Editing Monolingual learner's dictionary (section)

==History of English language MLDs==
[[File:Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 7th, 8th and 10th editions (cropped).jpg|thumb|7th, 8th and 10th editions of the ''Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary''.]]

The first English MLD, published in 1935, was the ''New Method English Dictionary'' by [[Michael Philip West|Michael West]] and James Endicott, a small dictionary using a restricted [[defining vocabulary]] of just 1490 words. Since the end of World War Two, global sales of the MLD have run into the tens of millions, reflecting the boom in the [[English language learning and teaching|English language teaching]] industry.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}}

Probably the best-known English monolingual dictionary for [[Advanced learner's dictionary|advanced learners]] is the ''[[Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary]]'', now in its tenth edition. It was originally published in Japan in 1942 as ''The Idiomatic and Syntactic Dictionary of English'', written by [[A. S. Hornby]] and two collaborators. It was subsequently republished as ''A Learner's Dictionary of Current English'' in 1948, before acquiring its current name.

Other publishers gradually entered the market. The ''[[Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English]]'' was published in 1978, and its most striking feature was the use of a restricted defining vocabulary, which is now a standard feature of learners' dictionaries. There are currently six major MLDs for advanced learners. In addition to the Oxford and Longman dictionaries, these are:
*''[[COBUILD|Collins COBUILD]] English Language Dictionary'', first published in 1987
*''[[Cambridge University Press|Cambridge]] International Dictionary of English'', 1995, now published as the ''Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary''
*''[[Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners]]'', 2002
*''[[Merriam-Webster]]'s Advanced Learner's English Dictionary'', 2008
All of these dictionaries are available in hard copy and online.

Since the 1980s, the English MLD has, arguably, been the most innovative area in the field of lexicography, in terms of both the way dictionaries are written and the aspects of language which dictionaries describe, {{citation needed|date=December 2013}} in particular the use of software in combination with [[text corpus|text corpora]] to:
*generate language description - a radical innovation which was introduced by the [[COBUILD]] project in the 1980s<ref>Sinclair, J.M. (Ed.), ''Looking Up: an account of the COBUILD project'', Collins, 1987</ref>
*automate the dictionary-making process<ref>Rundell, M. and Kilgarriff, A., 'Automating the creation of dictionaries: where will it all end?', in Meunier F., De Cock S., Gilquin G. and Paquot M. (Eds), ''A Taste for Corpora. A tribute to Professor [[Sylviane Granger]]''. Benjamins, 2011</ref>
*identify [[collocations]]<ref>Kilgarriff, A. & Rundell, M.  Lexical profiling software and its lexicographic applications – a case study. In Braasch and Povlsen (Eds.) ''Proceedings of the Tenth Euralex Congress'', University of Copenhagen, Denmark. 2004, 807–818.</ref>

MLDs were among the first dictionaries to appear on CD-ROM, with the ''Longman Interactive English Dictionary'' leading the way in 1993.<ref>Nesi, H., 'Dictionaries in electronic form', in Cowie, A.P. (Ed.), ''The Oxford History of English Lexicography'', Oxford University Press 2009: 458–478</ref> More recently the six MLDs listed above have become available in [[Monolingual learner's dictionary#External links|free online versions]].

MLDs have been the subject of research into how people use dictionaries,<ref>Lew, R., Introduction to Special Issue on Dictionary Use, ''International Journal of Lexicography'', 24/1, 2011: 1–4</ref> as well as the subject of scholarly work.<ref>Rundell, M., 'Recent trends in English pedagogical lexicography', ''International Journal of Lexicography'', 11/4, 1998: 315–342</ref><ref>Bejoint, H., ''The Lexicography of English''. Oxford University Press, 2010: 163–200</ref> A standard book on the subject is Cowie 1999.<ref>Cowie, A.P., ''English Dictionaries for Foreign Learners'', Oxford University Press 1999</ref>