
Learners should be taught how to use dictionaries.
n 70 12 5 4.0
Learners should have at least one Urdu – Urdu dictionary.
n 78 7 2 4.36
Learners should be encouraged to use dictionaries while learning Urdu language.
n 71
13 3 4.08
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in reading comprehension.
n 64 19 3 3.95
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in improving writing skill.
n 57 23 7 3.90
xiii
An Urdu – Urdu dictionary plays a vital role in improving speaking skill.
n 64 18 4 4.04
Teachers of Urdu should use Urdu – Urdu dictionaries while teaching Urdu.
n 70 17 Zero 4.09
Teachers of Urdu should use a dictionary while preparing their lessons.
n 53 29 5 3.90
Teachers of Urdu should encourage the learners to buy certain dictionaries.
n 62 23` 2 3.97
Teachers of Urdu should explain how to use dictionaries.
n 67 19 1 4.25
Glossaries given at the end of the text books are sufficient to provide all information about the words.
n 15 13 59 2.28
Learners should depend on the glossaries given at the end of the text books.
n 15 20 52 2.40
Learners should avoid using Pocket dictionaries.
n 43 14 30 3.16
Learners should use Learners’ Dictionaries.
n 55 18 14 3.75
Learners should use dictionary in the class room.
n 49 19 19 3.51
Learners should browse the pages of the dictionaries without having a particular purpose
n 46
25
16 3.50
The currently used dictionaries provide the effective guide to the pronunciation of the words.
n 21
6
60 2.37
The currently used dictionaries provide sufficient grammatical information of words
n 19
18
50 2.37
The currently used dictionaries provide the effective guide to the usage of words
n 18
14
55 2.42
Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should n 66 15 6 4
xiv
frequently be revised Definition of the words should be given in the dictionary along with the equivalents.
n 73
11
3 4.27
Pronunciation guide should be more comprehensible in a dictionary.
n 70 11
6 4.09
All the abbreviated words should be given in full in the front pages of the dictionary.
n 51
18
18 4
Illustration (verbal & pictorial) must be provided in a dictionary for better understanding of the words.
n 55
19
13 3.83
Notes on the usage of the words in certain context should be given in the dictionary.
n 70
14
3 4.20
Dictionaries should be designed on modern principals of lexicography
n 63 21
3 4.01
Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should be helpful for learning spoken Urdu
n 47
31 9 3.39
Urdu-Urdu dictionaries should be designed in a way that it may be helpful for a foreign learner in learning the Urdu language.
n 66
19
2 4.13
xv
Appendix F. List of Colleges Selected for Data Collection Serial No. Name of Colleges
1 Government Degree College for women Multan 2 Government Degree College for women, Mumtazabad, Multan 3 Government Degree College for women, Shah Rukn e Alam, Multan 4 Government Emerson College, Multan 5 Government Degree College for women, Vehari 6 Government Degree College Vehari 7 Punjab College for women, Multan 8 Leadership Colleges, Multan 9 Government Degree College, Burewala 10 Government Degree College for women, Burewala 11 Government Degree College, Mailsi 12 Government Degree College for women, Mailsi 13 Government College Boys Gulberg, Lahore 14 Government Degree College, Lodhran 15 Government Degree College Civil Lines, Multan 16 Government Degree College for women, Shujabad 17 Educators Group of Colleges, Multan 18 Government Degree College, Makhdoom Rashid 19 Government Degree College, Muzaffar Garh 20 Government Degree College for women, Muzaffar Gharh