Prototype of an electronic dictionary for advanced learners of French as a second language

This article presents the results of a study that has led to the development of an electronic dictionary prototype of a particular type, called reformulation dictionary, aiming to help advanced learners of French to overcome some difficulties that are related to an accurate, flexible and idiomatic use of the lexicon in their L2 output. It stands out from other learner dictionaries projects namely because of its didactic exploitation of linguistic paraphrase. Its orientation is ergonomic in that it is centered on identified learner needs for specific learning tasks, text encoding in particular. To date, the prototype has a lexical database of around 1000 lexical items and a functional interface, accessible on-line.