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Description
While mainstream English dictionaries often borrow from one another for common definitions and features, they must also strive to differentiate themselves for competitive reasons. One such distinctive effort is the Naver English Dictionary, whose ongoing development coincides with the unstoppable trend towards digitalisation in terms of appification in smartphones, other electronic devices and online presence. This paper highlights the inclusivity of lexical items that index some well-known varieties of English in this dictionary, and evaluates the ongoing efforts by Naver to align with the ‘expansion period’ of lexicography in Korea and globally. First, the paper highlights and examines the inherent structural features of the Naver English Dictionary and their implications. Second, the paper applies Ooi’s (2010) model for ten lexical entries that test the breadth and coverage of a dictionary. Next, we extend this framework for the Korean context, by testing the Naver Dictionary’s inclusion of twenty-six recent (translingual) Korean words that have made it to the Oxford English Dictionary. Beyond these terms, we also touch on lexical priming with respect to the inclusion of ‘Konglish.’ Finally, we draw on Ooi (2018b) on twenty lexical entries for world Englishes lexicography. Empirical sources of evidence for triangulation include the NOW and GloWbE corpora.
