Introduction to the New Edition of the Macmillan English Dictionary

• The success of the first edition
• Why a second edition?
• What the second edition has on offer
• Core vocabulary
• Improvements
• Innovations

The success of the first edition

The Macmillan English Dictionary (MED) was published at the beginning of 2002, and quickly gained a reputation for quality, innovation, and user-friendliness. The development of the MED was guided by two key principles: firstly, a belief that we can make dictionaries better by applying what we learn from linguistic theory in practical ways; and secondly, a commitment to ‘learning from learners’ – in other words, finding out what students and teachers really need their dictionaries for, and then tailoring the dictionary to meet those needs.

This proved a successful formula, and the MED has won several prestigious prizes, including the ESU English Language Book Award (2002) and the British Council’s ELT Innovation Award (2004).

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Why a second edition?
So why do we need a new edition? Well, the world hasn’t stood still since we produced the first MED. The English language is in a state of continuous change, as it responds to social, political, and technological developments. Our understanding of how languages work and how people learn them continues to improve, and – thanks to new technology – the resources available to us for studying languages (large corpora and intelligent software) have become bigger and better.

All of this gives us the means to make the dictionary even more relevant to the needs of its users. So our first job was to get a clearer idea of what these needs are. As well as talking to hundreds of teachers, language-teaching experts, and students of English, we conducted a massive survey of MED users. Almost 2,000 people took part, and they told us what they liked about the MED, what could be improved, and what additional features would make the dictionary even more helpful. We analysed the results, and the new MED has been specially designed to reflect what users told us.

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What the second edition has on offer
Like its predecessor, the new MED focuses on three main aspects of the language-learning process:

• receptive tasks: understanding what you read and hear
• productive tasks: writing and speaking natural English, accurately and with confidence
• language awareness: developing a deeper understanding of the language system as a basis for successful learning

To achieve all this, we have built on the innovations we introduced in the first edition, which included:

• menus to help users find the right meaning fast
• collocation boxes listing words that frequently occur together, to help users write natural-sounding English
• metaphor boxes that reveal the connections between all the words and phrases we use for expressing particular ideas and emotions
• language awareness articles, written by well-known experts, on topics ranging from Pragmatics to British and American English
• learning support through the MED’s dedicated website and this monthly magazine. These provide tips on using the dictionary, a regular ‘new words’ column, e-lessons for teachers, articles by leading language experts, and much more

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Core vocabulary
The most important feature of all is the clear distinction that the MED makes between high-frequency core vocabulary and the less common words needed mainly for reference. Core vocabulary – the words you need to know in order to perform successfully in both receptive and productive modes – is shown in red, and reference items – the more specialized, less frequent words – are shown in black. There are 7,500 ‘red words’ in the MED, and research into users’ vocabulary needs has convinced us that this is an appropriate and realistic target for learners who want to succeed at advanced level. This key feature of the first MED remains unchanged in the new edition.

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Improvements
In every other area we have made improvements and additions. There are many more collocation boxes in the new MED, and more collocates listed in the existing ones. We have added 20 new metaphor boxes, because users told us this was one of their favourite features. And there is a complete set of new Language Awareness articles written specially for this edition.

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Innovations
In addition, the new MED provides improved resources for users’ receptive and productive needs. On the receptive side, we have added hundreds of new words and phrases that have appeared in the last five years, and our coverage of World English has almost doubled. Two other ‘receptive’ aids are worth a special mention. First – as a direct response to the results of our user survey – we have added about 4,000 items of specialist vocabulary, with a focus on six key subject areas: business and economics, science, information technology, medicine, tourism, and the arts.

Meanwhile, the dictionary’s CD-ROM includes thousands of weblinks. This means that – whenever users want more in-depth information about a cultural, historical, literary, or political issue – they can just click on an icon, and they will be taken to a carefully-selected website that tells them everything they need to know.

But the most important innovations are on the ‘productive’ side. The new MED has a special focus on writing skills, and includes a range of materials designed to help learners produce written texts, especially in academic or professional settings. These materials have two aspects:

• vocabulary enrichment: the MED now includes extensive vocabulary expansion material in three important areas: Communication, Emotions, and Movement. In addition, the MED’s CD-ROM now has a thesaurus as well as a dictionary, so that users who are looking for a better way of expressing an idea can just click on the thesaurus icon, and they will be given a range of appropriate vocabulary.
• writing skills: working with the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics (CECL) at the University of Louvain in Belgium, we have produced a complete set of materials, based on an extensive learner corpus, to help learners using English in an academic or professional context. These include 18 major sections devoted to developing writing skills such as Exemplifying and Reformulation, and over 100 special notes for helping learners avoid common errors. The MED CD-ROM also has exercises to enable users to practise what they have learned. This unique feature – the product of a two-year research project – makes the MED the best resource for anyone who needs to write essays or reports in accurate, well-structured English.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the new edition of the dictionary, above all our talented editorial team and our distinguished advisory panel who have worked so hard to keep up the MED tradition of technical and linguistic innovation and academic excellence.

For an interview with Michael Rundell, Editor-in-Chief of the Second Edition of the Macmillan English Dictionary, visit this page.

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