The problems of lexicographic presentation of words in the bilingual electronic dictionaries

 

 

Министерство  образования и науки Республики Казахстан

Кокшетауский государственный университет им. Ш.Ш. Уалиханова

Филологический  факультет

Кафедра английского  языка и МП

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Курсовая работа

По дисциплине: “Лексикология и история языка”

Специальность: 050119

 

 

На тему: «The problems of lexicographic presentation of words in the bilingual electronic dictionaries»

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Выполнила:

Научный руководитель:

 

 

 

Кокшетау, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

 

   Introduction……………………………………………………………………...3

 

   1.Bilingual dictionaries:general characteristics……………………………........6

 

   2.The main problems in bilingual lexicography.……………………………….…

   2.1.The choice of equivalents……………………………………………………

   2.2. The meaning discrimination………………………………………………….

3.The semantic characteristics of the word in bilingual electronic dictionary  

“Multitran”…………………………………………………………………………   

 

 

   Summary and Conclusions…………………………………………………..…

 

   References...……………………………………………………………………

 

   Appendix .Entries beginning with the letter Y-subject to analysis……………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

According to N.M. Rayevska [1, p291], lexicography is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. Modern English lexicography appeared in the 15 ^th century. In this period English-Latin dictionaries were in existence. The first explanatory dictionary of the English language was published in 1755 by Samuel Johnson, in which he gave the origin of words and example from the works of the best writers. Lexicography is an important branch of applied linguistics which has a common object of study with lexicology as both describe the vocabulary of a language. The essential difference between the two lies in the degree of systematization and completeness each of them is able to achieve. The province of lexicography is the semantic, formal, and functional description of all individual words. Dictionaries" aim at a more or less complete description, but in so doing cannot attain systematic treatment, so that every dictionary entry presents, as it were, an independent problem. Lexicographers arrange their material most often according to a purely external characteristic, namely alphabetically.

The term dictionary is used to denote a book listing words of a language with their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage and/or origin. All dictionaries can be divided into two main types - encyclopedic and linguistic. Linguistic dictionaries are word-books; their subject matter is vocabulary -units. Encyclopedias are thing books dealing with concepts (objects and phenomena, their origin and development, relations to other concepts). Encyclopedias sometimes provide data of linguistic nature, such as the origin of the word. Linguistic dictionaries in their turn may include a certain amount of information which is proper to an encyclopedia (the names of famous people together with their birth and death dates or the names of major cities and towns, giving not only the correct spelling and pronunciation, but also a description of their population, location). A linguistic dictionary is a book of words in a language usually listed alphabetically with definitions, pronunciations, etymologies and other linguistic information or with their equivalents in another language .For dictionaries in which the words and their definitions belong to the same language the term unilingual or explanatory is used.

 

 

 

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Bilingual or translation dictionaries are those that explain words by giving their equivalents an another language. Multilingual or polyglot dictionaries are not numerous, they serve chiefly the purpose of comparing synonyms and terminology in various languages. [R.S.Ginzburg, p256].

  Different types of dictionaries differ in their aim, in the information they provide and in their size. They differ in the structure and content of the entry. The most complicated type of entry is found in explanatory dictionaries. The entry of an explanatory dictionary of the synchronic type usually presents the following data: accepted spelling, pronunciation, grammatical characteristics, the indication of the part of speech, definition of meanings, modern currency, illustrative examples, derivatives, phraseologycal units, etymology, synonyms, antonyms etc. The entry of translation dictionaries presents the meanings of words with the help of other languages. A bilingual electronic dictionary is a specialized dictionary used to translate words or phrases from one language to another. For example Multitran, MultiLex ABBY Lingvo , Promt. Bilingual electronic dictionary can be unidirectional, meaning that they list of meanings of words of one language in another, or can be bidirectional, allowing translation to and from both languages. Bidirectional bilingual electronic dictionaries usually consist of two sections, each listing words and phrases of one language alphabetically along with their translation. In addition to their translation, a bilingual electronic dictionary usually indicates the part of speech, gender, verb type, declension model and other grammatical clues to help a non-native speaker use the word Other features sometimes present in bilingual electronic dictionaries are lists of phrases, usage and style guides, verb tables, maps and grammar references. [www.trueknowledge.com].

The aim of the course paper is to study theoretical problems connected with presentation of the words in a bilingual electronic dictionary and to see how they are dealt with in lexicography.

 

To achieve this aim the following tasks are set:

 

1. To define the status of the bilingual electronic dictionary among other books of references
2. To examine the semantic problems treated in bilingual electronic dictionaries.
3. To make a lexicographic analysis of entries in bilingual electronic dictionaries

 

   The object of the course paper is the bilingual electronic dictionary Multitran [www.multitran.ru].

 

   The subject of the course paper is dictionary entries in the electronic dictionary under consideration.

The theoretical significance of the course paper is that the results and materials can be used in teaching Lexicology and Lexicography and can help students in the work with bilingual electronic dictionaries.

      The practical significance of the course paper lies in the fact that he electronic bilingual dictionary is very effective and convenient for use in teaching English

The course paper consists of Introduction, Part 1, dealing with the history of bilingual lexicography, Part 2, dwelling on the semantic problems in the bilingual electronic dictionary, Part 3, describing the different ways of presenting words in the dictionary under consideration, Summary and Conclusions, References and Appendix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.Bilingual electronic dictionaries: general characteristics

 

Today's English learner has a wide choice of dictionaries in which to choose from. There are dictionaries with American English, with British English, with idioms or slang, and even with pictures. One of the most popular dictionaries are bilingual electronic dictionaries. An electronic dictionary is either a small handheld computer with integrated reference materials, or a PDA or a smart phone with a dictionary program. Electronic dictionaries are also programs that can be downloaded from the Internet or purchased on a CD-ROM or DVD and installed on a desktop computer or on a lap top. Other electronic dictionaries can be searched and consulted online on the Internet. The computer-installed dictionaries can often be consulted directly from within any application that uses editable text. The term may be used in a broader sense to refer to the features of a machine-readable dictionary or spell checker. An electronic dictionary is an electronic reference resource that contains a library of words and their meanings, spellings, and etymologies. Sometimes electronic dictionaries serve a similar function to regular dictionaries; they are searchable and they allow one to find specific bits of information about words. In other cases, they work in the background of other programs, such as word processors, and exist only to ensure proper spelling. When a word typed into a word processor program does not match any of the words stored in the electronic dictionary, the word is marked, so the writer knows to check the word. Some electronic dictionaries can also serve as thesauruses or translation tools .A portable electronic dictionary tends to be more convenient than a paper dictionary, as it contains many more words in a much smaller space. Also, it tends to be much faster to search an electronic dictionary than to search a paper dictionary; one only needs to type in the desired word to see it and all of the information associated with it.

Generally, dictionaries of the same editions made by the same publishers can also be found in print form. An electronic dictionary, however, can be updated much more frequently and at any time; there is no need for a new edition of the dictionary when a few new words come into being or when the meanings of some words change in a few subtle ways. Also, companies who host online dictionaries often can make money as a result by allowing others to place advertisements on the dictionary's Web site.

Sometimes, an electronic dictionary on the Internet is run by an online community and is not officially affiliated with any formal group or publishing company. Sometimes these dictionaries are very formal and contain many links to more official dictionaries. In other cases, however, they are intended to go beyond the formal definitions of words. Some dictionaries are intended to be humorous and focus on the informal cultural uses of words. Some electronic dictionaries contain only a single language (monolingual), but others are bilingual dictionaries and translation dictionaries and may also include, medical or legal dictionaries, thesauri, travel dictionaries, dictionaries of idioms and colloquialisms, a guide to pronunciation, a grammar reference, common phrases and collocations, and a dictionary of foreign loan words.

Electronic dictionary databases, especially those included with software dictionaries are usually extensive and can contain up to 500,000 headwords and definitions, verb conjugation tables, and a grammar reference section. Bilingual electronic dictionaries and monolingual dictionaries of inflected languages often include an inter-active verb conjugation, and are capable of word stemming and lemmatization.

Manufacturers and developers of electronic dictionaries may offer native content from their own lexicographers, licensed data from print publications, or both, as in the case of Babylon offering premium content from Merriam Webster, and Ultralingua offering additional premium content from Collins, Masson, and Simon & Schuster, and Paragon Software offering original content from Duden, Britannica, Harrap, Merriam-Webster and Oxford.

A major consideration is the quality of the lexical database. Dictionaries intended for collegiate and professional use generally include most or all of the lexical information to be expected in a quality printed dictionary. The content of electronic dictionaries developed in association with leading publishers of printed dictionaries is more reliable that those aimed at the traveler or casual user, while bilingual dictionaries that have not been authored by teams of native speaker lexicographers for each language, will not be suitable for academic work. Some developers opt to have their products evaluated by an independent academic body such as the CALICO.

Another major consideration is that the devices themselves and the dictionaries in them are generally designed for a particular market. As an example, almost all handheld Japanese-English electronic dictionaries are designed for people with native fluency in Japanese who are learning and using English; Japanese words must by entered by pronunciation, not by how they're written, so in most cases a user can't look up a word seen in print unless she or he already knows that word (not a problem for the native Japanese user, but it rather defeats the point for one learning Japanese). Similar limitations exist in most two or multi-language dictionaries and can be especially crippling when the languages are not written in the same script or alphabet; it's important to find a dictionary optimized for the user's native language[B.C. Perry,p.47 ].

The most important challenge for practical and theoretical lexicographers is to define the functions of a bilingual electronic dictionary. The bilingual electronic dictionary may have as its function to help users translate texts from one language into another, or its function may be to help users understand foreign-language texts. In such situations users will require the dictionary to contain different types of data that have been specifically selected for the function in question. If the function is understanding foreign-language texts the electronic dictionary will contain foreign-language entry words and native-language definitions, which have been written so that they can be understood by the intended user group. If the dictionary is intended to help translate texts, it will need to include not only equivalents but also collocations and phrases translated into the relevant target language.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of creating a bilingual electronic dictionary is the fact that lexems or words cover more than one area of meaning, but this multiple meanings do not correspond to a single word in the target language. For example, in English< a ticket can provide entrance to a movie theatre, authorize a bus or train ride, or can be given to you by a police officer for exceeding the posted speed limit. In German these three meanings are  not covered by one word as in English, but rather there are several options:Eintrittskarte or Fahrkarte and Mahnung/Bussgel bescheid.

As a result of the flourishing increase in international interaction and cooperation, more and more of us are coming to realize that bilingual electronic dictionaries have become a necessary part of our daily economic, intellectual, and cultural activities. Bilingual electronic dictionaries in current use have grown out of practice and tradition rather than scientific research and can no longer meet our needs. It gives linguists an insight into the practical problems of compiling dictionaries, acquaints lexicographers with the theoretical approaches to the linguistic problems they encounter in their careers,

provides librarians with a new system of classifying bilingual electronic dictionaries, and helps language teachers to select the most appropriate dictionaries for their students[www.allaboutdictionaries.com].

          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. The main problems in bilingual lexicography

The semantic problems involved into bilingual dictionaries are different from and more complicated than those in monolingual ones because the latter are prepared for people who participate and understand the culture being described whereas the former describe a culture which differs, in various proportions, from the users". Like other aspects of linguistic description, semantic studies have not always been appreciated by lexicographers. As E.Nida noted [6, p279], : an essential part of investigations in semantics is reflected in dictionary-making, a highly specialized process, which, however, too often reflects only a meager appreciation of some fundamental problems involved into analysis of meaning.

There are many problems in bilingual lexicography: usage, pictorial illustrations,

illustrative examples, word family, the choice of equivalents, meaning discrimination.

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Usage can be defined as the study of socially graded synonyms." Ain't I" and "I am not", for instance, have the same meaning, but quite different social values. Illustrative examples are used in dictionary to prove that a word or a particular meaning of a word exists in the language. The term "pictorial illustration" takes Flemming's [7, p247], definition as a point of departure. Fleming defined pictorial illustrations as "those configurations of line, dot, or area, and any combination of these three resembling events or objects either as perceived or as generally conceived. One of the major problems in making dictionaries for language teaching is the selection of the words and meanings. Selection should depend on adequate sample in the target language. Another problem pertaining to the use of bilingual dictionaries in language teaching in the inclusion of etymology. Malkiel [8, p379] thinks that etymologies of the foreign language shoul be included. Bilingual dictionary should provide etymological information only about those foreign words which are borrowed from or by the user's native language.

Al-Kasimi [9, p58] pointed out two main problems in bilingual lexicography: the choice of equivalents and meaning discrimination.

2.1 The choice of equivalents

The major task of bilingual lexicographer is to find appropriate equivalents in the target language to the units of the course language. This task involves a great deal of translation.

Jakobson [11, p233], labels differently three types of translation:

l)intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by

means of other signs of the same language.

2)interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal

signs by means of some other language.

3)intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal

signs by means of nonverbal sign system. Bilingual lexicography is obviously concerned with translation proper or interlingual translation which will be referred to here as translation. There are various ways to define translation, but all definitions share one or more of the following concepts depending upon the special interest of each writer;

a) The transference of meaning from'one text to another language. An example of this 
concept is definition of translation as "the branch of applied science of language which 
is specifically concerned with the problem—or the fact—of the transference of meaning 
from one set of patterned symbols into another set of patterned symbols.

2. Transcoding or the transformation of symbols,. This concept is represented by Oettinger's [12, pi04], definition of translation in terms of "the process of transforming signs or representation into another signs or representation."
3. Finding equivalent lexical items. Oettinger's definition of interlingual translation as "the replacement of elements of one language, the domain of translation, by equivalent elements of another language, the range," serves as an example here.

Although a bilingual dictionary deals mainly with the last concept, namely the translation of entry words, the other two concepts are also relevant as in the translation of the illustrative sentences and in transliteration of proper nouns of the source language for which there is no possible translation in the target language, especially when the two languages employ different writing systems.

Catford [13,130-132], believes that whereas a monolingual lexicographer deals with defining equivalents, his bilingual counterpart is specifically concerned with transition equivalents. Broadly speaking, a translation-equivalent can be defined as "a target-language text, or item-in-text which changes when and only when a given source-language text or item is changed." One of "the linguistic processes to establish translation 

equivalents is the commutation test which makes use of a bilingual as an informant The bilingual is presented with a sentence in the source language and requested to put it in the target language, Then the items of the sentence are gradually changed one by one and every time an item is changed the bilingual provides the proper translation.

Nida [14,p27], recommends that even if a lexicographer has long experience with the foreign language he should seek the constant help of a native informant of that language in order to weed out improper usage and avoid translationisms.

The translations of entry words in a bilingual dictionary are usually of two types: transitional equivalents and explanatory equivalents. A translational equivalent is a lexical unit which can be immediately inserted into a sentence in the target language: e,g < in an English-Russian dictionary, bоу=мальчик. An explanatory or descriptive equivalent is one which cannot be always inserted into a sentence in the target language; e.g. boyhood: отрочество. То cite a mutational equivalent for the word "boyhood." the lexicographer may give "детство" or "юность". But the English entry word is restricted to male children whereas the two Russian translations equivalents are not: and so the lexicographer may try a compromise and say, for instance, boyhood : детство мальчика.

Zgusta [15,p8] provides the following example :

Ossetic Ziw "Collective help" (socially expected help, above all in agricultural works, or organized within or by a group of people).

Here, "collective help" is an explanatory equivalent, and the phrase in parentheses is an explanation. However, Zgusta admits that there are a great number of borderline cases. The difference between an explanatory equivalent and an explanation is that whereas the latter tends to be similar to a definition or description, the former tends to approximate a translational unit and so it might be standardized by acceptance and use in the language. Nevertheless, the distinction between translational and explanatory equivalents is a useful one. The explanatory equivalent is of a general nature and it works well if the target language is the user's native tongue, because it (the explanatory equivalent) may suggest, or elicit in him some other equivalent which fits the particular context he is dealing with. On the other hand, although a translational equivalent conveys less information than an explanatory one, it has the advantage of offering the user a lexical unit which can be

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directly employed. Consequently, translational equivalents should be favored in a bilingual dictionary intended for the speakers of the source language as an aid to produce the target language.

A major problem which confronts the bilingual lexicographer is that he does not always find the required equivalents in the target language. Two types of vocabulary particularly contribute to this problem; the culture-bound words which denote objects peculiar to the culture of the source language, and the scientific and technological terminology which does not exist in the vernacular languages of the developing countries. Although many of these developing countries have a special linguistic body that undertakes the responsibility of creating the needed vocabulary, the lexicographer and his assistants often find themselves obliged to create a translation equivalent which does not exist in the target language.