scholarly journals The mirthless world of the bilingual dictionary

Linguistica ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-218
Author(s):  
Otto Hietsch

A Critical Look at Two German­English Examples, and A Glossary. Officers, without a word of German, were billeted on fam­ ilies, and the town swarmed witb G.I.s. Lucia, whose English was always considered so good, had great difficulty in under­ standing what they said. She had a bewildered feeling of not being able - in the language sense - to 'hear' the phrases used. 'It beats the crap outa me,' she heard one say. She could not find the key-word in her English-German dictionary. Nor many other words they used. Ethel Mannin, Bavarian Story (London: Arrow Books, 1964), pp.143f. (abridged). Lucia's plight in 1945, and that of untold other non-native speakers before and after, is a common one.In the three decades and a half since then, some very good bilingual dictionaries in the pocket-size, desk and encyclopaedic ranges have been published. Yet, in spite of the praises that have been sung about such publications, most of them fail to do justice both to the richness of the spoken language on either side, and to the many ways , and means by which that richness can, and should, be matched level for level. Such a discovery is as inevi­ table as it is disconcerting.These general dictionaries, both in what they offer and in what they withhold, are, all in all, a sadly distorted reflection of living speech: far too frequently their renderings merely approximate to the usage of native speakers.

Literator ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ketiwe Ndhlovu

The development of African languages into languages of science and technology is dependent on action being taken to promote the use of these languages in specialised fields such as technology, commerce, administration, media, law, science and education among others. One possible way of developing African languages is the compilation of specialised dictionaries (Chabata 2013). This article explores how parallel corpora can be interrogated using a bilingual concordancer (ParaConc) to extract bilingual terminology that can be used to create specialised bilingual dictionaries. An English–Ndebele Parallel Corpus was used as a resource and through ParaConc, an alphabetic list was compiled from which headwords and possible translations were sought. These translations provided possible terms for entry in a bilingual dictionary. The frequency feature and ‘hot words’ tool in ParaConc were used to determine the suitability of terms for inclusion in the dictionary and for identifying possible synonyms, respectively. Since parallel corpora are aligned and data are presented in context (Key Word in Context), it was possible to draw examples showing how headwords are used. Using this approach produced results quickly and accurately, whilst minimising the process of translating terms manually. It was noted that the quality of the dictionary is dependent on the quality of the corpus, hence the need for creating a representative and clean corpus needs to be emphasised. Although technology has multiple benefits in dictionary making, the research underscores the importance of collaboration between lexicographers, translators, subject experts and target communities so that representative dictionaries are created.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-180
Author(s):  
Jovana Stojanović ◽  

Summary: This paper examines pragmatic information in the more extensive general German–Serbian (or Croatian), and Serbian (or Croatian)–German dictionaries: Osnovni rečnik nemačko-srpski i srpsko-nemački sa nemačkom i srpskom gramatikom (Đukanović et al. 2006); PONS. Univerzalni nemačko-srpski rečnik (Nikolić et al. 2010); NSSN. Nemačko- srpski i srpsko-nemački rečnik sa gramatikom (Vladović et al. 2008) and Njemačko-hrvatski univerzalni rječnik (Hansen-Kokoruš et al. 2005). Under pragmatic features of lexemes that should be marked in dictionaries, the author includes the following categories: 1) diachron- ic; 2) diatopic; 3) dia-integrative; 4) diamedial, 5) diastratic; 6) diaphasic, 7) diatextual, 8) diatechnical, 9) diafrequent, 10) diaevaluative, and 11) dianormative. The analysis points to the following: lexemes and their quoted equivalents often bear the same meaning at the lexical level, while not at the pragmatic – their use does not result in the same communicative effect with a collocutor. Poor lexicographic processing and lack of pragmatic information are distinctively visible in cases when some lexeme in the German language is marked in a diastratic and diaphasic manner. It is not only the indicators that are applied inconsistently, but other categories of information within the dictionary article do not show the marked lexemes to the user (except in the dictionary Njemačko-hrvatski univerzalni rječnik). Furthermore, culture-specific lexemes and culture-conditioned differ- ences in the use of lexical units are marginally treated in the analysed bilingual dictionaries. Although the selection of language tools depends on the context and perspective of the speaker, a good-quality general bilingual dictionary should pay more attention to informing users about the pragmatic aspects of lexemes and their typical use in accordance with the purpose of such a dictionary and target group. The key moment is that the general bilingual dictionary is directed only toward native speakers of some language – in this case the speakers of the Serbian language (or Croatian) with L2 in the German language, in order to make the information in the dictionary relevant to the target group. Additionally, the author suggests the implementation of other lexicographic means, such as examples, paraphrases, collocations, encyclopedic information, and open pragmatic comments that are transparent for the average user of the general bilingual dictionary.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Lyu Xiaoxiao

<p>The phraseology is part of the linguistic studies on phrases, proverbs, idioms, proverbs and other units of syntax totally or partially fixed. It is the reflection of a certain tradition and idiosyncrasy of society. The native speaker recognizes the phraseological units in the praxis of speech without difficulty. However, because of their idiomaticity and the sociocultural divergence between two linguistic communities, Spanish sayings and expressions cannot always be understood by the Chinese speakers. Students of Spanish as a foreign language have difficulty recognizing the non-literal meaning of an expression, the use of this type of expression in language teaching develops communicative competence, linguistics competence, sociolinguistics and pragmatics competence. Then, when producing a bilingual dictionary, it is not enough to translate it into the target language, but rather to contrast the two languages in order to inform non-native speakers of unknown elements, such as historical and cultural backgrounds, uses, and their frequency of application, variants, etc.</p>


Author(s):  
Nina Maksimchuk

The attention of modern linguistics to the study of verbal representatives of the mental essence (both individual and collective one) of the native speakers involves an appeal to all subsystems of the national language where territorial dialects take a significant part. The analysis of dialect linguistic units possessing linguistic and cultural value is considered as a necessary way for the study of people’s worldview and perception of the world, national mentality as a whole. The ability of stable phrases (phraseological units) to preserve and express a native speaker’s attitude to the world around them is the basis for the use of the analysis of folk phraseology as a way of penetration into a speaker’s spiritual world. Volumetric representation of the external and internal peculiarities of stable phrases allows the author to get their systematization in the form of phraseosemantic field consisting of different kinds singled out in phraseosemantic groups. The article deals with stable phrases of synonymic value recorded in the Dictionary of Smolensk dialects and stable phrases forming a phraseosemantic group. These phrases are analyzed taking into account the semantic structure of the key word, the characteristics of the dependent word, and the method of forming phraseological semantics. On the example of the analysis of phrases with the key word «bit’» and a synonymic series with the semantic dominant «bezdel’nichat’», the article discusses the peculiarities of phraseological nomination in Smolensk dialects and confirms a high level of connotativity and evaluation in the folk phraseology.


Author(s):  
Anthony Trollope
Keyword(s):  
The Many ◽  

‘Mr Slope flattered himself that he could out-manoeuvre the lady…he did not doubt of ultimate triumph.’ Barchester Towers (1857) was the book that made Trollope's reputation and it remains his most popular and enjoyable novel. The arrival of a new bishop in Barchester, accompanied by his formidable wife and ambitious chaplain, Obadiah Slope, sets the town in turmoil as Archdeacon Grantly declares ‘War, war, internecine war!’ on Bishop Proudie and his supporters. Who will come out on top in the battle between the archdeacon, the bishop, Mr Slope, and Mrs Proudie? The livelihood of Mr Harding, the saintly hero of The Warden, is once more under threat but clerical warfare finds itself tangled up in the wayward (and sometimes perverse) desires of the many courtships, seductions, and romances of the book. Who will marry Eleanor Bold? Can any man resist the charms of the exotically beautiful ‘La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni’? Will the oily Mr Slope finally get his comeuppance? Trollope's matchless handling of plot and character displays a skill whose distinctive literary qualities are celebrated in this new edition.


Author(s):  
Martina Nied Curcio

AbstractMisunderstandings between speakers of different languages occur not only on a linguistic level but also on a cultural one. Consultation of a bilingual dictionary does not necessarily help in this case, as information on the cultural level is often missing. In this paper we will discuss how bilingual dictionaries can draw attention to cultural divergences so that the dictionary user acquires cultural knowledge and is able to build an intercultural competence. Examples from four bilingual dictionaries (German-Italian) are given to illustrate how culture-bound words are represented. For this purpose, a classification of culture-bound words is offered. Finally, the prerequisites and possibilities of an appropriate representation of culture-bound items in bilingual dictionaries will be proposed.


Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Ulrich Reubold ◽  
Sanne Ditewig ◽  
Robert Mayr ◽  
Ineke Mennen

The present study sought to examine the effect of dual language activation on L1 speech in late English–Austrian German sequential bilinguals, and to identify relevant predictor variables. To this end, we compared the English speech patterns of adult migrants to Austria in a code-switched and monolingual condition alongside those of monolingual native speakers in England in a monolingual condition. In the code-switched materials, German words containing target segments known to trigger cross-linguistic interaction in the two languages (i.e., [v–w], [ʃt(ʁ)-st(ɹ)] and [l-ɫ]) were inserted into an English frame; monolingual materials comprised English words with the same segments. To examine whether the position of the German item affects L1 speech, the segments occurred either before the switch (“He wants a Wienerschnitzel”) or after (“I like Würstel with mustard”). Critical acoustic measures of these segments revealed no differences between the groups in the monolingual condition, but significant L2-induced shifts in the bilinguals’ L1 speech production in the code-switched condition for some sounds. These were found to occur both before and after a code-switch, and exhibited a fair amount of individual variation. Only the amount of L2 use was found to be a significant predictor variable for shift size in code-switched compared with monolingual utterances, and only for [w]. These results have important implications for the role of dual activation in the speech of late sequential bilinguals.


2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Beatriz Sánchez Cárdenas ◽  
Pamela Faber

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2016v36nesp1p147Research in terminology has traditionally focused on nouns. Considerably less attention has been paid to other grammatical categories such as adverbs. However, these words can also be problematic for the novice translator, who tends to use the translation correspondences in bilingual dictionaries without realizing that formal equivalence is not necessarily the same as textual equivalence. However, semantic values, acquired in context, go far beyond dictionary meaning and are related to phenomena such as semantic prosody and preferences of lexical selection that can vary, depending on text type and specialized domain.This research explored the reasons why certain adverbial discourse connectors, apparently easy to translate, are a source of translation problems that cannot be easily resolved with a bilingual dictionary. Moreover, this study analyzed the use of parallel corpora in the translation classroom and how it can increase the quality of text production. For this purpose, we compared student translations before and after receiving training on the use of corpus analysis tools


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 358-375
Author(s):  
Desi Karlina

Globalization has resulted in a shift in human morals, marked by the many cases of moral deviations that are rife in various parts of Indonesia so that the application of spiritual attitudes has not been maximized. The attitude of dishonesty is shown by the number of students who cheat on the test, and the attitude of indiscipline is shown by the number of students who are late so that the application of social attitudes does not seem to be visible. The role of PAI teachers is considered quite important for the development of these two attitudes. At SMPN 1 Darussalam, PAI teachers have played a role in fostering spiritual and social attitudes. Big. This research was conducted with a field study using a qualitative descriptive method. Data collection techniques were carried out through interviews and documentation. The results showed the role of PAI teachers in fostering spiritual attitudes by praying before and after lessons, praying in congregation, doing charity activities every Friday, and religious activities. The role of PAI teachers in fostering social attitudes is carried out through social service activities, visiting the Disabled Foundation and nursing homes, getting used to the 3S (smile, greeting, greeting), reporting to the teacher what items are found, punishing students who are late. Factors supporting the role of Islamic Education teachers in fostering spiritual and social attitudes are seen from adequate school facilities in the form of female/male prayer rooms, learning media such as LCD, the use of active methods. While the inhibiting factors include the lack of adequate facilities, especially LCDs, the lack of interest in teachers and knowledge, and the lack of interest in students to improve themselves.


Author(s):  
Nataliia Koval

The focus of the study is prosodic emphasis and its correlation with the sociocultural characteristics of native speakers who have shown them during lectures. Thus, the accentuation of the informational structure of lectures is regarded as an indicator of the speaker’s language culture. This research was conducted within the framework of academic style. The relevance of this article is because currently the issues of the culture of the studied foreign language, including the culture of the spoken language, are of particular importance in the context of globalization, when English became the language of international communication, which operates on the territories of countries with different cultural traditions. The identification of the British norm of linguistic culture is presented in this article on the example of the prosody of the information structure of lectures. So, the conducted audit analysis of quasi-spoken speech of texts of academic style in British and American lecturers’ implementation allowed the author to draw the following conclusions: 1) the sociocultural characteristics of the speaker largely determine the culture of his/her speech behavior; 2) accentuation, being a particular manifestation of the category of emphasis and performing the function of the logical organization of the utterance, can serve as an indicator of the complexity of thinking; 3) the rhythmic pattern of the experimental sounding material corresponds to generally accepted data – 1:2 for the British version and 1:1.3 for the American one; 4) the most frequent are emphatic patterns having the ratio of stressed syllables to unstressed equal to 1: 1; 1: 1.3; 1: 2.


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