Our last Lexicom Workshop in Europe  was held in St Petersburg, Russia, in June 2011. Our most recent Lexicom Workshop was held in Auckland, New Zealand in February 2012. Reports on both these events will appear soon.

Click here to read reports written by attendees to our Lexicom Workshops

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Between 7th and 11th July 2010 the tenth annual Lexicom workshop took place in Ljubljana. The topic of this year’s workshop was lexicography and lexical computing. The hosts of Lexicom 2010 were the Institute for Applied Slovene Studies Trojína (http://www.trojina.si/Vsebine/Sl/Domov/Domov.aspx ) (which was in charge of organization) and the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana.

Partaking in the workshop there were 27 participants representing more than half a dozen countries: France, Spain, India, Burundi, Norway, Estonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.

The five-day programme was intensive and full of novelty in the field of lexicography and natural language processing. Just like every year, it was prepared and executed by lecturers of the Lexicography MasterClass Company – Adam Kilgarriff, Michael Rundell and Sue Atkins – the latter did not lecture herself this year – as well as Simon Krek of the Jožef Stefan Institute and Amebis (http://www.amebis.si/), the company for development of language technologies.

Following the tradition, the workshop was mostly practical; however this doesn’t mean that there was no flirting with theory – both linguistic and lexicographic. The lecturers didn’t focus their attention only on monolingual English dictionary writing, but also on general lexicography and practice, useful for any language – which was, after all, the aim of the workshop. Interaction and cooperation between the lecturers and participants contributed to a very pleasant and creative atmosphere.

Since the basis for any effective lexicographic work is a computer-supported reference corpus, the workshop started with an introduction to corpus lexicography. Why do the corpuses need to be larger and larger? Almost 90 % of the most frequent words in a language (approximately 7500) are very common, which means that a great majority of words are rare which is precisely why as much data as possible is necessary for their analysis. Corpora for English, for example, will probably rise up to 20 billion lexical units by the year 2011.

We became familiar with parameters of building well-balanced corpora and touched upon various topics, e.g. how theoretical knowledge can be applied to a lexicographer’s work; the advantages that natural language processing brings to corpus linguistics, word disambiguation, the world wide web as a lexical database of a linguistic corpus; Dictionary Writing Systems, ontological approaches such as FrameNet (http://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu/) and Wordnet (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/), bilingual lexicography, and other relevant topics. When addressing the problem of defining the boundaries between various word meanings, Kilgarriff touched upon the topic of developing automatic pooling of meanings with the help of the so-called CoCoDo Database (COllocations, COnstructions and DOmains), which could be a basis for a dictionary.

Michael Rundell and Adam Kilgarriff introduced us to an extensive and interesting project called Dante, a fine-grained lexical database, which describes the core vocabulary of English in – so to say – every detail (http://www.webdante.net/).

The novelty I personally found most interesting was the programme module Corpus Architect/ Sketch Engine (SkE) (http://www.sketchengine.co.uk/), developed by Adam Kilgarriff which can be used to analyze different language functions. Amongst them is the option of word sketches, a function that makes a lexicographer’s work much simpler. Within this module one can create their own corpus using a new tool called WebBootCat that the participants were trained to use during practical exercises.

We were simultaneously transferring theory into practice, divided into two groups: while members of the first group dealt with the tasks involved in dictionary writing, the other group were immersing themselves into the subject of natural language processing, among others also learning how to compose their own corpus with the use of WebBootCat and preparing a corpus for the Sketch Engine.

It was also very interesting to hear about the participants’ projects from their countries, like the making of a comprehensive Serbian encyclopaedic dictionary and the Norwegian dictionary project which started in 1930 and will be completed in 2014, comprising Bokmål as well as Nynorsk.

The four participants from the University of Hyderabad in India helped us all greatly with finding out the advantages of working with the Sketch Engine.

All in all, the content part of Lexicom was extremely successful, thanks to Michael Rundell’s and Adam Kilgarriff’s warm and clear transmitting of their incredibly broad and deep knowledge and valuable experience. Important contributors were also Simon Krek of the Jožef Stefan institute and Mojca Šorli of the Trojina Institute, the latter making sure that everything was going smoothly.

The official programme lasted less than a week, yet the aftermath of the workshop is immense: Lexicom 2010 isn’t over yet! The participants found out that we have quite a lot in common in the field of our research and practical work, therefore we continue – via email – to exchange experience, instructions and advice on how to improve our lexicographic tools. A special surprise for everyone interested in the Sketch Engine software came from Adam Kilgarriff – soon after the workshop he updated its image, improved it and added new functions. Thank you, Adam, I can not imagine my translating and lexicography work without this program anymore!

And beside the official and education success we also found the social aspect of the workshop very pleasant. For example, there was an organized Ljubljana sightseeing walk with an official licensed guide, a trip to Bled (where the more courageous participants went for a swim in the refreshingly cool lake), a walk through Ljubljana in the night-time and culinary pampering of the senses with fine Slovene cuisine.

Anita Srebnik
University of Ljubljana
anita.srebnik@guest.arnes.si

This summer, the small Czech town of Brno brought together twenty-eight people from different countries for a unique master class given by three unique specialists. We were in for five days of intense and exciting tutoring in the fascinating science of lexicography.

Day one. We settle in a cozy hotel, whose lobby will become a haunting ground for late-night chats about dictionaries, corpora, and other language matters any lexicographer can discuss for hours. In the morning, we set off to find our university and its IT department where the master class is to take place. A maze of corridors with long winding stairs and here we are in a small room, together with three lexicography giants—Sue Atkins, Michael Rundell, and Adam Kilgarriff. All three of them immediately win our hearts with their welcoming speeches, anecdotes, jokes and academic openness.

And then we dive into the depths of corpus studies and practical lexicography, hanging onto every word uttered by our tutors. Each lexicographic topic is summarized in a brilliant presentation accompanied by captivating commentary.

Later that day, over a pint of beer with Adam and Michael, we digest the ideas presented to us in the first master class. We sit around two large wooden tables and tell one another about ourselves and our projects, sharing our thoughts and ideas. We continue with a stroll about the town and then decide to get a taste of the local cuisine. Our chats and discussions grow into a true communion of souls, we spend all days together, sitting late into the night in the open-air cafes and stunning the patrons with words rarely heard in a pub, such as “word sense disambiguation” and “corpus querying”. But they don’t sound strange to us. New ideas and topics pop up again and again, fuelled by excellent Czech beer.

On the very first day of our studies, we take the lexicographic bull by the horns, each one of us having the chance to put the theory we have learned to practice. And on day three we split into two groups, one tackling the task of dictionary writing and the other immersing themselves into the subject of natural language processing. Our tutors tell us about how we can extract useful knowledge from large text corpora, identify and distinguish word senses, write definitions, and find appropriate translations. At the same time, the other group is sweating over corpus querying and prepares a corpus for the Sketch Engine. Each one of us is actively involved in the fascinating business of creating dictionaries—either writing dictionary entries in accordance with the selected lexicographic approach or formulating complex corpus queries. We learn how to write various types of dictionary entries and at the same pick up useful corpus skills.

Next time we meet in the lobby of our hotel, many of us a jotting something down as we walk. These are the new senses to be added into our dictionary, as tomorrow we will have to present our work to our tutors and peers for discussion. Meanwhile, the corpus team are excitedly discussing some corpus tagging issues.

Shop talk continues throughout lunch the next day: while the hospitable Czechs pour out more soup into our bowls, we are arguing over which sense should come first in the entry and which grammar notes will prove most useful to the reader.

Suddenly we realize that the five days of the course have come to an end. The final class is dedicated to the future of lexicography. Each talk offers lots of food for thought. Sue, Michael, and Adam not only share with us their many years of experience in dictionary making, provide answers to our numerous questions, but also encourage independent lexicographic thinking, prompting us to analyze the data and find optimal solutions in the course of our practical work. In just five days, the students gained a whole new understanding of the dictionary compilation process. Now it’s time to say good-bye to our tutors, but the five days that we spent learning from them provides a huge impulse for our future work. We are certain that we will meet again and that the ideas that emerged during the seminars will be elaborated and discussed at future conferences, and will eventually be implemented in our  own dictionary projects.

Barcelona is a very exciting place, especially in the summer. And it can become even more interesting if the organizers of the Euralex 2008 conference at the Pompeu Fabra decide to make an extra-effort and host the Lexicom Workshop 2008 in the very same period. It can become absolutely amazing if you find out that Charles Fillmore (yes, THAT Fillmore) is one of your classmates…

By now, the renown Lexicom Workshops have covered a number of places around Europe and beyond, thus becoming an appreciated reference point for people working on the lexicon. What is attractive about these workshops (and about the lexicon in fact) is their interdisciplinary and applicative side, since they combine lexicology, lexicography and lexical computing.

The architecture of the Barcelona workshop is in line with previous programmes. After a brief warm-up, in which feedback from the pre-workshop readings is also gathered, Sue Atkins, Adam Kilgarriff and Michael Rundell drive the audience through highly-focused topics such as corpus linguistics and corpus lexicography, Natural Language Processing, Frame Semantics applied to lexicography, corpus-aided (and mainly dictionary-oriented) word sense disambiguation and more practical matters such as database building and dictionary writing systems. Janet DeCesaris and Gilles-Maurice de Schryver feature as guest tutors and give a lecture each on the latter two topics, respectively.

In the first part of the course, lectures are interspersed with practical work sessions, during which people from different backgrounds have to join forces to write dictionary entries and learn how to exploit all the potentials of that marvellous and addictive creature called “The Sketch Engine”.

At the end of day two, participants are called to make an important decision: am I a lexicography-person or an NLP-person? This is because the second part of the workshop is about to start and two separate groups focusing on the mentioned strands are to be formed. In my personal view (that of a theoretical linguist with applicative inclinations), this is a hard choice, especially after two intensive days in which stimulating inputs from both directions have been reaching your brain.

The schedule of both the NLP and the lexicography group is rather intense and oriented on practical work: writing definitions for both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries is the main task of the latter group; learning how to prepare corpora and write grammatical relations for the Sketch Engine are the basic goals of the former. This is a crucial moment of the workshop, since the participants are called to put their just acquired knowledge into practice.

At the end of day four, a most welcome “copa de cava” break organized by the efficient Pompeu Fabra people refreshes the Lexicom class. The end of the workshop is coming and people take a chance for networking and getting more acquainted with other participants. There is no doubt that 43 (!) participants from more than 20 different countries may be eager to exchange views and share experiences with both their classmates and their tutors.

This mixture of cultures is a plus which is definitely worth mentioning about the Lexicom workshops, and in particular about the Barcelona edition. Another one is their itinerant character: after England, Denmark and the Czech Republic, the Lexicom enterprise has finally reached the Mediterranean area being hosted by Croatia in 2006 and Spain in 2008. The next meeting (2009) will be once again in the Czech Republic. What about 2010?

Who knows. It could well be Italy…

Why would the Brno 2007 Lexicom attract people from 13 countries – Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Poland, Ireland, United Kingdom, Portugal, and even Taiwan? Why would these people, representing sometimes very different professional backgrounds like computational linguistics, research, language teaching, translation or publishing management, want to attend the workshop? Well, probably because each one of them, a language learner and therefore a dictionary user, be it either due to their occupation or, perhaps, out of sheer curiosity, had once asked themselves the question: how are dictionaries actually made? And finding out that dictionary-making is called lexicography, thought it might be a good idea to learn more of it from the very best in the trade, the true lexicographic icons – Sue Atkins, Michael Rundell and Adam Kilgariff.

First and foremost, the 2007 Lexicom proved a most useful experience. Hosted by the Masaryk University, the intensive five-day workshop in lexicography and lexical computing was a combination of seminars on theoretical issues and a series of practical sessions held at workstations. The topics of the theoretical classes varied from corpus lexicography to Frame Semantics. The most essential aspects of modern lexicography were neatly covered. We had an ideal opportunity to learn, for instance, about designing and building a lexicographic corpus, using the Web-accessible corpora as well as utilizing the Web itself to build a corpus from it, structuring dictionary entries by analyzing corpus data to find the word senses in them (his invaluable experience of a dictionary writer and editor, Michael Rundell shared with us), and constructing entries by applying the principles of the above-mentioned Frame Semantics, which Sue Atkins presented to us with such overwhelming competence. And competence was indeed the quality, and I mean QUALITY, that was instantly observable in everything, be that the instructors’ professional expertise or the materials we had received before and at the workshop, or the overall organization of the event.

But, above all, the workshop was a hands-on experience, a series of classes held in one of the very well maintained Masaryk University computer labs where we were able to put theory into practice, check for ourselves how things work, and if they work indeed!

Learning how to use Adam Kilgariff’s Word Sketch Engine was both a thrill and a challenge, and proved extremely useful for the painstaking activity of corpus querying to extract the most frequent word usages and the right word senses when writing a dictionary entry. The fruits of our strenuous efforts were then presented and discussed open-class, with judiciously worded, constructive feedback from our instructors, which most of us were perhaps most expectant, and at the same time most anxious, to hear – everyone wanted to do their part the best they could.

Furthermore, the LexMC trainers had invited a very special guest, Patrick Hanks, to give a seminar on verb pattern analysis in corpus data, and a speaker from TshwaneLex, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, who presented the probably most advanced dictionary writing system today.

And yet the Brno Lexicom proved an unforgettable experience not only because it was packed with practical and theoretical knowledge, but for quite other reasons, too. Being the ancient capital of Moravia, and the Czech’s Republic second city, Brno, the workshop setting, exhibited all its natural and architectural beauty at the time. The streets lined with linden trees took me every morning from the suburbs where my hotel was right to the workshop venue. And I preferred to walk rather than use the city’s (otherwise efficient) public transport so that I could fill my lungs with the great lime-scented air. And much could be said of Brno’s historical architecture, the castle hill, or the old wine cellar where the workshop organizers invited us to savour the rich taste of Moravian tradition, and, well… Why not another Lexicom, and why not in Brno?!

A personal view - Teodora Ghiviriga, Romania

The Faculty of Maritime Studies at the University of Rijeka, Croatia, hosted this year’s LEXICOM workshop in lexicography and lexical computing. The venue in this lovely seaside resort – Hotel Opatija – provided the Internet facilities for the computers; it also accommodated many of the 32 participants (from 11 countries), an arrangement that was not only time-efficient, but fostered a really congenial atmosphere. The constant presence of the three tutors, Sue Atkins, Adam Kilgarriff and Michael Rundell, outside the actual workshop proceedings added to the social success of the event and also turned out to be a potential professional gain. I, for instance, was the passive, yet eager beneficiary of an in-depth, though brief account of the present state of American lexicography casually delivered over lunch by two of the tutors.

The lexicographic strand ranged from an insider’s view into the practical aspects of dictionary-making, using templates, the choice of metalanguage, definition writing and style guide policy to theoretical matters such as the history of and rationale for the corpus-based approach to word sense or a condensed introduction to frame semantics. This – together with the mini-tutorial I was given on the use of FrameNet – I found particularly relevant for my activity in translation and teaching translation. Apart from its direct applicability to lexicography, (to me) it can prove highly valuable in providing the ground for discussing valency patterns (in morpho-semantics, for instance) and possibly for project work in establishing equivalencies in translating from/into Romanian (mainly literary texts, but not only), since existing bilingual dictionaries offer limited (and often confusing) information on linguistic systems that operate on highly different bases (i.e. English and Romanian). The input referring to the practical aspects outlined solid and consistent criteria for selecting and assessing dictionaries and dictionary entries (useful in translation practice). And anecdotal exemplification made it all the more memorable, at the same time setting a warning against facile solutions or rigid standardization.

The NLP strand twined information on types of documents, tokenization, tagging with technical developments, such corpus querying and refining searches with the Sketch Engine. A point of interest for its immediate applicability was the creation of corpora using the web with the BootCat program (preceded by the necessary discussions on the representativeness of the linguistic material extracted from the web and the legitimacy of using the web as a corpus, problems related to selection and filtering and others). The resulting sample of a specialised corpus, in my case, allowed me to envisage some of the ways such an instrument can be put to work, for example, tracing instances of (yet) unadapted (or partly adapted) English items in the Romanian terminology of Economics / business (and the speed of the Internet connection made our patient wait the more rewarding). Since to me BootCat made sense in association with the Sketch Engine, I think it is appropriate to mention the latter here; being introduced to it and to its Word Sketch function will prove one of the major benefits – for teaching translation (on the side), but mainly for analysing and interpreting the (specialised) corpora already created. Working on the motivating lexicographical tasks that involved the use of Word Sketch and learning by trial and error were definitely a rewarding experience.

The carefully balanced schedule alternated theoretical input with practical work intended to give everyone the opportunity to write entries using the NLP tools. Relying on well ordered step-by-step instructions, shared task practice proved an effective strategy as it involved fruitful exchanges of ideas among team members. At the round-up session, the discussions identified difficulties and weighed up solutions.

The nearly 500 pages of the course pack compressed the content of the seminars and lectures and also conveniently left room for note-taking during the sessions. The written form obviously couldn’t retain the vividness and savour of the presentations, but it definitely makes a helpful resource for further reference and study (back at home). A judicious selection of bibliography and useful websites was also appended to it – an offer that any professional would revel in.

To the optimists, the presentation in the closing session came as a promise. To the more skeptical minds (such as mine) it came both as a promise and a surprise: ‘what the future holds’ for the lexicographer as well as for the lay dictionary user proposed the cogent image of a complex, yet user-friendly, reliable (in terms of representativeness) and flexible dictionary that brings together the advantages of the electronic format (easy but selective access to entries, links to further / related information) with the achievements of traditional lexicography. An altogether inspiring closing to the workshop. So, this year’s Lexicom ended just when one wished it actually started – or at least it could last just a bit longer, a wish which in itself makes – I think – a suitable conclusion, since it holds the promise of future growth.

The course was attended by about 20 participants – with backgrounds in publishing, research, language-teaching, and computer science. Several of them came from Hong Kong universities, and others from Japan, Korea, South Africa and (a first for Lexicom) Bhutan. Following the usual Lexicom model, each seminar introduced and discussed a key topic, which was then further explored in practical exercises at the computer. As well as the basics of practical lexicography, the programme covered corpus design and annotation, the extraction of information from corpus data, an introduction to frame semantics as a practical approach to corpus analysis, and speculations about the future of corpus-based lexicography. On the final day, the working groups presented dictionary entries they had compiled, initiating discussions of various theoretical and methodological issues.

We were entertained and enlightened by a broad-ranging guest lecture from HKUST resident (and well-known writer) Tom McArthur. Gregory James, Candice Poon, and Bronson So from HKUST hosted and organized the event with great panache, and we all enjoyed a closing dinner in the university’s guest house overlooking the beautiful Clear Water Bay

Our fifth Lexicom was held from 10-14 June 2005 in Brno, Czech Republic, and was splendidly hosted by Masaryk University. The 40 or so participants represented 15 countries in Europe, Asia, America and Africa, and came from many different backgrounds: publishing houses (lexicographers and editors), universities (linguists, computational linguists, computer scientists, and graduate students), software houses (software engineers and computational linguists) and research institutions.

Each seminar introduced and discussed a key topic, which was then further explored in practical exercises at the computer. As well as the basics of practical lexicography, the programme covered corpus design and annotation, the extraction of information from corpus data, and an introduction to frame semantics as a practical approach to corpus analysis. Two invited speakers presented their dictionary writing software: Philippe Climent from IDM Paris, and Gilles-Maurice de Schryver from TshwaneLex. In the parallel ‘Master Class’ sessions, Sue Atkins and Michael Rundell led a hands-on tutorial on building a lexical database and dictionary from corpus data, while the theme of Adam Kilgarriff’s tutorial was building a corpus query system on the model of his Word Sketch Engine. On the final day, the working groups presented dictionary entries they had compiled, initiating discussions of various theoretical and methodological issues.

Brno proved a delightful setting, and the guided walk around the old town followed by the Workshop dinner in a cellar beneath the Old Town Hall gave us a splendid taste of historic Moravia.

Participants write…

Thanks a lot for a great workshop that added so much to me, academically and personally. I am enthusiastic now to try and benefit from everything I learned here in studies on Arabic, and maybe in the future you will consider doing Lexicom in Egypt (preferably after 3 years when I finish my PhD and go back!).
PhD student, Egypt

The course was interestingly presented and I enjoyed the open and informed manner of all three trainers. One of the other major benefits was meeting so many people from such different places. I am glad to have been able to come.
Computer Scientist / Lexicographer, South Africa

This was a 5***** course. Exceptionally well organized, prepared and taught. The good humour throughout was also much appreciated.
University Teacher/Linguist, Wales

Thank you very much for organizing this workshop! It’s just the kind of workshop I have always wished to attend. I believe the expertise that you shared with us is invaluable for all the participants. Once again, thank you very much!
Lexicographer-Linguist-Translator-University Teacher

Thank you very much! A lot of useful information and much more good emotions. Special thanks to the organizing team at Masaryk University – Karel Pala and his colleagues.
Linguist from research institution, Slovakia