In die meantime, bodi Cambridge University Press and Longman produced new corpus-based editions of intermediate-level American dictionaries, and Longman published the lemgman Advanced American Dictionary, essentially an Americanized version of the Ixmgman Dictionary ofContemporary Englkh.

These books showed little or no evidence diat dieir compilers were aware ofwhat by dien was more dian forty years' wordi of research and innovation in die production of learner's dictionaries-of die importance of using a controlled defining vocabulary, of showing pronunciations in the International Phonetic Alphabet, ofshowing grammatical patterns, of examining corpora oflearners' essays to aid in die writing ofusage notes, ofusing corpora to determine die relative frequency ofwords, patterns, and expressions so as to aid in making inclusion decisions. Some, such as Merriam-Webster and Webster's New World, created 'basic' dictionaries by adapting an existing data set others, such as Heinle, Random House, and NTC, opted for single-audior works. When diey did decide to enter die fray in die 1990s, diey badly miscalculated.

American dictionary publishers did not specialize in dictionaries for learners and were relative latecomers in spotting die market potential in ESL products. In 1981, Longman published an American version of its intermediate-level dictionary as the Ixmgman Dictionary ofAmerican English, and for more than a decade this dictionary was about all diat was available to learners who preferred American English-die huge market of students living and working in die United States, as well as learners outside die US (particularly in Japan and many countries in die Americas). Both publishers have followed dieir flagship products with dictionaries for intermediate and basic learners, with picture dictionaries, and with electronic products. JL b 1IiC world of dictionaries for advanced learners of English has long been dominated by two British publishers: Oxford University Press, which published the first modern learner's dictionary, die learner's Dictionary of Current F.nglkh (now the Oxford Advanced learner's Dictionary, or OAlJ)), in 1948 and Longman, which entered the market with die Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (IJ)OCF) in 1 978. Reviews1 43 Merriam-Webster'sAdvanced Learner's English Dictionary. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Longman phonetic dictionary