114 Reviews

on large electronic corpora may experience a number of disappointments. Nevertheless,

Wielki siownik frazeologiczny je˜ zyka polskiego is certainly an important, useful,
and usable reference work, a refreshing replacement for the now largely outdated
Skorupka (1967), and significantly more comprehensive than the recent Ba˜ ba and
Liberek (2001).

Notes
1
I am indebted to Przemyslaw Kaszubski for his helpful comments on this review.
2
http://korpus.pl

References

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Bańko, M. (ed.) 2000. Inny siownik je˜ zyka polskiego. Warsaw: PWN.
Ba˜ ba, S. and Liberek, J. (eds.) 2001. Siownik frazeologiczny wspóiczesnej polszczyzny.
Warsaw: PWN.
Skorupka, S. (ed.) 1967. Siownik frazeologiczny je˜ zyka polskiego. Warsaw: Wiedza
Powszechna.

Robert Lew
School of English
Adam Mickiewicz University
Poland
rlew@amu.edu.pl
doi:10.1093/ijl/eci010

Robert Lew. Which Dictionary for Whom? Receptive Use of Bilingual,

Monolingual and Semi-bilingual Dictionaries by Polish Learners of English.
Poznań: Motivex. 2004. 217 pages. ISBN 83-87314-42-0.
The central issue in Lew’s study is ‘the effectiveness of various dictionary types
in providing receptive lexical support’ (p. 1). Apart from the introduction and the
conclusion, the book contains four chapters: one discussing what has been found
concerning receptive dictionary use so far, one dealing with methodological issues,
one presenting the experimental study, and the fourth one giving the results in full
detail. The review of the relevant literature is fairly complete and shows a good sense
of what is relevant to the learner as a dictionary user as well as what is scientifically
sound. The methodological discussion also gives a good impression of the high
standards Lew wants to keep up.
The study, which is exploratory in nature, involves 712 Polish learners of English
and a non-specified number of teachers. Three instruments have been elaborated
to generate answers to the questions that were central to the study. First there is
a learners’ questionnaire, which contains questions like: how many years have you
been learning English? would you be able to ask for directions to the station? how
often do you use specific types of dictionaries? what type of information do you look
up? etc. In the second questionnaire the teachers were asked to estimate the average
level of their classes from ‘beginner’ to ‘advanced’.
The main instrument is the ‘Dictionary Effectiveness Test’ which contains four types of
questions about the meaning of some twenty English-like words. The subjects can only
find answers when they use the information provided in a one-page ‘dictionary’. There
are six different types of ‘dictionaries’. Each ‘dictionary’ contains all the pseudo-words
that are used in the questions and that are translated and/or defined amidst a number
 Reviews 115
of real English words. The questions have the form of a multiple choice quiz or ask
for translations into the mother tongue. The ‘dictionaries’ provided were either bilingual,
monolingual (English-English), or semi-bilingual. This latter category comprised four
versions: Polish equivalents þ English definitions, Polish equivalents þ Polish defini-
tions, English definitions þ Polish equivalents, and Polish definitions þ Polish equiva-
lents. Each subject worked through all the questions with one type of ‘dictionary’.
The main strength of this study lies in its methodological rigour and in the fine
statistical treatment of the data. When it comes to the design there is, for instance,
the decision to use pseudo-words instead of real English words, which made it
impossible for the subjects to get to the right solutions without using the ‘dictionary’
they had been given. The sophisticated manner in which answers given in the learner’s

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questionnaire are triangulated with data obtained in the dictionary effectiveness test
leads to a fine-grained analysis where even the slightest differences are scrutinized. There
are over 150 tables, figures and graphs in this study.
This does not mean that there is nothing left to be desired, however. There is, for
instance, the problem of the language level of the subjects. They were asked to rate
themselves individually and their teachers had to rate the students in their classes.
Lew combines all the data that are available on this point and makes a reclassification
of the subjects into five levels that are not easily compared to existing international
standards. According to the teachers’ questionnaires, there were 55 students at the
advanced level (level 5), but by a fairly complicated recalculation of all the data (p. 66)
107 students were classified as ‘level 5’ in the experiment. It goes without saying that
the latter ‘level 5’ does not hold a simple relationship with the former.
As for the dictionaries normally used by the students, there has been, as the author
admits (p. 97), serious difficulty in identifying them. The conclusion that the students
use bilingual dictionaries in over 90% of the cases could have been reached in a simpler
way. Although much has been done to ensure that the subjects really used the
‘dictionary’ during the experiment, this use was not monitored in a direct way. Asking
the subjects to underline the information used would perhaps have given an even
better view on their real use of the dictionary.
One of the interesting and reassuring outcomes of the study is that the overall
effectiveness of the dictionaries rises on a par with the language level of the users,
which means that the students become increasingly familiar with the dictionary as
their language level increases. A somewhat unexpected result is that, although learners
use bilingual dictionaries much more often than monolingual dictionaries (especially
the English-Polish part), their ratings are higher for monolingual than bilingual
dictionaries. As to the type of dictionary that is most effective, it becomes clear that
the monolingual dictionary (with English definitions only) scores far lower than any
of the other types. And some types of dictionaries, especially those with translational
equivalents as well as definitions in English or Polish, tend to be less effective, probably
due to an overload of information.
This brings the author to a rather pessimistic view concerning not only the semi-
bilingual dictionary but also the monolingual dictionary for the type of learners
involved in this study (mainly pre-intermediate and intermediate). In his conclusion
he states that ‘we must question the validity of the recommendation so popular
amongst educators of the presumed superiority of the monolingual dictionary. There
is hardly any empirical evidence available to support that supposed superiority, and
what little relevant evidence is available, points to the bilingual dictionary as the
more effective dictionary for reception. The present study provides further evidence
of this type’ (p. 179). This is certainly true, and it only emphasizes the need felt for
116 Reviews
other types of research, that is research where not only the solution to immediate
language problems is measured, but where the long-term effect on language acquisition
is taken into account as well.
There is one other question to which this study did not give a direct answer, viz.
the one the author himself formulated in its title: Which dictionary for whom? Or does
he imply that only bilingual dictionaries will serve the needs of the learners?
Paul Bogaards
Leiden University
The Netherlands
P.Bogaards@let.leidenuniv.nl
doi:10.1093/ijl/eci011

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Caroline de Schaetzen (ed.) Terminologie et socie´te´. Paris: La Maison du
Dictionnaire. 2004. 250 pages. ISBN: 2-85608-183-5. E24.
C’est à feu Ad Hermans, ancien directeur de recherches au Centre de Terminologie
de Bruxelles, qu’un certain nombre d’enseignants rendent hommage dans cet ouvrage
collectif rassemblant des contributions ayant trait à la socioterminologie et à la
sociologie de la terminologie. Bien que s’étant fait connaı̂tre des membres de l’Ecole
de Rouen, c’est en esprit indépendant qu’Hermans s’est fait valoir comme sociologue
de la terminologie. Il commence d’ailleurs sa carrière académique en 1970 par
l’enseignement de la sociologie à l’Université de Nijmegen et il la termine en 2002
à l’Institut Marie-Haps de Bruxelles où il sera dès 1989 Chargé de recherches avant
d’être Directeur de recherches. Un curriculum vitae et une biographie font d’ailleurs
état de sa carrière professionnelle et de ses publications, une quarantaine sur la
terminologie et la sociologie du vocabulaire spécialisé. L’ouvrage est dirigé par Caroline
de Schaetzen de l’Université Paris VII. Au nombre des auteurs nommons Ad Hermans
lui-même, T. Akkermans, Hubert Joly, Pierre Lerat, François Gaudin, Daniel Gouadec,
Marie-Pierre Mayar, Bernard Thiry et enfin Caroline de Schaetzen.
En ouverture Hermans aligne les spécificités du vocabulaire de la sociologie dont
certaines sont applicables aux autres disciplines des sciences humaines avec une
approche marquée par l’épistémologie. Il explique notamment la différence entre terme
technique et théorique ainsi qu’entre un terme et un phénomène. Il traite également des
emprunts aux autres disciplines que ce soit au vocabulaire scientifique (vocabulaire
cryptique) ou au vocabulaire courant (vocabulaire delphique). La contribution
d’Akkermans aborde la définition de la terminologie dans un chapitre signé en
néerlandais, «De terminologie als beroep en branche. Een sociologisch perspectief ».
Celle d’Hubert Joly est intitulée « Peut-on aménager une langue ? » et s’intéresse au rôle
que joua notamment l’Académie française dans l’orientation des usages. Joly explique
que dans la 8e édition de son dictionnaire l’Académie ne retenait qu’une partie du
vocabulaire français (35 000 termes) et que sa grammaire publiée au XXe siècle fut un
échec retentissent. L’auteur, directeur du CILF, décrit ensuite les récents mouvements
institutionnels dans l’aménagement de la langue et le contenu des aménagements
proposés notamment par les arrêtés de terminologie publiés depuis 1973 au Journal
Officiel.
Bien que les chapitres de l’ouvrage ont tous une portée plus ou moins sociologique,
le chapitre de Pierre Lerat, agrégé de grammaire, se distingue en cela qu’il s’intéresse
aux vocabulaires métaterminologiques (de´signation versus de´nomination) un sujet
régulièrement abordé en doctrine terminologique (Myriam Bouveret par exemple).