How Useful and Usable are Dictionaries for Speakers of Australian Indigenous Languages?
Miriam Corris1, Christopher Manning2, Susan Poetsch3 and Jane Simpson4 1 University of Sydney 2 Stanford University 3 Macquarie University 4 University of Sydney (Linguistics F12, University of Sydney NSW 2006, Australia, jhs{at}mail.usyd.edy.au’ + u + ‘@’ + d + ”//–>) This paper presents the results of our investigations of the use and usability of dictionaries of Australian Indigenous languages for speakers and language learners. We report results from task-based and qualitative observational studies with seventy-nine people from three Indigenous language groups, and sixteen of non-Indigenous background, working with nine different dictionaries, including elementary and comprehensive dictionaries, and paper and computer dictionaries. We examine competing pressures placed on the lexicographer by demands for completeness of coverage and ease of access, by the need to accommodate low levels of literacy in English and the vernacular, by the range in users’ knowledge of the vernacular,
