Interpretation Of Additional Cultural Meanings Of Words In ECLDs

Word meaning mainly consists of conceptual meaning and a set of additional meanings, including cultural meaning. Although the conceptual meaning is the central part of lexical definition, it does not mean that the additional cultural meaning (ACM) is unimportant. In the majority of cases, it plays a vital role in the cross-cultural communication, which is generally accepted as the essential purpose of learning English for Chinese college students. Therefore, the acquisition of ACMs is overwhelmingly important for Chinese learners who learn English as foreign language (EFL).Dictionaries are regarded as a record and description of word meanings, and they are useful reference books for EFL learners. However, the current ECLDs are far from satisfactory in interpreting the ACMs of words, and thus they cannot meet the users' demands in this respect.The present study makes an attempt to do a systematic research on the interpretation of the ACMs in ECLDs, focusing on some specific aspects of cultural meanings that proceed from the language intuition of English native speakers. They are associative meaning, connotative meaning, and symbolic meaning. A contrastive study shows that the existing home-made ECLDs lag behind the "foreign-made" ELDs, such as the LDELC and the MEDAL, in the interpretation of ACMs. The imperfection is chiefly found in three aspects: scope of words interpreted, front-matter instruction, and interpretation of ACMs in the entry. An empirical study indicates what is neglected in the existing ECLDs is just what users need for their English study.Since learner's dictionaries (LDs) are users-oriented, it is necessary to improve the lexicographical interpretation of the ACMs for modern ECLDs. On the basis of the successful experience of the LDELC and the MEDAL, the present research tries to propose a systematic model for the ACM interpretation in ECLDs. In the front matter, the ECLDs should provide a practical instruction for users in terms of the categories, means, and the access to ACMs. At the level of microstructure, the interpretation of ACMs in ECLDs should be made on the basis of the Multidimensional Definition so that the ACMs would be represented in various definitional items and by different devices. Ultimately, six procedures are recommended, which is an integration of the traditional translation techniques and the devices from monolingual learner's dictionaries (MLDs).