Robert Koch and Matt Payne have been asked to respond to this proposal.

Marina and Susanna,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read and respond to your proposal. I tend to begin with a sentence by sentence response, stopping at problematic areas. I hope this helps.

I like how you start, explaining your terms and the technology in a clear and sraight-forward manner. We come to this, and I have to ask if this is a driect quote after the elipses, and if so, where are the quotation marks? "Kent (2001:74) argues that …a benefit of utilizing the bilingual dictionary is that it allows learners to search for terms they wish to express in the target language…"

I like your 4 "main objectives: 1) to construct an electronic bilingual dictionary for International Trade; 2) to supply succinct definitions of terms used in international trade; 3) to support students, researchers, teachers and the trade community; 4) to demonstrate the effectiveness of hypertext in education and research." For item 2, where are you drawing the line? What is the baseline knowledge of English that you expect users to have? This is a phase 1 question, and the reason I ask this is that creating a bilingual dictionary is a monumental task, and there are probably some obvious words, word choices to exclude, and perhaps, if you're developing it this far, some casual and business phrases to include.

Explain more about objective 4. How does using a dictionary online demonstrate "effectiveness of hypertext in education and research"? What are your criteria? I would think that this might be a demonstration of hypertext effectiveness in international trade. And if this is an objective, why are you providing print/codex copies?

Typos -- "consists of" -- "The work consits on the preparation". Also, "thorough" instead of "through".

I like this plan: it's clean and for the most part concise. My question for you involves a clarification your purpose for the paper. Are you presenting this paper in order to explain how building this type of dictionary is done (a report on process?) Are you emphasizing why this is needed? Or is this perhaps both? It seems pretty obvious to me that the thing to discuss here is how you're doing it - explanation of Phase 1 and Phase 2 processes, along with details for the 4 project objectives. I'd like to know, as a potential audience member, what were the greatest challenges, and surprises of each phase, as well as any feedback from users once it is completed.

I hope this helps, and thanks again,

Rob

Robert Koch Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
Gordon College
rkoch@gdn.edu

Hi Marina and Susana,

I agree with Rob--the part I'd be most interested in is #4--to demonstrate the effectiveness of hypertext in education and research. Not sure how you would do that. Whether you give more of a process report ("how we set up our bilingual electronic dictionary") or more of an analysis of the finished dictionary ("how the dictionary demonstrates the effectiveness of hypertext in education and research") I'll look forward to your explaining what there is to learn from this hypertext project in particular.

A few more questions: How will the effectiveness of your dictionary compare to that of other potential technologies (wiki, plain google search)? How will you keep it up-to-date? How will it compare to other non-topic-specific dictionaries (I assume some trade terms will also be in more general dictionaries)?

Also, will you be discussing the limitations of the dictionary for international trade? Effective communication relies on so much more than just choosing a word, as I know you know. :) Will you be creating appendices or other info to go along with the dictionary?

I think one potential result of your work will be some interesting examples of language use. Perhaps these examples will lead to another article on something like how cultural attitudes are reflected in the language, or how technological terms influence attitudes towards international trade communications, or something along those lines.

Best wishes for what sounds like an enormous--and worthwhile--undertaking!

Beth

Profa. Marina Meza
Simòn Bolìvar University
Venezuela

First of all, we would like to apologize for responding so late, but we have been quite busy with administrative tasks and our classes.

Thank you Dr. Koch for your accurate comments, We will try to explain what this work is about.

It is truly a quote from Kent (2001), sorry we forgot the quotation marks.

To start with objective 2, we have been reviewing different sources from textbooks, especialized journals, monolingual dictionaries and key words provided by specialists in the area, as far as this bilingual dictionary is concerned we are still in the process of analysing materials and from that analysis we will select the most appropriate corpus validated by area specialists, teachers and researchers in foreign trade.

We think that this dictionary would be used by intermediate - advanced students of Foreign Trade since this is going to be a specialized dictionary, the entries will relate to specific aspects of foreign trade.

We agree that this seems to be a monumental task but it is worth every step, this dictionary will cover most of the aspects used and developed by foreign trade practitioners, some exclusions will be carefully thought and decisions will be taken considering the analysis we are carrying out at the moment.

About objective 4, what we mean is that developing this type of tools on line will offer an effective way of consulting words and related links. Hypertext is used here to promote the production of on line materials for international trade, this is the beginning, we think there should be coming many other initiatives in this important area.
We are providing printed copies to have a kind of back up and show that this can be transformed from web format to traditional paper copies. This is also done with the purpose of giving access to this resource to those who can't access the web, don't forget we are a developing country and there are still many places in Venezuela where there isn't even a telephone line.

The purpose of this paper is to show and explain the different steps compromised in creating a bilingual dictionary, unfortunately we are still in phase 1. We are in the process of selecting, analysing and reviewing the collected information.

As we stated in the abstract, this is a research in progress and we are working hard on this.

We hope we have made clear the points outlined, thanks for your comments.

Prof. Marina Meza
English professor at Simon Bolìvar University
mmcobraqueen@cantv.net

Profa. Marina Meza
Simòn Bolìvar University
Venezuela

Thank you for your comments. As we have stated in the abstract, this is a work in progress. We will be reporting part of phase 1. As we have explained the value of this dictionary will lie on its motivational force, hypertext will be the innovation but at the same time the based for other development in the area of English for Foreign Trade.

We really appreciate your inquiries about the future and possible limitations of the dictionary.

We are looking forward for awareness of accepted meanings of terms and the internalization of terminology which enhances the process of sharing information and ideas on an identifiable context basis.

Limitations have been discussed and we have found that the important issue is to provide factual information supported by technical knowledge of this field of study.

We will take into account your suggestions for possible potential examples.

Thanks again,

Marina Meza