AN AFRICAN USER-PERSPECTIVE ON ENGLISH CHILDREN'S AND SCHOOL DICTIONARIES

Many children's and school dictionaries with English as a treated language have limited user-friendliness in African communities due to the fact that they were produced for mother-tongue speakers of English. An analysis of a selection of dictionaries within this category indicates a need to go beyond the application of principles that generally distinguish children's and school dictionaries from adult dictionaries in order to cater for additional language learners of English who also learn the language in a totally different context from that of mother-tongue speakers. Recent and current developments in South African lexicography point to an increase in the production of English dictionaries for the South African market and other African countries. These dictionaries display localised lemma selection and illustrative examples, in addition to their bilingual dimension, thereby making them sensitive to the linguistic, cultural and educational realities of English learning and use in African countries. Such aspects are identified as the core of an African user-perspective which may improve the user-friendliness of English dictionaries for African children and schools while also providing tools that may be used to establish a more solid dictionary culture in African communities.