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Abstract： The study of words has become a heated area of research into SLA. Owing to different research focuses， disciplines or backgrounds， the word is defined quite differently in various research fields. And this research is to do a brief review on various dictionaries’ way of defining words.
Key words：word;definition;dictionary
1.Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics’ definition
Based on different theoretical background and descriptive context， different linguistic dictionaries tend to define the word in different ways.
Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics （2000：510） defines the word as “the smallest of the linguistic units which can occur on its own in speech or writing”.
2.Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation
Contrary to the definition mentioned above， Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation （1995：1329） defines the word as “sound of combination of sounds （or the written or printed symbols） forming a unit of the grammar or vocabulary of a language.” Although it presents us a general idea about what is word， it misses out the boundaries for differentiating separate words.
3.Routlege Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Routlege Dictionary of Language and Linguistics （1996） provides a much more detailed suggestions for defining a word on different levels， for instance： On the phonetic-phonological level： words are the smallest parts of sound that can be theoretically isolated by word accent and boundary markers such as pauses， clicks. Words can also be further isolated on an orthographic-graphemic level by blank space in writing or print. On the morphological level， words are featured as the basic segments of grammatical paradigms and are distinguished from the morphologically characterized word forms. On the lexical-semantic level， words are the smallest， relatively independent carriers of meaning and can be described in the syntactical perspective as the smallest substitutable units of a sentence. Although it is much more comprehensive， it still suffers various problems.
4.Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics
Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics （2000：510） defines a word as “the smallest of the linguistic units which can occur on its own in speech or writing”. Problems occur when applying this criterion. For instance， is a contraction like “isn’t （is not）” should be counted as one word or two？ A function word like “the” can be counted as one word or not？
5.Conclusion
Different from the method which distinguishes words on the basis of frequency counts， dictionaries tend to distinguish different meaning senses of a particular word instead of revealing the common features under various uses. Apart from it， this criterion for arranging words is varied from dictionary to dictionary. In some dictionaries， the derived forms are presented as different entries from the base word， while in other dictionaries; the derived forms may be listed in the same entry.
Bibliography：
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English [Z]. New York： Oxford University Press， 1995：1329.
Key words：word;definition;dictionary
1.Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics’ definition
Based on different theoretical background and descriptive context， different linguistic dictionaries tend to define the word in different ways.
Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics （2000：510） defines the word as “the smallest of the linguistic units which can occur on its own in speech or writing”.
2.Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation
Contrary to the definition mentioned above， Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation （1995：1329） defines the word as “sound of combination of sounds （or the written or printed symbols） forming a unit of the grammar or vocabulary of a language.” Although it presents us a general idea about what is word， it misses out the boundaries for differentiating separate words.
3.Routlege Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Routlege Dictionary of Language and Linguistics （1996） provides a much more detailed suggestions for defining a word on different levels， for instance： On the phonetic-phonological level： words are the smallest parts of sound that can be theoretically isolated by word accent and boundary markers such as pauses， clicks. Words can also be further isolated on an orthographic-graphemic level by blank space in writing or print. On the morphological level， words are featured as the basic segments of grammatical paradigms and are distinguished from the morphologically characterized word forms. On the lexical-semantic level， words are the smallest， relatively independent carriers of meaning and can be described in the syntactical perspective as the smallest substitutable units of a sentence. Although it is much more comprehensive， it still suffers various problems.
4.Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics
Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics （2000：510） defines a word as “the smallest of the linguistic units which can occur on its own in speech or writing”. Problems occur when applying this criterion. For instance， is a contraction like “isn’t （is not）” should be counted as one word or two？ A function word like “the” can be counted as one word or not？
5.Conclusion
Different from the method which distinguishes words on the basis of frequency counts， dictionaries tend to distinguish different meaning senses of a particular word instead of revealing the common features under various uses. Apart from it， this criterion for arranging words is varied from dictionary to dictionary. In some dictionaries， the derived forms are presented as different entries from the base word， while in other dictionaries; the derived forms may be listed in the same entry.
Bibliography：
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English [Z]. New York： Oxford University Press， 1995：1329.