---
title: "World Englishes and learner lexicography: View from the"
description: "They examine the latest editions of the \"big four\": CALD4, COBUILD9, LDOCE6 and OALD10. 29 references."
authors: ["Galina N. Lovtsevich", "Alexander A. Sokolov"]
year: 2020
venue: "Russian Journal of Linguistics 24"
source: "http://journals.rudn.ru/linguistics/article/viewFile/24407/18494"
doi: "10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-703-721"
licence: "CC BY-NC (journal licence per DOAJ; Russian Journal of Linguistics)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lovtsevich-2020-world-englishes-learner-lexicography-view/"
---
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# World Englishes and learner lexicography: View from the Expanding Circle

**Authors:** Galina N. Lovtsevich and Alexander A. Sokolov · **Year:** 2020 · **Venue:** [Russian Journal of Linguistics 24](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/russian-journal-of-linguistics/) ([Russian Journal of Linguistics 2020](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/russian-journal-of-linguistics/2020/)) · **Publisher:** [Peoples' Friendship University of Russia](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/peoples-friendship-university-of-russia/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC (journal licence per DOAJ; Russian Journal of Linguistics)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-703-721) · [PDF](http://journals.rudn.ru/linguistics/article/viewFile/24407/18494) · [DOI 10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-703-721](https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-703-721) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W3082838513)

**Citations:** 5 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
The authors ask whether major English learner's dictionaries have caught up with the World Englishes view of English as a pluricentric, global language, or still treat it as the property of Inner Circle native speakers. They examine the latest editions of the "big four": CALD4, COBUILD9, LDOCE6 and OALD10. The analysis has three parts. First, how the dictionaries cover Outer and Expanding Circle varieties. Second, which culture-loaded borrowings from Northeast Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Russia) were chosen as headwords. Third, how those entries are defined. The method is qualitative critical analysis of wordlists and definitions, often comparing the core definition with the extra encyclopedic material attached to it. The results show that coverage of non-Inner Circle varieties is uneven and that the choice of borrowings appears arbitrary, driven by Western rather than regional priorities. Most definitions take a British or American viewpoint. The authors conclude that the shift toward World Englishes in learner lexicography is still very small. This matters because English language teaching depends heavily on these dictionaries.

## Key points
- The corpus is four learner's dictionaries: CALD4 (2013), COBUILD9 (2018), LDOCE6 (2014) and OALD10 (2020). The genre began with Hornby et al.'s 1942 dictionary, published in Tokyo.
- Three of the four define the headword *English* by listing Inner Circle countries. Only OALD10 presents it as a global lingua franca and adds a World English culture note, which counts over 350 million first-language speakers.
- More than 600 dictionaries and glossaries of English varieties already exist (Lambert 2019), but learner dictionaries make little use of that work.
- LDOCE6 defines Iwo Jima and Okinawa mainly through US battles in WWII. Its Siberia entry repeats a stereotype of cold, emptiness and prisons. The authors counter with official data: Siberia has over 17 million people (11.6% of Russia's population) and three cities of more than a million inhabitants.
- The Crimean War entries foreground British figures such as Florence Nightingale and the telegraph, and they ignore the Russian side (Nakhimov, Kornilov and others).

## Interesting ideas
- Split each definition into its genus + differentiae core and the encyclopedic "extra" attached to it, then judge only the extra for viewpoint bias; the core is usually neutral, the bias hides in the add-on.
- Use one diagnostic headword (here *English* itself) as a cheap probe of a resource's overall stance before a full audit.
- Check whether a headword list was chosen by a stated principle (geography, frequency) or by one culture's history, by comparing what is included against what a neutral principle would predict.
- Describe an event from the viewpoint of every participant, not just one, as the Crimean War critique demands.
- Treat culture-loaded borrowings from Expanding Circle languages as a coverage category in their own right that needs testing.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (world): When compiling glosses from WordNet/Wikidata into the ontology, store the core and the add-on as separate fields, with a perspective/source tag on the add-on, so explanations can cite neutral facts first.
- **I2** (learn): Keep a small set of probe entries or sentences whose outputs reveal a model's or lexicon's default assumptions, and use them as quick negative controls after retraining.
- **I3** (world): Audit knowledge-graph coverage of places and events against a neutral criterion such as population or area, to find entities that are present only because they matter to one country.
- **I4** (frames): Event frames should hold slots for all sides, with the agents and roles of each party, so that answers about who did what are not skewed by the dominant source text.
- **I5** (tokens): Build a test list of Northeast Asian and Russian loanwords and check that the tokenizer, tagger and lemmatizer handle them consistently rather than falling back to unknown-word guesses.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

- [Far Eastern Federal University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/far-eastern-federal-university/) — University, Vladivostok, Russia · 2 works · 6 citations

📚 Shelves (2): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 9,296 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 9,206 works

🧭 Topics (1): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 1,373 works

## Cite

Cite as: Galina N. Lovtsevich and Alexander A. Sokolov. 2020. World Englishes and learner lexicography: View from the Expanding Circle. Russian Journal of Linguistics 24.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@article{lovtsevich2020world,
  title = {{World Englishes and learner lexicography: View from the Expanding Circle}},
  author = {Galina N. Lovtsevich and Alexander A. Sokolov},
  journal = {Russian Journal of Linguistics 24},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-703-721},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-2020-24-3-703-721}
}
```

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## References

29 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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26. Article history: Received: 1 May 2020 Revised: 13 July 2020 Accepted: 15 July 2020 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Article+history%3A+Received%3A+1+May+2020+Revised%3A+13+July+2020+Accepted%3A+15+July+2020)
27. История статьи: Дата поступления в редакцию: 1 мая 2020 Дата принятия к печати: 15 июля 2020 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%D0%98%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F+%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%D0%B8%3A+%D0%94%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0+%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D1%83%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F+%D0%B2+%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8E%3A+1+%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%8F+2020+%D0%94%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B0+%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%8F+%D0%BA+%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8%3A+15+%D0%B8%D1%8E%D0%BB%D1%8F+2020)
28. Galina N. Lovtsevich and Alexander A. Sokolov. 2020. Russian Journal of Linguistics 24 (2). 703—721 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Galina+N%2E+Lovtsevich+and+Alexander+A%2E+Sokolov%2E+2020%2E+Russian+Journal+of+Linguistics+24+%282%29%2E+703%E2%80%94721)
29. Bionotes: Galina N. LOVTSEVICH, Doctor of Philology (Habil.), Head, Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, Far Eastern Federal University. FEELTA President. Research interests include Applied Linguistics, Teaching EIL, Lexicography, Sociolinguistics, World Englishes. She has authored the books on a cultural component in pedagogical terms (2010) and English-Russian dictionary of abbreviated terms of linguodidactics (2009) – in Russian. Contact information: Far Eastern Federal University 8 Sukhanova St., Vladivostok, Russia, 690091 e-mail: lovtsevich.gn@dvfu.ru Alexander A. SOKOLOV is a Postgraduate Student, Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, Institute of Oriental Studies – School of Regional and International Studies, Far Eastern Federal University. Research interests: learner lexicography, World Englishes. Contact information: Far Eastern Federal University 8 Sukhanova St., Vladivostok, Russia, 690091 e-mail: sokolov_aa@dvfu.ru [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Bionotes%3A+Galina+N%2E+LOVTSEVICH%2C+Doctor+of+Philology+%28Habil%2E%29%2C+Head%2C+Department+of+Linguistics+and+Intercultural+Communication%2C+Far+Eastern+Federal+University%2E+FEELTA+President%2E+Research+interests+incl)

*Updated 24 October 2026*