Abstract

This study investigates the attitudes and preferences of advanced learners of the Siraiki language towards Siraiki dictionaries available in Pakistan. Descriptive in nature, the study is quantitative approach and has employed survey questionnaire as tool of data collection. The main objectives of the study are: a) to identify the attitudes of advanced learners of the Siraiki language towards using a dictionary for learning a language, b) to identify the types of dictionaries that advanced learners of the Siraiki language prefer most and c) to identify the preferences of advanced learners of the Siraiki language towards their dictionaries and to identify their hurdles and problems towards dictionary use. The subjects of this study comprised 230 advanced learners of Siraiki (138 male and 92 female) from 18 to 24 years of age. The number of respondents at graduate level was 212 and 18 at masters’ level respectively. The subjects of the study were selected through purposive sampling technique. This study reported that 58 out of 230 respondents owned dictionaries. Majority of the respondents reported that dictionary use was a time-consuming task. Siraiki dictionaries were found deficient in organizing lexemes in canonical form, provision of collocations and definitions. Most of the respondents used dictionaries for meaning, followed by pronunciation, spelling, grammar, examples and notes on usage notes respectively. All the students were willing on getting training on dictionary use.

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