Translation and Bilingual Dictionaries [Reprint 2013 ed.] 9783110912869, 9783484391192

Citation preview

Series M Ï Ï C M M M I C A Maior

LEXICOGRAPHICA Series Maior Supplementary Volumes to the International Annual for Lexicography Suppléments à la Revue Internationale de Lexicographie Supplementbände zum Internationalen Jahrbuch für Lexikographie

Edited by Sture Allén, Pierre Corbin, Reinhard R. K. Hartmann, Franz Josef Hausmann, Ulrich Heid, Oskar Reichmann, Ladislav Zgusta 119

Published in cooperation with the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) and the European Association for Lexicography (EURALEX)

Translation and Bilingual Dictionaries Edited by Chan Sin-wai

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 2004

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. ISBN 3-484-39119-7

ISSN 0175-9264

© Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH, Tübingen 2004 http://www.niemeyer.de Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany. Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier. Druck: Laupp & Göbel, Nehren Einband: Nädele Verlags- und Industriebuchbinderei, Nehren

Table of Contents

Chan Sin-wai Dictionaries and Translators

1

Part I: Translation and Bilingual Dictionaries Reinhard R.K. Hartmann Lexicography and Translation

7

Sven Tarp How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?

23

Phil Benson The Monolingual Dictionary: A Special Case of Bilingualism?

39

Wu Guanghua Chinese-English Lexicography and Chinese-English Translation

49

Ronald Moe Producing Dictionaries Using Semantic Domains

55

Imelda P. de Castro The Different Possible Lexical Elaborations of Computer Terminologies: Towards the Creation of a Bilingual Dictionary

63

Ian McGrath and Wience Lai "Learning" and Lexicography

71

Zhang Yihua An Empirical Study of Electronic Dictionaries and Translation Software

89

Part II: Bilingual Dictionaries and Cross-cultural Translation Yao Naiqiang Bilingualization: Equivalence and Intercultural Communication

109

Jacqueline Lam Kam-mei and Tom McArthur Could There Be a Dictionary Tailor-made for Hong Kong: Both Biliterate and Trilingual

119

Table of Contents

VI

Magdalena C. Sayas Translating Across Cultures in a Multilingual Dictionary

129

Li Lan and Grahame T. Bilbow Cultural Similarities and Dissimilarities of Business Metaphors and Their Translation

141

Wu Jianping Equivalence of Interlinguistic Symbols and Speech Translation: Differences and Requirements

151

Eric Kun Chun Wong and Rosa Wan Towards "A Greek-Chinese Lexicon of the Greek New Testament" — A Cross-cultural Endeavour?

157

Hugo T. Y. Tseng Rendering Chinese Culture-specific Vocabulary into English — Predicaments and Prospects

169

Zhao Yanchun and Huang Jianhua The Paradox of Cultural Translation: How to Treat Cultural Information in Bilingual Dictionaries

177

Notes on Contributors

187

Chan

Sìn-wai

Dictionaries and Translators

Constant consultation of reference materials such as dictionaries and reference books are part of the translator's stock-in-trade. As pointed out aptly by Peter Newmark (1998: 29), "The bilingual dictionary is the translator's single, first, and most important aid, and a translator who does not consult one when in doubt is arrogant or ignorant or both." Yet translators have had a hard job finding the "perfect dictionary" to suit their particular needs. Perhaps this is because, as Reinhard R.K. Hartman says in his chapter "Lexicography and Translation," these two areas have stood apart for decades despite their commonality of purpose. He is correct in saying "[...] the two fields have a special responsibility for describing and reducing interlingual contrasts and thus helping more people cross the language barrier" (Hartmann 1989: 18). The lack of a dedicated volume on this topic has at last been rectified with the publication of this book. Bilingual dictionaries as an interlingual project is comprehensively dealt with on these pages. The first section encompasses such things as the dictionary as a concept, new methods in dictionary compilation, dictionary typography, and electronic dictionaries, while the second section focuses on the perennial topic of cross-cultural translation. We assume bilingual dictionaries are translator-friendly and designed with them in mind. But to explain a word in another language is not necessarily the same as providing a translation equivalent, least of all one that is usable in different contexts. What is more, bilingual dictionaries give only a limited range of equivalents and not a comprehensive list of possible translations. Therefore selecting a word to fit the situation is often a kind of lottery. Sven Tarp leads an interesting discussion on the differences between a bilingual dictionary and a translation dictionary in "How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?" He suggests perhaps the bilingual dictionaries are not the best solution for translators. The notion of the bilingual dictionary assumes a contrast with a dictionary of a different kind: the monolingual dictionary. But does the monolingual dictionary really exist? Phil Benson, in "The Monolingual English Dictionary: A Special Case of Bilingualism?" gives us a thought-provoking new look at the monolingual dictionary from a theoretical and historical perspective. The author argues that all dictionaries always involve the articulation of two codes: the language and metalanguage that is used to describe it. Wu Guanghua in "Chinese-English Lexicography and Chinese-English Translation" deals with the special aspects of Chinese including romanization, division of word senses and homonyms, stating that these components need further research so that the Chinese-English dictionary can catch up with lexicographical developments overseas, and so be better equipped to produce a dictionary that fulfils user needs. One of the primary tasks in translation is choosing a translation equivalent from among a set of semantically related words. Bilingual dictionaries are of little help unless they are extensively cross-referenced or organized by semantic domain. Ronald Moe shows us a practical method of word elicitation in his chapter "Producing Dictionaries Using Semantic Domains." He states that simultaneously displaying a dictionary alphabetically and semantically greatly simplifies the process of locating a desired word or meaning.

2

Chan Sin-wai

The next two chapters, while quite different, emphasize the political and lexical assumptions that impact language use. Imelda P. de Castro argues that over-reliance of English for technical terms not only prevents many non-English speakers from using computers it also downgrades the importance of that language generally. She makes the case for "intellectualising" languages, in her chapter entitled "The Different Possible Lexical Elaborations of Computer Terminology Towards the Creation of a Bilingual Dictionary." In " 'Learning' and Lexicography," Ian McGrath and Wience Lai show how cultural misunderstandings of the terms learning by heart and rote learning in the educational context can have relevance for lexicographers. Closing this section, Zhang Yihua in his "An Empirical Study of Electronic Dictionaries and Translation Software" gives us an update on current Chinese/English translation software and tests them for accuracy and usability. The bilingualized dictionary as a subtype of bilingual dictionary is the subject of the first chapter in Part Two. Yao Naiqiang deals with this kind of dictionary that shares characteristics of its parents yet differs from both, in "Bilingualization: Equivalence and Intercultural Communication." Bilingualized dictionaries are becoming particularly prominent as teaching English as a foreign language gains momentum. The next two chapters deal with an area that is likely to expand in our globalised world: the multilingual dictionary. Ever since Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, "trilingual" and "biliterate" have been key terms in discussions of the future of education in the region. Among the many matters implicit in such a policy is the prospect of a novel lexicographical genre as Jacqueline Lam Kam-mei and Tom McArthur elaborate in "Could There Be a Dictionary Tailor-made for Hong Kong: Both Biliterate and Trilingual?" Shifting to the Philippines in "Translating Across Cultures in a Multilingual Dictionary," Magdalena C. Sayas details her development of a Cavite Chavacano dictionary that incorporates Tagalog and Spanish, its matrix languages. Translating metaphor has always been an intriguing problem for translators, none more so than for those working in dictionary compilation. Li Lan and Grahame T. Bilbow in "Cultural Similarities and Dissimilarities of Business Metaphors and Their Translation" investigates metaphors occurring in the trilingual Polytechnic University Business Corpus and how they could be translated and presented in a corpus-based business lexicon with minimal loss of original flavour. Wu Jianping takes a holistic approach to analysing cross-cultural information in "Equivalence of Interlinguistic Symbols and Speech Translation: Differences and Requirements." The author explores differences in equivalence between Chinese and English through the linguistic avenues of semantics, semiotics, contrastive linguistics, and bilingual lexicography. The main reason for the inadequacy of most bilingual dictionaries is that they try to be something to everybody. Because of the cultural specificity of most words, only a small number of lexical items in bilingual dictionaries are truly universal. Eric Kun Chun Wong and Rosa Wan in "Towards A Greek-Chinese Lexicon of the Greek New Testament - A Cross-cultural Endeavour?" state that the problem is even more critical for religious texts. For average users of such a reference work, the purpose is not to achieve an extensive reading but an intensive reading, in which careful and exact distinctions are made. Hugo T.Y. Tseng follows this with a more general discussion on "Rendering Chinese Culture-specific Vocabulary into English - Predicaments and Prospects." He summarizes the strategies employed so far, their limitations, and suggests possible solutions.

Dictionaries

and

Translators

3

But as Zhao Yanchun and Huang Jianhua emphasize in "The Paradox of Cultural Translation: How to Treat Cultural Information in Bilingual Dictionaries," cross-cultural translation is a process of give and take, loss and compensation. The translator has to walk a careful tightrope in rendering the concepts of one language into another. Translation itself is a paradox, a trade-off in the quest to reach the target reader. This paradox is likely to remain as long as there are cultures and languages to translate. There is so much today that would have been unimaginable to early bilingual lexicographers. It has been an enormous leap from the days of slips of paper and inkwells to one where we can translate a word into various languages at the touch of a button. Yet there still is a great sense of continuity. Lexicography is still a process that accesses the available evidence and distills it into dictionary entries. This is unlikely to change in the future. Just as we are solving some challenges others quickly take their place. This is why bilingual lexicography will always be a challenging and intellectually rewarding task. Hopefully this volume will draw further debate on the unique relationship between lexicography and translation and so improve the state of bilingual dictionaries. Before closing, I would like to thank all my colleagues at the Department of Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, for their support in organizing a conference on "Translation and Bilingual Dictionaries" and for the publication of this volume, which is to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the department in 1972. My gratitude also goes to all conference participants who contributed so much to the scholarship on translation and lexicography. Professor Reinhard R.K. Hartmann, in particular, deserves my respect and gratitude for his advice on publication matters. I am also indebted to Miss Jennifer Eagleton, my colleague at the department, for her excellent efforts in putting together the articles for publication.

Part I:

Translation and Bilingual Dictionaries

Reinhard R.K. Hartmann Lexicography and Translation

This paper deals with the relations between the two fields of lexicography and translation, both in theory and practice. Against the background of my own experience, specializing in both disciplines, I shall ask why they have stood apart for so long and what can be done to bring about a rapprochement between them. The relative neglect of interlingual topics in lexicography, and of lexicographic topics in translation, will be demonstrated, and the special case of parallel text analysis will be examined to show how progress in interdisciplinary collaboration can be made. For the whole of my professional life I have been interested in interlingual issues, especially as they relate to my own two languages, German and English. A few examples of relevance will be given here, to set the scene for the subject to be covered. In Vienna, while still a student at the Interpreter's Institute and a new member of the Austrian Translators Association, I helped set up BILT, the Committee for Bibliography, Lexicography, and Terminology in the late 1950s because I felt these concerns were not sufficiently recognized. (I have not been able to verify whether that committee still exists today.) In my first job in Manchester, I wrote a paper in 1965 with the title "Is Lexicography Making Progress?" On the basis of a critical review of several bilingual dictionaries, I came to the conclusion that "True perfection is still far away. It is not only the slow progress of dictionary making, but also the heavy demands of dictionary use which make us aware that increased requirements are not sufficiently met" (Hartmann 1965: 44). Many years later, at Exeter, I initiated what has come to be known as the "user perspective" in dictionary research by surveying the dictionary needs and reference skills of English learners of German (Hartmann 1983) and later of English university students in general (Hartmann 1999). During a fellowship at the Australian National University dedicated to translation studies, I explored the possibilities of combining two of my specializations at that time, contrastive linguistics and discourse analysis, into a research area that I then called "contrastive textology" (Hartmann 1980) and subsequently applied to the problem of establishing translation equivalence in bilingual lexicography (Hartmann 1992a, 1994, and 1995). In Copenhagen, my contribution to the Second International Symposium on Lexicography in 1984 ended up by suggesting that "the notion of equivalence is not a fixed, single relation of correspondence, but a shifting, bidirectional process based on a number of code-switching strategies which depend on the characteristics of the discourse in question, the bilingual competence of the translator/lexicographer, and the purposes for which it is sought" (Hartmann 1985a: 130). In Vienna, at the Tenth FIT Congress in 1984, I linked the topic of translation equivalence to intralingual paraphrase and interlingual metaphrase, on the one hand, and general vocabulary and technical terminology, on the other, and concluded that "In view of (a) the arbitrary semantic coverage of lexical fields in different languages, (b) the variable register range from one language to another, and (c) the unpredictability of individual bilingual competence, it is unlikely that multilingual international terminological

8

R.R.K. Hartmann

coordination can be effected with ease" (Hartmann 1985b: 289). At the EURALEX Colloquium on Translation and Lexicography in Innsbruck in 1987,1 surveyed the tasks of both translators and lexicographers, stating that "[...] the two fields have a special responsibility for describing and reducing interlingual contrasts and thus helping more people cross the language barrier" (Hartmann 1989: 18). One of my teachers, Otto Hietsch, had previously drawn my attention to the links between bilingual lexicography and language contact, so I dealt with them in my paper for his festschrift (Hartmann 1992b). I explored this interaction by tracing the treatment of culture-specific vocabulary in English-German dictionaries from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Examples included the (Austrian German) term Matura and its (British English) equivalent GCE A level, and the (British English) pub crawl and its (Austrian German) equivalent Heurigenpartie. Some of these strands of interlingual contact and contrast, translation and lexicography, dictionary compilation and dictionary use, converged when I became involved in the European-Union-funded Thematic Network Project between 1996 and 1999 in which the Dictionaries Group that I chaired surveyed the lexicographic scene in various countries (Hartmann 2000) and made recommendations on the use of dictionaries and other reference works by language learners in higher education (Hartmann 1999). At the thirteenth biennial meeting of the DSNA in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2 0 0 1 , 1 first broached the topic to be discussed next, the neglect of interlingual issues in lexicography. Among the various perspectives in lexicography, the interlingual is one of the most difficult as it involves contacts and contrasts between two or more languages, as we have seen from the examples above. I have been aware of (and worried about) the reasons why such issues have been neglected both in lexicographical theory and practice. What are the differences and similarities between monolingual and interlingual dictionaries, and why do we seem to know so much less about the latter than the former? In a critical paper on the history of metalexicography, Franz Josef Hausmann explicitly complained about the neglect of the bilingual dictionary in historical studies, saying that too little is known about the "interdependence of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries through the centuries" (1989: 104, my translation). I have not systematically investigated this claim, but it is a sad fact that Roger Steiner's (1970) book is one of the very few publications devoted to the lexicographic tradition of a particular language pair (in this case English and Spanish). I know of no similar book-length treatment of the history of bilingual lexicography for such language pairs as English and German, English and French, English and Italian, English and Russian, English and Chinese. For English-Japanese lexicography, Isamu Hayakawa (2001) has highlighted the controversial issue of plagiarism for the period from 1850 to 1950. The best overall treatment of the history of (non-English) lexicography remains the book by Robert Collison (1982), while Carla Marcilo reviews the bilingual dictionary of Italian with French, English, Spanish, and German (1989), and some other traditions are traced by contributors to a seminar I had the pleasure of convening at Exeter (Hartmann 1986). Several authors have drawn our attention to the fact that in order for a bilingual dictionary tradition to start for a particular language pair, the conditions have to be right. Above all, there has to be a need for bridging the language barrier through mediators like translators, interpreters, diplomats, and missionaries, and it is exactly such people who often end up undertaking the task of compiling the first generation of such dictionaries, bringing about a close alliance of lexicography and translation and an awareness of such

Lexicography and Translation

9

factors as directionality and culture-specific vocabulary. This is certainly what happened in the early days of bilingual lexicography with English; for Welsh: William Salesbury's Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe 1547, for French: John Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse 1530, for Spanish: Richard Percyvall's Bibliotheca Hispanica 1591, for Italian: John Florio's Worlde of Wördes 1598, for German: Christian Ludwig's Dictionary English, German and French 1706, for Chinese: Robert Morrison's Dictionary of the Chinese Language 1815-1822, and for Arabic: Edward Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon 1862. Hausmann's (1989) paper also deplores lacunae in other areas of interlingual dictionary research, such as dictionary structure, dictionary criticism, dictionary typology, and dictionary use. He particularly singles out the theory of the example, which is so much more complex in bilingual than in monolingual dictionaries. The topic of examples is addressed in Sidney Landau's textbook (1984/2001) under two headings: "illustrative quotation" and "corpus evidence," stressing the need for well-balanced verbal illustrations that should document realistic contexts. This is fine as far as it goes, i.e. in relation to the problem of defining meanings in the monolingual dictionary, but I would argue, with Hausmann, Steiner, and others, that this completely ignores the very different case of the bilingual dictionary where definitions are replaced by translation equivalents, preferably one for each separate sense of any headword. Thus, a word like reference may have different synonyms for each of its main senses, from basic to derived, from general to technical, e.g. for sense (a) "mention(ing)": remark, allusion, innuendo: for sense (b) "relevance": application, pertinence, bearing, regard, respect, (inter) relation; for sense (c) "information source": authority, consultation, look-up. These, and various compounds such as bibliographical reference, character reference, cross-reference, reference science, reference skill, and reference work, can then be defined and exemplified in the monolingual dictionary (such as the Encarta World English Dictionary, 1999) or thesaurus (such as The Oxford Thesaurus, 1997), drawing on semantic as well as syntactic features for sense discrimination. In other languages, each of these senses of the word may have different translation equivalents that need to be presented in the bilingual dictionary, e.g. in German as Hinweis or Erwähnung for reference (a), Beziehung or Relevanz for reference (b), Quelle or Nachschlagen for reference (c). Cognate words such as Referenz cover a more limited range of senses, such as "testimonial" and "meaning relation," and are intuitively less likely as equivalents for other senses, where reference and Referenz would be considered "faux amis." The decisions lexicographers have to make on how senses can be established and specified are as difficult as they are variable, and depend on an awareness of what is appropriate in various (con-)texts in each language (such as, for the three senses distinguished above, the lexical or thematic fields "associative reading," "subject specificity," and "reference sources"), which still leaves open the decision of how these should be monolingually and interlingually analysed, labelled, exemplified, and matched, and whether some should be treated in specialized rather than general-purpose dictionaries. The question that arises here is whether lexical equivalents in bilingual dictionaries should be based on yesterday's translation acts or on today's discourse evidence gathered from matching (parallel) texts. (These issues are addressed in the papers edited by Béjoint and Thoiron 1996.)

R.R.K. Hartmann

10

I have collected figures on the relative neglect of such interlingual issues in dictionary research by looking at bibliographical data, in academic courses and conference proceedings, textbooks, and periodicals, paying particular attention to various aspects of dictionary research. Table 1 documents this in terms of their coverage in conference proceedings, Table 2 in terms of papers in selected periodicals, and Table 3 in terms of other genres of literature. For the Third EURALEX Congress in Budapest, I surveyed 65 lexicographic conferences held in various parts of the world between 1960 and 1988 (Hartmann 1990) in an attempt to find out what sorts of topics had been covered. I noticed then that interlingual issues did not figure prominently. Thus, while "bilingual dictionary" and "translation" occurred in 38 and 17 individual conferences, respectively, only two conferences had addressed these two as linked overall themes, including the one at Innsbruck 1987 (Hartmann 1989) and excluding the one in February 2002 in Hong Kong. This pattern has continued during the last decade. The number of conferences held has increased further, of course, as has the number of papers offered, but the proportion devoted to interlingual topics is still relatively low. In Table 1,1 present figures for three conference series: DSNA, E U R A L E X , and JACET. The latest Dictionary Society of North America meeting in 2001, which is not covered in the table, devoted only 10 of the 50 or so papers presented on interlingual aspects of lexicography. The figures for the nine EURALEX congresses held to date are not encouraging either: they range from 10 out of 45 to 19 out of 85, a total of 133 out of 573 papers over a time-span of less than 20 years. Table 1 Conference Proceedings 7ime-span DSNA Meetings (1-12) 1977-1999 EURALEX Meetings (1-9) 1983-2000 JACET Workshops (1-4) 1997-2001

Number of Items 250 papers 573 papers 159 papers

On Interlingual Aspects c. 60 133 47

To counteract the usual Anglophone and Eurocentric tendencies, I looked at the programmes of four workshops of the Dictionary Group of the Association of Japanese College Teachers of English held in the last few years, and the results are indeed slightly better: 47/159. When we turn to Table 2, we see the results of my approach applied to four periodicals: Dictionaries, Lexicographica International Annual for Lexicography, the International Journal of Lexicography, and the South African journal Lexikos. The interlingual performance index of the Lexicographica International Annual for Lexicography and the International Journal of Lexicography is slightly above that of Dictionaries (42/166 and 45/168, as compared with 47/218), and I very much hope that the first issue of Vol. 14 (2001) is indicative of even better things to come: it includes a critical comparative survey article on the state of idiom lexicography, two reports on international colloquia held in 2000 (one in Paris on cultural aspects of bilingual lexicography, the other in Maastricht and Lódz on translation and meaning) and a paper on the macrostructural and microstructural features of two bilingual English-Spanish dictionaries of economics.

Lexicography

and

11

Translation

Table 2 Periodicals Dictionaries Lexicographica International Journal Lexicography Lexikos

Number of Items

Time-span (No. 1-21) 1979-2000 (Vol. 1-15) 1985-1999 oj (Vol. 1-13) 1988-2000

218 papers 166 papers 168 papers

(Vol. 1-11) 1991-2001

158 papers

On

Interlingual Aspects 47 42 45 54

The Lexicographica International Annual for Lexicography, which is associated with the book series Lexicographica Series Maior (see below), has built up an excellent reputation for its thematic issues commissioned by specially selected guest editors. Two of the 15 volumes published so far have been dedicated to the topic of translation and the bilingual dictionary for a range of language pairs (Farina 1996), the most recent even has two thematic parts: one on "mediostructures" in print dictionaries, and the other on LSP dictionaries for the field of Linguistics. The fourth periodical, Lexikos, is perhaps less well-known, but on my interlingual count it performs best: 54/158. The most recent volumes have a number of papers relating to African languages. Moving on to Table 3, we are ready to consider three very different genres of academic output, the monograph series, the international encyclopaedia and the higher education dissertation or thesis. The over 100 volumes of the Lexicographica Series Maior published in the last 15 years have a pretty good record as far as interlingual titles are concerned: 45/100. In contrast, the encyclopaedia Wörterbücher/Dictionaries/Dictionnaires Hausmann et al. 1989-91) only has a ratio of 55/334 articles, while dissertations and theses at M.A./M.Phil., and Ph.D. levels at my own university show a better coverage of such topics, no doubt because they reflect my own interests as indicated earlier. Table 3 Other Media Lexicographica Series Maior Wörterbücher/Dictionaries/ Dictionnaires M.A./M.Phil./Ph.D. at Exeter

Time-span

Number of Items

1984-2001 1989-1991

100+ volumes 334+ articles

Interlingual Aspects 45+ 55

1980-2001

49 dissertations/theses

28

Another text type that should perhaps be added is the bibliography. Annotated lists such as the ones by Ladislav Zgusta (1988) and Fredric Dolezal and Don McCreary (1999) are generally above average on the interlingual index. To counteract the neglect of interlingual lexicography, and to find improved solutions to the problem of establishing and codifying translation equivalents in the dictionary (e.g. for the word reference as discussed above), we need to look next at the potential contribution of the field of translation. Translation is relevant to lexicography in two ways: as supplier of translation equivalents to be included in the bilingual dictionary and as consumer of information made available by lexicographers to professional translators. Both of these give-and-take operations presuppose that active channels of awareness and collaboration exist. Unfortunately, and similar to our diagnosis of the neglect of interlingual aspects in lexicography, we can observe relatively scant attention paid to lexicographic topics within translation. Table 4 below summarizes the figures.

R.R.K. Hartmann

12

Table 4

Publication

Target Babel Encyclopaedia of Translation Chi-Eng. Dictionary of Translation Studies Benjamins Translation Library

Time-span

(Vol. 1-12) 1989-2000 (43-46) 1997-2000 1995

Number of Items

On Lexicographical Aspects

158 papers

3

71 papers

2 (+2)

97 articles

3

1997

300+ entries

0(+2)

1994-2000

40+ volumes

l(+2)

A first analysis of one of the most prestigious international journals in translation studies, Target, in its 12 volumes between 1989 and 2000, locates 158 papers, of which only three address lexicographic topics. The FIT journal Babel has a regular section with bibliographical details on new dictionaries, but the proportion of substantive papers on lexicographic topics is slight: only two (plus two on terminology) out of 71 for the four volumes published between 1997 and 2000. Of the 97 articles in the Encyclopaedia of Translation: Chinese-English. English-Chinese (Chan and Pollard 1995/2001), only three are devoted to lexicography (one of these is by myself). None of the 300 plus entries in the Dictionary of Translation Studies (Shuttleworth and Cowie 1997) is concerned with dictionaries or other reference works (although there are two on the topic of terminology). Exactly the same is true of the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies (Baker 1997). The new Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft volume on translation (in press with Walter de Gruyter, Berlin), as far as I can ascertain, will have 42 chapters, but none with any lexicographic content. It is also interesting that The Linguistics Encyclopedia (Malmkjaer 1991) has an article (by Robert Ilson) on lexicography, but none on translation, while the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (K. and H. Johnson 1998) mentions dictionaries and translation only cursorily in connection with selected language learning issues. None of the textbooks that I checked makes any reference to dictionaries or lexicography, not even Jeremy Munday (2001) whose final chapter is entitled "translation studies as an interdiscipline." Finally, only one or two of the 40 or so volumes published in the monograph series Benjamins Translation Library are concerned with dictionaries. There are of course some authors who have combined the field of translation with either linguistic semantics or (meta-) lexicography. Prominent among them are Eugene Nida (1958) who has explored the relevance of linguistics to both translation and dictionary-making; Ladislav Zgusta (1984) who has written on the status of translation equivalents in bilingual lexicography; Hans Peter Krings (1986) who has investigated the use of dictionaries by advanced foreign language students performing a translation exercise; Mary Snell-Hornby and Esther Pohl (1989) who have organized one of the few conferences on the interrelations between translation and lexicography; Krista Varantola (1998) who has explored dictionary use in translator training; and Al-Tahir Hafiz (2001) who has made out a case for (a) greater awareness of both translation and lexicography among Arab university students of English and (b) the need for an entirely new Arabic-English Translator's

Lexicography

and

Translation

13

Dictionary. However, efforts of this kind have remained a minority pursuit and have not yet had the desired effect on the bulk of theoreticians and practitioners of either lexicography or translation. One exception that proves the rule, as it were, and partly addresses Hausmann's (1989) critical charge, is the interesting survey (in the chapter by Henri van Hoof 1995) of dictionary-making within the history of translating, which asks and answers questions like "What role have (translators) played throughout the ages?", "What role do they continue to play?", "Which came first, the translator or the lexicographer?" under three headings: unilingual dictionaries (from the clay tablets to supermarket editions), multilingual dictionaries (and their role in globalisation), and specialized dictionaries (and their mutual relations with terminological databases). One set of multiple correlations that has never been systematically investigated across language pairs are the links between LSP (languages for specific purposes) teaching, LSP text linguistics, LSP translation, LSP lexicography, and LSP terminology. A fascinating case study I had occasion to read recently as an examiner is a Macquarie University Ph.D. on the need for bilingualized dictionaries of computing aimed at Thai ESP learners. (Vitayapirak 2002) On the basis of a survey of students and lecturers in computer science, a user profile is elaborated which in turn determines the design features of a text corpus suitable as a foundation for the compilation of such a dictionary, a topic that will be addressed next. Wherever the impetus may come from (lexicography, translation, or a third field of specialization such as text linguistics, computing or corpus linguistics), and whatever the issues may be (ranging from the old arguments on meaning discrimination in dictionaries to the new possibilities offered by text corpora), no opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration should be left untried. The time has come to revisit the whole development of the notion of "parallel texts" and their use(s) in lexicography and translation. Ignoring early forerunners, such as the Rosetta Stone, isolated pioneers of comparative linguistics and parallel text exercises in advanced language teaching and translator training, we can turn our attention to an influential impetus that came from Jean-Paul Vinay's and Jean Louis Darbelnet's (1958) "comparative stylistics," an attempt to account for the shifts translators are forced to make in order to bridge contrasting discourse conventions. The idea of a "comparative discourse analysis" as suggested by Henry Gleason (1968) and the framework of "contrastive rhetoric" (Kaplan et al. 1983) have triggered useful work on composition teaching and transphrastic linguistic descriptions of various kinds (Péry-Woodley 1990), all of which had to come to terms with the basic concept of "parallel text(s)" as instances of comparable discourse from pairs or multiples of languages (and even "intertexts" from different styles, genres, and periods within one and the same language). Over 20 years ago, in my book on contrastive textology (Hartmann 1980), 1 had informally distinguished three types of parallel texts: (a) Parallel texts that are the result of full-scale translation, e.g. Erich Maria Remarque's novel Im Westen nichts Neues (1929) together with Arthur Wesley Wheen's English translation All Quiet on the Western Front. ( b ) Parallel texts that are the result of interlingual adaptation, e.g. other-language versions of commercial product advertisements, government announcements aimed at different ethnic communities, or multilingual formulations of documents published by international organizations.

R.R.K. Hartmann

14

(c) Parallel texts not translationally equivalent, but functionally similar in terms of situational motivation and rhetorical structure, e.g. cooking recipes, wedding announcements, newspaper reports, and the like.

For translationally linked parallel texts of types (a) and (b), the useful term bitext has been proposed (Harris 1988), while paired texts or comparable texts of type (c) are regarded as independently formulated but matched by their respective contexts, e.g. English and Spanish or English and German newspaper texts on identical topics as used in translator training. It was this latter type that John Laffling (1991) used to pioneer a machine-translation approach to contrastive textology in which German and British party political manifestoes were aligned to extract "natural equivalents" from corresponding discourse, e.g. schwere Belastungen, and severely disabled in the two extracts from the linguistically parallel (although ideologically diverse) CDU Grundsatzprogramm 1978 and the Labour Party Programme 1976 in Table 5. Table 5 Dazu gehören die Zukunftssicherung des Einkommens im Alter, bei Erwerbsunfähigkeit und Arbeitslosigkeit und die Sicherung gegen schwere Belastungen, zum Beispiel bei Unfall und Krankheit.

We are examining whether a "no-fault" liability

Scheme, [...] covering all who are severely disabled whether by accident or sickness, would be the long-term solution.

Laffling was able to demonstrate that often the natural equivalents occurring in these independently composed texts are more suitable to the context than either the translation equivalents that can be found in bitexts (e.g. the inappropriate phrase serious burdens in the English translation of the CDU text prepared by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung 1979) or the lexical equivalents that are on offer in current bilingual dictionaries (e.g. the excessively literal collocation heavy burden or the rather unidiomatic expression great strain and distress). But well before Laffling's alignment experiments, the "corpus revolution" had started, nurtured by progress in natural language processing and computational lexicology, and pursued since the late 1960s and early 1970s with greater vigour in Britain and Europe than in the United States. In a survey paper on the relevance and benefits of linguistic corpora to lexicography, Willem Meijs (1996: 101) pointed out that "modern computerized corpus linguistics began in an era when mainstream linguistics showed no interest in performance data at all," but that its advantages were soon appreciated by lexicographers, notably the compilers of the "big four" British learners' dictionaries published in 1995. Corpus evidence of this kind has brought considerable innovations to lexicography, notably in the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (first edition 1987). Thus the entry reference distinguishes "mention(ing)" as the very first of five senses treated, subdivided into two sub-senses explained by means of its so-called full-sentence definitions: 1 Reference to someone or something is 1.1 the act of talking about them or mentioning them [...] 1.2 the act of referring to them for information or advice [...]

Lexicography

and

Translation

15

Apart from the definitions there are two or three concordance-based examples, respectively. In the "extra column" on the right of the entry, both are marked grammatically as Ν UNCOUNT: IF + PREP THEN to, and each is separately paraphrased by the synonyms allusion and consultation. At the same time, the value of corpora in the lexicographic and pedagogical context has been acknowledged universally, and various projects have devised their own approaches, such as the technical text corpora from a range of subjects made available to ESP students at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (James et al. 1997). Several authorities have argued that these benefits should also be extended to interlingual lexicography, e.g. by "bilingualizing" various pedagogical dictionaries for groups of foreign learners of specific mother tongues and thus creating the relatively new format of the "bridge dictionary" or "semi-bilingual dictionary" as a hybrid between the monolingual and the bilingual dictionary. But there are still many lingering doubts about the methodology of such parallel corpus processing. One of the difficulties of relying on evidence from parallel-text corpora based on translation is that equivalents may well be the result of source language interference due to inadequate word-for-word transposition, as in the first of the following two examples (taken from a German computer word-processing help file) which seem to contradict what was said above about potential German equivalents of English reference in the sense of "mention;" is there actually a choice between the cognate but possibly suspect translation equivalent Referenz in the first example and Hinweis in the second example, or does their occurrence in the same corpus make them equally acceptable? In das Feld Formeln geben Sie die Referenz auf die Formel an. In wissenschaftlichen Werken und ahnlichen Veröffentlichungen werden oft Hinweise auf andere Literaturquellen in den Text aufgenommen. Translation corpora tend to confirm (rather than show us how to avoid) this kind of negative translation-induced interference, also variously called "third language" (Duff 1981), "third code" (Frawley 1984), "translationese" (Gellerstam 1986) and "hybrid texts" (Schäffner and Adab 2001). Or, as Wolfgang Teubert has pointedly put it (1996: 247): "Linguists should never rely on translations when they are describing a language. That is why translations have no place in reference corpora. Rather than representing the language they are written in, they give a mirror image of their source language." One of the best-known parallel-text corpora based on translation is the French-English Canadian Hansard. Concordances such as the one in Table 6 have been used since Kenneth Church and William Gale (1991) first reported on their successful text alignments for the purpose of extracting translation equivalents. However, Roda Roberts in her (1996) contribution to the interdisciplinary open forum on parallel text analysis, which I chaired at the AILA Congress in Finland, stressed that the Bilingual Canadian Dictionary Project relies on parallel texts that are not translationally linked but functionally similar in situational motivation and rhetorical structure in order to identify and verify any French-English lexical equivalents to be included. Based on such bilingual corpora of material from a variety of sources, the distinct senses of reference in English and their various equivalents in French (e.g. relevance, allusion, mention, competence) can be confirmed, including those that appear in the bilingual Hansard corpus (such as renvoi in the extract below).

16

R.R.K.

Hartmann

Table 6 j'aimerais simplement dire en passant que l'une des réformes à laquelle nous devrions songer serait d'adopter la règle du parlement de Westminster dont s'inspire le nôtre et d'interdire le renvoi textuel aux notes pour les discours à la Chambre, ce qui forcerait les députés à dire ce qu'ils pensent eux-même et non ce que certains bureaucrates ou membres de leur personnel veulent bien leur faire dire.

Let me just say as a parenthetical remark that one parliamentary reform we ought to consider is the adoption of the rule of the Westminster mother parliament prohibiting verbatim reference to scripts for speech making in the House and allowing members to speak from their minds and not those of bureaucrats or their staff.

So what is needed is more evidence from corpora containing parallel texts which are not the result of translation acts (bitexts), but are matched by twinning independently encoded passages from comparable contexts and styles in each of the two languages (paired texts). Since the early 1990s we have seen a slowly increasing number of such comparable text corpora in a wide range of fields and with a wide range of applications, from natural language processing and computational lexicology to (machine) translation, LSP teaching, terminology, and lexicography. Some of these are mentioned in anthologies such as the one edited by Jean Véronis (2000), newsletters such as that issued by the European Language Resources Association, or websites such as www.ruf.rice.edu/~barlow/para.html. I have myself presented the general case for comparable text corpora from the point of view of bilingual lexicography on more than one occasion. In closing the paper I presented to the Sixth EURALEX Congress in Amsterdam (Hartmann 1994: 295), I complained that the "existing literature on bilingual dictionary-making (cf. Bartholomew and Schoenhals, 1983; Marello 1989; Svensén 1993) is strangely silent on these issues," while in my contribution to the Encyclopedia of Translation: Chinese-English. English-Chinese (Hartmann 1995: 517), I optimistically concluded that "translation and bilingual lexicography are among the most likely beneficiaries of the application of contrastive textology to the solution of practical problems." With more evidence from comparable texts, such as the extracts from the COSMAS sub-corpus of the Berliner Zeitung administered by the Institut fur deutsche Sprache in Mannheim as cited in Table 7, the hypotheses about which equivalents might be best suited for any specific sense of a particular word can be verified. Thus, we see the cognate Referenz occurring not only as an equivalent of reference in the sense "testimonial," but also, possibly under the influence of translation from English texts in this genre of news reporting, as an alternative to Angabe and other synonyms for the sense "mention." Table 7 (a)

Dann überzeugt dieses musikalisch-gestische Theater als unterhaltsam-geistreiche Referenz an eine untergegangene Kultur und ihren Humor... CNN bezog sich bei dieser Angabe auf republikanische Kreise. (b) Zimmermann lehnte mit Verweis auf seine vom Kabinett erteilte Aussagegenehmigung detailliertere Aussagen ab ... Den Namen seines Informanten gab er unter Hinweis auf zugesicherte Vertraulichkeit nicht preis. (c) Außerdem festigt das Nachschlagen und Vergleichen in den verschiedenen Büchern das Wissen zum Thema.

Lexicography

and Translation

17

One method, which is still capable of refinement and wider application in bilingual lexicography, is the specification of "collocation profiles." From concordance evidence gathered independently from the Bank of English COBUILD corpus in Birmingham and the Institut für deutsche Sprache COSMAS corpus in Mannheim, typical co-occurrence patterns can be established for potential translation equivalents of English and German words. However, three problems remain to be solved in this context: (a) compatibility (two corpora assembled separately for a pair of languages such as English and German do not match in all respects), (b) meaning discrimination (the larger the corpus, the more difficult it seems to be to isolate specific senses from the many possible contextual uses of a word), and (c) multivergence (translation equivalents diverge and converge between a language pair according to the directionality of the translation process). Whether equivalents are gained by parallel text analysis or the direct observation of the process, and how they are used in interlingual lexicography, depends of course on how we define translation in terms of its purpose(s). Mary Snell-Hornby (1984: 275) has reminded us "that the glib labelling of the general bilingual dictionary as the 'translator's dictionary' is erroneous" and that we should differentiate sub-types according to their varying uses, from tourism and language learning to technical terminology and professional translation (Yong 2000). One exemplar of one such sub-type of the bilingual dictionary, the Chinese-English Dictionary of Idioms and Proverbs (Heng and Zhang 1988), compiled at Exeter, distinguishes three levels of equivalence. For the entry on the Chinese idiom bu ju li jie ^ ^ ¡ ¡ n l t p , for instance, the "literal" translation is given as not stick to usual social rules, the "free" translation as pay no attention to convention, and the "English equivalent" as do not stand on ceremony (the latter marked with the register labels lit. & colloqu.). What in any case are the reference needs of translators? Krista Varantola (1998) has done empirical research on the use of dictionaries by trainee translators. Adapting Krings's (1986) "thinking aloud protocols" by means of diary-like worksheets, she found that dictionaries are only one resource among many, and that encyclopaedias, technical glossaries, parallel texts and concordanced corpora are also used by translators to establish equivalence. The dictionary is consulted as much to verify hunches as to supply direct equivalents. Varantola concludes (1998: 191) that "it is appropriate to ask whether resources should go towards improving the dictionaries, or improving the users' dictionary skills, or providing new reference sources designed to meet the translators' specific needs. I would argue that we must do all of these things." These findings tie in with what several other authorities have hinted at. John Sinclair (2001) has suggested a kind of "floating dictionary" as a semi-automatic, self-updating tool intended to supplement the information in the conventional dictionary entry by reference to a large corpus of examples, either by citing more instances of a given sense or by supplying usage data for new and previously untreated senses; John Laffling (1992) has promised a kind of "transfer dictionary" as a series of computer-stored text models in order to help the (machine as well as human) translator to produce collocationally and stylistically appropriate discourse; Ian Williams (1996) has recommended as an alternative to dictionary look-up the consultation of relevant texts parallel to the original text as listed in its bibliographical references; and Alan Melby (2000) has advocated a kind of "translation memory" database derived from aligned parallel texts as an aid to looking up technical terminology. So what, finally, is the "ideal" interlingual dictionary or "workstation" for lexicographers as well as translators? We now realize that the demanding and partly tongue-in-cheek

18

R.R.K.

Hartmann

desiderata for the treatment of various information categories in the bilingual dictionary as set out by Mary Haas (1962) are now achievable, thanks to all the electronic resources available to us today. In this spirit I leave the last word to Sue Atkins, whose paper at the Gothenburg EURALEX Congress (Atkins 1996: 531) confidently predicted that "computer-assisted compiling and online dictionaries offer the lexicographer the opportunity of creating a much fuller, more accurate, and easier to use dictionary, whether it is monolingual or bilingual." To conclude, the recent expansion of dictionary research, pedagogical lexicography, terminological lexicography, and corpus linguistics as well as improved international communication via professional associations and conferences give us hope for a change in the right direction. We need to bring together again the fields of lexicography and translation for their mutual benefit, and one effective means that I have described here is the use of corpus technology. It is high time to extend the tools that have helped improve monolingual dictionaries for native speakers and foreign learners to the bilingual dictionary.

References (a) Cited Dictionaries [A] CHINESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY OF IDIOMS AND PROVERBS. Comp. X.-J. Heng and X.-Z. Zhang. Türbingen: Max N i e m e y e r Verlag 1988. COLLINS COBUILD ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Ed. J.M. Sinclair. London: Collins 1987. DICITONARY OF LEXICOGRAPHY. Comp.

R.R.K.

Hartmann

and G.

James.

London:

Routledge

1998/2001. DICTIONARY OF TRANSLATION STUDIES. Comp. M. Shuttleworth and M. Cowie. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing 1997. ENCARTA WORLD ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Ed. K. Rooney. London: Bloomsbury 1999. [AN] ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF TRANSLATION: CHINESE-ENGLISH. ENGLISH-CHINESE. Ed. Chan S-W. and D.E. Pollard. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press 1995/2001. ENCYCLOPEDIC DICTIONARY OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS. Ed. K. and H. Johnson. Oxford: Blackwell 1998. [THE] LINGUISTICS ENCYCLOPEDIA. Ed. K. Malmkjaer. London: Routledge 1991/2001. [THE] OXFORD THESAURUS IN A-Z FORM. Comp. L. Urdang. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997. ROUTLEDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TRANSLATION OF TRANSLATION OF TRANSLATION STUDIES. Ed. M. Baker. London: Routledge 1997. WÖRTERBÜCHER/DICTIONARIES/DICTIONNAIRES. AN INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LEXICOGRAPHY. Ed. F.J. Hausmann et al. Berlin: Walterde Gruyter 1989/1990/1991.

(b) Other Literature Atkins, Β.T.S. (1996): Bilingual Dictionaries: Past, Present and Future. - In: M. Gellerstam et al. (eds.): Euralex '96 Proceedings, 515-546. Göteborg: Department of Swedish, Göteborg University. Bartholomew, D.A. and L.C. Schoenhals (1983): Bilingual Mexico: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Béjoint, H. and P. Thoiron (eds.) (1996): Les Aupelf-Uref/Duculot.

Dictionaries dictionnaires

for Indigenous bilingues.

Languages. -

-

Louvain:

Lexicography and Translation

19

Church, K.W. and W.A. Gale (1991): Concordances for Parallel Text. - In: Using Corpora·. Proceedings of the 8,h Annual Conference of the UW Centre for the New OED and Text Research, Oxford, September 29-October 1, 40-62. Collison, R.L. ( 1982): A History of Foreign-language Dictionaries. - Oxford: Blackwell. Dolezal, F.T. and D.R. McCreary (1999): Pedagogical Lexicography Today: A Critical Bibliography on Learners ' Dictionaries with Special Emphasis on Language Learners and Dictionary Users. Türbingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Duff, A. (1981): The Third Language·. Recurrent Problems of Translation into English. - Oxford: Pergamon Press. Farina, D. (1996): The Bilingual Lexicographer's Best Friend. - Lexicographica. International Annual for Lexicography 12, 1-15. Frawley, W. (1984): Prolegomenon to a Theory of Translation. - In: W. Frawley (ed.): Translation: Literary, Linguistic and Philosophical Perspectives, 159-175. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. Gellerstam, M. (1986): Translationese in Swedish Novels Translated from English. - In: L. Wollin and H. Lindquist (eds.): Translation Studies in Scandinavia, 88-95. Lund: CWK Gleerup. Gleason, H.A. (1968): Contrastive Analysis in Discourse Structure. - In: J.E. Alatis (ed.): Report of the 19,h Annual Round Table Meeting·. Contrastive Linguistics, 39-63. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Haas, M. (1962): What Belongs in a Bilingual Dictionary? - In: F.W. Householder and S. Saporta (eds.): Problems in Lexicography, 45-50. Bloomington: Indiana University and The Hague: Mouton. Hafiz, Al-T. (1996): A Critical Study of Bilingual Dictionaries from the Point of View of Their Usefulness to Translators. - Manchester: University of Manchester. Ph.D .Thesis. Hafiz, Al-T. (2001): Understanding Translation and Lexicography: Teaching Translation and Lexicography to Students of Arab Universities (A Course Textbook). - Madina: Dar Aliman Bookshop. Harris, B. (1988): Bi-text, a New Concept in Translation Theory. - Language Monthly 54, 8-10. Hartmann, R.R.K. (1965): Is Lexicography Making Progress? - The Incorporated Linguist 4, 42-45. - (1980): Contrastive Textology: Comparative Discourse Analysis in Applied Linguistics. Heidelberg: J. Groos. - (1983): The Bilingual Learner's Dictionary and Its Uses. - Multilingua 2-4, 195-201. - (1985a): Contrastive Text Analysis and the Search for Equivalence in the Bilingual Dictionary. - In: K. Hyldgaard-Jensen and A. Zettersten (eds.): Symposium on Lexicography II. Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Lexicography May 16-17, 1984 at the University of Copenhagen, 121-132. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. - (1985b): Translation Equivalence: A Model of Lexical Approximation and Its Relevance to the Terminological Dictionary. - In: H. Bühler (ed.): Xth World Congress of FIT [1984] Proceedings: Translators and Their Position in Society, 286-290. Vienna: W. Braumüller. - (ed.) (1986): The History of Lexicography: Papers from the Dictionary Research Centre Seminar at Exeter. - Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. - (1989): Lexicography, Translation and the So-called Language Barrier. - In: M. Snell-Hornby and E. Pohl (eds.): Translation and Lexicography: Papers Read at the EURALEX Colloquium Held at Innsbruck 2-5 July 1987, 9-20. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. - (1990): A Quarter of a Century's Lexicographical Conferences. - In: T. Magay and J. Zigányi (eds.): BudaLEX '88 Proceedings, 569-575. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. - (1992a): "Contrastive Linguistics": (How) Is It Relevant to Bilingual Lexicography? - In: C. Mair and M. Markus (eds.): New Departures in Contrastive Linguistics. Proceedings of the Conference Held at Innsbruck 10-12 May 1991,1, 293-299. Innsbruck: Leopold-Franzens-Universität. - (1992b): 300 Years of English-German Language Contact and Contrast: The Translation of Culture-specific Information in the General Bilingual Dictionary. - In: C. Blank (ed.): Language

20

R.R.K. Hartmann

and Civilization: A Concerted Profusion of Essays and Studies in Honour of Otto Hietsch, II 300-327. Frankfurt: P. Lang,. - (1994): The Use of Parallel Text Corpora in the Generation of Translation Equivalents for Bilingual Lexicography. - In: W. Martin et al. (eds.): Euralex 1994 Proceedings: Papers Submitted to the 6'h EURALEX International Congress on Lexicography in Amsterdam, 291-297. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit. - (1995): Contrastive Textology, Bilingual Lexicography and Translation. - In: An Encyclopedia of Translation: Chinese-English. English-Chinese, 505-518. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. - (1999): (Thematic Report 2) Case Study: The Exeter University Survey of Dictionary Use. - In: R.R.K. Hartmann (ed.): Dictionaries in Language Learning: Recommendations, National Reports and Thematic Reports from the TNP Sub-Project 9: Dictionaries. Published on the website www.fu-berlin.de/elc/TNPproducts/SP9dossier.doc. - (2000): European Lexicography: Perspectives on Dictionary Research, with Special Reference to the Countries of the European Union. - Dictionaries 21, 1-21. - (2001): Teaching and Researching Lexicography. - Harlow: Longman and Pearson Education. Hausmann, F.J. (1989): Kleine Weltgeschichte der Metalexikographie. - In: H.E. Wiegand (ed.): Wörterbücher in der Diskussion, 45-109. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Hayakawa, I. (2001): Methods of Plagiarism: A History of English-Japanese Lexicography. - Tokyo: Jiyusha. James, G. et al. (1997): English in Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry: A Corpus-based Lexical Analysis. - Hong Kong: Language Centre, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Kaplan, R.B. (1983): Introduction. - Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 3, ix-xiii. Krings, H.P. ( 1986): Was in den Köpfen von Übersetzern vorgeht. Eine empirische Studie zur Struktur des Übersetzungsprozesses an fortgeschrittenen Französischlernern. - Tübingen: G. Narr. Laffling, J. (1991): Towards High-precision Machine Translation, Based on Contrastive Textology. Berlin: Foris Publications. - ( 1992): On Constructing a Transfer Dictionary for Man and Machine. - Target 4, 17-31. Landau, S. (1984): Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography (second edition). - Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Marello, C. (1989): Dizionari bilingui con schede sui dizionari italiani per francese, inglese, spagnolo, tedesco. - Bologna: Zanichelli. Meijs, W. (1996): Linguistic Corpora and Lexicography. - Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 16, 99-114. Melby, A.K. (2000): Sharing of Translation Memory Databases Derived from Aligned Parallel Text. - J. Véronis (ed.): Parallel Text Processing: Alignment and Use of Translation Corpora, 347-368. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Munday, J. (2001): Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. - London: Routledge. Nida, E.A. (1958): Analysis of Meaning and Dictionary Making. - International Journal of American Linguistics 24, 279-292. Péry-Woodley, M.-P. (1990): Contrasting Discourses: Contrastive Analysis and a Discourse Approach to Writing. - Language Teaching 23-3, 143-151. Roberts, R. (1996): Parallel Text Analysis and Bilingual Lexicography. - In: Programme Abstracts for the II' AILA Congress of Applied Linguistics, Jyväskylä, 183. Schaffner, C. and Β. Adab (2001): The Concept of the Hybrid Text in Translation. - In: www.les.aston.ac.uk/hybridhypotheses.html. Sinclair, J.M. (2001): The Floating Dictionary. - In: S. Allén et al. (eds.): Gällerstam, suffix och ord. Festskrift till Martin Gellerstam den 15 oktober 2001, 393-422. Göteborg: Meijerbergs institut for svensk etymologisk forskning, Göteborgs universitet. Snell-Hornby, M. (1984): The Bilingual Dictionary - Help or Hindrance? - In: R.R.K. Hartmann (ed.): LEXeter '83 Proceedings. Papers from the International Conference on Lexicography at Exeter, 9-12 September 1983, 274-281. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.

Lexicography and Translation

21

Snell-Hornby, M. and E. Pohl (eds.) (1989): Translation and Lexicography: Papers Read at the EURALEX Colloquium Held at Innsbruck 2-5 July 1987. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Steiner, R.J. (1970): Two Centuries of Spanish and English Bilingual Lexicography, 1590-1800. The Hague: Mouton. Svensén, Β. (1993): Practical Lexicography: Principles and Methods of Dictionary-making. - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Teubert, W. (1996): Comparable or Parallel Corpora? - International Journal of Lexicography 9-3, 238-264. Van Hoof, H. (1995): Translators and the Writing of Dictionaries. - In: J. Deslisle and J. Woodsworth (eds.): Translators Through History, 229-242. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company and UNESCO Publishing. Varantola, K. (1998): Translators and Their Use of Dictionaries. - In: B.T.S. Atkins (ed.): Using Dictionaries: Studies of Dictionary Use by Language Learners and Translators, 179-192. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Véronis, J. (2000): From the Rosetta Stone to the Information Society: A Survey of Parallel Text Processing. - In: J. Véronis (ed.): Parallel Text Processing: Alignment and Use of Translation Corpora, 1-24. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Vinay, J.P. and J.L. Darbelnet (1958): Stylistique comparée du français et de l'anglais. Méthode de traduction. - Paris: Didier. Vitayapirak, J. (2002): A Corpus-based Approach to ESP Lexicography. The Case Study of English for Thai Computer Science Students. - Sydney: Macquarie University, Ph.D. Thesis. Williams, I. (1996): A Translator's Reference Needs: Dictionaries or Parallel Texts? - Target 8-2, 275-299. Yong, H. (2000): Bilingual Lexicography from a Communicative Perspective, with Special Reference to English and Chinese. - Sydney: Macquarie University, Ph.D. Thesis. Zgusta, Ladislav (1984): Translational Equivalence in the Bilingual Dictionary. - In: Snell-Hornby (ed.): LEXeter '83 Proceedings, 147-154. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Zgusta, Ladislav (with D. Farina) (1988): Lexicography Today: An Annotated Bibliography of the Theory of Lexicography. - Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.

Sven Tarp

How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?

1.

Introduction

At a call for papers for a recent conference on translation and bilingual dictionaries held in Hong Kong the aims of the conference were formulated in the following way: In an international city like Hong Kong, bilingual dictionaries occupy a prominent place in most offices, schools, and homes. It is essential that they keep pace with changes in language and language use. This conference intends to look into the various aspects o f dictionary-making and how bilingual dictionaries are related to the work of translation.

When reflecting on the paper to be delivered at the conference, it occurred to me that this might not be the best way of raising the problem. Of course, the prominent place occupied by dictionaries in Hong Kong (just like in my own country) can't be denied and neither can the necessity of keeping pace with changes in language. But when it comes to the relation between translation and dictionaries, it seems to me that the above formulation in a certain sense provides the answer before putting the question. The starting point in a scientific process is always the formulation of the problem and then the search for a solution. Accordingly, in my opinion, the question should have been put in this way: How can dictionaries assist translators in finding solutions to problems arising from the translation process? If one tries to answer this question based on the available lexicographic theory, the result might be that the solution is not to be found in a bilingual dictionary or - and this is more likely - that bilingual dictionaries are not the only type of dictionaries, and in some cases even not the best ones, to assist the translator who runs into problems in the translation process. In this paper, at least, I will argue that monolingual dictionaries, together with bilingual dictionaries the other way around, e.g. Language 2 to Language 1 (L2-L1) dictionaries when translating from LI into L2 and vice versa - are far the best ones to provide solutions to a number of problems frequently popping up during the translation process. 2.

The Concept of the Bilingual Dictionary

As the problem of the usefulness of bilingual dictionaries for translation purposes has already been raised, this and the following section will deal with the concepts of bilingual dictionaries and translation dictionaries in order to clarify up to what point a bilingual dictionary is a translation dictionary and whether a translation dictionary is always a bilingual dictionary. In order to discuss these questions, four dictionaries of lexicography published during the last seven years have been consulted. The dictionaries are: • • • •

Diccionario de lexicografia práctica (de Sousa 1995) Nordisk leksikografisk ordbok (Bergenholtz et al. 1997) Dictionary of Lexicography (Hartmann and James 1998) Lexicography. A Dictionary of Basic Terminology (Burkhanov 1998)

24

Sven Tarp

The first of these dictionaries is Spanish; the second is Norwegian and the result of a joint Nordic project, while the two remaining are English. I have translated the quotations from the two former dictionaries. Under the lemma bilingual dictionary de Sousa (1995: 129) provides the following short definition: Plurilingual dictionary that registers the equivalencies of the meanings in two languages.

Such a short definition of a complex reality is always a problem, as it tends to exclude a number of important characteristics. Especially the expression "equivalencies of the meanings in two languages" could lead to the conclusion that we are dealing with a two-way dictionary. And as de Sousa doesn't mention anything at all about the genuine purposes of bilingual dictionaries, one doesn't really know much more after consulting the above entry. The chronologically next dictionary, Bergenholtz, Cantell, Vatvedt Fjeld, Gundersen, Jónsson, and Svensén (1997: 257), takes a big step forward in comparison with de Sousa: A dictionary that has two object languages and provides equivalents in the other language for each word and expression [ . . . ] Bilingual dictionaries can be classified in various ways: after the type of operation in the language for which they are designed (production, reception or translation), after the number o f source languages (i.e. if they have entries in only one language or in both o f them), after directionality (i.e. if the dictionary articles of a source language are designed to users whose mother tongue is one o f the languages, or to users o f both categories), etc.

This definition (explanation), however, is not as simple as it looks. First it depends on what is understood under object language. In another entry, object language is defined as "the language described by the dictionary." This means that a dictionary where only one language is "described," even if this description is done in a second language, is considered a monolingual dictionary by Bergenholtz et al. (1997), a conclusion corresponding with the provision of equivalents as part of the definition of a bilingual dictionary and confirmed in the entry beskrivelsessprák (description language) where monolingual dictionaries with explanations in a second language are discussed. Furthermore, Bergenholtz et al. make a distinction between dictionaries designed to assist the users in different situations (production, reception or translation), thus making it quite clear that, according to them, the term bilingual dictionary is not synonymous with the term translation dictionary. Hartmann and James (1998: 14) follow in the same footsteps, although in a more ambiguous way: A type o f dictionary which relates the vocabulary of two languages together by means o f translation equivalents, in contrast to the monolingual dictionary, in which explanations are provided in one language. This is at once its greatest advantage and disadvantage. B y providing lexical equivalents, the bilingual dictionary helps language learners and translators to read or create texts in a foreign language. However, finding suitable lexical equivalents is a notoriously difficult task, especially in pairs of languages with different cultures.

Thus, equivalents are also a must for Hartmann and James in their definition of a bilingual dictionary, but the contrast they make between these equivalents in bilingual dictionaries and the explanations in one language provided in monolingual dictionaries is rather confusing if we compare it with the above discussion of Bergenholtz et al. (1997). Hartmann and James (1998) also distinguish between different users ("learners and translators") and different user situations ("read or create texts in a foreign language"). This distinction is, however, too vague, as we might suppose that other users than learners and

How Can Dictionaries

Assist

Translators?

25

translators might benefit from bilingual dictionaries and not only to "read or create texts in a foreign language" but also to translate them from and into the foreign language. Now we proceed to the last of the four dictionaries, Burkhanov (1998: 29) that has a quite different approach to the topic in question: A bilingual dictionary is a work of reference whose word list is organised in the following way: L, —• L 2 , which means that lemmata of one language, usually referred to as an object language, are explicated using another language - a target language (3). The term "bilingual dictionary" is often used as a terminological synonym of "translation dictionary," and in most cases bilingual dictionaries are meant to be employed for the purposes of translation. Nevertheless, with the development of pedagogical lexicography, it is reasonable to expect that more and more bilingual lexicographic publications will be intended not so much to furnish translation equivalents - which is a primary concern of translation lexicography - but to explicate the meanings and usage of lexical items of the object language using the learner's native language (NL). The latter will be used as a metalanguage of lexicographic description in this case.

Burkhanov agrees explicitly with Bergenholtz et al. (1997) that the concept of a bilingual dictionary is not limited to the concept of a translation dictionary, although he, apart from translation dictionaries, only mentions learners' dictionaries and not dictionaries designed to assist other types of users in other types of situation, e.g. text production and text reception. However, the very interesting thing in the above definition is the expression that "lemmata of one language [...] are explicated using another language." Apparently, Burkhanov uses explicate as a superordinate concept to "furnish translation equivalents" which appears in the bottom of the text. When he speaks about explicating "the meanings and usage of lexical items of the object language using the learner's native language" calling the latter a "metalanguage of lexicographic description," he clearly contradicts Bergenholtz et al. (1997) who would have considered such a pedagogical dictionary not a bilingual, but a monolingual one according to the definition provided above. Thus, it is clear that although there is a general agreement (except for de Sousa who doesn't pronounce himself in this regard) that bilingual and translation dictionaries are not the same, there is no commonly accepted definition of a bilingual dictionary. It is surely a question that requires further analysis and discussion. But for the purpose of this paper, I will suggest the following short and operational definitions: • • •

A monolingual dictionary·, a dictionary with only one object language, i.e. one language described. A monolingual dictionary with a bilingual dimension: a dictionary that has one object language and another description language. A bilingual dictionary: a dictionary that has two object languages and provides equivalents in the target language for each word and expression in the source language.

It goes without saying that these short definitions only have limited value, as they should also include the various functions of the different dictionaries and as they only deal with the so-called communication-orientated functions (see below). A dictionary designed for a knowledge-orientated function, e.g. a historical dictionary, is hardly included in this definition, as it has no object language, albeit an extra-linguistic reality, to be described. Thus, this last type of dictionary only has a description language (or various description languages), something that must be incorporated in the definitions, unless a quite new type of dictionary should be introduced. But this paper is not the right place to analyse and discuss this interesting question in further detail.

Sven Tarp

26

3.

The Concept of a Translation Dictionary

For some strange reason, de Sousa (1995) doesn't include translation dictionary among the lemmata, whereas Hartmann and James (1998) only provide a reference entry with no lexicographic items except for a reference to the lemma bilingual dictionary where the definition doesn't even mention the term translation dictionary. Thus, we have to proceed directly to Bergenholtz et al. (1997: 221) in order to get a definition of this term: A dictionary designed to transfer a text from one or various languages into one or various other languages. Translation dictionaries can be classified as active translation dictionaries (for translation from the user's mother tongue) and passive translation dictionaries (for translation into the user's mother tongue). In the theory, a distinction is made between active translation dictionaries and bilingual production dictionaries and between passive translation dictionaries and bilingual reception dictionaries.

The short definition in the beginning of this quotation has no sense whatsoever as dictionaries themselves can't provide any transfer or translation of any text. At most, they can assist the user in doing so. Apart from this, the above quotation is interesting because it classifies the translation dictionaries according to the user's mother tongue and separates them from other bilingual dictionaries designed to assist the user in the production and reception of foreign-language texts. But at the same time, Bergenholtz et al. implicitly support the idea that translation dictionaries are bilingual dictionaries by definition. In the following quotation, Burkhanov (1998: 248) takes one step forward and another step backward in comparison with Bergenholtz et al. (1997): The term "translation dictionary" is often used as a synonym of the terminological unit "bilingual dictionary." It is true in a way, since most o f translation dictionaries are bilingual. Nevertheless, considering s o m e interesting development in both lexicographic practice, i.e. actual dictionary making, and dictionary research, it seems advisable to draw a demarcation line between these two categories. Obviously, the concept of "translation dictionary" is closely related to that o f a bilingual dictionary. On the other hand, not all translation dictionaries are bilingual. For instance, the history o f lexicography has noted so-called "parallel dictionaries," i.e. plurilingual lexicographic publications o f the general vocabulary [ . . . ] On the other hand, a bilingual dictionary may not necessarily be designed for the purposes of translation: it may be specifically aimed to aid the dictionary user in learning a non-native language. In the case, the dictionary, o f course, will provide detailed explications of lexical meanings of the object language in the learner's native language. From this it follows that in metalexicography the term "translation dictionary" should be used exclusively in reference to only those linguistic dictionaries which are intended to provide interlingual translation equivalents and generally serve the purposes o f translation.

As was also the case under the entry bilingual dictionary, Burkhanov doesn't make a distinction between translation, on the one hand, and text production and reception on the other, and neither does he classify the translation dictionaries according to the users' mother tongue as done by Bergenholtz et al. (1997) Nevertheless, Burkhanov takes a step forward when he declares that not all translation dictionaries are bilingual dictionaries, although he only adds plurilingual dictionaries with more than two languages to this category. However, the last formulation - i.e. that "the term "translation dictionary" should be used exclusively in reference to only those linguistic dictionaries which are intended to provide interlingual translation equivalents and generally serve the purposes of translation" — is somewhat ambiguous because it, at the same time, relates translation dictionaries with interlingual

How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?

27

translation equivalents and demands that they only "generally" serve the "purposes of translation." What else should be the purpose of a translation dictionary? Although only two of the four dictionaries have provided a definition of a translation dictionary, at this point it must be summed up that there are rather big discrepancies between the two definitions. For the purpose of this paper, I will therefore - like in the previous section - suggest a short, operational definition: A translation dictionary is a dictionary designed to assist the user in solving problems related to the translation process.

It should be noted that this definition is a functional one, i.e. a definition related to the function of the dictionary, whereas the definitions given in the previous section were related to the content of the dictionaries (object and description languages). Accordingly, it should also be noted that, in this definition, nothing is said about whether translation dictionaries are monolingual, bilingual and/or plurilingual or whether they only provide translation equivalents or also furnish other lexicographic items. The above definition can also be turned around: when you want lexicographic assistance to solve problems related to the translation process, then you need a translation dictionary. How it should be designed, whether it should be monolingual, bilingual or plurilingual, is something to be discussed in the following pages.

4.

Dictionary Functions

Modern lexicographic theory is based on the idea that dictionaries are utility products, i.e. that they are - or should be - produced in order to satisfy certain human needs. Although not all dictionaries are the most idoneous to satisfy the respective needs (and this is a case for dictionary criticism), the starting point when planning, making or reviewing a dictionary should always be the users, user situations and the complex of problems related to these situations and which could finally cause the user to consult a dictionary for assistance. Hence, the methodology for planning, making or reviewing a dictionary should be, first of all, to make a typology of potential users, user situations, and problems that might arise for each type of users in each type of user situation. On this basis, the lexicographer can then determine which of the problems can be solved by a dictionary and which are the corresponding items to be included in the dictionary, and how they should be presented in order to satisfy the users' needs.

4.1

User Typology

In order to make a user typology, the users' characteristics must be determined on the basis of the following parameters or variables in terms of their language for general purposes (LGP), language for special purposes (LSP), cultural, special subject field, translation, and lexicographic competences: 1. Which language is their mother tongue? 2. At what level do they dominate their mother tongue? 3. At what level do they dominate a foreign language?

Sven Tarp

28

4. What is the level o f their general cultural and encyclopaedic knowledge? 5. At what level do they dominate the special subject field in question? 6. At what level do they dominate the corresponding LSP in their mother tongue? 7. At what level do they dominate the corresponding LSP in the foreign language? 8. H o w is their experience in translation between the languages in question? 9. H o w are their experiences in dictionary use?

Of course, not all these parameters are relevant in order to make a user typology for a concrete dictionary. The LSP and special subject-field competences e.g. are only relevant for specialized dictionaries etc. But on the basis of the degree of competence within the relevant parameters, a concrete and precise user typology can be established for a concrete dictionary, thus making it possible to do lexicographic work in a scientific way, whether or not this work is dictionary conception, planning, making or criticism. 4.2 Typology of User Situations Basically, there are two different kinds of general user situation. The first type is when the user consults the dictionary in order to facilitate an existing or future communication. The second is when the user consults the dictionary in order to get knowledge about a special subject or in order to learn and study a foreign language. These two different types of user situations can be called communication-orientated and knowledge-orientated, respectively. (Tarp 1998, 2000) Here we will only deal with the former situation. There are basically six different types of communication-orientated user situations: • • • • • •

Reception of text in mother tongue Production o f text in mother tongue Reception o f text in foreign language Production o f text in foreign language Translation o f text from mother tongue into foreign language Translation of text from foreign language into mother tongue

4.3 Typology of Problems Once the user group and the user situation have been characterised, it is possible to work out a typology of the problems that this specific group of users might come across this specific user situation. It is, thus, not recommendable to try to make a complete typology of all problems that can be solved in general by consulting any dictionary as Wiegand (1998, 2002) somehow does. To have any real relevance for lexicography, a typology should be made for each type of user in each type of user situation as it was outlined but far from finished by Bergenholtz and Tarp (1995: 20-25). However, the user needs, i.e. the information needed by the users in order to solve their specific problems, will mainly fall within the following categories: • • •

Information about the native language Information about a foreign language Comparison between the native and a foreign language, and vice versa

•

Information about culture and the world in general

•

Information about the special subject field

•

Comparison between the subject field in the native and foreign culture

•

Information about the native LSP

How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?

• •

29

Information about the foreign LSP Comparison between the native and foreign LSP

All these needs constitute the primary user needs that give birth to the consultation of the dictionary. There is, however, also another kind of lexicographic user need, which can be called secondary user needs. These are the needs that arise when using a dictionary: • •

General information about lexicography and dictionary use Information about the concrete dictionary and how to use it

On the basis of the above considerations, it is possible to make a complete list of items to be included or expected in the dictionary in order to satisfy users' needs and solve their problems, and to establish a plan for the structuring and presentation of these items. It goes without saying that this list up to a certain degree is language-specific.

4.4 Functions The relation between the needs of each type of user in each type of user situation and the items or data included in a dictionary in order to satisfy these specific needs constitutes the actual basis of the modern theory of lexicographic functions. A lexicographic function represents the assistance that a dictionary provides to a particular type of user in order to cover the complex of needs that arise in these particular users in a particular user situation. The lexicographic functions should not be confused with the so-called genuine purpose of a dictionary, which, among other things, embraces the various functions of the dictionary (if it is multifunctional). The lexicographic functions can be subdivided into communication-orientated and knowledge-orientated in correspondence with the respective user situations. As the knowledge-orientated functions are not relevant for this paper, only the communication-orientated functions will be dealt with. The most important are as follows: • • • • • •

To assist To assist To assist To assist To assist To assist

the the the the the the

reception of texts in the native language production of texts in the native language reception of texts in a foreign language production of texts in a foreign language translation of texts from the native language into a foreign language translation of texts from a foreign language into the native language

Experience with the application of the functional theory to concrete dictionary projects shows that the user situation constitutes the determinative parameter of a function. Therefore, these six functions are often, for the sake of convenience, called "reception of native language," "production in native language," or "reception of foreign language," and these short forms should of course not, as Wiegand (2002) does, be confused with the respective user situation (see Bergenholtz and Tarp 2003). It is evident, that the above-mentioned six functions have paradigmatic character at a relatively high level of abstraction. No concrete language is mentioned. But even more important is that although the users are not explicitly mentioned, they are implied as those to be assisted. Hence, in relation to a concrete dictionary, the functions would have to be defined in a much more explicit way in order to become operational, for example:

Sven Tarp

30

The function of this Chinese-English dictionary is to assist professional translators with Chinese as their mother tongue to solve the complex of problems that they run into when translating from Chinese into English. The functions are the very essence of lexicography. They constitute the leading principle of all dictionaries. Everything in a dictionary, absolutely everything, is to a greater or smaller extent penetrated and influenced by its respective functions. Just as the genetic code is to be found in every cell in every part of the body, the functions, likewise, must be present in every cell of the dictionary. Neither its content nor its form can be conceived or understood without taking the functions into account.

5.

Translation Process

It is well known that there are various competing translation models corresponding to different schools of thought, but this is, of course, not the place to interfere in this discussion. The use of a simple and generally accepted three-phase model is sufficient for the purpose of this paper: 1. Reception of source-language text 2. Transfer of text from source language into target language 3. Production of target-language text This experience shows that this simple model embraces the three fundamental phases of the translation process where lexicography can assist the translator, i.e. the phases where a type of problems may arise that can be solved through the consultation of a dictionary. It is evident that there are other problems, especially during the transfer from one language into another that cannot be solved by lexicography. In this model, we have two phases (phase 1 and 3) that apparently correspond to user situations already discussed above, i.e. reception of native or foreign language and production in native or foreign language. But this is only apparently. An in-depth analysis will show that there are, at least, some differences that make it relevant to introduce two new categories for these phases. In reception, for example, there is a basic difference between the person who only needs to understand a text and nothing more and the one who first needs to understand it and then to transfer it into another language. Let us take poetry. It is common knowledge that poetry can be interpreted at different levels of depth and in different dimensions. This is one of the charming aspects of poetry. But translators who want to be a reliable translator of poetry cannot allow themselves to transfer only one dimension and one level of understanding into the target language and is therefore obliged to make a real in-depth interpretation of a poem before translating it. The opposite situation can be found in the translation of technical texts, e.g. regarding a term for any relatively unknown colour. A subject-field expert reading such a text must definitely have an exact idea of this colour, an artist must know how it looks like, and a physicist must know its wavelength. For such experts, reception means to reach this profound knowledge. The translator, however, doesn't need to know all this in order to produce a correct translation, because once he or she finds out that the term refers to a colour, it will be easy to use the corresponding noun, adjective or verb and put it into a syntactically correct phrase in the target language.

How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?

31

More or less the same counts for production in the target language. There is a fundamental difference between a free text production and a production bound to a source text in another language. In the last case, there is less room for variation in terms of style, composition, text structure, and vocabulary. This is at least valid for technical and other specialized texts. To my knowledge, no profound analysis of this problem has been published, at least not in the framework of the lexicographic literature. But the above comments are enough to suggest that we, at least from a lexicographic point of view, have to introduce the terms translation-related text reception and translation-related text production as two categories that, up to a certain degree, differ from the above mentioned user situations of "text production" and "text reception." To find out how important this degree of difference really is and whether it has practical consequences for lexicography is best left for future investigation. But the discussion so far has, nevertheless, shown that the above presented three-phase translation model requires a slight modification or clarification: 1. Translation-related reception of source language text 2. Transfer of text from source language into target language 3. Translation-related production of target language text

6.

L e x i c o g r a p h i c A s s i s t a n c e to T r a n s l a t i o n

Lexicography doesn't provide translation. It provides assistance to the person carrying out the translation. Lexicography analyses the problems popping up in this process and determines which of them might be solved by means of dictionaries. The translation model presented above implies that problems might show up at three different stages of the translation process, or in three different situations, i.e. during the reception phase, during the transfer phase, and during the production or reproduction phase. It is evident that the problems related to the respective phases might be of a very different nature and, hence, that the assistance that lexicography can provide and how it can be provided might differ very much from phase to phase. As already mentioned, it is not possible to work out a complete typology of problems that is language and user independent. But this doesn't mean that it is impossible to give some general indications of the sort of problems to be expected and solved by means of a dictionary, at least within the family of Indo-European languages. This is what will be done in the following for a total of six phases, i.e. the three phases of translation from the mother tongue into a foreign language and the three opposite phases of translation from a foreign language into the mother tongue.

6.1 Translation-related Reception of a Mother-tongue Text The real question here is to understand the text, the phrases, words, collocations, idioms, proverbs, and so on. A dictionary might be consulted when there are any problems of understanding in this connection. A well-designed dictionary might assist the translator in solving problems of understanding with regard to all these categories except for those at a text level and, to a very limited degree, for those at a phrase level. This assistance is given by means of so-called lexicographic definitions that include traditional forms as synonyms,

32

Sven Tarp

hyperonyms, hyponyms, paraphrasing, concrete text examples, brief, or more profound explanations. Once the user has decided to consult a concrete dictionary, a second type of problems might show up, i.e. the identification of the right lemma under which the required answers might be found. To assist the user in this identification, the dictionary must provide information about word class, gender, irregular inflected forms, and orthographic variants. It goes without saying that not all these categories are relevant for each language - gender is for example irrelevant for English but certainly not for Danish and Spanish - and that other categories might be just as important for other languages, especially outside the Indo-European family. 6.2 Transfer of a Text from the Mother Tongue into a Foreign Language The question here is to transfer the text from one language into another. It is evident that a dictionary can't provide any assistance in the transfer at a text level as whole. What it can do is to provide equivalents at a word, collocation, idiom, and proverb level and, in very limited scale, at a phrase level when the translator runs into problems of this sort. In the case of partial equivalence, the dictionary can also and is required to provide information about any difference of meaning between the words, collocations, etc. in the source language and their equivalents in the target language in order to enable the translator to find the right or best equivalents and, if necessary, remedy the missing meaning by the aid of other linguistic "tricks." If the search for an equivalent is the second step in the consultation, the user is supposed to have identified the lemma in question already in the reception phase. But if the problem doesn't show up until the transfer phase, the user might need some lexicographic items in order to identify the lemma under which the required equivalent might be found. However, these items are not the same as was the case in the reception phase. N o w the user is supposed to know the lemma and its meaning(s) and only needs to be confirmed that the lemma is the right one and the meaning treated under this lemma is the relevant meaning. This confirmation can - apart from items regarding word class, gender and irregular inflection - be provided by means of a lexicographic definition of the same sort as discussed in the section on translation-related reception of a mother-tongue text. There is, however, one big and important difference: whereas the function of the definition given in this section was to facilitate text reception, now its function is to identify the right lemma and meaning. This means that this particular lexicographic item has at least two different functions. 6.3 Translation-related Production of a Foreign-language Text The question here is to produce or reproduce a correct and adequate text in the foreign language in correspondence with the text in the source language. A dictionary can only assist the translator when orthographic, grammatical or pragmatic problems appear at a word, collocation, idiom, or proverb level and, once more, only with big limitations at a phrase level. This assistance is given by means of lexicographic items in terms of orthography, gender, irregular inflection, syntactic properties, pragmatics, collocations, idioms, proverbs, synonyms, and antonyms. These items are, of course, language- and subject-field-dependent up to a certain degree. Synonymous terms, for example, are

How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?

33

generally not recommended in Danish technical texts where an accurate and unambiguous style is endeavoured whereas they are quite frequent in Spanish technical language just as in the LGP of most languages. If the search for assistance to text production is the second or third step in the consultation, the user is supposed to have identified the right source-language lemma already in the reception or translation phase and that the corresponding target-language equivalent in the translation phase. But if no problems show up until the production phase, the user might need some lexicographic items in order to identify the lemma under which the required assistance might be found. As the user has passed through both the reception and the transfer phase without dictionary-relevant problems, he or she is already supposed to know the lemma and the relevant meaning and might only need to be sure that the meaning treated under the actual lemma is the relevant meaning. This identification problem is similar to the one described in the section of the transfer of a text from the mother tongue into a foreign language. There is, however, one crucial difference, i.e. that the lemma under which all the necessary items are placed must be a target-language lemma, if the user should not be forced to return to the source language and then follow a long and completely unnecessary search route starting once more in the this language instead of the target language. 6.4 Translation-related Reception of a Foreign-language Text This first phase of translation from a foreign language into the mother tongue resembles the corresponding first phase of the translation the other way around, but also here a mayor difference is to be observed. As the source language is a foreign language, the translator in general is suspected to have more reception problems, at least in terms of semantics. These problems might, of course, be solved by means of the same type of items as in the section on the translation-reception of a mother-tongue text, but mother-tongue equivalents would in most cases be sufficient and constitute the best solution. Hence, a traditional explanation would only be necessary when dealing with a special subject field unknown or relatively unknown to the translator or with some rare phenomenon outside the cultural and encyclopaedic knowledge normally expected in an educated person. And as reception problems of this sort frequently are followed by problems in the transfer phase, the best solution to serve the translation function would be the provision of mother-tongue equivalents supported by explanations when necessary. In order to identify the lemma where assistance to solve the concrete reception problems is provided, the same items as in the section on the translation-reception of a mother tongue text are required with the slight difference that the translator might need a little more information about the foreign language than was the case in the mother tongue, e.g. that the Danish word medre is the plural form of mor (mother). 6.5 Transfer of a Text from a Foreign Language into the Mother Tongue The problems in this phase are similar to those when transferring a text from the mother tongue into a foreign language. The same counts for the lexicographic items incorporated in order to solve these problems. The only major difference is that mother-tongue equivalents are often their own meaning differentiators, the number of which can thus be reduced.

34

Sven Tarp

As was the case in the section on the transfer of text from the mother tongue into a foreign language, if the consultation is preceded by another consultation during the reception phase, it might be assumed that the user has already identified the right lemma. But if the problem shows up for the first time in the transfer phase, apart from the identification items needed in the reception phase and apart from the equivalents provided (which might also serve this purpose), a simple brief explanation is sometimes required to help the user identify the lemma where the equivalents are be found. 6.6 Translation-related Production of a Mother-tongue Text Text production in the mother tongue is not different from text production in a foreign language. The translator needs the same knowledge to produce a correct and adequate text. However, the problems that might arise during this phase are supposed to be less than during the corresponding phase in a foreign language as the knowledge of the mother tongue almost always is bigger that the knowledge of a foreign language. For frequent vocabulary, the translators only need "reminders" in terms of collocations, idioms, proverbs, synonyms, antonyms, and so on, whereas they also need information on gender and irregular or rare inflection for words outside this vocabulary. But as the demarcation line between "frequent" and "infrequent" vocabulary is subjective and difficult to draw, it should be recommended that items of this type are provided in all cases. If the search for assistance to text production in the mother tongue is the second or third step in the consultation, the user is supposed to have identified the right source language lemma already in the reception or translation phase and that the corresponding mother tongue equivalent in the second of these phases. However, as was the case for production in a foreign language, if no problems show up until the production phase, the user might need some lexicographic items in order to identify the lemma under which the required assistance might be found. These items are the same as described in the section on translation-related production of a foreign language text, and the lemma must also in this case be a mother-tongue lemma in order to facilitate and speed up to search and consultation process.

7.

Bilingual or Monolingual Translation Dictionaries

The exposition in the previous chapter has shown that problems of a very different nature might arise in the different phases of the translation process, and that these problems, although similar, are not completely identical when translating from and into the mother tongue. The exposition, which, of course, has to be worked out in further detail, also shows that different lexicographic items are required in each phase in order to meet the user's needs in terms of solving the corresponding problems. These conclusions are more or less what could be expected. However, the real important conclusion to be drawn from the above exposition has to do with the phases in which a problem presents itself for the first time during the process as a whole. It became clear that bilingual dictionaries are only absolutely indispensable when the translator needs lexicographic assistance during the transfer phase. When problems show up in the reception phase, the translator's needs could easily be met in a normal

How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?

35

monolingual reception dictionary, but there are a number of reasons why a bilingual dictionary, nevertheless, could be recommended. First, because problems in the reception phase frequently might be followed by problems in the transfer phase and the consultation of only one dictionary for these two purposes will save precious time for the translator; and secondly, because mother-tongue equivalents, when translating from a foreign language into the mother tongue, often are a convenient way to provide assistance to reception problems in the foreign language. Monolingual dictionaries are, hence, only an option, but no compulsory requirement with reference to translation-related reception. Quite another picture is presented by translation-related production when no former problems have cropped up during the two previous phases. It is evident that dictionaries (monolingual or bilingual) with target-language lemmata are far the best solution when the translator already has formed an idea of how to produce the final result of the translation process and only needs to confirm this idea or has some doubts as regards how to implement it (orthography, gender, inflection, collocations, synonyms, etc.). The use of a bilingual dictionary from the source language to the target language would not only be time-wasting, but might also open up for a more constrained style and, thus a lower-quality translation. This discussion resembles the hitherto lexicographic discussion on foreign-language production, i.e. production of a text directly in the foreign language without a prototext in the mother tongue. For this type of text production, Hausmann (1977:149) recommended the use of monolingual dictionaries in the foreign language and only "as late as possible to consult a bilingual dictionary." Mugdan (1992, 1992a) even recommended the use of bilingual L2-L1 dictionaries, whereas Tarp (1992, 1995) made a distinction between the foreign-language speaker at a beginner's level who would most probably have to consult a bilingual L1-L2 dictionary, the advanced foreign-language speaker who would normally consult a monolingual L2 dictionary and the persons "in between" who would sometimes consult a L1-L2 dictionary and sometimes a L2 dictionary. And the discussion also corresponds with the experiences of many translators. The author of this paper, e.g., who is a sworn Danish-Spanish translator, consults more monolingual Spanish dictionaries than bilingual Danish-Spanish ones when translating into Spanish, albeit - and this is also interesting - he consults more bilingual Spanish-Danish and monolingual Spanish dictionaries than monolingual Danish ones when translating into Danish, what probably is due to the fact that Danish is his mother tongue and, thus, gives birth to fewer problems. These remarks have serious consequences for the very concept of a translation dictionary, i.e. a dictionary designed to assist the user in solving problems related to the translation process. Up to now, w e have seen three types of problems: 1. Problems in the reception phase 2. Problems in the transfer phase 3. Problems in the production phase

These translation-related problems correspond to three so-called sub-functions subordinated to each of the two main functions related to translation from and into the mother tongue:

36

Sven Tarp

Subfunctions of the Function "Translation from LI into LT' • To assist translators to solve the complex of problems that they run into in the translation-related reception of texts in the native language; • To assist translators to solve the complex of problems that they run into in the transfer of texts from the native language into a foreign language; • To assist translators to solve the complex of problems that they run into in the translation-related production of texts in a foreign language. Subfunctions of the Function "Translation from L2 into LI" • To assist translators to solve the complex of problems that they run into in the translation-related reception of texts in a foreign language; • To assist translators to solve the complex of problems that they run into in the translation of texts from a foreign language into the native language; • To assist translators to solve the complex of problems that they run into in the translation-related production of texts in the native language. However, the complex of problems that arise in each phase might be further differentiated in accordance with the stage in the overall translation process when the first problems appear. In the previous chapter, it became clear that the dictionary user, in the transfer phase, needs items to identify the right lemma only when the problem is a first-time problem, whereas the items required to solve the transfer problems were the same. Furthermore, it became clear that the need for special items of identification in the production phase also depends on whether or not the problem is a first-time problem, and that - and this is much more important - the items, if it is a second-time or third-time problem, must be placed under lemmata in the source language, whereas items, both for identification and providing solutions, must be placed under target-language lemmata if it is a first-time problem. This results in a total of five different problem complexes to be attended by dictionaries: 1. Problems in the reception phase; 2a. Problems in the transfer phase with problems in the previous phase; 2b. Problems in the transfer phase without problems in the previous phase; 3a. Problems in the production phase with problems in the previous phases; 3b. Problems in the production phase without problems in the previous phase(s). The last type of problem (3b) cannot successfully be solved in a dictionary with the same scopus as the translation. From this argument it becomes surprisingly clear that if a dictionary should be designed to fully assist users in solving the complex of problems popping up in connection with translation of texts from the mother tongue into a foreign language, it should be furnished with two word lists, one from the mother tongue into the foreign language and another, whether monolingual or bilingual, with lemmata in the foreign language. And the same, of course, is valid for the translation from a foreign language into the mother tongue. This means that the function of a one-way bilingual dictionary can only be partially used to assist the user in solving the complex of problems related to translation. In order to fully acquire this function, it must be a two-way dictionary or, at least, include two word lists, one bilingual and another monolingual. This conclusion, however, opens new perspectives in terms of developing a model for an integrated translation dictionary, i.e. a dictionary designed to assist translation both ways. Such a dictionary would be designed as a two-way dictionary, where the L1-L2 and the L2-L1 word lists have the following sub-functions, respectively:

37

How Can Dictionaries Assist Translators?

Subfunctions • To assist • To assist • To assist • To assist • To assist

of the L1-L2 Word List translators in solving problems translators in solving problems translators in solving problems translators in solving problems translators in solving problems

of of of of of

type type type type type

1 related to L1-L2 translation 2a related to L1-L2 translation 2b related to LI -L2 translation 3a related to L1-L2 translation 3b related to L2-L1 translation

Subfunctions • To assist • To assist • To assist • To assist • To assist

of the L2-L1 translators in translators in translators in translators in translators in

of type of type of type of type of type

1 related to L2-L1 translation 2a related to L2-L1 translation 2b related to L2-L1 translation 3a related to L2-L1 translation 3b related to L1-L2 translation

Word List solving problems solving problems solving problems solving problems solving problems

Such a " p a c k a g e " solution might be relevant and attractive for a n u m b e r of languages and, notably, for specialized lexicography where monolingual dictionaries, which could solve some of the translation problems, frequently are missing. But how it should be worked out in details is a topic for another occasion.

8.

Conclusion

The discussion in this paper indicates that lexicographic theory must be further developed. But in order to do so, it is important to understand what is meant by theory. In fact, there are two competing ways of understanding lexicographic theory, one contemplative and the other transformative. T h e contemplative theory is a result of the observation of actual existing dictionaries and their use. Its relation to practice is the continuous study of still new dictionaries in order to examine if the theory is valid or has to be adjusted. On the contrary, the purpose of the transformative theory of lexicography is not only to get a good understanding of the existing dictionaries and their use, but also to influence the lexicographic practice by means of indications and guidelines for dictionary conception and making. Its relation to practice is a relation of interaction. It does not only study the finished product but also the human activity of conceiving, planning, and making dictionaries, an activity in which it itself is heavily engaged. The contemplative theory has made a number of important contributions to lexicography but it often tends to degenerate into a strange form of linguistic definitis that alienates many lexicographers f r o m this theory. There is no doubt that the future of lexicography belongs to the transformative theory, a fundamental component of which is the functional theory presented in this paper.

References (a) Cited Dictionaries Comp. José Martínez de Sousa. Barcelona: Biblograf 1995. Comp. R.R.K. Hartmann and Gregory James. London and New York:

DICCIONARIO DE LEXICOGRAFÍA PRÁCTICA. DICTIONARY OF LEXICOGRAPHY.

Routledge 1998.

38

Sven Tarp

A DICTIONARY OF BASIC T E R M I N O L O G Y . Comp. Igor Burkhanov. Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Wyzszejszkol y Pedagogicznej 1998. NORDISK LEKSIKOGRAF1SK O R D B O K . Comp. Bergenholtz, Henning, Ilse Cantell, Ruth Vatvedt Fjeld, Dag Gundersen, Jon Hilmar Jónsson, and Bo Svensén. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 1997. LEXICOGRAPHY,

(b) Other Literature Bergenholtz, Henning and Sven Tarp (eds.) (1995): Manual of Specialised Lexicography. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. - (2003): Two Opposing Theories: On H.E. Wiegand's Recent Discovery of Lexicographic Functions. - Hermes, Journal of Linguistics 31. Àrhus: Handelsh0jskolen i Àrhus. Hausmann, Franz Josef (1977): Einführung in die Benutzung der neufranzösischen Wörterbücher. -Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Mugdan, Joachim (1992): Zur Typologie zweisprachiger Wörterbücher. - In: Gregor Meder and Andreas Dörner (eds.): Worte, Wörter, Wörterbücher: lexikographische Beiträge zum Essener Linguistischen Kolloquium, 25-48. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. - (1992a): On the Typology of Bilingual Dictionaries. - In: Karl Hyldgaard-Jensen and Arne Zettersten (eds.): Symposium on Lexicography v. Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Lexicography May 3-5, 1990, at the University of Copenhagen, 17-24. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Tarp, Sven (1992a). Prolegomena til teknisk ordbog. - A r h u s : Spansk Institut. Handelshojskolen i Arhus, Ph.D. Thesis, http://www.lng.hha.dk/dml/spa/koncept.pdf. -(1994): Funktionen in Fachwörterbüchern. - In: Henning Bergenholtz and Buchard Schaeder (eds.): Fachlexikographie. Fachwissen und seine Repräsentation in Wörterbüchern, 229-246. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. - (1995): Wörterbuchfunktionen: Utopische und realistische Vorschläge für die bilinguale Lexikographie. - In: H.E. Wiegand (ed.): Studien zur zweisprachigen Lexikographie mit Deutsch II. Germanistische Linguistik 127-128, 17-51. Hildesheim and New York: Olms. - (1998): Leksikografien pâ egne ben. Fordelingsstrukturer og byggedele i et brugerorienteret perspektiv. - Hermes, Journal of Linguistics 21, 121-131. Arhus: Handelshejskolen i Ârhus. - (2000): Theoretical Challenges to Practical Specialised Lexicography.— Lexikos 10, 189-208. Stellenbosch: Büro van die WAT. - (2001): Propuestas para la Traducción Especializada Mediante un Sitio Web. — TradTerm 8, 2002. Revista do Centro Interdepartamental de Traduçâo e Terminologia, 257-274. Sâo Paulo: Universidade de Sao Paulo. Wiegand, Herbert Ernst (1998): Wörterbuchforschung. Untersuchungen zur Wörterbuchbenutzung, zur Theorie, Geschichte, Kritik and Automatisierung der Lexikographie 1. - Teilband. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. - 2002). Was eigentlich sind Wörterbuchfunktionen? Kritische Anmerkungen zur neueren und neuesten Wörterbuchforschung. - Lexicographica 18,217-248. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.

Phil

Benson

The Monolingual Dictionary: A Special Case o f Bilingualism?

1.

Bilingual and Monolingual Dictionaries

In everyday terms, a bilingual dictionary is one in which the words of one language are described using the words of another. A monolingual dictionary is one in which the words of a language are described using the words of the same language. Although other parts of the world may have longer traditions, monolingual dictionaries only appeared in Europe around 400 years ago. If we agree with Green (1996), then, that lexicography has a history of more than 4,000 years, we would also have to say that the larger part of this history is the history of the bilingual dictionary. We would also have to recognise that the bilingual dictionary has only acquired an identity as a specific form of the dictionary in contrast to its monolingual "other." From a modern European perspective, the rise of the monolingual dictionary in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marks a point at which lexicography was divided into two quite distinct branches. In support of this view, Hulbert (1968: 16) has argued that, "dictionaries which explained English words by English equivalents could not derive directly from the bilingual ones." This paper questions Hulbert's proposition by looking closely at the relationship between monolingual dictionaries of English and their bilingual predecessors in the light of a phenomenon in the modern monolingual dictionary, which Rey and Delesalle (1975) have called "pseudo-bilingualism." Pseudo-bilingualism refers to a method of describing words in a monolingual dictionary that implies systematic divisions within the vocabulary of the language described. In this paper, I want to explore pseudo-bilingualism in the monolingual English dictionary from both historical and theoretical perspectives. In conclusion, I will point to the potentially problematic implications of pseudo-bilingualism in monolingual English dictionaries aimed at foreign learners. 2.

Language and Metalanguage in the Monolingual Dictionary

From a theoretical perspective, the monolingual dictionary can only exist because language is a semiotic system with the unique capacity to represent both other semiotic systems and itself (Halliday 1978: 2). This capacity involves two aspects: first, words can represent themselves and, second, words can represent each other. To clarify this point, I want to consider the following sentence: "This dictionary is well-worth buying." In this sentence the word dictionary clearly represents an object in the real world - a particular dictionary that the speaker has in mind. Now, let us consider the following sentence, which appears as part of the entry for dictionary in Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (1987): A dictionary is a book in which the words of a language are listed alphabetically and their meanings are explained. Here the word dictionary does not represent a real world object. Rather it represents the word dictionary itself. Similarly, the phrase a book in which the words of a language are

Phil Benson

40

listed alphabetically and their meanings are explained represents the word dictionary. When words are used thus, either to represent themselves or to each other, we can use the term metalanguage to refer to the use of language to represent language. The concept of metalanguage explains the possibility of compiling a list of headwords for the dictionary and the possibility of dictionary definition. In this sense, dictionary headwords are metalinguistic representations of words in a language and dictionary definitions are metalinguistic statements about the meaning of these words. If we compare the monolingual dictionary with the bilingual dictionary, however, it appears that the relationship between these two levels of metalanguage is articulated in different ways. In a monolingual dictionary, the headwords are usually described using words that appear in the list of headwords itself. In other words, they are defined rather than translated, and there is in principle no restriction on the defining words, other than the widely accepted premise that they should also appear in the list of headwords and that they should not include the word that is being defined. In a bilingual dictionary, on the other hand, the headwords and the defining vocabulary belong to different language systems. Typically, the entry for dictionary in a small English-French dictionary would read something like this: "dictionary [...] dictionnaire." In other words, bilingual dictionaries describe headwords through translation equivalents, which may take the form of a cognate, a single word equivalent or a longer explanatory phrase. In this sense, metalinguistic definition as an attempt to delimit the range of meaning of a word in relation to other words appears to be unique to the monolingual dictionary. There is also an important sense, however, in which monolingual definitions are also a matter of equivalence. The use of synonyms is a common practice, especially in smaller dictionaries. Synonymy is also involved in the COBUILD entry for dictionary above, however, because two synonymous noun phrases are matched: dictionary and book in which the words of a language are listed alphabetically and their meanings are explained. Indeed, it is a principle of dictionary definition that the definition should be semantically (if not pragmatically) substitutable for the word defined and vice versa. This principle involves a general assumption that all the words of the language are available to the definitional metalanguage, that any word can be used to define any other word. The notion of pseudo-bilingualism, however, involves a contrary assumption that, in practice, this is not always the case. The definitional vocabulary of a monolingual dictionary is, for example, usually much smaller than the list of headwords (which is in turn much smaller than the total number of words in the language). And, if the relationship between the definitional vocabulary and the headword list involves systematic distinctions between codes within the language described, then definition may in fact be a matter of translation. It may also be the case that the dictionary represents certain codes as having the capacity to define words, while others are represented as lacking this capacity.

3.

The Rise of the Monolingual English Dictionary

Relationships between linguistic codes and the metalanguages of the headword list and definitional vocabulary in particular dictionaries or dictionary traditions are, however, a matter for the history of the dictionary. The origins of lexicographical methods date back to antiquity and there is an important sense in which bilingual lexicographers describe words using translation equivalents simply because that is what their predecessors have done for

The Monolingual

Dictionary:

A Special

Case of

Bilingualism?

41

several thousand years. The transfer of this method to English monolingual dictionaries is also embedded within a history and for this reason it is particularly interesting to look back at the period of transition from the bilingual to the monolingual dictionary in England. An examination of the development of the early monolingual English dictionary in the early seventeenth century can tell us a great deal about the articulation of relationships among codes in modern dictionaries of English (for a more detailed examination of this issue, see Benson 2001). In a bilingual dictionary, the codes corresponding to the metalanguages of the headword list and the definitional vocabulary belong to different language systems. This was also true of the bilingual dictionaries of sixteenth-century England. There is also an assumption in the modern bilingual dictionary that the language of the headword list will be a "foreign" language and that the language of the definitions will be a stable and familiar language for the user. This was not entirely true of bilingual dictionaries of the sixteenth century, however. First, the more important dictionaries of this time (e.g., Elyot's Latin-English Dictionary of Syr T.E., Knyght [1538], Palsgrave's French-English Lesclaircissement de la langue françoyse [ 1530]) described languages that were, in fact, high codes within English society. Elyot's Latin-English dictionary described the established scholarly code of his time. And although English had largely replaced Norman French as the language of power, knowledge of French remained a marker of social class. Palsgrave described his dictionary, which like Elyot's work had the patronage of King Henry VIII, as "necessary, profitable and expedient" for "the bringing up of the youth of our nobility." Second, these dictionaries were also concerned with the codification of English. As Green (1996: 76) succinctly points out, the major reason that there were no monolingual English dictionaries until the early seventeenth century was simply that in the world of scholarship "there was still no English". In his preface, therefore, Elyot declared his intention "to augment our English tongue" and described his dictionary as a collection of words "which before me were never of any man [...] declared and set forth in English." Green (1996: 107) also notes that Palsgrave's dictionary became known as "one of the best depositories of obsolete English words." By systematically recording the English equivalents of the Latin and French high codes, then, bilingual dictionary-makers contributed to the development of a new high code of English that would ultimately replace them. The establishment of this new high code of English in the seventeenth century, however, involved not just the codification of the Anglo-Saxon word stock, but also the Anglicisation of classical words on a large scale. On the basis of statistics drawn from the Chronological English Dictionary, Görlach (1991: 137) identifies the years 1570 to 1630 as peak years for neologisation in English. This was both the period in which the new high code of English emerged and the period during which the monolingual English dictionary, among which Cawdrey's Table AlphabeticalI [1604] is generally acknowledged to be the first, came on to the scene. Monolingual dictionary-makers contributed to the development of the new high code in two ways. First, dictionary-makers were often enthusiastic neologisers, or "active participators in the process of transferring the word-store of Latin wholesale into their own language" (McArthur 1986: 87). They not only explained new words, but also coined them - often on the basis of Elyot's Latin headword list and often in order simply to increase the size of their headword lists. In this way, they contributed to the codification of the new high code. Second, because the development of this code took place in the context of the rise of capitalism and a broadening of the social base of the linguistic elite, early monolingual

42

Phil Benson

dictionaries served as "a prop to the linguistically insecure, baffled by the highly heterogeneous vocabulary of their native language" (Osselton 1990: 1950). As McArthur (1986: 87) puts it, they also "offered access to the new high English to many who felt discontented with the old low variety." Dictionary-makers, in other words, both represented (and invented!) the new high code and disseminated it by translating it into a code that would be familiar to anyone who could afford to buy a dictionary. The earliest monolingual English dictionaries were also only one step removed from their bilingual predecessors. Their headword lists largely consisted of anglicised words of classical origin, while the definitional vocabulary was largely composed of words of Anglo-Saxon origin. The relationship between these two metalanguages was articulated through translation: anglicised classical words were translated into their Anglo-Saxon equivalents in the "vulgar tongue" (often drawing on parallel translations from Elyot's earlier Latin-English dictionary). The quasi-bilingual character of these dictionaries is well illustrated by Cockeram's English Dictionarie (1623), which in addition to the conventional "hard-word" dictionary included a volume in which the headwords were "vulgar words" and the definitions took the form of equivalents appropriate to "more refined and elegant speech." Cockeram's dictionary was, in effect, a two-way "bilingual" dictionary for high and low codes of the language. The heritage of these early dictionaries is, therefore, a division of the metalanguages of the headword list and definitional vocabulary along classical-Anglo-Saxon lines and an abiding assumption that classical-origin words can be defined by words of Anglo-Saxon origin, but not the reverse. This is, however, only half of the story of pseudo-bilingualism in early monolingual English dictionaries, because from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, dictionaries also began to include a growing number of dialect words in their headword lists (Osselton 1992; Wakelin 1987). Scholarly interest in these words was connected to a nationalist and puritan discourse that located the strengths of the English language in its Anglo-Saxon word-stock rather than its capacity to absorb new words of classical origin. John Ray's Collection of English Words Not Generally Used {\61 A) was inspired by its compiler's radical Puritanism, but it also had a quasi-bilingual aim: Ray stated that one of the reasons for its compilation was that "it might be of help to travellers in the northern counties" (Osselton 1958: 167). Dialect words from Ray's collection entered later dictionaries, notably via Coles's English Dictionary (1676), where they were joined by large numbers of obsolete words and words from collections of "cant" and other "low" varieties. These words also tended to be described pseudo-bilingually by an equivalent from a higher code (e.g. snag [...] In Sussex, a snail - Kersey's Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum [1708]). It is likely that dictionary-makers saw these words principally as a means of expanding the headword list size had become an especially important commercial issue in the late seventeenth century. One effect of their inclusion, however, was the consolidation of the defining vocabulary as a "middle-ground" - corresponding to the code most familiar to the middle-class dictionary buyer - that could serve as a medium of translation for both higher and lower codes. The most important development in the eighteenth-century dictionary was the incorporation of this vocabulary of the middle ground into the headword list itself. In the preface to his New English Dictionary (1702), J.K. criticised his predecessors both for including classical-origin words that were "never used in English" as well as "others that are peculiar to distinct Counties of England, Scotland, or Ireland, and never us'd or understood any where else" and for including "very few of the genuine and common significant Words of the English tongue." The dictionaries of the mid-eighteenth century -

The Monolingual

Dictionary:

A Special Case of

Bilingualism?

43

notably Martin's Lingua Britannica Reformata (1749) and Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755) - were therefore characterized by their reduced headword lists, their focus on the common words of English and by the development of the practice of lexical definition, which Johnson (1747) described as "the only way whereby the meaning of words can be known, without leaving room for contest about it." Johnson systematically excluded both dialect and "low" words and many of the neologisms of the previous century from his dictionary, such that the headword list became, in effect, a metalinguistic representation of an approved code for the middle-class reader. When Johnson did include such words, however, he relied on the old method of translation equivalence: e.g. "tole [...] (This seems to be some barbarous provincial word) to train: to draw by degrees." Johnson's use of lexical definition to describe the approved words of the language was an innovation. In his use of pseudo-bilingual definition to describe higher and lower codes of the language he was merely following established practice. The modern English dictionary, however, has inherited this combination of techniques, such that the definitional vocabulary has become the self-defining "core" of the language. In the modern dictionary, therefore, lexical definition serves as a marker of a word's identity as a member of the core vocabulary - a vocabulary that continues to be drawn from the codes of the middle-class dictionary reader. Pseudo-bilingual definition, on the other hand serves as marker of marginal ity. 4.

Pseudo-bilingualism in the Learner's Dictionary

The metalanguage of the definitional vocabulary of dictionaries for foreign learners of English is not explicitly related to any particular code of English. Nor do these dictionaries overtly refer to "high" or "low" codes of English. They do, however, recognise a parallel distinction between the core vocabulary and "formal" and "informal" words. In most of these dictionaries the definitional vocabulary is, in fact, an artificially constructed code based on a restricted number of items that are judged to be frequent in the language or familiar to learners. The ways in which this definitional vocabulary is determined varies from dictionary to dictionary, but in all cases formal and informal words tend to be excluded irrespective of their frequency. In the fifth edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) (1995), for example, from which the examples in this section are taken, the defining vocabulary is restricted to 3,500 words, "chosen principally according to their frequency in the language." These words are listed in an appendix and when words outside this list are used in definitions, they are printed in block capitals. Pseudo-bilingual definition is also frequent in OALD and the following examples illustrate the principle at work in relation to both informal and formal items: nick [...] (Brit infmt) to arrest sb. arrest [...] to take and keep sb prisoner with the authority of the law. sexual intercourse [...] (fm!) = SEX sex [...] (also fml sexual intercourse, intercourse)... the action of a man inserting his PENIS into a woman's VAGINA, usu leading to the release of SEMEN from the penis, as a result of which the woman may become pregnant.

The principle of pseudo-bilingual definition can be stated in two parts: (1) if an item belongs to an informal or formal code, it is not defined, but glossed by its translation equivalent in the core vocabulary, and (2) the equivalent in the core vocabulary is defined

44

Phil Benson

lexically using the core vocabulary itself. The application of this principle is systematic in the OALD and it is arguably informative in relation to the various codes of English. In practice, however, this principle may be problematic for foreign learners. In the definitions of nick and sexual intercourse we are essentially observing an extension into the modern day of the practice of translating lower and higher codes into the code that is most familiar to the reader. When the reader is a foreign learner, however, the assumption of familiarity is a large one. In the entry for nick, for example, the equivalent arrest does appear in the 3,500-word list of defining words, but does the reader necessarily know what it means? In the entry for sexual intercourse the reader is referred to the entry for sex, which also appears in the defining vocabulary, but again the word may be unknown. Even more problematic is the fact that the word sex itself is defined using three words that are apparently less frequent than the word sex itself. The potential problem for the foreign learner is perhaps simply a lack of transparency in regard to the meaning of these words. Readers who look up the words nick or sexual intercourse are not directly rewarded by an explanation of their meanings. The assumption here may be that arrest and sex are the more frequent and familiar words. I suspect, however, that this is only a secondary consideration, if it is a consideration at all. Rather, what is at issue is the application of an inherited method of articulating relationships between codes of the language that forces the reader to acquire the meanings of words belonging to informal and formal codes through the medium of their translation equivalents in the core vocabulary. Pseudo-bilingual definition becomes even more problematic, however, when we come to consider the definition of classical-origin words in OALD. Many classical-origin words are found among the 3,500 defining words. However, if frequency is the criterion for their selection, we need to be aware that the most frequent words in corpora of English tend to be of Anglo-Saxon origin and that these words are especially prominent among the most frequent 2,000 words (Nation 2001: 264). Synonymy in English is also often a matter of the pairing of classical origin words with their Anglo-Saxon equivalents. Pseudo-bilingual definition is, moreover, often a feature of the treatment of these pairs in OALD as we see in the case of the definitions of labour and work: Labour [...] to work or try hard work [... ] the use of physical strength or mental power in order to do or make sth. It is worth noting here that there is no clear difference in level of formality between the words work and labour. Both words are also included in the 3,500-word defining vocabulary. In two-and-half pages of definitions of work and its derivatives, however, the word labour appears only once in a note explaining the difference in usage between work, labour and toil. In the half page of definitions of labour and its derivatives, the word work appears nine times. For reasons that can only really be explained by a historical tradition of defining classical-origin words pseudo-bilingually, therefore, the reader who does not know either word will be forced to consult the entry for work in order to understand the word labour. Users of the OALD would perhaps be expected to know the word work, however. But the entry for surveillance suggests that such an assumption may be problematic: surveillance [...] careful watch kept on sb suspected of doing wrong

The Monolingual Dictionary: A Special Case of Bilingualism?

45

In this case, surveillance is not in the defining vocabulary, while watch is. But although watch is clearly a frequent word, the particular sense in which it is used here may well be less familiar to the user than the word surveillance itself. Moreover, in order to understand this sense, readers would first have to find "keep a close eye/watch on sb/sth" within the entry for watch, n. Because this entry begins with the definition "a small instrument for showing the time" (the sense that probably caused watch, n. to appear in the defining vocabulary), readers may well not find this part of the entry at all. Readers who do find it, however, will be redirected to the entry for close, where after another search they will finally discover that keep a close eye/watch on sb/sth means, "to watch sb/sth carefully". The problem here is, of course, that the most frequently used words in the language are not necessarily the most familiar to the foreign learner in all their senses. But this is also a matter of their origin because words of Anglo-Saxon origin tend to have more senses and derivatives, to be used in more combinations and to be used more idiomatically than words of classical origin. The potential difficulty with the definition of surveillance above, for example, is related to the fact that watch is used as a noun (and in a different sense to the one with which learners are likely to be most familiar) and to the fact that it is used idiomatically. We may also wonder whether words of Anglo-Saxon origin are necessarily more frequent in the usage of speakers of English as a foreign language generally. Classical-origin words may well present fewer difficulties to speakers of French, Spanish, and Italian, for example, because they tend to have cognates in their native languages. This may also be true of other learners, such as those in Hong Kong, who acquire English largely through academic study in school. 5. C o n c l u s i o n A good monolingual dictionary definition is a semantic equivalent of the word that it defines. There is, therefore, a sense in which every definition of a word is a "translation" of that word into other words. Pseudo-bilingual definition, however, involves translation in a much narrower sense than this. In this paper, I have argued that, from a theoretical perspective, monolingual dictionary definition can be understood as an articulation of relationships between two metalanguages - the metalanguage of the headword list and the definitional metalanguage. These metalanguages draw on a common word stock - the vocabulary of the language defined. We may also assume that neither metalanguage will use all of the words from this common word stock. But if there were no principled criteria differentiating the selection of words for each metalanguage, the distinction between them would be purely conceptual and there would be no question of pseudo-bilingualism. In this sense, pseudo-bilingualism in monolingual dictionaries only arises as a historically situated practice involving systematic differentiations between the vocabulary of the headword list and the definitional vocabulary. It should also perhaps be emphasised that in the English dictionary this practice is not only historically situated, but also more or less natural. In other words, the composition of the definitional vocabulary arises not from systematic analysis of the codes of English, but from the lexicographers' perceptions of which words are likely to be most familiar to the reader. It has been argued, however, that modern dictionaries tend to express the "the world-views of their lexicographers" and that the language is "discussed through the filter of these world views" (Moon 1989: 75). It has also been argued that dictionary users "want

46

Phil

Benson

their dictionaries to mirror the likes and dislikes of the society as a whole" (Béjoint 1994: 137). English dictionaries have, however, traditionally been produced with a middle-class reader in mind. The outcome of this is that lexicographers tend to follow a traditional expectation that the dictionary will disseminate a "cultivated form" of the language (Landau 1989: 303), which, I have suggested, is constructed on the basis of a "core" definitional vocabulary of the middle-ground that both avoids "informality" and "formality" in its composition and guides the reader through the "excesses" of both as they are represented in the headword list. In this sense, the codes that constitute the metalanguages of the headword list and definitional vocabulary are not absolutes. Rather they are constructs that reflect the complex and intuitive ways in which lexicographers and readers think about the words of their language that are only fully articulated in the dictionary itself. It is for this reason that pseudo-bilingualism may be problematic in learner's dictionaries. In these dictionaries an attempt is often made to ground the definitional vocabulary in "objective" measures of word frequency in corpora of language in use, but the selection of texts for these corpora may also reflect inherited assumptions about the kinds of texts that are most central to the language in use. Certainly, these corpora tend to be dominated by published texts written by middle-class writers for a middle-class readership (Moon 1989). Their composition may, in effect, ensure that the words that have long been assumed to be central to the language also turn out to be the most "frequent." The problem that I wish to highlight in this paper is, therefore, not simply the problem of pseudo-bilingual definition itself, which may be relatively unproblematic for the native speaker of English. It is rather that when pseudo-bilingualism is at work in learner's dictionaries, it is grounded on assumptions about relationships among codes within the English language that are intuitive to the native speaker, but not necessarily intuitive to the foreign learner. Foreign learners of English could, of course, learn a great deal about these assumptions if their dictionaries were to make them more explicit. However, the fact that they remain implicit within the metalinguistic structures of these dictionaries means that the outcome is likely to be confusion rather than clarity.

References (a) Cited Dictionaries [A] CHRONOLOGICAL ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Comp. T. Finkenstaedt, et al. Heidelberg: Winter 1970. [ A ] COLLECTION OF ENGLISH WORDS NOT GENERALLY USED. C o m p . J. R a y . L o n d o n : H . B r u g e s a n d T .

Burreil 1674. DICTIONARIUM ANGLO-BRITANNICUM. Comp. John Kersey. London: J. Wilde for J. Phillips, et al. 1708. [A] DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Comp. S. Johnson. London: W. Strahan 1755. [THE] DICTIONARY OF SYR T.E., KNYGHT. Comp. T. Elyot. London: Thomas Berthelet 1538. [AN] ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Comp. E. Coles. London: Samuel Crouch 1676. [THE] ENGLISH DICTIONAIRE; OR, AN INTERPRETER OF HARD ENGLISH WORDS. C o m p .

H.

Cockeram.

London: H.C. Gent 1623. LESCLAIRCISSEMENT DE LA LANGUE FRANÇOYSE. Comp. J. Palsgrave. London: John Haukyns 1530. LINGUA BRITANNICA REFORMATA. Comp. Β. Martin. London: J. Hodges, et al. 1749.

The Monolingual Dictionary: A Special Case of Bilingualism?

47

Comp. J.Κ.. London: Robert Knaplock 1702. Comp. J. Crowther. Oxford: University Press 1995. R. Cawdrey. London: I.R. (James Roberts) for Edmund Weauer 1604.

[ A ] NEW ENGLISH D I C T I O N A R Y .

O X F O R D A D V A N C E D L E A R N E R ' S DICTIONARY. [ A ] T A B L E ALPHABET1CALL.

(b) Other Literature Béjoint, H. (1994): Tradition and Innovation in Modern English Dictionaries. - Oxford: Clarendon Press. Benson, P. (2001): Ethnocentrism and the English Dictionary. - London: Routledge. Görlach, M. (1991): Introduction to Early Modern English. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Green J. (1996): Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-makers and the Dictionaries They Made. - London: Pimlico. Halliday, M.A.K. (1978): Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. - London: Edward Arnold. Hulbert, J.R. (1968): Dictionaries: British and American. - London: Andre Deutsch. Johnson, S. (1747): The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language. - London: J. and P. Knapton. Landau, S.I. (1989.): Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McArthur, T. (1986): Worlds of Reference. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moon, R. (1989): Objective or Objectionable? Ideological Aspects of Dictionaries. - English Language Research 3, 59-94. Nation, I.S.P. (2001): Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osselton, Ν.E. (1958): Branded Words in English Dictionaries Before Johnson. - Groningen: J.B. Wolters. - (1990): English Lexicography from the Beginning up to and Including Johnson. - In: F.J. Hausmann et al. (eds.): Wörterbücher: ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexicographie 2, 1943-1953. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. -(1992): Dialect Words in General Dictionaries. - In: Κ. Hyldgaard-Jensen and V.H. Pedersen (eds.): Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Lexicography, 7-9 May 1992, University of Copenhagen, 103-114. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. (Reprinted in N.E. Osselton, Chosen Words: Past and Present Problems for Dictionary Makers, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1995, 34-45). Rey, A. and S. Delesalle (1979): Problèmes et conflits lexicographiques. - Langue Française 43, 4-27. Wakeltn, M. (1987): The Treatment of Dialect in English Dictionaries. - In: R.W. Burchfield (ed.): Studies in Lexicography, 156-177. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Wu Guanghua

Chinese-English Lexicography and Chinese-English Translation

Communication has become faster, easier, and all encompassing. Indeed, the impact of the information technology revolution has meant that issues like the globalisation of language has become a hotly debated topic among nations. The number of minority languages is decreasing ever steadily, while the major languages are expanding and these trends will continue to dominate the current century. And there is no doubt that Chinese and English will play an even more important role in international communication. Therefore the need for Chinese-English dictionaries and English-Chinese dictionaries will greatly increase. Remarkable achievements have been made in bilingual English-Chinese lexicography, but the Chinese-English dictionary lags far behind other dictionaries. This paper endeavours to put forward some suggestions on how to improve Chinese-English lexicography and Chinese-English translation in general.

1. Chinese Pronunciation and Phonetic Transcription The Chinese language does not belong to phonography but to ideography, that is, we cannot know the pronunciation of a word from the way it is spelled. Therefore, to find out the pronunciation of a Chinese character, we have to look up its phonetic transcription. In Chinese there are many pictophonetic characters, from whose sound component we know their pronunciation. But owing to phonetic changes over thousands of years, most words in modern Chinese no longer sound the same as their sound components. For example, the words jiang '/I (river), wen fa] (ask), and chi M (wing), are typical pictophonetic characters. But their pronunciation does not match their sound components, which is gong X , men and zhi respectively. In the lexicon, there are more pictophonetic characters than pictographic characters, deictic words, or combined words. Studies have shown that in the Yin and Shang dynasties, pictophonetic characters comprised 20 percent of the lexicon, while the Han dynasty book On Essays and Words shows that by that time, the ratio had increased to 50 percent. Browsing through the Qing-dynasty Kangxi Dictionary shows such words amounted to 90 percent of the content. This has led certain people to believe that the Chinese script has changed from ideography to phonography. Statistics show that in modern Chinese, around three-quarters of the pictophonetic characters sound differently from their sound components, making phonetic transcription one of the main tasks in any Chinese-English dictionary. Accurate representation of Chinese pronunciation is vital to Chinese language learning, a key tool being the Chinese-English dictionary. Mainland China uses Pinyin while Taiwan and Hong Kong have their own systems. There is no general agreement on which of the three marking systems is the most suitable for use in Chinese-English dictionaries. It is vital that there is a standardized transcription system for the Mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Phonetic symbols are difficult to remember and are not favoured in the international

50

Wu Guanghua

community. The author recommends that Pinyin be used as the main transcription system for Chinese-English dictionaries, while phonetic symbols could be used as a backup for single-character words. In 1977, the Third United Nations Conference for Standardization of Geographical Names passed a resolution that all Chinese geographical names should be written in the Chinese phonetic alphabet. In 1979, the United Nations Secretariat adopted Hanyu Pinyin as the spelling form for personal and geographical names of the People's Republic of China in all writings in roman characters. In 1982, the Secretariat issued decision number IS07098 "Document Work - The Spelling of Chinese in Roman Characters" which shows that Hanyu Pinyin has become the international standard of spelling Chinese in the Roman alphabet, thus making it the method of choice for learners of Chinese as a second language. Words are marked in a number of ways. In certain dictionaries only single-character words are marked; in others, all words have phonetic symbols, but the marking units are not standard. Some dictionaries take an entire word as a unit, while others take the individual character as the unit and the phonetic symbols are not joined. In some dictionaries when the entry shares the same pronunciation with the previous one, it is marked with the symbol " - " instead of its phonetic symbol. There is little continuity in marking changes of tone when characters are joined to form a word. In some dictionaries, neither of the two is marked, while in some others both are marked. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. 2.

Parts of S p e e c h and M a r k i n g of Word Properties

In the 1950s, scholars in China debated whether there were parts of speech in Chinese, and if there were, how would they be classified. Works such as Gao Minkai's On the Classification of Parts of Speech in Chinese (1986), Wen Lian and Hu Fu's On the Classification of Words (1970), and Wang Li's The Principles of Parts of Speech in Chinese (1959) led to the conclusion that there were parts of speech in Chinese. Further publications such as Zhu Dexi's A Research on the Adjectives of Modern Chinese (1970), Huang Borong's The Dividing Line Between Adjectives and Adverbs, Zhang Jing's The Scope of Adverbs in Chinese, Lu Shuxiang and Sun Dexuan's A Brief Introduction to Auxiliaries, Zhang Jing's The New System of Chinese Prepositions, and Zeng Congmin's The Pronoun as an Independent Part of Speech have helped elicit this issue. These works laid a solid foundation for the classification of the parts of speech. In recent years Chinese scholars have agreed that the parts of speech in gramma refer to the types of words reflected in linguistic structures (see the above publications). Most agree that Chinese words should be classified into two types. The first type, notional words, includes nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals, classifiers, and pronouns. The second type, functional words, includes adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries, interjections, onomatopoeia, and so on. However, further research is needed to modernize Chinese-English lexicography and help in the development of machine translation systems between the two languages. Despite the blockages in compiling the ideal Chinese-English dictionary, many scholars have made inroads and produced high quality works such as the Chinese-English Dictionary (1995, the Revised Edition by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press); A Comprehensive Chinese-English Dictionary by the Shanghai Foreign Language Education

Chinese-English

Lexicography

51

Press (1991); Chinese-English dictionary by Shanghai Jiaotong University Press; and the New Age Chinese-English Dictionary (2000) by the Commercial Press. Although these dictionaries are well-respected and some have won national prizes, they still lag behind dictionaries produced in other countries. There remains a gap in the microstructures, due to the fact that words in Indo-European languages have affixes that show their part of speech, which is not the case in Chinese. Some scholars are working on Chinese foreign language dictionaries in which Chinese words are marked with their parts of speech; however the work is not proceeding smoothly due to a number of problems. These problems can be overcome by further research on theoretical lexicography and comparative studies of parts of speech.

3.

The Classification of Meaning Items in Polysemants and Homographs

A word has lexical, grammatical, and figurative meanings. Lexical meaning refers to the meaning of a word that depends on the non-linguistic concepts it is used to express, such as an object, phenomenon or relationship to the objective world. It is unique to a particular word, setting that word apart from others. Usually it can exist independently. The grammatical meaning indicates the word's grammatical function, which is shared by all words of the same class. It lies in the grammatical structure in which the word is embedded, or is shown as a relation by a grammatical device. The figurative meaning is the attitude or feeling conveyed by the word that has been accepted by a particular language community. In a language some words may share the same lexical meaning, but their figurative meanings can be quite different. In a Chinese-English dictionary, all three meanings are equally important. Such dictionaries in the past mainly centred on the transfer of lexical meanings. As for grammatical meanings, most dictionaries briefly illustrate certain functional words, such as prepositions, and conjunctions while a large number of notional words remain unexplained. Only a few words were marked with their figurative meanings including "commendatory," "derogatory," "complimentary," "slang," and so on. These three meanings form the complete meaning of that word. Only by analysing how all three meanings are connected will the entire meaning of a word be elicited. Lexicographically speaking, this analysis is undertaken through the classification of polysemants and the treatment of homographs. Every word has its lexical meaning no matter if it is a notional or function word. In the past, it was thought that function words only had grammatical meaning. Now we realize that such words have their own lexical meaning, most of which reflect a relationship. For example the lexical meaning of the word yinwei E§f§ (because), erqie f f n ü (moreover), and duiyu f i Ì f t (for) means introducing another object or a relationship between things. A word with one lexical meaning, that is, it is univocal, is easier to deal with than a polysemant. Understanding the true meanings of a word is crucial for the adequate transferrai of that word's meaning into another language, so classifying the meaning items of a polysemant have to be thought through carefully. As we know, the polysemant derives from the univocal: when a word comes into being it has only one meaning. As a language develops, more meanings are added to it. So the longer the history of a word, the more likely it will be polysemant, which is why we have so many of them today. The meaning items of a word include the original meaning, derivative meaning, basic meaning, and non-basic meaning. Dictionaries classify and arrange meaning items according to the historical order,

52

Wu Guanghua

logical order or the order of frequency of use. Large Chinese-English dictionaries should be arranged according to historical principles so that users know about a word's origins, its derivatives, and the relationship between its items. In small dictionaries the order of frequency in use should be employed with the most frequently used word placed at the beginning of the item list. In addition, the meaning items should be as detailed as possible since this will ensure that the corresponding English word will be more accurate. This may be unnecessary in Chinese monolingual dictionaries, but is essential in bilingual ones. In Chinese there are many homographs whose spelling forms and pronunciation are the same. But their lexical meanings are different. For example bie Jj'J has several independent lexical meanings including "to leave or part," "differentiate," "pin together," and "don't." Each of them has their own meaning items. Should we regard this word as a single word with multiple meanings or take them as separate words, which necessitate different entries? Most linguists think that they are separate words, because there is no relationship between their lexical meanings. Both the Modern Chinese Dictionary by the Commercial Press and the Chinese-English Dictionary by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press treat such words as homographs. However other dictionaries do the opposite and regard them as one word with multiple meaning items, for example the Chinese Dictionary by the Chinese Dictionary Press, and The Chinese Character Dictionary by Hubei Dictionary Press. Since there are a large number of homographs in Chinese, lexicographers should attach importance to them. Over time their meanings have altered greatly which makes classification work difficult. For example are ke (a quarter) and ke M (carve) one word or two? Some scholars insist that they are two words, as modern people no longer know the connection between their lexical meanings though they were actually related in the past. Some other scholars take the opposite opinion that they are one word because there is a historical relationship between the two lexical meanings. Such cases abound in Chinese. 4.

Principles and Methods of Item Setting

In antiquity, almost every word consisted of one character, that is, a single-syllable word. Later with the development of the language, double-syllable words came into being. In modern times, due to the increase of borrowed words, an increasing number of three or more syllable words have come into use, for example, baleiwu ] ® l f M (ballet), lang man zhuyi - í í ü ü i ü (romantic), a er fashe xian (alpha ray), and aisijimuoren I S S f r  l f ï À (Eskimo). In addition, some words only have meaning when attached to other words, for example, pi Ü + pa g (lute), ling f t + Ii fflj (clever; bright), and tan £ + te S (perturbed; mentally disturbed). There is also another type of word that is no longer used independently but is still meaningful in themselves. There are morphemes, for example, min g (the people), xi H (practise), yan U (speech), feng M (abundant), and fing fit (border); phrases made of two or more characters, for instance, baibu fÉ3-ffr (plain white cloth; calico), qima | f | g (to ride a horse; go riding), xiezi (to write characters; to write), and gaifangzi ü j f ^ p (to build a house). Thus the word and non-word, word and phrase overlap, which mean that a Chinese character may be a word, a morpheme or a syllable: two or more characters may be a morpheme, a word, or a phrase. This makes differentiating between them difficult, in marked contrast to English. In English the distinction between words is clear because there is a space between any two words. In phonography, the word and non-word, the word and phrase can be classified

Chinese-English

Lexicography

53

from their forms, but in Chinese they have to be classified from their lexical and grammatical meanings. For example, the morphemes, words, and phrases of Chinese are meaningful linguistic units, but only words are used as the smallest independent units. Phrases can be independently used, but they are not the smallest units. When a morpheme is independently used, it is no longer a morpheme, but a word. When there is a clear distinction between the word and non-word, the word and phrase, the basic principles for setting of entries and items in dictionaries can be determined. The writer believes that the traditional "character first" principle should be adopted in Chinese-English dictionaries, thereby making the collection and detailed explanation of non-words and non-free morphemes vitally important. As for word-like phrases, we should treat them differently. Set phrases, which are difficult to translate, should be listed in the dictionary since one of the purposes of a Chinese-English dictionary is to help translation from Chinese to English. Therefore the principle behind presentation of entries should be different.

5.

Comparative Study of Chinese and English

For a Chinese-English dictionary to be authoritive, lexicographers have to be equally competent in both English and Chinese otherwise they may misunderstand the lexical, grammatical, and figurative meanings of a word, and this will influence their translation. Lexicographers also have to compare and weigh-up the similarities and differences of a word before rendering it well in the other language. In 1951, Fu Lei pointed out that the most important thing in the translation of literary works is the transfer of the "spirit" just like imitating a drawing. In 1964, Qian Zhongshu put forward the "transfer of imagery" as a translation, which means that when a literary work is translated into another language, the translation should be smooth with the original writing style retained in the final text. In 1898, Yan Fu proposed "fidelity, fluency, and elegance" as the standard for translation. However in Chinese-English lexicography, it is word-for-word translation that should be done as much as possible in the lexical, grammatical, or figurative meanings. Only when a Chinese word has no corresponding word in English, should a free translation be used, for example, Taiji (a Chinese system of exercise) and qigong (Chinese breathing exercises). Some scholars believe that the translation of literary works depends on the transfer of original images, for when people read translated works, they lay importance to the imagery and the ideas, not the accuracy of the translation of specific words or sentences. In Chinese-English dictionaries the translation has no context. So it must be self-contained and word-for-word. Thus, in Chinese-English dictionaries, we should generally use word-for-word translation with free translation as an adjunct. For the translation of certain culture-specific words, free translation should be used, with word-for-word translation waiting in the wings.

References (a) Cited Dictionaries CHINESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Comp. Editorial Committee, Department of English, Beijing Foreign Language University. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press 1995.

54

[A] COMPREHENSIVE CHINESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY. C o m p .

Wu

Dai

Mingzhong

and

Dai

Guanghua

Weidong.

Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press 1991. NEW AGE CHINESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Comp. Wu Jingrong and Cheng Zhenqiu. Beijing: The Commercial Press 2000.

(b) Other Literature Gao, Mingkai f f j ^ f l (1986): Hanyu Yufa Lun ( 8 l l § j Í § Í É ! É ) (On the Classification of Parts of Speech in Chinese). - Beijing: The Commercial Press. Hu, Fu and Wen Lian (1970). Xiandai Hanyu Yufa Tansuo ( i g f t / l l § l g ' / £ î f > (Explorations into Contemporary Chinese Grammar). - Hong Kong: Chinese Language Society. Wang, Li ΞΕΛ (1959). Zhongguo Yufa Gangyao ( Φ [ l l ë ï i fflg ) (An Outine of Chinese Grammar). - Hong Kong: Jianwen Bookstore. Zhu, Dexi ¿ S E E (1970). Dingyu He Zhuangyu (A Research on the Adjectives of Modern Chinese). - Hong Kong: Chinese Language Society.

Ronald

Moe

Producing Dictionaries Using Semantic Domains

1.

Introduction

One of the primary tasks in translation is choosing a translation equivalent from among a set of semantically related words. 1 Bilingual dictionaries are of little help unless they are extensively cross-referenced or organized by semantic domain. The success of Roget's Thesaurus (Roget 1958) in the English-speaking world demonstrates the value of publishing semantically organized dictionaries. Available linguistic software enables an electronic dictionary to be sorted alphabetically or by semantic domain. Simultaneously displaying a dictionary alphabetically and semantically greatly simplifies the process of locating a desired word or meaning. The semantic classification of a dictionary requires the development of a list of semantic domains. I am currently developing a database of 1,600 domains, which can be used to collect words and to classify a dictionary. 2 The list of domains was used in a two-week workshop during which thirty speakers of the Lunyole language of Uganda collected over 17,000 words. The resulting word list was automatically classified by semantic domain, since the words were collected domain by domain. The word list can be efficiently expanded into a dictionary by filling out one field at a time. Classifying a dictionary by semantic domain has many benefits. It enables a lexicographer to research the semantics and pragmatics of lexical sets. It is far more insightful to investigate semantics domain by domain than word by word. A translator can contrast and compare the words in a domain, in order to determine the best possible translation equivalent. Writers can use it in much the same way to improve or vary their choice of words. 2.

Lexical Relations and Semantic Domains

The words of a language are organized in the mind in a multi-dimensional network of relationships of various sorts. Lexicographers have catalogued many types of semantic links, called lexical relations (or lexical functions). Lexical relations tend to cluster around a central nexus. The nexus may be an area of life or some general notion, for instance, the Generic-Specific lexical relation is the basis for many semantic domains. For example, "Walk" (Generic), and stroll, amble, and strut (Specifics). Other domains such as "Sleep," centre on an area of life and include words such as snore, pyjamas, bedtime, which are related to sleep by various lexical relations. So a semantic domain can be defined as "a set of

' 2

In the interests of simplicity and naturalness, if not accuracy, this article employs the term word to refer to lexical items of all sorts, including roots, derivatives, compounds, idioms, and phrases. The author works for SIL International, which is an organization of volunteers, devoted to thepromotion and development of minority languages. It works in over 50 countries and over 1,000 languages.

Ronald

56

Moe

words that share a semantic concept," or "an important idea and the words directly related to it." Many lexicographers have recommended that we utilize semantic domains and lexical relations to elicit and investigate words. What has been lacking is an exhaustive and universal list of domains. For instance, the Outline of Cultural Materials (Murdock et al. 1987) presents a list of anthropological domains, but is missing many lexical domains. Roget's Thesaurus (Roget 1958) has 1,000 domains, but due to its purpose it also omits many domains. 3 Louw and Nida (1989: xix) admit that their list is uneven due to the subject matter of the New Testament. Recent semantically organized dictionaries such as Longman's Language Activator (Summers 1993) and the Oxford Learner's Wordfinder Dictionary (Trappes-Lomax 1997) are highly selective in the domains they include. To fill this gap, I have been developing a list of semantic domains and related materials to facilitate the production of dictionaries. The field of semantics needs a standardized list of domains that will do for lexicography what the Outline of Cultural Materials did for anthropology and the International Phonetic Alphabet did for phonology. It is my hope that my research will stimulate the collaboration necessary to develop such a standard. Every effort has been made to make the list as exhaustive and universal as possible, so that every word in every language can be reasonably classified under one of the domains. Semantically complex words are a combination of simpler or more general notions and can be classified under several domains. For instance shrug "to raise the shoulders to express uncertainty or indifference" could be classified with shoulder under "Body - Parts of the Body," under "Movement - Moving a Part of the Body" or under "Communication Gestures." The list is gradually being refined in the light of semantically classified dictionaries from languages around the world. 3.

Collecting Words

Eliciting vocabulary has been a topic of interest for some time, and the literature contains a wealth of practical suggestions, such as using lexical relations (Beekman 1968: 4), concording a text corpus (Naden 1977: 14), and using semantic domains 4 (Newell 1986: 20). However, the use of semantic domains is by far the most effective, efficient, and productive. The combination of semantic domains and lexical relations is particularly powerful. Since lexical relations tie the entire lexicon together, the mind can jump rapidly from word to word, especially within a domain. An extensive list of semantic domains fleshed out by lexical relations makes it possible to efficiently elicit a large percentage of the vocabulary of a language in a short time. This sort of systematic approach will ensure that the dictionary covers nearly all the domains of the language and does so to a relatively uniform depth. However there are several difficulties in using lexical relations. Although lexical relations are very helpful in thinking of words, the number of possible lexical relations is quite large. It would be difficult for someone to have to think through the entire list of lexical relations

3 4

Newer editions (Morehead 1985) contain 600 major domains and thousands of smaller entries. Ideally lexicographic research should utilize both semantic domains and a concordance. However, unless a computerized text corpus running into the millions of words is available, using a list of domains is the only effective way of collecting words. If no corpus is available, it would be good to begin collecting or producing one.

Producing Dictionaries

Using Semantic

Domains

57

for each new word encountered. Rather than requiring each lexicographer to reinvent the wheel, I have thought through each domain, identifying the lexical relations applicable to that domain. Lexical relations are easy to use, but hard to grasp in the abstract. To overcome these problems, each relation is worded in the form of a simple question. For example, the domain "Wind" has the following productive lexical relations: • • • • • •

What What What What What What

words describe a wind that lasts for a short time? Breath of air, puff of wind, gust words describe a light wind? Draft, breeze words describe a strong wind? Gale, howling (wind) does the wind do? Blow, freshen, rise, fan (flames) words describe the direction of the wind? North wind, northeaster, updraft, tailwind sounds does the wind make? Sigh, moan, whistle, howl, shriek

Answering these questions elicits a wealth of lexical material, which might otherwise be overlooked. The example words following each question are merely meant to be illustrative. It takes very little mental effort to think of other words. Each domain in the database is a template 5 for eliciting the words belonging to the domain. Each domain template includes a brief description of the domain, any special instructions for filling it out, cross-references to related domains, elicitation questions, and sample questions. In future editions the hope is to include instructions for investigating the semantics and pragmatics of the words, as well as sample definitions and example sentences. As I have developed the templates, several observations have emerged. The number of lexical relations is far greater than any list I've seen. There are a number of recurring elements or features that are suggestive of semantic primatives and that correlate to a high degree with what are labelled lexical relations. A high percentage of lexical items are composed of more than one word. The structure of the lexicon is highly complex and varied.

4.

Example of a Domain Template

Lose Consciousness • Use this domain for words related to losing consciousness, including fainting, being knocked out, and anaesthesia. • For visions, hallucinations, and spiritually induced trances use "Vision, hallucination." For words related to sleeping use "Sleep." • What words refer to losing consciousness? Lose consciousness, go unconscious, faint, swoon, pass out, black out, be knocked out, go into a coma • What words refer to the state of being unconscious? Be unconscious, be in a coma, be out, fainting spell • What words refer to something causing someone to lose consciousness? Knock (someone) out, put under (anaesthesia) • What words refer to regaining consciousness? Regain consciousness, come to, come out of (the coma) • What causes someone to lose consciousness? Hit on head, be sick, pain, shock, anaesthesia

A template is a mould or pattern that can be used repeatedly to produce similar objects. A ruler is a simple template for drawing straight lines.

Ronald Moe

58

• What happens or what symptoms occur when someone begins to lose consciousness? Feel faint, feel dizzy, stagger, and become incoherent 5.

Elicitation P r o c e d u r e

The elicitation procedure has been tested three times in a workshop setting. The first test used a beta version of the semantic domains list with a group of fifteen speakers of the Lugwere language. 6 At the end of ten days, the participants collected over 10,000 words and 1,000-example sentences. 7 One participant said during the workshop, "The words are falling out of my head." In January 2002, thirty speakers of Lunyole used version one to collect 17,000 words in ten days. In the third test twelve speakers of Kitharaka 8 collected 12,000 words in eight days. In the months since the workshops, speakers of each language have been editing and glossing the wordlists. I estimate that linguists working in minority languages add words to their lexical database at the average rate of only 650 words per year, or about two and a half words per working day. 9 The following chart compares the results of the three workshops with the historical average. It would take twenty years to equal the number of words collected in these two-week workshops. An individual working alone could also use the materials, although the synergy and varied experience of a group seems to help. With a little practice a person can collect words almost as fast as he can write. It would take a month or two for a mother-tongue speaker of a language to go through the list by himself. The list of domains is a tool that can be used creatively in a variety of situations, and to achieve a variety of goals. In each workshop the participants were highly motivated and did not get bored, partly because the topic is constantly changing. They finished going through all the domains in about five and a half days. The participants improved over the course of the workshop, so that by the end they were coming up with twice as many words per domain. I asked them to review the earlier domains that had few words and see if they could add more words. In order to use the materials a person must be educated, literate, and bilingual, so that they can read the domain templates and write down the vernacular words that belong to each domain. The materials are in English, but work has begun to translate them into Chinese, French, Spanish, and Swahili. 10

6

7 8

9

10

Thanks are due the Bantu Initiative for funding this workshop and initial research for the semantic domain list. By comparison many bilingual dictionaries have only 3,000-5,000 entries. All three languages are Bantu. Lugwere and Lunyole are spoken in Uganda. Kitharaka is spoken in Kenya. This estimate was based on observation of the number of years it has taken to produce published dictionaries, both within and outside of SIL, and has been confirmed by numerous SIL colleagues. The materials along with detailed instructions for their use in a workshop setting are available from the author ([email protected]).

Producing Dictionaries Using Semantic Domains

6.

59

Expanding the Dictionary

Once the words of a language have been collected, the dictionary can be filled out field by field. It is far more efficient to expand the dictionary field-by-field than word-by-word. Some fields can be added using macros. Concentrating on one field at a time can attain a higher degree of consistency. This is especially critical if you are working on a minority language without a large staff of lexicographers. Speakers of the language can be trained to do things like add the part of speech or write example sentences. Some tasks, such as correctly identifying all the parts of speech, require a trained linguist, but non-linguists can do the vast majority of the work. Lexicographers recommend that words be investigated in semantic sets. It is far more insightful to investigate words domain by domain than in isolation. Definitions can be standardized within a domain. It is also better to write example sentences for all the words of a domain at one time. Many pragmatic issues, such as connotation and register, are also better investigated within the confines of a domain. Anthropological issues also tend to be domain specific. 7.

Theoretical and Practical Problems

As I have compared lists of semantic domains from around the world, it has become clear that almost all of the major domains are universal. There are also striking similarities in the ordering and grouping of domains. The differences come from minor differences of culture and the necessity to squash the multi-dimensional mental network into a two-dimensional list. Even organizing the list hierarchically fails to maintain all the semantic links. The choice to maintain some links and break others accounts for most of the differences in organization. Harold Conklin has pointed out that lexical structure is characterized by "multiple and interlocking hierarchies" (1975: 129). For instance languages often divide the domain of "Animals" into domesticated versus undomesticated animals, edible versus inedible and the various taxonomic groupings such as mammals, birds, fish, and insects. This presents difficulties in setting up a neat system of domains. To solve this and other problems, decisions to set up and group domains must be based on an analysis of semantic primitives, universal human experience, and other factors enabling us to segment and standardize an area of semantics. In the case of "Animals," I chose to use the scientific biological classification of animals to sub-classify the domain. This is obviously an etic rather than an emic" classification. However I felt this would avoid linguistic bias and assist in carefully defining folk taxonomies such as the Gikuyu class "Small Animals." I have also included a domain for "Domesticated Animal" under the larger domain of "Animal Husbandry" as well as a domain for "Food from Animals" under "Food." As much as possible the list is organized on the basis of frequently occurring patterns in the lists of domains from around the world, so that the domains will seem as natural and emic as possible. However the organization of the list is admittedly etic, somewhat arbitrary, and based on the commonalities of the available lists. Ken Pike coined the terms emic and etic on analogy from phonemic and phonetic to express the difference between "an insider's view of a system" and "an outsider's view of the physical phenomena," respectively.

60

Ronald Moe

When a lexicographer decides to classify a bilingual dictionary, he must choose a classification system to use. He can choose to use the emic domains of language one, in which case the speakers of language two must become accustomed to a foreign system in order to use it. This has the advantage of forcing the user to become more familiar with language one and the disadvantage of making it harder to find what he is looking for. Or the lexicographer can choose to use the domains of language two, in which case the advantages and disadvantages are reversed. Using an etic list, such as the one I am developing, is a compromise between these alternatives. It could be argued that an etic list has none of the advantages and all of the disadvantages of an emic list. It would take considerable time and expertise for a lexicographer to develop an emic list of semantic domains for a specific language. Numerous speakers of the language must be consulted. Folk taxonomies must be elicited and agreed upon. The organization of the domains must be agreed upon. This process was tried in two workshops for the Gikuyu language of Kenya and the Lugwere language of Uganda. In each workshop twelve participants were given 1,000 words to classify. In five days each group had classified the words into approximately 100 domains and labelled each domain. There was much debate, and the results were messy and incomplete in the evaluation of the participants. It would be a much simpler process to take my list and modify it to reflect language specific organization and to include specialized domains of specific interest within the culture. Practical considerations, such as the size of a computer screen, require that the number of words in a domain be around twenty. If there are too few words in a domain, there is little benefit from setting up the domain. If there are too many words, the user either has to scan through several pages of words to find what he is looking for, or do some analysis of the members of the domain. For instance he may have to subcategorize the members of the domain in order to find the subset he is interested in. At this level of detail the list contains approximately 1,600 domains. All members of a language often recognize larger, more general domains (e.g. "Parts of the Body" and "Eating"), but finer distinctions are often not generally recognized and require some analysis of meaning. For instance I set up a domain "Move in a Direction" which I define as "intransitive verbs of movement incorporating an element of direction in relation to the orientation of the person's body," and which includes words such as advance (front), retreat (back), step aside (side), ascend (up), and descend (down). The domain is easy to understand, but not many speakers would conceptualise it as a discrete domain unless forced to do so when subdividing the larger domain "Movement," which contains hundreds of verbs. 8.

Conclusion

Using a list of semantic domains has many benefits. It enables the lexicographer to efficiently elicits words, and in so doing to classify the words by domain. It is much more insightful to investigate the meaning and usage of lexical sets than of words in isolation. Once a dictionary is classified by semantic domain, it can be sorted by domain for research purposes, to produce a semantic index, or to publish a semantically organized dictionary. A semantically classified dictionary is a useful tool, enabling translators and writers to more easily find a desired word or meaning. A translator can scan a list of semantically related words, contrasting and comparing them in order to find a suitable translation

Producing Dictionaries Using Semantic Domains

61

equivalent. Standardizing a list of domains opens up possibilities for cross-linguistic comparison, enabling linguists to research semantic shift and other topics o f interest.

References (a) Cited Dictionaries GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BASED ON SEMANTIC DOMAINS. C o m p . J o h a n n e s P.

Louw and Eugene A. Nida. New York: United Bible Societies 1989. LONGMAN LANGUAGE ACTIVATOR. Ed. Delia Summers. Essex: Longman 1993. OXFORD LEARNER'S WORDFINDER DICTIONARY. Comp. Trappes-Lomax. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997. ROGET'S THESAURUS. Comp. Peter Marie Roget. - Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books 1958. THE NEW AMERICAN ROGET'S COLLEGE THESAUSUS IN DICTIONARY FORM. E d . A l b e r t H . M o r e h e a d . N e w

York: Signet 1985.

(b) Other Literature Beekman, John (1968): Eliciting Vocabulary, Meaning, and Collocations. - Notes on Translation 29, 1-11. Conklin, Harold C. (1975): Lexicographical Treatment of Folk Taxonomies. - In: Fred W. Householder and Sol Saporta (eds.): Problems in Lexicography, 119-141. Bloomington: Indiana University. Murdock, George P. et al. (1961; 51987): Outline of Cultural Materials. - New Haven: Human Relations Area Files. Naden, Tony (1977): Words and Meanings - Ghana: Institute of Linguistics. Newell, Leonard E. (1986): Lexicography Notes. - Manila: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Imelda P. de Castro

The Different Possible Lexical Elaborations of Computer Terminologies: Towards the Creation of a Bilingual Dictionary

We have moved from horse drawn carriages to automobiles, from wood stoves to microwave ovens, and from Victrolas to CD players in only one century. And alongside these technological advancements is the advancement of language: the emergence of new words and alternate meanings to old words. If we could journey back to the past, we would definitely have trouble communicating, even among people speaking our own language.

1.

Native Words, New Register

The continuous use of native words creates new registers. For example, the term solution is now widely being used to refer to a particular computer programme. Prior to the computer age, it meant the answer to a particular problem or a mixture in chemistry. Another good example would be the word legacy, which has long been known as an ideology or an inheritance from one's ancestors. Currently, this word now also refers to a complex computer system. Computer administrators may use the word enterprise to refer to a computer network. Traditionally, it means the organization of a business. Information Technology or computerization is one of the reasons for change in modern society. Computers have made the creation of new technological products easier and faster. Computer technology is a new thing in my country, the Philippines. But since it was first launched, many Filipinos have acquired the desire to know more about this interesting electronic gadget. The introduction of the computer has spawned many new words to describe its functions because current ones were inadequate. One notable example is the term Internet. It refers to the powerful tool that can efficiently acquire and transfer information worldwide almost instantaneously. Just about everyone will say nowadays how much the Internet is a part of their lives. It is used to chat to friends and wrap up business deals. Some people say that there will come a time when computer technology will be utilized for mundane activities such as sleeping, bathing or eating. Communication barriers have been eradicated, gaps have been bridged, and the world has become smaller because of this technology. This brings people together. In fact, net surfing is now one of the favourite past times of Internet-savvy people. It refers to the visiting of different websites in a random manner. The use of electronic mail or e-mail, which transfers messages almost instantaneously, has revolutionalised communication. 2.

English: The Language of Computers

Without doubt, English is the international language of science and technology. Most computer programmes are in English because the computer was the invention of an American, and because it is one the few languages being used worldwide. In truth, the

Imelda P. de Castro

64

existence of many English texts is useful in terms of academic research and the development of different fields of specialization. This is justification enough that to translate computer terms into other foreign languages is to intellectualise those languages. The Philippines is striving to become a leading nation like the United States, Japan, and China. I believe that this can be achieved by developing its language, Filipino. This is the reason why that there is a need for translation into that language. Computers should not just be restricted to Filipinos who are fluent in English. The Filipino language therefore should be used as a medium of computer instruction. In line with this, previous research by the author has stressed the value of lexical elaboration of English computer terminologies in the Filipino language. The study suggested three lexical elaboration possibilities: (1) direct borrowing of technical terminologies from the foreign language, (2) spelling borrowed technical terminologies based on the native alphabet, and (3) formulation of new technical terminologies. This indicates there is a need for intellectualisation of a language in order to effectively and efficiently incorporate scientific and technological terms into a language where previously there were no such terms. According to the study undertaken by Fishman, Ferguson, and Das Gupta (1986: 29), intellectualisation of language has two aspects: (1) enrichment of the vocabulary of the language by means of grasping new words and expressions and (2) development of new styles, usage, and manner of discourse. The three authors explained the need to inflate lexicons to be able to satisfy the needs of acquiring knowledge and information. Fishman (1974: 23) went on to explain that the development of language by means of lexical elaboration is a big step because it greatly contributes to scholarly and intellectual discourse. Lexical elaboration is one way of language planning to be able to enrich and expand a country's language. According to Ken Urano (1998), lexical elaboration is a process of intellectualisation of terminologies. This is being done by means of giving new definitions, synonyms, antonyms or hyperonyms.

3.

The Computer and Foreign Languages

The translation of computer terms in a particular language contributes to the intellectualisation of that particular language. In this study, the translation of English computer terminologies into Filipino was given much attention for the reason that more and more Filipinos are becoming proficient in the use of this technology. Apart from an everyday means of communication, the Internet is becoming a key teaching aid, particularly in technology-based fields like medicine, the military, and government. Sadly, only those who have knowledge about computer and can speak English can fully use this technology. It does not help that most computer concepts are expressed in English. It is vitally important for developing countries like the Philippines to follow developments in information technology, just as it is important that computer programmes in one's mother tongue be developed; contributing to the creation of glossaries and dictionaries and developing one's own technological knowledge are also vitally important. There has to be a core of knowledgeable people who can critically assess the academic requirements of students and meet the needs of computer users. In this way, the particular nation will be able to keep pace with changes in the technological world.

Lexical Elaborations of Computer Terms

4.

65

Intellectualisation Means Modernization

In the Philippines, steps have been undertaken for the intellectualisation of the Filipino language using computer terminology. One example of this is the creation of protocols for translating borrowed terminologies. Joshua Fishman's Language Modernization and Planning in Comparison with Other Types of National Modernization and Planning has greatly contributed in the analysis of the problems relating to the intellectualisation of a language. Fishman's article also gives suggestions on how to solve the problems that continue to occur. In The Parameters of Intellectualization - Applications to Filipino, Ma Lourdes Bautista provides a clear case for the "decision-procedure approach" in choosing technical lexicons. It is important to borrow terminologies and technical phrases that are appropriate in the academic register as a step to intellectualisation. Any linguistic professional would acknowledge that a language is already intellectualised if it already has reached a state wherein it is being used in academic discussions, law, and commerce. Thus, dictionaries, vocabularies, and articles in the language to be intellectualised must be developed. Gonzalez and Sibayan (1988) gave their own definition of language intellectualisation: "A language is said to be modernized and intellectualised if the particular language being developed is used in educational instructions in any discipline from kindergarten to tertiary level." Therefore, it is important to come up with ways to be able to satisfy modernization and intellectualisation needs. The Philippines is not the only country that aims to acquire global information through their own language. In fact, countries like Germany, France, Japan, and Vietnam have already started coming up with ways to create glossaries and bilingual dictionaries in various fields. For as long as the language of computers is English, other languages will have difficulty in intellectualising in this domain. Bill Gates has stated that most websites on the Internet are in English, which proves the point that only those who can read English can enjoy what the computer has to offer, leaving third world countries in the lurch. The current policy in bilingual education states that in order to attain competence in both the local language and English, both languages should be used in education at all academic levels. Bilingual education means that the local language is used in cultural subjects, while English will be used for other subjects. For a non-English speaking country to be able to fully participate in e-commerce and the Internet, the people will first have to learn the English language. However there will be corresponding computer terms in their mother tongue. This will make it easier for people to learn about the computer and its applications. Intellectualisation will be a great contribution to a particular country because it will expand communication and exchange of information and at the same time, it will enrich a country's culture. This leads to the idea of the study of the possible lexical elaboration of terminologies in the computer field.

5.

Translated Computer Terminologies

This author has done a similar study on the intellectualisation of a particular language, Filipino, as it relates to computer terminology. English computer terminologies were

66

Imelda P. de Castro

collected that had undergone the lexical elaboration processes in order to formulate a corresponding terminology in the target language. The first possible lexical elaboration, direct borrowing, requires that the spelling and pronunciation of the particular terminology that has been borrowed will not be modified. For example, the English term computer, if borrowed by another language, will remain as it is. The second possible lexical elaboration, the spelling of the borrowed technical term based on the native alphabet, can be described by the phrase "spell as pronounced." If the English term computer is to be spelled by using, let's say, the Filipino alphabet, it will be spelled kompyuter. The pronunciation remains the same. Last is the formation of new technical terms. This particular lexical elaboration is non-limiting for it gives more freedom in terms of the creation of new words because pronunciation and spelling can be altered or modified. For example, the English term computer can be Makinang Datos Taguan as created by this author. In this study, the author utilized a different approach in the analysis of the possible lexical elaboration processes. The following are the different lexical elaboration processes that have been considered and analysed in the study for the enrichment of the computer lexicon: (a) adding of unknown words, (b) provision of synonyms or terms that have the same meaning, (c) provision of hyperonyms or general classifications and (d) provision of antonyms or terms that have opposite meanings. The study included the preferences of college students, teachers, practitioners, and technicians from different computer schools on the possibility of developing the technical computer lexicons by means of a survey. The respondents chosen for the study are proficient computer users. Their preferences served as guide in the formulation of a technical computer lexicon. Not all words that have been included in the survey are technical - ordinary words have also been used. This limitation can be attributed to several reasons. First, the particular terminology has to be spelled differently from among the choices but all computer terminologies should be in English. Second, lexical elaboration of computer terminology could be further enriched if words could be borrowed from countries like Germany, Japan, and Vietnam. However this study is limited to borrowings from English. Third, words of the native language have not been included for the reason that it might just create more confusion in terms of understanding the terminology. The beauty of this kind of study on new computer terminology is that not only proficient computer users like computer science students, teachers, practitioners, and technicians will benefit, but all people interested in learning about computers. Through lexical elaboration of computer terminology in a particular language, native language speakers will better understand this domain. The following is an example of a bilingual dictionary entry that has been included in this research using English as the source language and Filipino as the target language: A Abstract data type - abstract data type (png.), abstrak deyta tayp (png.)(kol.) 1. Isang uri ng datos kung saan hindi nakikita o nagagalaw ng gumagawa ng program ang mga detalye tungkol sa kung paano ipinatupad ang mga operasyon. Access time - access time (png.), akses taym (png,)(kol.) 1. Ang oras na kailangan upang makuha ang datos direkta mula sa lokasyon. 2. Oras na kailangan para makapaglipat ng mga datos.

Lexical Elaborations of Computer Terms

67

Accumulator - accumulator (png.), akyumuleytor (png.) (kol.) 1. Rejister na nagkokolekta ng resulta ng mga kompyutasyon. Activity - activity (png.), aktibiti (png.) (kol.) 1. Isang parte ng proyekto na nagaganap sa loob ng isang takdang panahon. Address - address (png.), adres (png.) (kol.) 1. Numero na ginagamit sa isang lokasyon sa memori bilang isang paraan ng pagpapangalan. 2. Panglaan ng isang lokasyon sa memori. Address register - adress register (png.), adres redyister (png.) (kol.) 1. Redyister na garnit bilang tulong sa paghanap ng instruksyon at datos na nakatago sa memori. 2. Rejister kung saan nakatago ang adres ng susunod na gawain ng kompyuter. Algorithm - algorithm (png.), algoridem (png.) (kol.) 1. Malawak na uri ng instruksyon para sa paghawak o pag-manipyuleyt ng mga entiti na simbolik at numerik. 2. Isang detalyado at malinaw na magkakasunod na instruksyon para sa pagsasagawa ng isang gawain. Alias - alias (png.), alyas (png.) (kol.) 1. Alternatibong entri poynt sa pangunahing memori para sa simula nang pagpapatakbo ng program.

6.

Conclusion

We have arrived in the new millennium, and computers are now almost a basic need for people in their daily lives. They are drawing diverse groups together in all sorts of ways, bringing with it homogenisation and standardization. A country's language represents that country's own unique culture and traditions. The beauty o f language intellectualisation is that it allows the country whose language is being intellectualised to cope with inevitable effects of globalisation and scientific development. Intellectualisation of computer language will speed up this process. All nations should work side by side in the development of computer technology in order to facilitate communication, yet all the while preserving individual cultures.

References Al-Kasimi, Ali (1997): Linguistics and Bilingual Dictionaries. - Leiden: E.J. Brill. Angeles, Epifania G. (1994): The Works of the Lexicography Division of the Commission on Filipino Languages. -In: Papers from the First Asian International Lexicography Conference, Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Aspillera, Paraluman S. (1968): Filling a Gap in the Modernization of Filipino and Modernization of Languages in Asia. Two integrative position papers published by the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines. Ayto, J.R. (1983): On Specifying Meaning. - In: R.R.K. Hartmann (ed.): Lexicography. Principles and Practice. London: Academic Press. Barnhart, Clarence (1980): What Makes a Dictionary Authoritative. - In: Ladislav Zgusta (ed.): Theory and Method in Lexicography: Western and Non-Western Perspectives. Columbia: Hornbeam Press Incorporation. Bautista, Ma and S. Lourdes (1988): The Parameters of Intellectualization - Applications to Filipino. —Philippine Journal of Linguistics 19-2. - (1974a). Ang "Universal Approach"at ang Wikang Pambansa ng Pilipinas. - In: Pamela Constantino et al. (1985): Wika, Linggwistika at Bilinggwalismo sa Pilipinas. Lungsod ng Quezon: Rex Publishing House, Inc. - (1994): Problems and Progress in the Research Project on Compiling A Universal Dictionary of Philippine Languages: The First Four Years. - In: Papers from the First Asian International Lexicography Conference. Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines.

68

Imelda P. de Castro

Creamer, Thomas (1987): Beyond the Definition: Some Problems with Examples in Recent Chinese-English and English-Chinese Bilingual Dictionaries. - In: Anthony Cowie (ed.): The Dictionary and the Language Learner, 238-245. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. - (1974): Implementing Guidelines for the Policy of Bilingual Education. — In: D.O. No. 25, s. 1974 (Juan L. Manuel, Secretary of Education and Culture, dated June 19, 1974). - (1987): Implementing Guidelines for the Policy of Bilingual Education. - In: D.O. No. 52. Eastman, Carol M. (1983): Language Planning. - San Francisco: Chadler and Sharp Publishers, Inc. - (1968): Language Development. - In: Joshua Fishman, Charles A. Ferguson, and Jyotirinda Das Gupta (eds.): Language Problems of Developing Nations. New York: Wiley. Ferguson, Charles A. (1974): Advances in Language Planning. - The Hague: Mouton and Company. Fortunato, Teresita (1988): The Intellectualization of Filipino - Agenda for the Twenty-first Century. - Philippine Journal of Linguistics 19-2. - (1991): Pagsasalin: Instrumento sa Intelektuwalisasyon ng Filipino. - In: Gawad Surian sa Sanaysay Gantimpala Collantes I989-I991. Pasig: Linangan ng mga Wika sa Pilipinas. Gonzalez, A. and B.P. Sibayan (1988): Evaluating Bilingual Education in the Philippines. - Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Hendrickson, Gail R. and Leonard E. Newell (1991): A Bibliography of Philippine Language Dictionaries and Vocabularies. - Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Jacobsen, Jane R., James Manley, and Viggo H. Pederson (1989): Examples in the Bilingual Dictionary. - In: F.J. Hausmann (ed.): Dictionaries'. An International Encyclopedia of Lexicography 3, 2782-2789. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Jacobsen, Jane and Viggo H. Pederson (1986): Telling Lies Efficiently: Terminology and the Microstructure in the Bilingual Dictionary. - In: Karl Hyldgaard-Jensen and Arne Zettersen (eds): Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Lexicography 14-16 May 1986 at the University of Copenhagen, 281-302. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Kharma, Nayef N. (1984): Contextualization and the Bilingual Learner's Dictionary. - In: R.R.K. Hartmann (ed.): LEXeter '83 Proceedings, 199-206. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. MacGregor, Scott M. and Louise A. MacGregor (1988): Translation as a Dimension of Intellectualization - The SIL Experience. - Philippine Journal of Linguistics 19-2. Nida, Eugene A. and Charles R. Taber (1969): The Theory and Practice of Translation. - Leiden: E.J. Brill. Perez, Alejandrino Q. and Alfonso O. Santiago (eds.) (1974): Language Policy and Language Development of Asian Countries. - Manila: Pambansang Samahan sa Linggwistikang Pilipino, Ink. Rivero, Arsenia D. and Gloria A. Labigan (1974): Isang Pag-aaral sa Istandardisasyon ng mga Katawagang Pang-agham sa Elementarya. - Manila: Philippine Normal College. Unpublished master's Thesis. - (1974). Language Standardization as a Component of Language Planning: A Suggested Typology. Paper given at the Second Conference on Asian Language in Manila 16-21 December. - (1979): The Elaboration of the Technical Lexicon of Pilipino. - In: Ateneo - PNC Consortium. Di-nalathalang Disertasyon. - (1988): Terms and Points of Reference in Intellectualisation with Particular Reference to Filipino. Philippine Journal of Linguistics 19-2. Sibayan, Bonifacio P. and Andrew B. Gonzales (eds.) (1977): Language Planning and the Building of a National Language: Essays in Honor of Santiago A. Fonacier on His 92 Birthday. - Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines and Language Study Centre, Philippine Normal College. Urano, Ken (1998). Lexical Simplification and Elaboration: A Pilot Study on Sentence Comprehension and Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition. — Honolulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa. Unpublished manuscript. Yabes, Leopoldo (1973): Let's Study the New Constitution: The Language Provision. - Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review 38:1-2. Zgusta, Ladislav (1971): Manual of Lexicography. - Prague: Czechoslovakia Academia Publishing House of Czechoslovakia Academy of Sciences. - (ed.) (1980): Theory and Method in Lexicography: Western and Non-Western Perspectives. - South

Lexical Elaborations

of Computer

Terms

69

Carolina: Columbia Hornbeam Press Inc.

- (1994):

Lexicography for the Twenty-first Century: Papers from the First Asian Lexicography Conference. - Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines.

International

Ian McGrath and Wience Lai "Learning" and Lexicography'

1.

Introduction

In English, the terms learning by rote (or rote learning) and learning by heart are synonymous (The Oxford English Dictionary (1989), for instance, uses the phrase "by heart" in its definition of by rote and, in circular fashion, defines by heart as by rote)? In deciding to use learning by heart in preference to rote learning in a questionnaire for Chinese students, the first author of this paper - a native speaker of English with no knowledge of Chinese - therefore had no inkling that he would set in motion an enquiry that would raise interesting lexicographic issues in relation to the Chinese translation of these terms and the related concepts memorise and memorisation. As is frequently the case, a growing awareness of differences between English and Chinese in relation to the linguistic realisation and connotations of these concepts would also prompt consideration of underlying cultural differences.

2.

The Impetus for the Study

Published accounts (in English) of the Chinese approach to learning suggest that this is traditionally memory-based and involves the kinds of process typically associated with rote learning (e.g. repetition and recitation) but that, unlike rote learning, understanding is also involved (Kember 1996; Marion, Dall'Alba, and Tse 1996). In designing an English-language questionnaire to explore tertiary-level Hong Kong Chinese students' beliefs about and approach to language learning, it seemed logical to the first author to explore, for example, how students felt about the value of rote learning and whether they made use of this as a learning strategy - and, if so, for what purposes. For the answers to such questions to be meaningful, however, he also needed to be sure that students had the same mental construct, that they understood rote learning in the same way. Aware that the term rote learning might itself be unfamiliar, he decided to substitute the phrase learning by heart, a synonym that he thought would be more widely understood, in the following two-part question:

This study, an offshoot of the project "Rote Learning: Multiple Perspectives," was supported by grant number GT-129 from the Learning and Teaching Committee of the Department of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. At the time the research was carried out, the first author was on secondment from the University of Nottingham to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the second author was a research assistant attached to the project. Other dictionaries and thesauruses follow suit - see, e.g. the entries for learn, by heart, and by rote in The New Oxford Thesaurus of English (2000), Roget's Super Thesaurus (1998), and the Collins English Dictionary (1994).

72

Ian McGrath and Wience Lai

Do you think there is a difference between memorisation and learning by heart? YES / NO If YES, what is the difference? The questionnaire was piloted with a combined class of second- and third-year students following an elective "English Language Teaching" at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), at a point when it seemed relevant to discuss the role of memory in the learning of vocabulary and grammar. The students interviewed each other in pairs and noted down the answers; they then interviewed other students out of class and reported back. The only question that appeared to pose any difficulty during the in-class piloting was the one above, which prompted questions from two pairs about the meaning of learning by heart. The teacher-researcher (the first author) did his best to explain this, using such words as mechanical and repetition and giving examples, such as learning arithmetical tables or poems "by heart," but could see that the problem had not been entirely resolved. He nevertheless determined to press ahead with the administration of the questionnaire, closing his eyes to this little difficulty. Of the 88 students (first-, second- and third-year undergraduates in the English Department at PolyU) who subsequently answered the above question, 54 replied YES, meaning "I think there is a difference between learning by heart and memorisation." Their reasons are summarised below (for a more detailed summary, see Appendix 1). The terms tended to be seen in terms of oppositions (e.g. with/without understanding, leading to short-term/long-term retention - and therefore less/more effective). Amplifications of these descriptions in relation to memorisation included "easily forgotten," "after the exam you throw away all the memories," "more rigid - the intention is just to insert all things into the brain"; and in relation to learning by heart "needs to chew and digest," "remember the meaning and rephrase it by my own words," "you understand something then memorise it," and "more brain activities, such as generating elaborations, retrieving...examples and better organisation." Although not all characterisations of learning by heart were positive and there were a number of contradictions (e.g. in relation to which process is active/passive or selective/unselective), on the whole these students seemed to see learning by heart not only as more intensive than memorisation but also meaning-based and, perhaps for these reasons, more effective as a means of storing information in the long-term memory. What was intriguing, from the researcher's point of view, about the broad distinction that emerged between the two terms was that not only was learning by heart generally perceived more positively, the negative features attributed to memorisation might, in his view, have been more appropriately applied to learning by heart. When these data were presented for comment to other Chinese-speaking informants (teachers of English), one particular suggestion emerged. If students were not familiar with the phrase "learning by heart" they would attempt to interpret it analytically, and since in Chinese the word heart is associated with feelings (as in English) but also carries connotations of seriousness and commitment it was likely that some respondents had interpreted "learning by heart" as "learning with heart." This was persuasive as a possible explanation for the generally positive characterisations of "learning by heart"; it did not, however, explain the more negative perceptions of memorisation. Deciding to investigate these questions in a rather more systematic way, the first author enlisted the help of the second.

"Learning"

3.

and

Lexicography

73

T h e Study

The hypothesis that emerged from these preliminary discussions with Chinese-speaking informants was, then, that students' linguistic proficiency - unfamiliarity with the term learning by heart - was the primary factor accounting for the results shown in Appendix 1. In the more focused study reported below, we designed a procedure to check this hypothesis using bilinguals with specialist professional knowledge. These specialist informants were asked if they distinguished between rote learning and memorisation and, if so, what they saw as the difference. The results shed light not only on the central research questions (see below) relating to the terms rote learning, learning by heart, memorisation, and memorise, but also on the adequacy of published Chinese-language translations of this small set of key terms.

3.1 1.

2. 3.2

Research Questions Do native speakers of Chinese who are specialists in language teaching and have a sophisticated command of English understand rote learning and learning by heart as exact synonyms? If not, why not? Do they distinguish between these terms and memorisation or memorise? Context and Informants

The study was carried out in the English Department of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in June 2001, the five informants being colleagues of the first author. All were native speakers of Chinese (four Cantonese speakers and one Mandarin speaker) and experienced teachers of English at tertiary level. Four of the five held doctorates in linguistics or related fields: the fifth was close to completion. 3 3.3

Methodology

A total of twelve translations and definitions for the terms rote learning, learning by heart, memorise, memorisation, and memory, were culled from Chinese-language dictionaries and psychology textbooks (see columns 1 and 2 in Appendix 2), a thirteenth being supplied by a Chinese-speaking colleague other than those referred to above. These Chinese-language terms were copied on to individual cards, carefully "randomised" and numbered. Individual interviews lasting between 25 minutes and 45 minutes were conducted (in English) with the five informants, the first author acting as interviewer. With the permission of the interviewees, the interviews were recorded; the second author also took field notes. A standard procedure was followed. After a brief explanation of the general purpose of the research and a number of preliminary questions (Stage 1), the cards containing the Chinese-language terms were presented one by one in their numbered order and an English translation requested (Stage 2). Finally, all the cards were spread out and the interviewee 3

Our thanks for their time and willing cooperation to Winnie Cheng, May Fan, Cathy Wong, Xun-feng Xu and one other expert informant, who preferred to remain anonymous.

¡an McGrath and Wience Lai

74

was asked to select which card best represented each of the following: rote learning, memorise, memorisation, learning by heart, memory (Stage 3). Although the order in which the oral prompts were given at this stage had no particular significance, the terms rote learning and learning by heart were deliberately kept apart. This final stage (English to Chinese) was designed as a crosscheck (a form of back translation, almost) on the meanings offered in Stage 2. The interview stages can be summarised as follows: Stage 1: Stage 2: Stage 3:

Introduction to the research; preliminary questions (e.g. Do you think memory has an important part to play in language learning?); Cards containing Chinese-language term presented one by one and informant asked for English translation; All (13) cards spread out; interviewer gave oral prompt (e.g. rote learning) and asked informant to select the card containing the Chinese term which best represented this concept.

The focus of the present paper is on Stages 2 and 3.

4.

Results and Discussion

A tabulated summary of the results of Stage 2, with the Chinese items grouped and renumbered according to the English source term, can be found in Appendix 2. With the exception of items 3B (HsfB) and 3E the five informants largely agreed on the salient meanings of the Chinese terms. Table 1, given below, offers a synthesis of their translations and comments. As in Appendix 2, the Chinese terms have been regrouped for purposes of comparison. Table 1 : Recurrent Features of Informants' English Translations of Chinese-language Terms

English Source Terms

Chinese Terms on Cards

Recurrent Features of Informants ' Translations

Rote learning

iAmmm^ IB BtSSKffi ic y e m m m m ' s w m ä m m m ^ 2A » I g 2B M l 2C ffl-C^g 3A 3Β 3C I B t t 3D m i 3E

mechanical silent/quiet rote learning repetition memorise silently/quietly recite study hard learn by heart (literal)

Learn by heart

Memorise

M ru Una

Memory

-

remember remember forever -

memory

All five informants gave rote learning as a translation for 1C and memory as a translation of 4. There was much less agreement concerning learn by heart and memorise·, learn by heart was offered as a translation of 2A (informant 4) and 2C (informant 1); memorise was elicited by 3A (informant 1) and 3C (informants 2, 4). The dashes alongside 3B and 3E indicate that there was no general agreement on the meanings of these items.

75

"Learning " and Lexicography

In Stage 3, it will be recalled, informants were asked to select from the set of 13 Chinese terms on the cards the one(s) that best corresponded to the English terms supplied - in the form of an oral prompt - by the interviewer. The results are shown below, in Table 2: Table 2: Informants' Choice of Chinese Terms to Translate English Prompts

English Prompts

Informants ' Translation

Rote learning

1C (Informants 1 , 2 , 4 ) ID fcmmmmmm^ (Informants 1 , 2 , 3 ) (Informant 5 couldn't find any suitable definition) 2B W S / 2 A (Informant 1)

Memorise

Choice

of

Card

Containing

Chinese

3C SStt (Informants 2, 3, 4, 5) Memorisation

3A iSíft'L· (Informant 5) Closest is 4 " 1 5 ® , " but that is "memory," or if 3E a noun (Informant 1) 2A (Informant 2) the noun of 3C f f i f ì (Informants 3, 4)

IB B t ü S t l B , ID

Learning by heart

is

1C JEiESWi

É W E Ì and 2B # 1 ! (for Informant 5, all are related to memorisation) 2C (Informant 1) 3A (Informants 1, 5, and preferred by Informant 3C g B f ì (Informants 1, 2, and preferred by Informants 4,

5) 2A ifclS (Informants 2, 4) 2B H I S (Informant 3)

3D #g=£,3E M i , IB BHIIIKHB, and ID S S t f M ^ I S Memory

Ö W f f (Informant 4) 4 I B S (Informants I, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Three aspects of these findings merit comment: a. Rote Learning and Learning by Heart Asked for a translation for rote learning, four of the five informants selected either IC (JE I B í g í f á W l f ) or I D ( J x W m M f ä M f ä ^ W ) , and informants 1 and 2 chose both of these - a finding consistent with Stage 2, when all informants gave rote learning as a translation of 1C. Results for learning by heart were similarly consistent, with Informant 4 selecting 2A (also selected by Informant 2) and Informant 1 item 2C. What is of interest here, however, is less the consistency of the responses across Stages 2 and 3 than the fact that this group of informants chose different Chinese terms to represent the two English terms - despite these being synonyms in English. Indeed, when asked for a translation for learning by heart, none of the informants chose 1C (one of two preferred translations for rote learning) and only one, informant 4, chose the other suggested translation, I D though as only one of six options selected, and not one of the two preferred. b. Memorise For memorise, four of the five informants selected the same Chinese term (3C), two more than in Stage 2, suggesting that this adequately represents the meaning of the English

lan McGrath and Wience Lai

76

source item. However, four of the informants also chose 3C as a translation for learning by heart, with 3A, 3D, and 3E also selected to represent this meaning. Possible reasons for this would include uncertainty regarding the meaning of learning by heart, perceived conceptual overlap, and perceived or actual linguistic overlap. c. Memorisation Since, to the best of our knowledge, the English noun memorisation has no exact Chinese equivalent, it poses problems as far as translation is concerned. Logically, perhaps, given their choice of 3C for memorise, Informants 3 and 4 stated that this would be best represented by a noun derived from 3C; the remaining informants suggested a wide range of other options, including those corresponding to the English source items rote learning and learning by heart.

5.

Answers to the Research Questions

The above data provides a partial answer to the first part of the first of our research questions. Our specialist informants did not perceive rote learning and learning by heart as exact synonyms. A possible reason emerged in their answers to the question of whether they saw a difference between rote learning and memorisation (part of our second research question). All said that they did, with three of the five stating that rote learning was a "negative" term or had a "negative connotation." Expanding on this, Informant 1 saw rote learning as involving the reproduction of a single item; Informant 2 referred to reproduction, repetition, effort and time; and Informant 5 saw it as repetitive, mechanical and forced. A fourth (Informant 3) while acknowledging that, "for some people rote memorisation means memorise things without understanding" explicitly dissociated herself from this - implicitly negative - definition: "a lot of people...understand the information before they memorise." We return to the issue of connotation in our Conclusions. As far as the difference between "rote learning" and "memorisation" is concerned, four of the five informants (1, 2, 4, 5) saw the latter as a more inclusive term, involving various ways of memorising rather than just one. Two of these ( 1 , 2 ) also saw memorisation as more natural: [what is learned] "comes out unconsciously"; and there was reference to the conditions that make it possible ("enough exposure," 2) and to it being a two-stage process ("both in and out, learn, able to reproduce," 1). English makes similar distinctions to those made by these informants, distinctions between the limited, deliberate and repetitive nature of rote learning on the one hand and the broader notion of memorisation, with its optional (including non-conscious) routes to remembering.

6.

Conclusion

The three conclusions we draw from this study can be broadly described as intralingual, interlingual, and intercultural. The first and the second have implications for lexicographers; the third has implications for educationalists and particularly psycholinguists. Our first conclusion relates to English and the semantic relationships between the two terms that were the initial impulse for the study, rote learning and learning by heart.

"Learning " and Lexicography

11

An adequate English language definition (based on the various English-language sources we have consulted) would probably look something like this: Rote learning (or learning by heart) is mechanical, repetitive, and without any focus on understanding. Involving neither deep processing nor elaboration, it leads to reproduction without modification. Denotatively, as any monolingual English dictionary will testify, rote learning and learning by heart are exact synonyms, but while both may have a negative connotation in some circles, rote learning may be perceived as having a stronger negative connotation simply because this is the term normally used in educational discussion that is critical of this form of learning (see, e.g., Ausubel (1968), who contrasted rote learning with "meaningful" learning or Brown's (1994: 84) reference to "mindless repetition, imitation, and other rote practices"). Such encounters with the term rote learning in the educational literature and the media may be one reason why the informants in this study did not perceive this term as a synonym for learning by heart. It may also be an argument, on a more general lexicographic level, for marking rote learning as the more explicitly negative of the two options. The second conclusion, which is in two parts, concerns Chinese-English equivalences and the reliability of the Chinese-language reference books we used as sources. Our informants, it will be remembered, all selected item IC ( ^ E I B S W W ^ ^ ) as a translation for rote learning; this was not, however, a standard translation across the sources consulted. The same point can be made in relation to item 3C ( f S f ì ) as a translation for memorise. If these are, in the opinion of our specialist informants, the most appropriate representations of the English-language terms, then it is desirable for all dictionaries to adopt them as standard. A rather different issue is that of the distinctions made between terms. The overlap found in the published sources between Chinese terms for memorise and memorisation (see Appendix 2) is understandable if Chinese does not make this distinction; however, the treatment in the same sources of rote learning and learning by heart is problematic. Like our informants, these sources sought to make a distinction between rote learning and learning by heart that simply does not exist in English. While this was not a systematic survey from a lexicographic perspective, the evidence that it has thrown up is perhaps indicative of a general problem. Language learners, language teachers, and academics of all disciplines expect to be able to rely on reference books, including dictionaries, for accurate information. The set of terms (rote learning, learning by heart, memorise, and memorisation) that was the focus of this study may be small but these are key concepts for those concerned with learning, and particularly the role of memory in learning. Our feeling is that those responsible for the compilation of Chinese-English dictionaries owe it to their users to revisit their entries for these terms, if only to check that they are not inadvertently misleading them. Our final conclusion, which returns to the possibility of a cultural explanation, is less of a conclusion than a speculation. The starting point for this investigation was the suggestion that because many of the student respondents to the questionnaire were unfamiliar with the term learning by heart as an idiomatic expression, they focused on the word heart and reinterpreted the expression as "learning with heart." As one schoolteacher informant commented: "it's more than just mechanical - there's meaning, feeling, effort in the word heart." It can be assumed that the university specialists involved in the elicitation

lan McGrath

78

e x p e r i m e n t r e p o r t e d h e r e w e r e f a m i l i a r w i t h t h e t e r m learning spontaneously

in

Chinese-language

their

interviews

-

well

as

in

their

by heart

that ( m i s ) i n t e r p r e t a t i o n

learning.

Lai

- i n d e e d , it o c c u r s

translations

i t e m s ( s e e , e . g . 2 C , 3 C , a n d 3 E in A p p e n d i x

u n d e r s t o o d t h i s a s d i f f e r e n t f r o m rote hypothesis

as

and Wience

of

some

of

2), and yet they

the also

This therefore casts doubt o n the linguistic

is a p r o d u c t o f l i n g u i s t i c

level -

and raises

the

i n t e r e s t i n g p o s s i b i l i t y that t h e s e f i n d i n g s r e a l l y are e v i d e n c e o f a s i g n i f i c a n t d i f f e r e n c e in t h e w a y E n g l i s h a n d C h i n e s e s p e a k e r s c o n c e p t u a l i s e m e m o r y - b a s e d a p p r o a c h e s to l e a r n i n g , c o n f i r m i n g the earlier study b y Marton, D a l l ' A l b a and Tse ( 1 9 9 6 ) . For a C h i n e s e speaker, l e a r n i n g without

h e a r t is p e r h a p s i n c o n c e i v a b l e . A s o n e o f o u r i n f o r m a n t s o b s e r v e d : "I c a n ' t

r e m e m b e r a n y t h i n g I d o n ' t u n d e r s t a n d . I m a y n o t u n d e r s t a n d it that t h o r o u g h l y , b u t I still u n d e r s t a n d it."

References

(a) C i t e d D i c t i o n a r i e s

ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PSYCHOLOGY ( ' L v S i P S > Publishing H o u s e 1995. ENGLISH-CHINESE DICTIONARY Translation Publishing H o u s e 1989.

, Vol. 3. Hangzhou: Zhejiang 1. Ed. Lu Gusun

ENGLISH-CHINESE DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOLOGY

(

Β )

Education

Shanghai Shanghai · Ed.

Yan

Peigui

USttîfê.

Chengdu: Sichuan P e o p l e ' s Publishing House 1989. ENGLISH-CHINESE PSYCHOLOGY DICTIONARY ( ^ ί ϊ - ύ β ^ ί Ρ Λ ) · Ed. Zhao Yaoshun and Hua Yirong I j l Ü r U . Taipei: Five Continents Publishing House and Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing H o u s e 1988. FAR EAST ENGLISH-CHINESE DICTIONARY ( j t H ü g í l ^ i í f t } . Ed. Liang Shiqiu S g Ä f j t Taipei: Far East Quick Library C o m p a n y 1985. GREATER DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOLOGY ( ' L ' S S ^ P f t } Normal University Publishing House 1989.

. Ed. Zhu Zhixian ¿Mû 1 !?. Beijing: Beijing

NEW OXFORD THESAURUS OF ENGLISH. Comp. Patrick Hanks. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2 0 0 0 . OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER'S ENGLISH-CHINESE DICTIONARY. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1994. OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY. Oxford: Clarendon P r e s s 2 1 9 8 9 . OXFORD ENGLISH-CHINESE ENCYCLOPAEDIC DICTIONARY

^ H S W ^ S Î Â )

· Tr. C a i C h e n n a n

Taipei: Baike Wenhua Shiye Limited 1985.

(b) Other Literature Ausubel, D. (1968): Educational Winston.

Psychology:

Brown, H. (' 1 9 8 0 ; 3 1 9 9 4 ) . Principles Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents.

A Cognitive

of Language

Learning

Kember, D. (1996): The Intention to Both Memorise Learning. - Higher Education 3 1 , 3 4 1 -354.

View. - N e w York: Holt, Rinehart, and and Teaching.

- E n g l e w o o d Cliffs, N e w

and Understand: Another Approach

to

Marton, F., G. D a l l ' A l b a , and L.K. Tse (1996): Memorizing and Understanding: The K e y s to the Paradox. - In: D. Watkins and J. B i g g s (eds.): The Chinese Learner: Cultural, Psychological and Contextual Influences, 6 9 - 8 3 . Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University o f H o n g K o n g and the Australian Council for Educational Research.

"Learning " and

79

Lexicography

Appendix 1 Student's Characterisations of Mémorisation and Learning by Heart Logical oppositions

Additional features

Conflicting characterisations

Memorisation Without thought or understanding

1 8

No interpretation

1

Directed towards short-term retention

9

Have to think in order to retrieve More rigid

1 1

Recitation

3

Effort

1

Verbatim

1

Remember only what you are familiar with

1

Learning by Heart Memorisation plus understanding Thinking (reasons behind) Interpretation Internalise ("digest") Better retention (= more effective) Able to apply Can use unconsciously "More vivid [...] involves more brain activities such as generating elaboration, retrieving information, using examples, etc. with better organisation."

More practice (e.g. oral, listening) Use other ways to memorise Pay attention Rephrasing^^--' Verbatim Remember also what you are not familiar, with. Only remember some of it.

1 1 4 9 5 1 1

2 2 1 1 1 1

1

Unselective

^ ^ ^ Selective Deliberate/active^^ ^ - " - ^ N o t deliberate ^ ^ ' " i n b o r n [natural, no effort required]

5 1 2 1 2

Selectiye^' Unselective Passive .^Self-initiated

3 1 2 2

Not enjoyable [Forced to do something] not interested in

3

Not enjoyable [forced to do something] n p l · - ^ ' ^ interested hp-"·^"^

2

May not include learning by heart

1

Part of learning by heart

2

Enjoyable Relationship between the terms

16

2

80

Ian McGrath and Wience Lai

Appendix 2 C h i n e s e Translations o f English Terms English

Chinese

Informants ' Translation of

Terms

Translations

Chinese Terms

Rote learning

1A

wm»^

1.

Mechanical learning

2.

Mechanical learning

(1,3, 4)

3.

Mechanical learning

4.

Rote learning

Informants 'Additional

Comments

4. Later glossed as "mechanical learning method"

5.

Mechanical learning/

5. May be a technical term.

mechanical way of learning IB

1.

BtaiRia (7)

Silent reading and silent memorisation.

2.

You memorise, reproduce to yourself without sound, " f i " is saying something loud, "15" is memorising, "Bs" and " U T means not seen, under the surface, not explicit, not saying out or speaking up.

3.

You read it secretly,

3. Will not be said in spoken

and you are trying to

Cantonese, only appear in

remember it but not telling other people

pedagogical literature.

that you are trying to 4.

remember it. Silent reciting and writing down quietly

5.

Remember silently, think in your mind, say something in your mind or say something quietly in a low voice in order to remember it: maybe related to memorisation.

4. Extends the meaning of by adding "recite quietly". 5. The same as 2B

"Learning " and

81

Lexicography

English

Chinese

Informants ' Translation of

Terms

Translations

Chinese Terms

1C

1.

Rote learning

ftmmfftt

2.

Rote learning

wm (5)

Informants 'Additional

Comments

2. The words "JE" and "5g" are negative; don't convey good strategy; do not imply a deep level of understanding.

3. 4.

Rote learning Learn by rote memory

4. Bad connotation: "5E12" means die to memorise, memorise hard; "5E" and

are adverbials;

"5E" means dead while "ÍM" means "without compromise"; the use of these adverbials makes the phrase sound more negative

5.

Remembering, learning by memorisation

5. "?ES2" means "dead remember". It's what parents tell their children not to do. It's a bad strategy

without

which involves memorisation

understanding,

without understanding. "JE1BÍM

reciting something

ï=jf" is an adjective which

without

describes learning. It means you

understanding it

remember it again and again until you learn. This expression is very odd. I have never said or used this myself.

82

Ian McGrath and Wience Lai

English

Chinese

Informants ' Translation of

Terms

Translations

Chinese Terms

ID

1.

Informants 'Additional

Comments

Repetitive die-hard rote learning

2. (7)

3.

Repeatedly read

meaning of repetition; repeatedly,

over many times and

trying hard to commit in your

commit to memory; a

memory; does not imply deep

strategy of learning.

level of understanding.

A study that is characterised by repetition, reciting. You don't understand it, but try to remember it.

4.

Learn by repetitive reciting and memorisation.

5.

2. Not negative; has the additional

something over and

Memorise again and again, try to commit something to memory again and again and use it as a way of learning.

83

"Learning " and Lexicography

English Terms

Chinese Translations

Informants ' Translation of Chinese Terms

Learning by heart

2A

1. 2.

» I B (6,7)

To memorise Memorise, is like silent (difficult).

Informants 'Additional

Comments

2. Describes a way of memorising. "l^"can be combined with the character " β " to become " t ^ l r " which means dictation (seen or unseen). *

3.

You are trying to remember it, but you are not telling people that you are trying to remember it.

4.

Silent, learning by heart.

4. Memorise something silently

5.

Remember quietly.

5. "quietly" because of You remember in a more thorough way. This expression is literal. It is like 3D but 3D #gfcl is stronger in terms of Chinese meaning.

2B f f f f i (6,7)

1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 2C

1.

ffl-C,«*· 2.

3. 4. 5.

Recite Committing something to memory and reproducing it, " Ü " is to say it Recite Reciting Recite, reciting something Learn by heart/study hard/ work hard Learn with your heart, learn by working hard Study hard Study with a good effort Try hard to learn

5. The same as IB B t H i ^ l g

2. Working hard to learn: the word "¡i," implies the process of working hard

5.

A very common expression. Parents say it to children.

Ian McGrath and Wience Lai

84

English

Chinese

Informants ' Translation of

Terms

Translations

Chinese Terms

Memorise

3A

1.

Learn by heart

Informants 'Additional 1.

Comments

Definitely translated from English; literal, archaic, not

(6)

spoken: very marked in modern Chinese, only appears in lyrics: won't use in Cantonese, means "putting something in your heart." 2.

(literally)

2.

"/[>" means heart in Chinese,

Committing

but how to translate it into

something to heart

English? refers to what is stored in your brain; difficult to distinguish the relationship between the term "heart" in Chinese and the term "brain" in English in relation to storage: Not sure whether this phrase refers to a deeper level of understanding;must have heard this phrase, not an unusual phrase in Chinese but not spoken; some problem with " I S " since the meaning of this phrase involves "learn" rather than "memorise

3.

Remember in the

3.

People don't say this.

heart 4.

Learn by heart

4.

Memorise in your heart:

"J$·"

is a preposition which is not used in spoken Chines; this phrase is used in a classroom context, esp. in language education, but not daily written Chinese: literal transcription of "learning by heart". 5.

Memorise

5.

It's not different from 2B

^

IS. It can be bearing in mind or remembering. It may mean the same as 3C 1BÌÌ- It is a word for word translation for "learning by heart". It has the word " C/' meaning "heart". The direct translation is to remember something in your heart. It's written Chinese. ItU^'lV' is highly Chinese.

"Learning" and

85

Lexicography

English

Chinese

Informants ' Translation of

Terms

Translations

Chinese Terms

3B

1.

Conscious learning

Informants 'Additional 1.

Comments

Strange: have not seen this term before; conscious learning is

SKI5 (1,2,3)

related to knowledge. 2.

(Don't know what it

2.

have not come across this phrase; "Wi" means know,

is)

understand, ( If you know something, you understand it. If you understand it, you know it. ) and acquire.* 3.

Something you know

3.

already, but you still

Have problems with this phrase; haven't heard of it or

want to remember it.

seen it in writing. It is not one verb phrase in Chinese, but two verb phrases.

4.

Recognise

4.

5.

(Don't know)

5.

Recognise so as to remember. I don't know exactly what this means.

3C

1.

To remember

fñfi (1,5,6,7)

2.

Memorise something for a length of time,

2. " f ì " means have already done it: have completed a process.

" f i " seems to carry the meaning of on-going. 3.

Remember

4.

To learn, to memorise

4. Learn by heart: won't forget: neutral term; most frequently and commonly used.

5.

Remember

5. This is very colloquial. It may mean the same as 3A l ü f f r i v · It means remember but it's closer to the meaning of "learning by heart". It's a deep process in Chinese.

Memor-

3B

(See above)

(See above)

isation

Ü Í 3 (4) 3C

(See above)

(See above)

IBffi (1,5,6,7)

86

Ian McGrath and Wience Lai

English

Chinese

Informants ' Translation of

Terms

Translations

Chinese Terms

3D

1. (1,2,3)

2.

Life-long learning/

Informants 'Additional 1.

Comments

Close to 3A, but has an

life-long

additional meaning of

memorisation

"life-long."

(don't know what is)

2.

Really don't know what it means, but have come across an idiom, " ^ l ö S ^ ' O " which means remember something in your heart.*

3.

Commit it to your memory, (but basically comes from literature, Chinese people take it as committing to your heart).

4.

Memorise by heart

4. Memorise something for a long time; a literal expression, common in formal written Chinese, e.g. in quotations

5.

You remember something forever, you try very hard.

5. It's strong memory. Literally, it means you won't forget something for the rest of your life. It's a very strong Chinese word. " g g l B Í W is highly Chinese and idiomatic.

3E

1. (1,4,5)

Memorise/memorisat ion

1. often put the other way round as means very familiar, "5&8Ë" means memorise; maybe is the Mandarin way of saying this.

2.

Rote learning? (Not

3.

You remember it

sure) very well 4.

Code memorisation

4. Learn by heart: a colloquial term for "learning by heart"; don't tell how to memorise.

5.

Commit to memory,

5. You remember well or very

committing words to memory

thoroughly. I don't use this myself.

"Learning " and

Lexicography

87

English

Chinese

Informants ' Translation of

Terms

Translations

Chinese Terms

Memory

4 isti (1,2,3,5,6,7)

1.

Memory

2.

Memory, span of memory

3.

Informants 'Additional

Comments

2. Wonder whether

contains the

meaning of "reproduce"

Memory

4.

Memory

5.

Memory

5. A technical term. In Chinese, it is both a verb and a noun.

* Commenting on 2A, 3B and 3D, Informant 2 noted that "gB" in all these terms means "to remember;" ** Supplied by a Chinese informant.

Zhang

Yihua

An Empirical Study of Electronic Dictionaries and Translation Software

Along with the development of information technology, more and more people will practise writing or translation with the help of electronic dictionaries or online dictionaries. The market abounds with computerized translation software, which, although not so multifunctional and accurate as the publishers would have wished, can also give amateur translators some assistance in reading and understanding foreign languages. This paper will investigate the usability of electronic dictionaries and translation software now available.

1. The Development of the Electronic Dictionary Initially, the electronic dictionary was the offshoot of research on natural language processing and machine translation, since the core part of the translation system is a machine-readable bilingual e-dictionary. In China, research on electronic dictionaries began in the late 1950s, and was given government encouragement in the 1980s, with machine translation and natural language processing being key research projects in the National Development Plan of High and New Technology. Qian Weichang, a senior scientist, led the research and made initial inroads by the mid-1980s, including the syntactic analysis and the understanding of phrases. In the mid-1990s, the Computer Technology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed the Intelligent English-Chinese Machine Translation System jointly with other institutions, which attracted a funding from Group Sense Ltd in Hong Kong, now famous for its Instant-Diet. This research created great interest in Chinese scientific and technological circles, and led to the production of the Scientific Translation System 1 by the Academy of Military Science, the Yixing English-Chinese Computerized Translation and the Chinese-English and Chinese-Japanese Machine Translation System by the head office of the China Software Corporation, as well as the TECM English-Chinese Machine Translation by the Information Institute of Ministry of Railways. The Chinese-English MT System by Harbin Polytechnic University, E-RTV System by Mid-China Science and Engineering University, and FDMT English-Chinese Translation System by Fudan University were further breakthroughs in the genre. Monolingual Chinese e-dictionaries have also been compiled, with Beijing University, Qinghua University, and the Language and Culture University developing the Electronic Chinese Semantic Dictionary, and the People's University succeeding in compiling two e-dictionaries, namely the Dictionary of Chinese Verbs and the Dictionary of Modern Chinese Verbs. However, these research institutions failed to put their products onto the market with the exception of Instant Diet. Since 1994, a number of e-dictionaries compiled in Hong Kong and Taiwan have been sold in the Mainland, including: 21st Century Multimedia English-Chinese Dictionary, Lexicomp Vocal English-Chinese Dictionary, and Super Lexicom, Far East Illustrated English-Chinese Dictionary, the Far East English-Chinese Encyclopedic Dictionary, and the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, etc. The appearance of these e-dictionaries has given a strong impetus to mainland Chinese software developers. This was quickly followed by a series of e-dictionaries in 1995, such as the Jishitong English-Chinese

Zhang

90

Yihua

Dictionary, Yilin Online English-Chinese Dictionary, Langdao Dictionary, and so on. These dictionaries, the first generation of electronic dictionaries in the Mainland, are a good start, although their interface and content are not ideal. 2.

Categories and Users of Electronic Dictionaries

Ε-dictionaries in China can be classified according to their format into the following groups: chip dictionaries, CD-ROM dictionaries (including CD-I), online dictionaries, and translation software. 2.1 Chip Dictionaries The main items in this category include the Instant Dictionary, Shangwutong, Wenquxing, Mingren, Bubugao, and Tontop dictionaries. Each series contains three to six models while some have over ten variants. Various types of Instant dictionary have changeable chips, namely IC cards with different content, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, business dictionary, mechanical dictionary, and architecture dictionary. Such features attract the professional user. 2.2 CD-ROM Dictionaries My investigations have shown that there are more than 60 e-dictionaries on CD-ROM, including the Lexicomp Vocal English-Chinese Dictionary, Super Lexicomp, Yidianling Human Sound English-Chinese Dictionary, 21st Century Multimedia English-Chinese Dictionary, Jishitong English-Chinese Dictionary, Langdao Dictionary, Huifeng English-Chinese Dictionary, and Dr. Eye. In addition, the publication of the electronic version of the Chinese Dictionary indicates the future for monolingual Chinese dictionaries. It is gratifying to see that two of the main Chinese dictionaries - Ciyuan and Modern Chinese Dictionary now have electronic versions. The readership of these dictionaries will certainly increase through the use of this medium. 2.3 Online Dictionaries Online dictionaries can be classified into three categories according to their functions. 2.3.1

Single Unit Version

This type is usually installed on a terminal PC and used to translate web pages and displays data from English into Chinese. This type includes Orient Express, Orient NetTrans, Jishitong Online Dictionary, Huajian NetTranslation, and Kingsoft Express. 2.3.2 Single Online Dictionary This type is usually attached to a website and can be consulted at any time. When users enter the website (such as www.joyo.com), they can use the dictionary to translate new words.

Ε-dictionaries and Translation Software

91

2.3.3 Dictionary Websites These sites collect and assemble a large number of dictionaries in different languages and subjects. Theoretically, a website can gather all online dictionaries on the Internet by hyperlink. Some current websites include: www.onelook.com www.YourDictionary.com www. 1 OOODictionaries.com www.babylon.com 2.4 Translation Software These can also be divided into single unit or online versions. The former includes Huajian Machine Translation System, Orient Express, Orient Net Translation, IBM Translation Expert, Jishitong Net Translation, Yilin Expert Translation System, Jinshan Instant Translation System, Yixing Tanslation System, and so on. Online translation systems have many versions, such as www.wordnet.com,www.transnetwork.com.cn, www.chinatransnet.com, and www.readworld.com.

3.

M a i n Characteristics of Electronic Dictionaries

3.1 Chip dictionaries These kinds of dictionaries are compact, portable, multifunctional, and easy to access. The Instant Dictionary EB8000, for example, has a Chinese-English bi-directional dictionary, as well as phonetic rule analysis, basic vocabulary, review and test, general notes, travel guide, health guide, and so forth. In addition, the dictionary has more than ten specialized dictionaries integrated into a IC card. These removable lack lexical dictionaries information, have simplistic JSifföl control; curb: cybernation: manipulation fêéfèi&ISÎlife control ampereturns and even contain definitions, S é ' i f e ® control knob ÍSífellS control panel: plugboard: operating panel: operator's panel; mistakes. board ÍSÉlltS Φ tytfêfëfêFF control panel Interrupt transfer absorbing rod: control rod SéllÌ^fèSÌJ control rod drtve control rod guide: control-rod follower f î î r i Û ^ î S i S nuclear delay Hf control report S Í Í J Í S S controlled blasting J S f M ^ W blank stock control and primary scavenging pump & é Ì k k Ì È control ratio S i i ' S g control pen span of control control change ÎS-fi'JSÎÏI control variable; controlled variable; dominant variable: m control variate method IS rfi!l3E:Sr45 control variable name

Figure 1 : The New Century Chinese-English Dictionary

Zhang Tihua

92

3.2 Dictionaries for Terminal Computers These dictionaries, which originate from mainland China, usually have up to several hundred thousand entries. Some editions incorporate over thirty large-sized specialized dictionaries. These dictionaries usually have simple interfaces, fuzzy definitions, bland defining style, and poor search function. In the New Century Chinese-English Dictionary (see Figure 1), for example, the equivalent of headword kongzhi does not include frequently used words such as dominate, govern, and command. However words like curb and cybernation are used instead: all these equivalents are given without indicating their part of speech. In the Yinlin Online English-Chinese Dictionary, chi 0¿ is "defined" as "eaten, eating, feeding, have, take, etc." However is a verb, but the translation equivalents contain past and present participles: furthermore, "feeding" in the sense of weiyang f p | § | (feed; raise; keep) and "have" and "take," do not have the meaning of eat unless they are followed with a kind of "food"; thus it is improper to list these words under this entry. In addition to the normal input search method, e-dictionaries usually have a function whereby the user, by pointing at words on screen with a mouse, can obtain an instant translation of the text before them. However some of the given explanations are quite simple {Kingsoft Ciba), while others are comparatively detailed (Zhaomi Ciwang). m w x - f t « SMZM méfttfxwÊ ñ ^ m m i , «ffltss. WE. m . mirtäSWfättZ, ËSiSWiS^'cîâùKï «lïS'JifiÈ ι g u a s a * ft·™1 "ñtL"

I. •

Ȁ

i l i !

1 . n o t o r n o t yet

rlÌHjj! 2-ltie e i g h t h o f t h e t w e l v e E a r t h l y B r a n c h e s

101 fei!

«S m in c o m b i n a t i o n w i t h t h e t e n H e a v e n l y S t e m s t Alt Λ±ϋλνΗϋίί1Ι : ì"

used

t>y t h e a n c i e n t s to d e n o t e y e a r s , m o n t h s , or d a y s

fc,

ÈtI (autonomous). ffilí

Figure 2: Kingsoft Ciba

Figure 3: Zhaomi Ciwang

Kingsoft Ciba was developed very quickly, and has sold at least five million units. It has integrated eleven well-made general dictionaries, 32 specialized dictionaries, including the American Heritage Dictionary, with a total of 600,000 entries, and 260 million words. But the lexical information of these dictionaries is treated separately and displayed one after the other: the definition of an entry word may take up to 20-30 pages. The simplex searching entrance with numerous and jumbled "definitions," displayed on the screen all at once, makes it difficult for users to obtain the information that they are looking for. The following example gives an idea of how definitions are arranged. Longman English-Chinese Comprehensive Computerized Dictionary ask Pf · = Amplitude Shift Keying » g ^ f i S t ^ S = Analog Select Keyboard M t t m M = Applications Software Kit (DEC) W]) (English-Chinese Pyschology Dictionary) • ask f t ) ^ * ( ^ t U f t i ^ l f f t ) (English-Chinese Chemistry Dictionary) : ask vt. fyj, fêjfÔ],

93

Ε-dictionaries and Translation Software

(English-Chinese Computer Dictionary) • ask vt. PSHiMSJ, ( f f l l i l l f f i ^ ^ P Ä ) (New English-Chinese Legal Dictionary) • ask v. P*J (English-Chinese Dictionary of Energy) : ask n. ÉIIjaÜÍÍL (English-Chinese Dictonary of Water Conservancy) • ask n. fn], ( ^ i k è t ì À I s Ì f t ) (English-Chinese Petroleum Dictionary) • ask vt. fL8], ffe/PJ], ¡ g ^ (|ξ?ΙΙΦΒλ1§ΙΛ) (English-Chinese Dictionary of Chinese Medicine) '• ask {English-Chinese Dictionary of Geology) : ask n. g f t j / Ë f ô ( ^ i H l a ^ ^ f ^ f t ) (English-Chinese Dictionary of Aviation): ask n. gß, Ì&JF«I

§ff>R

* The articles are rearranged by the author, in the original; the article for each dictionary occupies three lines. ** ")" is missing from the original article. In the Longman English-Chinese Comprehensive Computerized Dictionary, the word ask and the abbreviated form of ask, are mixed together. To make matters worse, the definitions and part of speech varies from dictionary to dictionary, which is bound to confuse the reader. Some dictionaries even define ask as bu nß (part; section; plus other meanings) and zidong dingwei E=lK/Ëfi (automatic or voluntary position), which does not make sense. By comparison, Zhaomi Ciwang (below) is more logical in its display of definitions. The multi-search portals make it convenient for readers to look up new words in the dictionary.

[ask ask for a s k for a l o a n a s k f o r a rulli* ask f o r a vote ask for it a s k for loan ask f o r the fio· a s k for troubU ask oo odds ask price ask quotation ask rate a s k the p r i c e < a s k to be hear askance askant asked a s k e d price a s k e d quotati· asker askew asking asking price

,-J

ASL

·• «ΐι-] S h e asked him his name. s.. 2. i»*,**ttto-vJ[*that] He asked that they (should) be «tif 3.

allowed to use a dictionary.

S(Ä).£*»«C(+for/o0J T h e y asked too much of her.

am***»*. Ι. as ι* to] ^ To inquire tabou!)

1. H; MjW'.HRtf^Bbout)]

Tell G e o r g e my parents ask about him.

2. gS.mWOfor)] She asked

for a cup of tea.

Figure 4: Zhaomai Wang

Also taking the word ask as example, under the inquiry box, there is a browsing window, showing all phrases with ask as the core word and related expressions morphologically similar to ask. In the search and display windows, one set of control buttons have been provided for indicating the content of entries according to the classification, e.g. the description of meaning, morphological change of headwords, discrimination of synonyms, and various specialized phrases and meanings pertinent to a particular field. In this way, readers can easily select and display content at will. In addition to this, Zhaomi Ciwang also has a "writing assistant." When you write in English, a floating window appears showing a list of collocations and phrases for reference, which helps the user to select the appropriate word and use it to construct a sentence.

Zhang Yihua

94

When you do not know a certain word, you only need to type the Chinese meaning on the screen, and the dictionary will offer you the English equivalent (see Figure 5). gi ι2ι Ι4ι 16 f I8i Itoi ι12ι • 14 •

ι22ι

ie categones of memba-ship shall be personal, institutional, student, and hononuy. personal membership shall be that of an individual Institutional membership shall be lhat of m institute«, e g an academic center or publishing house Student membership shall be of any individual enrolled a s a füll time student in a tertiary institution Honorary membership shall be that of an individual who h i s . j j l e a sieufioent contribution to L«ticO(raphy, as ϊΜ«Ι»Ι·Τ I

f*

prep,

t

t

¡m

t

ASIALEX (ífiSiiiüí Immmg^sammmBii.

as.

s»m., m m ι m- AsA i LEx awta*»re*sií*iA » « l » ûttUèWBBSΫ». £ » « â a

* 2 m. mtmm-1-A, ««.

»«*. it.

verb

noun

noun

MIS«« amm

i«ff VU

t noun

Φ * (ΦΙ

noun

adjective

at commercialize the process inside, development prep.

« μ μ α α * « Μ«-#ΒΕΜ¥ T , - | W T » t SX(s) Μ® |»£® I " M " « « f t

9 8 8ifi