Speakers
Description
In 2023, the Institute of the Estonian Language, in collaboration with the Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia, conducted a user experience survey aimed at understanding the habits, needs, and attitudes of users of the language portal Sõnaveeb (‘Word Web’) and preparing for the publication of the Dictionary of Standard Estonian (DSE) in 2025. This paper addresses prescriptive and descriptive issues in Estonian lexicography, including controversial meanings. It 264provides an overview of the user experience survey, detailing the methodology of the online survey and the subsequent qualitative analysis of responses. The findings from the survey are presented and discussed, revealing diverse attitudes toward language among users. While some dictionary users only seek information about language, others aim to enrich their language use, and a third group seeks correctness and guidelines from language planning, including ‘correct’ meanings of words. The contemporary linguistic approach is descriptive rather than normative and this has been adopted in the EKI Combined Dictionary (available via the language portal Sõnaveeb). However, the legal norm of Standard Estonian is still determined (among other sources) by the latest Dictionary of Standard Estonian (DSE). The existence of these two separate sources has been causing confusion among dictionary users.
