Albert Sidney (or Sydney A. P. Cowie
‘Hornby, Albert Sydney (1898–1978)’
'' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004) Hornby, usually just A. S. Hornby (1898–1978), was an English

grammarian Grammarian may refer to: * Alexandrine grammarians, philologists and textual scholars in Hellenistic Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE * Biblical grammarians, scholars who study the Bible and the Hebrew language * Grammarian (Greco-Roman ...

, lexicographer, and pioneer in the field of English language learning and teaching (ELT). Hornby was born in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

and educated at University College London. In April 1924 he went to Japan to teach English at Oita University (Oita Higher Commercial School at the time). He joined

Harold E. Palmer Harold Edward Palmer, usually just Harold E. Palmer (6 March 1877 – 16 November 1949), was an English linguist, phonetician and pioneer in the field of teaching English as a second language. Especially he dedicated himself to Oral Method. He sta ...

in his programme of

vocabulary research A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

at the Institute for Research in English Teaching (IRET). Palmer invited him to Tokyo in April 1933 as an assistant; in 1936, Hornby became the technical adviser and editor of IRET's ''Bulletin''. He began to work the following year with E. V. Gatenby and H. Wakefield on a new type of

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

that was aimed at foreign learners of English, the first

monolingual learners' dictionary A monolingual learner's dictionary (MLD) is designed to meet the reference needs of people learning a foreign language. MLDs are based on the premise that language-learners should progress from a bilingual dictionary to a monolingual one as they be ...

. It was completed in 1940 and published by Kaitakusha two years later in Tokyo as ''The Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary''. After leaving Japan in 1942, Hornby joined the British Council and later became the first editor of the journal ''English Language Teaching'', launched in October 1946. In 1948 his dictionary was reissued by Oxford University Press as ''A Learner's Dictionary of Current English''. The subsequent editions of the dictionary were (1963 second, 1974 third) and continue to be a great commercial success in ELT publishing. It is now in its tenth edition and is known as the '' Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary''. The A.S. Hornby Educational Trust was established in 1961. The Trust supports ELT practitioners from developing countries and countries in transition.

References

External links

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
*A. P. Cowie
‘A. S. Hornby: a Centenary Tribute’
EURALEX'98 Proceedings, 1998

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/58806 1898 births 1978 deaths British lexicographers Linguists of English Alumni of University College London 20th-century lexicographers {{England-linguist-stub