Transcript Bilingual Lexicography - Kwary's Free Resources

Bilingual Lexicography
Deny A. Kwary
Today’s Topics
1.
2.
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5.
What is a Bilingual Dictionary?
The Steps to Making a Bilingual Dictionary
Parallel Corpora and Comparable Corpora
Equivalents in Bilingual Dictionaries
Structure of Bilingual Dictionaries
1. What is a Bilingual Dictionary?

A bilingual dictionary is a dictionary that presents the
lexicon and phraseology of one language (called the
source language) and translates these components
into a second language (the target language).

Since a bilingual dictionary is a practical tool, it almost
invariably consists of a single volume and is often (but
not always) divided into two parts – the source
language of the first part becomes the target language
of the second part, and vice versa.
2. The Steps to Making a Bilingual Dictionary
According to Atkins (1990), the production of a bilingual
dictionary can be divided into three main stages:
1. Analysis of the source language:
 This stage is performed by lexicographers who
analyze their native language and produce a detailed,
structured account of each lexical item (word,
phrase, or morpheme).
 This account of the source language is called the
framework.
 The framework must also contain many examples of
phraseology typical of the way the word is normally
used, as well as any other information that will
facilitate the next stage, called the transfer.
2. Transfer:
 This stage is the translation stage: the meanings of words
and their contexts are translated into the target-language
system.
 At a glance, it looks simple, particularly because the lexical
units or phraseological items tend to be short. In fact, it is
an extremely complex task, not least because different
translation equivalents of a given word need to be chosen
in different contexts, and in some cases there is no direct
translation equivalent, so a circumlocution must be found.
 The final product of this stage is the translated framework.
 This framework is an extremely rich bilingual resource, but
too rich for a dictionary because much of the information is
specific only to certain contexts. Therefore, it needs careful
trimming and generalizing.
3. Synthesis:
 During synthesis, the translated framework is cut to
size and reorganized into manageable, readable
dictionary entries.
 Editors work in pairs: an editor whose mother tongue
is the source language works with a target-language
speaker.
 Editors use all sorts of conventional resources (other
dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference books, and
glossaries) and, in some cases, draw upon the skills
and knowledge of specialist consultants in technical
areas such as the terminology of medicine, law,
business, or science. Of course, they also have access
to corpus data.
3. Parallel Corpora
 Parallel corpora consist of original texts alongside targetlanguage translations, aligned as far as possible sentence by
sentence.
 Parallel corpora allow instant access to translations and
instant comparisons to the original texts.
 However, a translation is inevitably a text written under the
influence of another language, and a translated text is only as
good as its translator. The danger of interference from the
idiom and syntax of the source language is ever present.
3. Comparable Corpora
 Comparable corpora are collections of texts with similar
contents in both languages.
 Though related more loosely, the texts in comparable corpora
were produced for their own sakes, i.e., independently, not in
relation to a source text in a foreign language.
 However, comparable corpora also require extra work of
lexicographers; without a ready-to-use solution, they must
search around similar themes in their hunt for translation
equivalents.
4. Equivalents in bilingual dictionaries
1. Full equivalence:
leap year
tahun kabisat
2. Partial equivalence: Add the ‘missing’ feature.
rice1
rice2
(husked rice ) beras; padi tanpa kulit yang siap untuk
dimasak menjadi nasi
(cooked rice) nasi; beras yang sudah dimasak atau
dikukus sehingga dapat dimakan
3. Zero equivalence: Use direct borrowing, new coinage, loantranslation, or description.
fiscal
boxing day
fiskal
Hari libur resmi setelah Hari Natal. Di Inggris,
boxing day jatuh pada tanggal 26 Desember.
Secara tradisional pada hari ini orang-orang
membagikan hadiah natal yang dibungkus
dalam bentuk kotak (box).
5. Structure of Bilingual Dictionaries

The structure of a bilingual entry ranges from very simple to very
complex.

A very simple structure of a bilingual dictionary:
A monosemous regular word in the source language is translated by a
monosemous word in the target language, with no irregularities.
For example: Kamus Online Jawa-Indonesian, Gadjah Mada University.
headword
translation
A complex structure of a bilingual dictionary, e.g. Oxford-Hachette
French Dictionary on CD-ROM, 3rd edn, Oxford University Press.
headword
grammatical
categories
phonetics
noun translations
given with gender
meaning signposts
in parentheses
contextualizations
in square brackets
senses within
grammatical
categories
swung dash
replaces headword
phrasal verbs
at end of entry
contextualization
after verb = object
contextualization
before verb = subject
register
Informal
very informal
vulgar or taboo
That’s all for this week.
Thank You.