"This book investigates an important but under-researched aspect of dictionary making: the use of a controlled vocabulary in definitions. The main concern of the author is the role of a definition vocabulary in how foreign learners understand and perceive dictionary definitions. The author takes the reader through a detailed historical account of controlled vocabularies and examines definitions in a range of English dictionaries with respect to their vocabulary loads. He performs a series of experiments with university students to reveal merits and shortcomings of restricted vocabularies. This monograph has been written with the aim to fill a gap in the literature on defining vocabulary. It is intended for lexicographers, dictionary editors, course designers, teachers, and students, as well as anyone who wishes to explain words in an intelligible way"--.

• Defining with Simple Vocabulary in English Dictionaries
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Abbreviations used in the text
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
  • 1. Historical background and issues
  • 2. Research questions
  • 3. Studies presented in the book
• 1. Pioneering research on vocabulary control
  • 1.1 Early interests in vocabulary control
  • 1.2 The objective approach to vocabulary selection
    • 1.2.1 Edward L. Thorndike
    • 1.2.2 Ernest Horn
    • 1.2.3 Lawrence Faucett and Itsu Maki
    • 1.2.4 The strengths and limitations of statistical word-counts
  • 1.3 The subjective approach
    • 1.3.1 Harold Palmer
    • 1.3.2 Michael West
      • 1.3.2.1 West’s defining vocabulary
  • 1.4 The logical approach
  • 1.5 The General Service List: Confrontation of the competing approaches
    • 1.5.1 The Carnegie Conferences
    • 1.5.2 The General Service List
    • 1.5.3 Criticism of the GSL
  • 1.6 Summary
• 2. Other major projects on vocabulary control
  • 2.1 Word-lists for pedagogical purposes
    • 2.1.1 The American Heritage Word Frequency Book (1971)
    • 2.1.2 The Threshold Level English (1975)
    • 2.1.3 The Cambridge English Lexicon (1980)
    • 2.1.4 Word-lists from popular corpora: the Brown (1967), the LOB (1978), the Bank of English (1991), and the BNC (1990s)
    • 2.1.5 The University Word List (1984)
    • 2.1.6 The Academic Word List (2000)
    • 2.1.7 The Common Core Vocabulary (2002)
    • 2.1.8 A New Academic Vocabulary List (2013)
    • 2.1.9 A New General Service List (2013)
  • 2.2 The GSL against other word-lists and corpora
  • 2.3 Controlled vocabularies for professional and human-computer communications
    • 2.3.1 Controlled English for writing service manuals
    • 2.3.2 Text production for machine translation
  • 2.4 Identifying a core vocabulary
  • 2.5 Wierzbicka’s Natural Semantic Metalanguage and relevant projects
    • 2.5.1 Natural Semantic Metalanguage
    • 2.5.2 A primitive-based dictionary
    • 2.5.3 Minimal English
    • 2.5.4 Defining with primitives for cross-linguistic comparison
  • 2.6 Summary
• 3. Defining with a controlled vocabulary: Preliminary insights
  • 3.1 What is the dictionary definition?
  • 3.2 Defining in plain English: A historical overview of native-speaker dictionary tradition
  • 3.3 Defining in learners’ dictionaries between 1935 and 1986
    • 3.3.1 Early learners’ dictionaries: NMED and ISED
      • 3.3.1.1 NMED (1935)
      • 3.3.1.2 ISED (1942) and ALD1 (1948)
      • 3.3.1.3 Conclusion
    • 3.3.2 Revisions of ALD and emergence of new competitors: 1963–1986
      • 3.3.2.1 ALD2 (1963)–OALD3 (1974)
      • 3.3.2.2 LDOCE1 (1978)
    • 3.3.3 Conclusions
  • 3.4 Review of previous studies of defining vocabularies
    • 3.4.1 Summary of previous studies and implications for the current research
    • 3.4.2 Research hypotheses
• 4. Quantitative analyses
  • 4.1 Research design
    • 4.1.1 Materials
    • 4.1.2 Data selection
    • 4.1.3 Research tools and reference lists
    • 4.1.4 Data analysis
  • 4.2 Analysis of receptive vocabulary load and other quantitative comparisons
    • 4.2.1 Receptive vocabulary load of definitions
      • 4.2.1.1 Coverage of definitions by Base Lists: learners’ dictionaries
  • 4.3 Similarity of content
    • 4.3.1 Size of the lists
    • 4.3.2 HCA: Similarities between the lists
    • 4.3.3 Overlapping and unique items
    • 4.3.4 The Core Defining Vocabulary
    • 4.3.5 Multiword items
    • 4.3.6 Word-building elements
  • 4.4 Conclusions
• 5. Qualitative analysis
  • 5.1 Research materials and methodology
    • 5.1.1 Materials
    • 5.1.2 Data selection
  • 5.2 Learners’ dictionaries (1987–2015)
    • 5.2.1 LDOCE2 (1987)–LDOCE6 (2014)
    • 5.2.2 OALD4 (1989) – OALD9 (2015)
      • 5.2.2.1 The DV of OALD5 (1995) and subsequent editions
        • Derivatives
        • Combinations of words
        • Restrictions on meaning
    • 5.2.3 COBUILD1 (1987) – COBUILD8 (2014)
    • 5.2.4 CALD1 – CALD4 (1995–2013)
    • 5.2.5 MEDAL (2002–2007)
    • 5.2.6 MWALED (2008)
    • 5.2.7 DV in digital dictionaries
    • 5.2.8 Summary and conclusion
  • 5.3 Native-speaker dictionaries (1984–2011)
    • 5.3.1 Analysis
    • 5.3.2 Conclusions
• 6. The defining vocabulary and the user
  • 6.1 Design of the experiment
    • 6.1.1 Subjects
    • 6.1.2 Materials
    • 6.1.3 Procedure
  • 6.2 Results
    • 6.2.1 Comprehension of dictionary definitions
    • 6.2.2 Comprehension of invented definitions
    • 6.2.3 Other factors affecting comprehension score
    • 6.2.4 Perception of definitions
    • 6.2.5 Summary of the results
  • 6.3 Discussion
  • 6.4 Conclusions
• 7. General conclusions
  • 1. Main findings
  • 2. Implications for definition writing and DV design
  • 3. Further research
• Appendix 1. The Core Defining Vocabulary (CDV)
• Appendix 2. Word Familiarity Page
  • Task 1, version 1 (with LDOCE6 definitions)
  • Task 1, version 2 (COBUILD-8)
  • Task 1, version 3 (ODE-2)
  • Task 1, version 4 (Chambers-12)
  • Task 2, version 1 (all the dictionaries)
  • Task 2, version 2 (all the dictionaries)
• References
  • Dictionaries
    • Printed dictionaries
    • Dictionaries on CD-ROM/DVDs
    • Online dictionaries
  • Other literature
• Index