The Use of Corpus and Frame Semantics in a Lexicography Class: Evaluating Dictionary Entries

摘要

In a lexicography class, linguistics students are taught the principles of arranging dictionary entries with the application of theories. There is also a need for the students to evaluate existing dictionary entries as well. Due to the importance of corpus use in a lexicography work (Atkins & Rundell, 2008), students were introduced to a Malay corpus and the Frame Semantics (Fillmore et al., 2003). Students were taught how to analyse the meaning of a word based on the frames and frame elements. The use of DBP-UKM 5 million Malay corpus and the framework of Frame Semantics were found to be beneficial in assisting students to evaluate the verb entries of memerlukan and mencari , two highly frequent verbs in Malay. Students were able to evaluate the two verb entries from the Kamus Dewan 4 th Edition (KD4), a monolingual dictionary, and the bilingual Intelek Malay-English Dictionary (IMED). Students’ analysis findings will be presented and a few recommendations on teaching lexicography will be discussed in this paper.