The Treatment of Academic Lexical Bundles in Online English Monolingual Learners’ Dictionaries

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in identifying dictionary-relevant lexical bundles and analysing their lexicographic treatment. However, past research has only examined bundle treatment in general bilingual dictionaries, leaving it open whether and to what extent lexical bundles are treated in other types of dictionaries. This study aims to fill this gap by focusing on the treatment of academic lexical bundles in online English monolingual learners’ dictionaries. To this end, we first derived a list of 85 target bundles from a large corpus of expert academic writing using a set of quantitative and qualitative criteria, and then examined these bundles regarding their coverage, accessibility, and macro- and microstructural presentation in selected dictionaries. The results showed a high degree of inaccessibility of lexical bundles as search strings, corroborated previous research findings regarding the subsidiary status of lexical bundles in the macrostructure, and identified variations and inadequacies in bundle presentation in the microstructure. The implications of this study for improving the identification, access and presentation of academic lexical bundles for e-lexicography are discussed.