CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW
B. Electronic Dictionary
Nesi (2009, p. 458) states an electronic dictionary is a dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can be accessed through a number of different media. Nesi (2000, p. 55) also says the term electronic dictionary (or ED) can be used to refer to any reference material stored in electronic form that gives information about the spelling, meaning, or use of words. Thus, spelling checkers in word processing programs, devices that translate printed words, glossaries for online teaching materials, or electronic versions of respected hard dictionaries are all ED types, which are characterized by the same storage system and retrieval.
The development of new technology and the Internet has progressively changed the dictionary concept. Electronic dictionaries can be found in several forms, including software installed on tablets or desktop computers, cellular applications, web applications, and built-in e-reader functions. They may be free or require payment.
Electronic dictionaries can be classified into various types according to different criteria. One example of an electronic dictionary typology is that by Schryver (2003, p.
148). He focuses on technical and metalexicographic evaluation. This author distinguishes between online or offline dictionaries based on technical evaluation. Offline dictionary comprises printed electronic dictionaries (PEDs) and PC dictionaries. PC dictionary includes dictionaries in CD-ROM, floppy disk and other formats. Based on meta(lexicographic) evaluation, this typology distinguishes between electronic dictionaries based on their paper versions, and newly developed electronic dictionaries, as well as electronic dictionaries with both print and innovative appearances. It can be seen in the Figure 2.7 following page:
Figure 2.7 Classifications of Electronic Dictionaries
In this classification, Jacquet-Pfau (2002, p. 90) distinguishes between newly developed electronic dictionaries (new development) and electronic versions of paper dictionaries (based on paper). Nesi (2000a, p. 140) states that electronic dictionaries are more effective than electronic dictionaries adapted from paper versions. Electronic dictionaries will be most effective if designed from the start with computer capabilities and computer search mechanisms. Harley (2000, p. 85) says that electronic dictionaries can be easily updated. Also based on Jacquet-Pfau (2002, p. 99) and de Schryver (2003, p. 157) allow a quicker, more precise, and exhaustive search, in which a variety of search criteria can be combined.
Nesi (2003, p. 370) examined the benefits of EDs and stated that various types of electronic dictionaries offer audio and visual information and exercises in multimedia format. In fact, the rich information offered by these dictionaries is such that it makes them a reference tool which not only provides information on various aspects of vocabulary knowledge but also serves as a language learning device. Laufer and Hill (2000, p. 58), point out that the high speed and the ease of access of electronic dictionaries encourage the language learners to make frequent use of them in the process of vocabulary learning. They go on to make a significant point that using ED increases the chance of acquiring the look- up words.
Electronic dictionary can potentially contribute to language learning and instruction.
Al-Jarf (2007, p. 1) says that over and above the fact that electronic dictionaries play a significant role in vocabulary learning, they also have positive effects on motivation of language learners. It is the truth that learners learn more vocabularies when the practice of vocabulary learning is interesting and appealing. Al-Jarf (2007, p. 1) also illustrated that those students who enjoyed vocabulary learning through the use of electronic dictionaries had the highest gains in vocabulary. Another researcher, the electronic dictionary technology has improved since its childhood. Liu (2007, p. 467) mentions the functions such as pronunciation are often synthetic and unclear, and the lexical content is incomplete. This is a retrieval system, not information content that makes an electronic dictionary use a revolutionary experience compared to consulting a printed dictionary.
Books organize information especially in linear ways, which are appropriate for semantic and pragmatic similarities, their valence patterns and collocations, or only their letters as in a simple spell checker. The place of the A-Z sequence is in a sequence that is almost meaningless, does not explain the relationship between words that are far alphabetically, and make it difficult to find phrases and idioms. ED text search, on the other hand, provides instant access to word groups in any field of information created during its development.
The results of the study show that electronic dictionary became widespread as a new technological tool for vocabulary learning among L2 students will be used more widely by language learners. Also, electronic dictionaries can have a positive effect on learning, especially in vocabulary learning.
2. The Importance of Dictionary
As Holi Ali (2012, p. 3) showed, dictionary is an important educational tool that plays a vital role in various processes of language learning including reading comprehension and vocabulary learning and acquisition. In EFL learning situations, as language learners come across an unknown word, one of the possible strategies they think of and resort to is consulting a dictionary. The matter of what sort of dictionaries to use in the foreign language classroom has always been an on-going controversial issue.
With regard to the use of dictionary in second language and concerning other perspectives of dictionary utilize in terms of advantages, Nation (2008, p. 98) noted that dictionary can be helpful to the learners in three major fields. He maintains that, by consulting dictionary, learners understand words that they meet in reading and listening, find words that they need for speaking and writing, and remember words. Wang (2007, p.
15) referred to dictionary as a powerful analytic tool in organizing language, providing differentiation from other similar words, which are deemed as necessary for accurate comprehension, and helping fix new vocabulary in the memory by having learners focus their attention to opposite words or words having close meanings.
Dictionaries can vary depending on the various purposes for which they may be used.
As evidence of this point, Nation (2001, p. 446) identified three distinguishing purposes for dictionary use, involving comprehension (decoding), production (encoding), and learning. As to effectiveness of dictionaries in vocabulary learning, Hulstijn, Hollander and Greidanus (2000, p. 327), asserted that if learners use and consult a dictionary whenever they come across unknown words, their scores will be higher and more notable than those who do not make use of it.
Therefore, dictionary is one of the tools to assist students‘ understanding as well as enlightening the skill of reading. Reading will be interesting if students can understand the material, and this is when the dictionary plays its role as a medium to facilitate students in reading. Because of this overcomes the difficulties in understanding reading material.
Learners are found to be more successful in using dictionaries for major fields include reading tasks compared to production tasks, because production requires more than conceptual information, including the understanding of idioms, grammar, collocations, synonyms, and lexical phrases.
3. Speed of an Electronic Dictionary
Most of the early electronic dictionaries, basically, print dictionaries are available in digital form: the content is identical, but the electronic edition provides users with a
stronger search function. But according to Tono (2000, p, 855) says that soon the opportunities offered by digital media began to be exploited. Speed is seen as one of the main advantages of using electronic dictionaries, in particular those on portable devices, but also those online and on CD-ROMs. In a study of Weschler and Pitts (2000, p. 1) whose objective was purely look-up speed; i.e. how quickly students could find the definition(s) of an unknown word, students looked up words 23 percent faster with a portable electronic dictionary than with a paper one. Yet, lookup time was measured manually and the students were not requested to read, let alone understand, the explanations of the words checked. Optimistic results concerning look-up time were achieved in studies into portable electronic dictionary use, Koyama and Takeuchi (2007, p.
118) conduct portable electronic dictionaries were found to considerably reduce the time needed to read a passage in English, which was attributed to their superior search functions. Likewise, Chen (2010, p. 301) noted that consulting pocket electronic dictionaries was much less time consuming than making use of printed dictionaries, and observed that it takes considerably less time to complete the same vocabulary exercise when working with PEDs than with printed dictionaries.
However, there is also research which does not confirm the advantage of hand-held electronic dictionaries with respect to consultation speed. In the reading comprehension and vocabulary exercises in the studies by Koyama and Takeuchi (2010, p. 156), the time needed to perform vocabulary search in printed and portable electronic dictionaries was comparable. The authors put this result down to the additional work that the subjects in the electronic dictionary condition had to do, such as pushing one button after another in the case of some words or scanning the different screens to spot the necessary information, whereas in the printed dictionary all the information was usually available on the same page (Koyama and Takeushi, 2004, p. 36). In addition, they observed that there was no difference between the two dictionary conditions in the time needed to access examples (2004, p. 33). Likewise, Shizuka (cited in Dziemianko, 2017, p. 328) states that dictionary format had no significant effect on the speed of getting to usage information in examples;
the information proved to be no easier to extract from the portable electronic dictionary than from the paper one, the hierarchical nature of data display in the former notwithstanding. Such a conclusion, intended to throw light on the speed with which specific usage information was located in the numerous examples of take, bring, have, go, keep, give, put, make, get and come.
As regards stand-alone robust-machine electronic dictionaries, positive results on look-up time were obtained by Tono (2000, p. 857), who tested the usefulness of three interfaces (i.e. traditional, parallel and layered) against printed dictionary (control) conditions. The task consisted in identifying acceptable translation equivalents of the looked-up words, and the speed of finding the relevant information was taken to reflect look-up ease. In the traditional interface, information was displayed as in a printed dictionary, with idioms and phrasal verbs listed at the end of the entry. In the parallel interface, information was shown in a parallel bilingual translation format: all the words as well as idioms and other multi-word expressions were accorded separate entries with translations in parallel format. In the layered interface, by contrast, the information was organized by a tab menu, where each tab offered more information than the previous one.
It turned out that access to target entries was quicker in the electronic dictionary, irrespective of the interface. However, the largest difference between the printed and electronic dictionary conditions occurred with the parallel interface. As regards the effect
of electronic dictionary interface, he concluded that the parallel interface ensures much faster searches than the traditional or layered interfaces.
Therefore, speed is often perceived as an advantage of e-dictionaries but it has been suggested that rapid reading must therefore be regarded as a deliberate activity.
4. Study Guide to Use Electronic Dictionary on Mobile Apps
In this study, the researcher used the mobile apps, Kamus Inggris (Kamusku), on Android smartphone or Iphone for the best English to Indonesia dictionary. Kamus Inggris (Kamusku) is large English to Indonesian dictionary application that gives us the opportunity to know the meaning of English words in Indonesian and vice versa. It has a very intuitive and simple layout that is very aesthetically pleasing. The design of this dictionary application is very similar to other applications like that but the features it offers are very easy to find and use.We found the Kamus Inggris (Kamusku)‘s design and layout could be perfect for a dictionary app. Each aspect of this English to Indonesian dictionary application from the font color to the font type and the way each feature is organized is ideal.
Kamus Inggris (Kamusku) is also a highly functional application. It has excellent response timing. The dictionary feature where English words are translated into Indonesian works very quickly. Words are suggested by the app even as we are typing them in the space given. We can also choose to speak the words we want to get translated by this English to Indonesian dictionary app. The meanings of these words is immediately displayed below the typing area. We were able to find Indonesian meanings for English words very easily by using the dictionary feature of the Kamus Inggris (Kamusku).
One great feature of the Kamus Inggris (Kamusku) is that it gives us the chance to find out meanings of lesser-known words in the Indonesian language as well. This incredible English to Indonesian dictionary app simply lists down all the meanings for us to see. We can even find articles related to the words we have searched down below the meanings.
Moreover, the Kamus Inggris (Kamusku) offers us synonyms and sentences in the Indonesian as well as the English language for our searched keywords as well. We were pleased with this amazing feature of this app as it helped us in understanding the usage of the different Indonesian words in sentences.
Kamus Inggris (Kamusku) does not merely provide meanings of English words in the Indonesian language to us. This can offer translations for all phrases too. However, if there is a phrase whose translation is not available in the application database then it will use Bing Translator to search for online translations. This is a smart feature offered by this English to Indonesian dictionary application. We had not found this feature in any other dictionary app till now and were thus pleasantly surprised to see it in the Kamus Inggris (Kamusku).
Kamus Inggris (Kamusku) also provides us the opportunity to listen to the pronunciation of the words as well. We will have to simply type a word in the Indonesian language in the word search bar and click on the speaker option. This application will say a word to us so we know how to pronounce it correctly. This feature a lot as it helped people in conversing in the Indonesian language in the right manner. Here is the display of mobile apps Kamus Inggris (Kamusku):
Figure 2.8. Mobile Apps Dictionary of “Kamus Inggris (Kamusku)”
To navigate the Kamus Inggris (Kamusku) in a better way, there is a slide sideways menu provided to us. It is located on the top-left hand side of the home screen of the app.
Tapping it will open a menu that contains all the options offered by this English to Indonesian dictionary. The options we will find listed on this menu are Dictionary, Bookmarks, History, Apps by Kodelokus and About. This application has some features, they are:
1. Smart and simplistic user-interface;
2. Large database of English and Indonesian words;
3. Offers instant meanings of English words into Indonesian;
4. Provides synonyms and sentences of searched words;
5. Offers translations using Bing Translator.
It can be concluded that Kamus Inggris (Kamusku) is an excellent app which is ideal for people looking to learn Indonesian. It can help us in finding out the meanings of the English words in Indonesian in an instant.
5. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Electronic Dictionary
The rate at which electronic dictionaries have replaced their printed counterparts is impressive, though not altogether unexpected, at least by some experts. From the explanation above, it can be took advantage and disadvantages of electronic dictionary as follows consistent with the previous research‘s results, Al-Seghayer (2001, p. 204) indicated that ED is more useful than PD in learning and possessing vocabulary. Omar and Mansor (2005, p. 81) stated that the main use of dictionary is to provide the meaning of a word, to check on correct spelling, correct pronunciation and vocabulary. There are also many advantages in the usage of ED in learning and retention of vocabulary, for example the speed of searching an unfamiliar word is definitely faster than the PD. The use of internet dictionary is hoped to help users searching the definition of a word faster regardless of place and time.
Moreover, the visual effects and features of electronic dictionary can be the motivator for using an electronic dictionary. As a result, it proved to be a better learning tool, since it
enriches both vocabulary learning and recall. Probably, the visual impact of the electronic dictionary attracts more users‘ attention than a printed page. Even Golonka, Bowles, Frank, Richardson, and Freynik (2012, p. 70) point out that electronic dictionaries offer a wide range of benefits for EFL students, including possibility of conducting quick searches, enhancement of the input provided for students, and recognition of different learning styles and strategies.
As an EFL student, the writer also experienced the same thing as the previous case.
The writer merely uses the electronic dictionary for searching the unfamiliar words. She also gets many benefits by using it. Besides it is easy to operate, it also provides some relevant examples toward the words usage and the pronunciation of the words along with the audio feature. Moreover, ED gives information about the part of speech of the words and that makes the writer uses the unfamiliar words precisely and vividly. ED also gives the writer more knowledge about the slang words. That really helps the writer to understand the slang words and use it in her daily conversation.
However, ED constitutes a very useful tool for learning vocabulary and also vocabulary building. Because of its capability in providing the pronunciation and part of speech of a word, the precise examples of a word even it can distinguish between the American and British English, those will give a big contribution in learning vocabulary even in vocabulary building of the students. The present study by Chun and Payne (2004, p. 1) also supports the claim that electronic dictionaries and software that provide textual, contextual, and/or multimedia annotations are part of main technologies which support vocabulary teaching and that multimodality strongly enhances vocabulary learning. In addition, based on Loucky (2010, p. 162) asked how the students used various functions of their EDs to help expedite these phases. These phases are:
1) Assessing degree of word knowledge;
2) Accessing new word meanings;
3) Archiving new information for study;
4) Analyzing word parts and origins;
5) Anchoring new words in short-term memory;
6) Linking words in related groups for long-term retention;
7) Activating words through oral use or productive written; and 8) Reviewing, recycling, and retesting vocabulary items.
Unfortunately, sometimes students do not know the suitable electronic dictionary for them at their level. Yet they have to know how to operate it well, interpret the word‘s meaning and put it in a sentence. Because it must be installed on a computer, that makes a difficulty for the student to bring it everywhere. According to Wang and Zheng (2016, p.
156), the reasons are electronic dictionaries can prevent students guessing skills and contextualized thinking in vocabulary acquisition, electronic dictionaries can cause distraction. It often takes place when students use electronic dictionaries in the classrooms, electronic dictionaries can also be very disturbing when students use them in the classroom.
In short, the advantages and disadvantages of electronic dictionary are listed below (Chen-Josephson, 2006, p. 1):
a. Advantages of electronic dictionary are:
1. Many volumes get compressed into one electronic dictionary.
2. Storage and retrieval become quick and easy.