The Construction Of A Lexical-semantic Network In Bilingual Electronic Dictionaries

The process of learning a foreign language is a process of categorization. The result of categorization is to form a mental lexicon in language learner's mind. So it is very important to know the organization of the mental lexicon so as to provide guidance for our bilingual dictionary compilation.After a careful study we propose that in linguistics the organization of the mental lexicon is represented as a lexical-semantic network. Then we try to use this to guide our dictionary compiling. However, it is very difficult to set up a lexical-semantic network in printed dictionaries because of their limited space and technology. Luckily, with the development of the modern computer technology we can construct a comparatively good lexical-semantic network in the electronic dictionary.The dictionary provided with a lexical-semantic network seems to be a combination of dictionary and thesaurus, but in fact it is more than this. For it consists of an external network as well as an internal network. The former involves the semantic relations and the morphological relations which are very important to comprehend a word and to form the vocabulary referential ability. The latter aims at improving the sense arrangement which has been a tough problem for lexicography.Dictionary users can greatly benefit from such a dictionary. First, they can comprehend a word within a frame so that they can acquire comprehensive knowledge of the lexeme. Secondly, it may facilitate users' categorization of different entities and concepts. Thirdly, it provides favorable situation for users to enlarge their vocabulary.In brief, the research aims to set up a lexical-semantic network in learner's dictionary on the basis on a theoretical study of the mental lexicon and the semantic structure as well as prototypical categorization, which would greatly facilitate the FFL acquisition for Chinese learners.