ATTITUDES OF SLOVENIAN LANGUAGE USERS TOWARDS GENERAL MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARIES: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

This paper presents the results of a survey on dictionary use in Europe, the largest survey of dictionary use to date with nearly 10,000 participants in nearly thirty countries. The paper focuses on the comparison of the results of the Slovenian participants with the results of the participants from other European countries. The comparisons are made both with the European averages, and with the results from individual countries, in order to determine in which aspects Slovenian participants share similarities with other dictionary users (and non-users) around Europe, and in which aspects they differ. The findings show that in many ways the Slovenian users are similar to their European counterparts, with some noticeable exceptions, including (much) stronger preference for digital dictionaries over print ones, above-average reliance on other people when dictionary does not contain the relevant information, and the largest difference between the price of a dictionary and the amount willing to spend on it.

towards dictionaries, lexicography, international comparison

I N T R O D U C T I O N
Dictionary use research has a long tradition, however, most of the existing studies are focused on dictionaries of English, especially learners' dictionaries of English. One of the main shortcomings of the existing studies is that their subjects are often university students (of linguistics) and language professionals, whereas other user groups tend to be neglected (cf. Bogaards 2003, Tarp 2009, Müller-Spitzer 2014, Lew 2015. Moreover, monolingual dictionaries have rarely been in the spotlight (Klosa et al. 2014 is one exception). Another problem is that dictionary use is not equally researched across Europe; there are countries with a vast amount of research on the one side, and countries where no or hardly any studies of dictionary use have been done on the other.
In an attempt to start filling some of these gaps, a Europe-wide survey on dictionary use was conducted in 2017, supported by the European Network of e-lexicography (ENeL; EU COST Action IS1305). 1 The survey was conducted in 29 different countries, including Slovenia, by 58 researchers. The survey focussed on monolingual dictionaries and tried to reach as many different user groups as possible, even those users who do not use dictionaries at all, by using a variety of dissemination channels and being translated into multiple languages.
Preliminary results of the survey were presented at the eLex conference in 2017 , and a more in-depth analysis is offered in Kosem et al. (2018). These two reports focus on the overall results of the survey and thus provide a general picture of dictionary use and attitudes towards (monolingual) [92] dictionaries by the participants, and in some aspects offer specific comparisons between the participants from different countries involved in the survey. This paper takes a closer look at the survey results of the Slovenian participants, focussing on the comparison with the results from the participants in other European countries. The main objective of the paper is to identify similarities and differences in dictionary use and attitudes towards dictionaries, both overall and for individual questions. The paper also attempts to determine certain patterns, considering not only the survey results, but also the state-ofthe-art of lexicography in respective countries.
The analysis described in this paper is complementary to the analysis conducted by Arhar Holdt (2018) that focused exclusively on the results of the Slovenian participants. Together, the studies make a considerable step towards filling the gap in the research into the use of Slovenian dictionaries, which has been pointed out by various researchers over the years (cf. Rozman 2004, Stabej 2009, Logar 2009, Arhar Holdt 2015, Arhar Holdt et al. 2016.
Admittedly, there has recently been a noticeable increase of interest in such studies, especially in the field of monolingual lexicography, mainly on the account of proposals for a new general monolingual dictionary of Slovene , Gorjanc et al. 2015, Gliha Komac et al. 2015, Gorjanc et al. 2016.
In 2017, a large-scale national survey on the use of and expectations from language resources (Gliha Komac 2017), completed by over 5953 participants (3204 in full), was conducted, but unfortunately due to severe methodological shortcomings and bias (cf. Logar et al. 2017), the results have very limited value.
Interestingly, in nearly all other countries participating in the survey, dictionary use research is as underdeveloped as in Slovenia, or is even non-existent. There are some notable exceptions such as the UK, and to a lesser extent Denmark and Germany. Yet, the trend in most of the countries is positive as, in addition to this survey, other studies have appeared in recent years. [93] The information on the status of dictionary use research was part of the reports submitted by local partners, 2 which used the same template with instructions to ensure the comparability of information provided. The reports also provided information on state-of-the-art of (monolingual) lexicography in each country (summarized briefly in the next paragraphs), which is essential in interpreting the results of any comparative analyses, including the ones conducted in this paper. For example, Slovenia is one of few countries (others are Estonia, Finland, and Georgia) where only a single monolingual dictionary (in one or more editions) is available. Furthermore, Slovenia is one of the countries (others include Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, and Sweden) where spelling dictionaries are considered to represent the language norm, whereas in countries such as Austria, Finland etc. this role is taken by general monolingual dictionaries. And while in Slovenia and many countries dictionaries in digital format are predominant and most popular among the users, there are still several countries where paper dictionaries dominate. 3 An indication of the advanced status of Slovenia in monolingual lexicography is also the fact that two born-digital dictionaries are currently planned and/or being made, a situation found in very few countries (Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Croatia). On the other hand, in countries such as Romania and Serbia, lexicographic efforts are directed at retro-digitizing existing printed dictionaries.
In Slovenia, as in many other countries with a relatively small number of native speakers, monolingual dictionaries are compiled and published by public institutions. On the other hand, commercial publishers dominate over public institutions in Greece, Germany, France, Israel, Italy, Portugal, and the UK. In [94] Denmark, Ireland, and the Netherlands, where publicly funded dictionaries are dominant, commercial publishers still play an important role. Finally, in Croatia and Norway, commercial publishers of monolingual dictionaries are sometimes partly or entirely funded with public money.
As can be seen, in this diverse European lexicographic landscape, Slovenia is similar and/or different to different countries in different areas of (monolingual) lexicography. As our analysis will show, these similarities and differences sometimes, but not always, directly translate into participants' responses.

T H E S U R V E Y
The idea behind our survey was to gather information about dictionary use from as many EU countries as possible, plus a few non-member countries with close cultural ties to Europe and with active members in the ENeL network.
We aimed at a large number of participants, so well-thought-out promotion was of the essence. An important part of this process was the decision to have the survey translated into local languages of participating countries, which was the task of the local partners. The survey was then promoted internationally, as well as within participating countries, using a variety of channels, such as mailing lists, social networks, emails to institutions and individuals, personal contacts, media announcements etc.
In order not to discourage participants from completing the survey, it was essential that the survey did not take a lot of their time. A natural consequence of this assumption was that we needed a fairly small number of carefully selected questions. Thus, the participants were asked to answer only 13 questions that formed the general part of the survey. These questions were accompanied by 11 questions eliciting personal data from the participants.
Some local partners also opted to add the local part, which included up to five questions related to their research interests and was presented to participants [95] from their respective countries only. In constructing the survey, the group consulted a number of experts, including an expert on social survey methods.
The survey was also piloted among students at the University of Mannheim and University of Ljubljana.
The most central research aim was to probe the usage patterns of, and attitudes towards, general monolingual dictionaries. At the same time, we kept the participants' options open as far as the medium of the dictionary was concerned, acknowledging that there might be substantial differences across the countries in this respect: some might have largely adopted the newer digital formats, while others would still embrace print.
In formulating the survey items, we were aiming to make it possible to compare countries, as well as measure the effects of participant age and background.
With this assumption, the items had to make sense to a broad audience across a diverse spectrum of languages and cultures. In a similar vein, we were aware of the gap in previous research relating to the fact that surveys have tended to capture participants as dictionary users, but virtually no surveys have sought responses from people who did not use dictionaries. We did want a representation of the latter group in our survey, challenging as this might be. A natural consequence of this assumption was that the survey could not be too long, and should not assume detailed knowledge about dictionaries on the part of the participants.
The decisions to address a broad audience and use the same questions in different countries to enable comparisons unavoidably resulted in certain shortcomings. Some, which have been commented on from the Slovenian perspective but probably apply to other countries as well, have already been pointed out by Arhar Holdt (2018), for example the use of a very broad [96] definition of a general monolingual dictionary, 4 and offering multiple fields to the Slovenian participants for listing monolingual dictionaries they use, despite the fact that only one monolingual dictionary of Slovene (in two editions) was available at the time. Arhar Holdt (2018) points out that this led to the participants' incorrect interpretation of the question, as they were listing other resources such as spelling dictionaries, terminological dictionaries, phraseological dictionaries, dictionary portals (as opposed to specific dictionaries), corpora, etc. Similar problems with off-target responses to this particular question were also observed in several other countries. 5 In this particular case, the findings are in line with what the survey question aimed to elicit, namely identify not only the main general monolingual dictionaries used but also other resources that the participants consider as containing similar types of information about language. 6

S U R V E Y R E S U L T S
The survey was open from 8 May to 9 July 2017. It was completed by 9562 participants. 7 Slovenia was fourth among all the participating countries in terms of the number of participants with 619 completed questionnaires ( Figure   1), and second, after Estonia, in completed questionnaires per million population (Table 1). 4 The definition was: "A general monolingual dictionary of [language] describes [language] words using [language] explanations. There is no other language involved. In such a dictionary you can find most commonly used words." We believe this option was much better than trying to come up with a more detailed definition, which would perhaps satisfy lexicographers and linguists but would very likely confuse the survey participants. 5 The information was obtained verbally from local partners, and in some cases, based on preliminary analyses of local data (e.g. Croatia, Spain). 6 This value of survey results is conceded also by Arhar Holdt (2018: 4). 7 Each participant could only complete the survey once.
[97]   As Figure 1 shows, the aim of getting a heterogeneous sample of participants in each country was achieved. 8 Furthermore, in all the countries, with the notable exception of Georgia, students represented only a small portion of the total participants, meaning that the survey overcomes some of the shortcomings of 8 For a detailed analysis of the sample, see Kosem et al. (2018). [99] the existing research where students have dominated the sample. Figure 2 shows the age distributions and the mean age of the participants in each country. The grand mean is 38.8 years, which is close to the mean age of the participants from Slovenia (37.6 years). The most notable outliers are the Netherlands (mean age of 60.9 years) and Georgia (24.7 years). However, it has to be noted that drawing heterogenous samples also introduces a certain caveat.
In the present paper, we are comparing samples from countries and not countries per se. As a consequence, the differences we report cannot be explained by country-specific variables alone but could always be -at least to a certain extent -explained by differences in sample composition across countries.
For the purposes of our analyses, we excluded the data for Brazil as a non-European country, 9 as well as for three countries (Hungary, Iceland and Latvia) that failed to reach the required minimum of 100 completed questionnaires.
Consequently, the analyses was conducted on 9.099 questionnaires.
In the following sections we present the results of the survey, dividing them into thematic subsections, and then discuss the main findings, paying particular attention to the comparisons of the responses from Slovenian participants with those from the whole sample, or from individual countries. The survey questions are provided as titles of figures and tables.

DICTIONARY USE
The results for the questions about the use of dictionaries in general and about the use of general monolingual dictionaries show that the habits of the Slovenian participants are very similar to the European averages (Figures 3 and   4). There were also no noticeable differences in terms of demographic variables such as age group, gender and so forth. [100]

Situations of dictionary use
The distribution of selected answers of the Slovenian participants about the situations in which they used monolingual dictionaries (more than one answer could be selected) was not considerably different from the European averages [102]

Figure 5:
In which of the following situations did you use a monolingual X dictionary?
The comparison of Slovenia with individual countries in terms of situations of dictionary use shows that overall the Slovenian participants were most similar to the participants from Denmark (4 rank differences 11 ) and Estonia (5 rank differences), with the only considerable differences found in the percentages of participants writing emails, posts or letters (Denmark +20.4 p.p., Estonia +18 p.p.). Fairly similar to the Slovenian participants were also the participants from Greece, Germany, Norway, Poland and Romania (6 rank differences).
On the other hand, the Slovenian participants differed the most in the situations of monolingual dictionary use from the participants from Israel and Serbia (12 rank differences), Croatia (11 rank differences), and Georgia, Macedonia, and Portugal (10 rank differences

Meaning of a monolingual dictionary for the community and individuals
Several questions asked about what a monolingual dictionary meant to the community in general and to the participants. The first question asked the participants what in their opinion a monolingual dictionary represented to the people (more than one answer was allowed). As the comparison between the Slovenian participants and the European averages ( Figure 6) shows, the Slovenian participants (significantly) differ from the averages at the statements that a dictionary represents an exhaustive knowledge of language (+16.4 p.p.), a national symbol (+14.2 p.p.), and that it is useful for the general public (+6.5 p.p.). On the other hand, the below average share of Slovenian participants selected options that a dictionary represents an authority (-8.5 p.p.) and that it is useful for children (-8.4 p.p.). Most similarities in the distribution of responses for this question can be found between the Slovenian participants and the participants from Serbia (5 rank differences), Georgia and Germany (6 rank differences), and Croatia (7  [104] differences). The largest differences to the Slovenian participants is found at the participants from the Czech Republic (12 rank differences), Finland and France (11 rank differences), and the Netherlands, Portugal, and the UK and Ireland (10 rank differences).
A separate question asked the participants what they would do if they found a dictionary left behind by a relative. As shown in Figure 7, the Slovenian participants responses were very similar to the European averages, with most of the participants indicating that they would keep the dictionary. However, the Slovenian participants differ from the European averages in their reasons for keeping the dictionary: a larger percentage of Slovenian participants would keep the dictionary because it belonged to their relative (+10.4 p.p.), and a smaller percentage would keep the dictionary in order to use it (-5.1 p.p.). The differences can be mainly attributed to the differences in answers by age group, as the younger generations of Slovenian participants (up to 26 years old) showed most noticeable deviations, with the percentages for both aforementioned answers being fairly similar (32% and 37% respectively). Slovenia is also among the countries with the lowest percentage of participants that reported they would throw the dictionary away or recycle it (0.8%).
For the comparisons with individual countries we have conflated the answers into three broader categories of participants' actions: getting rid of the dictionary; keeping the dictionary but not using it; keeping the dictionary and using it. The results are shown in Table 2. In each of the three categories, we have marked the three countries with the highest percentage of participants in grey, and the three countries with the lowest percentage of participants in red.
As can be seen, Slovenia is among the top three countries in the percentage of participants most likely to keep the dictionary, but not use it. The comparison based on the basis of the three aforementioned categories shows that the Slovenian participants are very similar to the participants from Spain (2 rank differences), Norway (3 rank differences), Italy (4 rank differences) and France (5 rank differences). On the other hand, the answers of Slovenian participants differ the most from the answers of the participants from Serbia (15 rank differences), Macedonia (14 rank differences), Finland and Greece (13 rank differences), and Portugal and Romania (12 rank differences). The last question connected to the attitudes towards monolingual dictionaries asked the participants what they did if they did not find a word in a dictionary [107] (more than one answer was allowed). Similarly to the European averages, a considerable proportion of Slovenian participants reported looking up the word on the web, or consulting another/newer resource ( Figure 8) The comparison with individual countries reveals the highest level of similarity between the Slovenian participants and the participants from Estonia, Georgia, Israel, the UK and Ireland (5 rank differences), and Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland and Romania (6 rank differences.). It is noteworthy that the differences are often mainly on the account of a higher percentage of Slovenian participants that chose the »ask other people« option. The similarity with Estonia, Georgia, and Finland seems particularly relevant in this case, given that these are the only countries (in addition to Slovenia) where only one general monolingual dictionary (sometimes in various editions) is in use.
On the other hand, the largest differences from the Slovenian participants were exhibited by the participants from Portugal (13 rank differences), Italy (11 rank differences) and Greece (10 rank differences).

Dictionary funding
The survey contained three questions related to dictionary funding. The first one asked the participants whether they supported public funding of general monolingual dictionaries. The second question asked the participants how much they were willing to pay for the dictionary. The third question asked the participants whether they were willing to accept ads in the dictionaries. All three questions allowed the selection of only one of the answers.
As to the issue of whether monolingual dictionaries should receive public funding, the Slovenian participants' opinions were very similar to those in other European countries (Figure 9), as the majority approved of it (96.1%; European average is 94.5%). A slightly higher percentage of Slovenian participants (+4.5 p.p.), compared to the European average (33.3%), pointed to dictionaries helping the public as the reason for their support. When comparing all the answers in individual countries, the Slovenian participants showed the highest level of similarity with the participants from Austria (4 rank differences), the Czech Republic and Finland (5 rank differences), and Poland (6 rank differences). On the other hand, the largest differences were found between the Slovenian participants and the participants from Belgium and Italy (11 rank differences) and the Basque Country (10 rank differences).
If we conflate all Yes and all No answers, the comparison shows a different picture. The highest level of similarity to the Slovenian participants is shown by the participants from Germany (1 rank difference), Denmark, Norway and Sweden (2 rank differences), the Basque Country (3 rank differences), and 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% No, for another reason not mentioned here.
No, because there are more important things the public should finance.
No, because private publishers develop good dictionaries and no public funding is needed.
Yes, for another reason not mentioned here.
Yes, but there are more urgent needs at the moment.
Yes, because these dictionaries ultimately help the public.
Yes, because dictionaries are a fundamental part of our cultural heritage.

Slovenia
European average (median) interpreted with care due to differences between countries in both economic status and the status of state-of-the-art of (monolingual) lexicography. We tried to optimize the comparison by first converting different currencies to EUR amounts (using conversion rates from 14 July 2017), and then normalising the averages to Slovenia according to the purchasing power parity (PPP). 13 The results are shown in Figure 10. 14 13 Purchasing power parity takes into account the purchasing power of the currency and enables comparisons such as how much would people in different countries pay for the same or similar products. The information on PPP was obtained from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage (the data spans from 2016 to 2018, depending on the country). For Israel, the data was obtained from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage (we took 1/12 of the average annual salary in 2016). For the Basque Country the data was not available so we used the Spanish data. For United Kingdom and Ireland we used the average of PPP data for both countries. 14 To control for outliers, we excluded 5% of answers with highest numbers from the analysis.
[112] Figure 10: Average amounts (converted to EUR) that the participants were willing to pay for a monolingual dictionary (normalised according to purchasing power parity).
According to the results, the Slovenian participants are in the top half of the countries in terms of how much they are prepared to pay for a (monolingual) dictionary, regardless of the dictionary format. Overall, the Slovenian participants are very close to the European averages, with the total difference for all four dictionary formats amounting to only 4 rank differences.
In general, the differences between individual countries are very small when it comes to the online and mobile formats of dictionaries. The largest differences between the countries are found for the print format option and, much less noticeably, for the desktop format. For a print dictionary, it is participants from Serbia who were willing to spend the highest portion of their salary (well above the European average; they also stood out when it comes to the desktop format), followed by the participants from Greece, Macedonia, Italy, and Romania. On the other hand, the participants that were prepared to spend on average the smallest portion of their salary on a print dictionary came from Poland, Denmark, and the UK and Ireland.
In Slovenia, 67.2% participants were against using ads in the online dictionaries, which is noticeably above (+8 p.p.) the European average (59.2%).
Differences between Slovenia and other European countries were also found when comparing them according to age groups. Whereas in European countries on average the willingness to accept ads in dictionaries is dropping with the age of participants (the oldest participants favoured the ads the least), the percentage of the Slovenian participants under 26 that oppose ads (73.2%) was very similar to the percentage of the participants over 49 (79.5%).
The comparison with individual countries shows that in most countries the opposition towards ads was similar to that in Slovenia, in Estonia (+12.2 p.p) and France (+17.6 p.p.) it was even much higher. On the other hand, ads were favoured by a high percentage of participants in Georgia (89%), the Basque Country (63.6%), Macedonia (62.4%), and the Czech Republic (57.5%). [114]

Dictionary format
The survey contained two questions on dictionary format: the first one asked about typical formats of monolingual dictionaries used (the participants could select more than one answer), and the other one asked about the preferred type of dictionary format (the participants could select only one answer).
The comparison of answers to the first question ( Figure 11) shows that as far as tablet and mobile formats are concerned, the habits of the Slovenian participants are very similar to the European averages. More noticeable differences can be observed for the desktop format (the percentage of Slovenian participants is 11.4 p.p. above the European average) and the print format (17.8 p.p. above the European average). The lower percentage of the Slovenian participants using the print format can be mainly attributed to the group of participants under 37 years old (-19.9 p.p.; European average was 49.5%); the percentage for the group over 50 was in fact very similar to the European average (-2.7 p.p.; European average was 70%).
Most similar to the Slovenian participants in the use of different dictionary formats were participants from Estonia (2 rank differences), Denmark (4 rank differences) and the Basque Country, Finland, Germany, and the UK and Ireland (5 rank differences). Most different to the Slovenian participants were the participants from the Netherlands and Serbia (15 rank differences), Israel (14 rank differences), and Croatia and Sweden (13 rank differences).
If we limit the comparison to digital dictionary formats, we find most similarities between the Slovenian participants and the participants from Estonia (2 rank differences), Germany and the UK and Ireland (3 rank differences), and Finland (4 rank differences). On the other hand, most differences from the Slovenian participants were exhibited by the participants from Croatia and Serbia, (15 rank differences), Israel and the Netherlands (12 rank differences), and Sweden (11 rank differences). The participants from Croatia and Serbia stand out in this comparison, as all digital dictionary formats [115] were used by a considerably lower percentage of the participants (below the European averages) compared to the Slovenian participants. Even more considerable differences between the Slovenian participants and the European averages are found with regard to the preferred dictionary format ( Figure 12). The desktop format is preferred by a considerably larger percentage of participants in Slovenia than across Europe (+21.7 p.p.; European average is 26.1%). On the other hand, the percentage of the Slovenian participants preferring the print format is lower than the European average (-14.2 p.p.; European average is 27.4%). Also worth noting is a lower percentage of Slovenian participants preferring the mobile format (3.2 p.p. below the European average). Similar to the results of the first format-related question, the differences between the Slovenian participants and the European averages seem to be generationally based, as they were found mainly in the under-50 group (the percentages in the 50-or-over group were more similar to the European averages). In terms of the preferred format, most similar to the Slovenian participants were the participants from the Basque Country (3 rank differences), the Czech Republic, Estonia and Finland (4 rank differences), and Norway (6 rank differences). The differences from participants from all the other countries are more significant, especially compared to Israel (18 rank differences), the Netherlands (16 rank differences), Sweden (14 rank differences), and France, Georgia, Greece, and Serbia (13 rank differences The last question in the general part of the survey asked the participants to order the eleven characteristics of a dictionary from the most important to the least important. As shown by the comparison in Figure 13, the Slovenian participants' preferences are very similar to the European average: the most important characteristic is reliable content, followed by up-to-datedness, ease of use and free access (the Slovenian participants placed free access before ease of use). The analysis considering age groups on the European level ( Figure 14)

Mainly in the European averages, but not always
The comparative analyses have shown that for many of the questions in the survey the answers of the Slovenian participants were similar to the European averages. This includes the answers on the frequency of dictionary use, situations of dictionary use, actions when they cannot find a word in the dictionary, attitude towards public funding of dictionaries, and the preferential characteristics of monolingual dictionaries. Still, even at these questions certain local deviations could be found, e.g. a considerably higher percentage of the participants from Slovenia turned to other people when they did not find a word in the dictionary (18.3 p.p. above the average). One of the reasons for this could be the antiquated character of Slovenian monolingual reference works, both dictionaries and spelling dictionaries, as already pointed out by Arhar Holdt (2018). Furthermore, in Slovenia other channels, which were not offered as an option in the survey, such as web forums, social network groups (e.g. on [120] Facebook), and language consulting are well established. Also relevant seems to be the fact that in Slovenia only one general monolingual dictionary is available, as other countries with this situation have similar percentages of participants that turn to other people in case they do not find a word in the dictionary (Estonia 42.4%, Finland 46%, Georgia 43%).

Attitude towards monolingual dictionaries -the influence of publication/sales model?
As far as the opinions on what a monolingual dictionary means to the general public are concerned, the Slovenian participants slightly differ from the European counterparts. For example, Slovenia is among the countries with the highest percentages of participants that consider the dictionary to be the exhaustive knowledge of language and useful for the general public. The most significant deviation from the European average is found in the percentage of Slovenian participants that consider a monolingual dictionary a national symbol, with only Serbia (28.7%) and Georgia (26.2%) 15 showing higher percentages. It is noteworthy that in these two countries the print format still dominates, in fact in Serbia there were no monolingual dictionaries available in any of the digital formats at the time of the survey.
Furthermore, the comparison of percentages across different options reveals that the opinions of the Slovenian participants are most similar to those of the participants in Germany, Italy, and Serbia -three countries where the commercial model of (print) dictionary sales still dominates.

Similarities of the Slovenian participants with the participants from countries
where print dictionaries still dominate continue at the question related to the dictionary that belonged to a family member. Namely, the answers of the Slovenian participants were most similar to those of the participants from [121] Spain, Norway, Italy, and France. Especially Italy is worth pointing out in this case, as some publishers there (as in Croatia) still use the model of making access to the electronic version of the dictionary conditional on the purchase of the print version, and this exact model was used at the time of the survey for the second edition of the Dictionary of Standard Slovenian Language. 16 We can assume that this is also, at least partly, the reason behind the low percentage of Slovenian participants that would get rid of the dictionary (recycle it, donate it to the library, or sell it), and at the same time a high percentage of the participants that would keep the dictionary. We should also point out the above-average percentage of the Slovenian participants (2 nd among all the countries, behind Georgia) that would keep, but not use the dictionary -this is also in line with the answers of the Slovenian participants about the preferred dictionary format as only 13.2% reported preferring the print format.
Some insight on the attitudes towards (monolingual) dictionaries is also provided by the answers to the questions about public funding of dictionaries, and about the money the participants are willing to spend on the dictionaries.
As far as public funding of dictionaries is concerned, the Slovenian participants overwhelmingly support it and are thus in line with the opinions of the participants across Europe. The finding that is more interesting in this case is that public funding of dictionaries was supported by most participants in all the participating countries, regardless of how dictionaries were funded in their countries at the time of survey. It seems that the participants no longer consider the commercial model as a suitable one for dictionary distribution to the users; the results of the survey supporting this claim are the widespread use of dictionaries in digital formats (which are mostly free) and the wide-spread perception of dictionaries as items of cultural heritage or something that is useful for the general public. 16 The online version of the dictionary became freely available at the end of 2017. [122] The survey participants' expectations that the dictionaries should be freely available or should cost very little are evident from the average amounts they were prepared to pay for dictionaries. This is particularly true of digital dictionary formats, on which the participants were willing to spend on average 5.85 EUR for the desktop version, 4.77 EUR for the online version, and 2.36 for a mobile app. Much more on average (24.94 EUR) were the participants willing to pay for print dictionaries. The Slovenian participants' averages are very close to the European ones for all four formats listed at this question.
However, the picture is not complete without taking dictionary prices into account. Thus, we have conducted an additional comparison between the average price of a print monolingual dictionary and the average amount that the participants were prepared to spend on it. 17 We have managed to obtain the information on the price of print dictionaries for 14 out of 25 countries (Table   3). 18 The results show that the Austrian participants were the only ones prepared to pay on average more than the current price of a monolingual dictionary; also close were the participants in Germany and Norway who were prepared to pay on average only slightly less than the average price of a monolingual dictionary. In all other countries the participants were willing to pay (much) less than the average price of a dictionary. The differences between the two amounts were by far the most striking in Slovenia and the Netherlands, mainly on account of a (very) high price of a monolingual dictionary. But while in the Netherlands the dictionary is sold by a commercial publisher and the users have the alternative of using a freely available dictionary by a public institution, in Slovenia, there was (and still is) only one monolingual dictionary 17 In this particular comparison, we have only normalized the amounts to EUR. We did not use the purchase power parity as the dictionary prices should be already adjusted to the purchasing power in respective countries. 18 The information was generally provided by local partners, however for some countries we have looked up the prices of dictionaries online (the searches were conducted in July 2018). [123] available, and since it was publicly funded, the high asking price seems even more questionable.  Table 3. Differences between dictionary prices and money the participants were willing to spend on a monolingual dictionary (in EUR).
In sum, a greater percentage of the Slovenian participants appreciate the exhaustiveness and informativeness of dictionaries than in other European countries. Furthermore, Slovenia is also among the top countries when it comes to seeing a monolingual dictionary as a national symbol. Slovenian participants support public funding of dictionaries, and are not willing to pay a lot for them, especially when calculated in relation to the price of a dictionary, in which case Slovenians are willing to pay the least of all. Nonetheless, this is not due to their stingy nature but due to the dictionary sales model (online version only available via the purchase of a print copy), which is similar to the models used in countries where commercial dictionary publishers dominate; thus, it is not a very logical choice for Slovenia, where monolingual dictionaries are entirely [124] publicly funded. Considering this, it is even more worrying that the dictionarymakers have recently adopted another, even less logical model, by making the publicly funded Slovar sinonimov slovenskega jezika (Dictionary of Slovene Synonyms) available only in the print format for the first three years after publication. At least as far as (not) making dictionaries available to the users goes, Slovenia seems to be definitely unique.

Generational particularities
Also identified were differences between the Slovenian participants and the European averages in terms of different age groups and education groups. participants share the most similarities with participants from Spain (10 rank differences), Georgia, Italy and Norway (12 rank differences), Croatia (14 rank differences) and Sweden (15 rank differences). On the other hand, the Slovenian participants differ the most from the participants from Finland (23 rank differences) and Greece, Macedonia and Portugal (22 rank differences). It is noteworthy that the participants from countries such as Georgia and Croatia, which differ significantly from the Slovenian participants in the overall results, exhibit similarities when it comes to the attitudes towards monolingual dictionaries.
If we limit the comparison to the questions related to the use of monolingual dictionaries (frequency of use, situations, and word not found in a dictionary), the results are again different. Most similar to the Slovenian participants are participants from Belgium (15 rank differences), Estonia (16 rank differences), Austria, Germany and Spain (17 rank differences), and Finland (18 rank differences). On the other hand, most different from the Slovenian participants are the participants from Serbia (29 rank differences), Croatia and France (28 rank differences) and Georgia and Norway (26 rank differences).
We have also conducted comparisons between countries that share a certain characteristic, e.g. a Slavic language, public funding of (monolingual) dictionaries, the important role of spelling dictionaries etc., however no clear patterns were identified. Perhaps the only exception is the dominant dictionary format as the participants from all the countries where the digital formats dominate exhibit a certain level of similarity in survey answers with the participants from Slovenia.

C O N C L U S I O N
Surveys such as the one described in this paper can shed light on the different uses of and attitudes towards dictionaries in European countries, especially if conducted in many countries and including a large number of participants. The results of this survey have already shown certain patterns in both attitudes towards (monolingual) dictionaries and their use. Similarly, the studies of the results from each country will bring much needed insight into dictionary use and needs of the users, considering that in the majority of participating countries studies into dictionary use are rare or non-existent.
Our analysis, which compared Slovenia with other participating countries, showed that in many ways Slovenian users are in many aspects no different from their European counterparts. The main finding is that the users in Slovenia, especially younger generations, rely heavily on digital formats and have thus largely abandoned the print format -this is underpinned by the similarities with "digital" countries such as Estonia and Finland on the one hand, and dissimilarities with countries where print dictionaries still dominate on the other. One aspect in particular that dictionary-makers in Slovenia should take notice of is one in which Slovenia stands out from the other European countries -namely, a very high difference between the price of a (print) monolingual dictionary 23 and the amount the users are willing to spend on it.
That fact, combined with the commercially-oriented sales model used for (publicly funded!) dictionaries, points to the dichotomy between users' needs and dictionary-makers' aims. One can only hope that the results of this survey will facilitate a quick improvement of this situation.

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (infrastructure programs I0-0022 and I0-0051). 23 A very high price of a dictionary can partially be explained by the fact that Slovenia has a rather unique system of public libraries which all have the policy of buying books that are important -and dictionaries certainly are one of them. slovenska slovarska situacija izstopa v razliki med ceno (tiskanega) enojezičnega slovarja in zneskom, ki so ga zanj pripravljeni odšteti uporabniki (ki je sicer na ravni evropskega povprečja), saj je ta razlika največja med vsemi državami, ki so sodelovale v raziskavi. Od mnogih pomembnih ugotovitev, ki jih za slovenske izdelovalce slovarjev prinaša ta prispevek, je ta gotovo eden najbolj ključnih.