Types of sense-navigation devices in print monolingual English learners’ dictionaries

Sense-navigation devices in English monolingual learners’ dictionaries are the primary focus of this paper. There are two main types of sense-navigation devices: signposts and menus. Signposts (also called guidewords, or short cuts), which help dictionary users quickly find the sense of a word they are searching for, appear next to the senses of a word. They are brief definitions of senses and consist of a few words. Menus, which are the second type of sensenavigation devices, form a list of senses (or signposts) above the entry. Similarly to signposts, their role is to increase sense selection and shorten consultation time. The paper describes the specific types of sense-navigation devices which appear in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (signposts and menus), Cambridge International Dictionary of English (guide words) and Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (guidewords), Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (short cuts) and Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (menus).