Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon

The idea for the lexicon is partially based on Shaughnessy's experience with teaching materials that used American-based images and clip art to demonstrate German words and concepts. By presenting objects in their culturally authentic context, the CAPL is designed to prepare students to live in the environment where the language is spoken. The photographic entries are real photographs, not clip art, to force teachers to "teach terms for things that actually occur in everyday German life – instead of American concepts that have no direct European equivalent."

The project was founded in 2003 as a pilot project with over 1,000 unique entries for the German language. The first images were collected by Shaughnessy in Germany and Austria through a grant from W&J College. In 2006, it received a $200,000 appropriation from the U.S. federal government. In 2008, the project was expanded to include more languages thanks to an $85,480 grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The CAPL was featured in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education and has been recommended for use by the Goethe Institute, German Academic Exchange Office and the National Capital Language Resource Center. The book The Bilingual Mental Lexicon noted the Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon's value in German language instruction for "naming and sorting activities, and in awareness-raising discussions."