The Learner ’ s Dictionary and the Sciences : Mismatch or no match ?

Learner’s dictionaries are at the forefront of lexicographical practice; it is through them that corpora have become standard practice, through them that the most dynamic electronic dictionaries have come onto the market. The market for such dictionaries is enormous with the big five working hard to keep and increase their share of the market. However, it may well be that they are failing to take into account the needs of a particularly user group; the ESP/EAP learner. This communications looks at how scientific usage is shown in three major learner’s dictionaries and proposes a corpus-based solution using prototype theory.