I feel that a lot of the resistance to digital forms probably comes from an inherent conservatism within classics that says more about the discipline than it does about the functionality or pedagogical outcomes that result from use of digital dictionaries. Whether physical or digital, dictionaries are a technology that need to be explained, explored, and contextualized. Although there is evidence that doing things the old fashioned way has better results, in a world where students are more naturally inclined to turn to the internet as a source of knowledge, I think that there is something to be said for using rigorous, philological online lexical tools like Logeion. Yes - I think a big part of it is a distaste for the digital, people (not me) often think it is "cheating" Īll in all, I’m encouraged by the fact that many classicists are not ideologically opposed to using digital dictionaries. Patrick Burns responded to this with a blog piece of his own, which is a tutorial on how to use Learning with Texts (LWT) to learn vocabulary in context. After I posted the twitter poll, Clara Shaw Hardy ( responded with a blog piece in which she described her own experiments with students, who tried both physical and digital dictionaries and reported their experiences Hardy also cites an article in Teaching Classical Languages by Jacqueline Carlon arguing that students retain vocabulary that they learn “the hard way.” Hardy also put forward the suggestion that online dictionaries develop a means of quizzing students on the words which they have looked up in a given session. Anecdotally, we classicists as a group seem to think that using a physical dictionary leads to better vocabulary retention. The issue with online Latin dictionaries is probably not so much about the quality of its contents as much as the question of whether use of a digital dictionary is detrimental to the student’s progress in language acquisition. listed in the second edition was from 1949 the Wall Street Journal’s language columnist Ben Zimmer tracked it back to 1901. It’s not hard to find examples that antedate the OED’s earliest citations for words, particularly in the modern period. Word sleuthery has become a game that anyone with access to a search engine can play. The advent of online historical corpora has also altered the lexicographer’s method. I recently read a discussion by Geoffrey Nunberg of the limits of the physical editions of the Oxford English Dictionary that have been overcome in its online edition: …so they get a sense of the limitations of dictionaries (errors authors not included ambiguities etc.) It’s not degrading to anyone to take the time to meditate on issues or forms which seem self-evident - in fact, it can be quite a profound experience. The important thing here, whether you have your students use physical or digital dictionaries, is to dedicate time to demonstrate how to use them. Cillian O’Hogan ( replied that he had that day taught his students how to use Logeion’s online version of Lewis & Short he also mentioned that he gives lessons in how to use physical dictionaries, including a demonstration of their shortcomings. As I write the poll isn’t closed yet, but the majority of respondents use digital tools in some form. But perhaps asking Latin instructors on twitter is not the venue for cynicism about digital tools. My assumption, just based on casual discussions or passing comments with colleagues IRL, is that many would be against it just in principle. My next question (via a twitter poll) was whether Latin instructors encourage their students to use online dictionary tools. Poll - Do you encourage your students in Latin/Greek language classes to use online dictionary tools? (The reason why Kennedy’s is a problem to use with US students is that the case order is N./V. It’s clear that we hold on to the tools that we begin learning with very fondly - even though I teach in the US now I still can’t give up Kennedy’s Latin primer, whose table of principal parts I have given to every Latin class I’ve ever taught. None of these is especially expensive (under $10), although both Chambers Murray and Langenscheidt are tricky to get new copies of. The most popular suggestions from twitter were Cassell’s, Chambers Murray, with some votes for Traupman although one respondent mentioned that they got into trouble with Traupman when doing Latin prose composition, and switched to Lewis & Short. But it’s not so easy to get your hands on in the US. The one that I used as a beginning Latin student, and still sometimes use, is the Langenscheidt pocket dictionary. I went to twitter first to ask what Latin-English dictionaries instructors have assigned to their Latin students.
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