Abstract: Since the end of the 1970s, China has begun to enroll postgraduates and acknowledged that both literature and language are two orientations under the discipline of foreign languages. The leading role of linguistic theories in the compilation of textbooks, grammar and dictionaries has been fully recognized. Based on the features of English-English and English-Chinese dictionaries published in the recent years, this paper attempts to explore how the improvement of dictionary compilation has benefited from the development of lexicology, lexicography, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, semiotics, multi-modalities, etc.