Study Of Pronunciation Information In The English-Chinese Dictionary

With the development of linguistics, more and more research achievements of phonetics and phonology have been applied into lexicography practices. Nowadays, transcription has become one indispensable element to both compilers and users. For the compilers, they have to be observant enough to make the transcription in harmony with the mainstream pronunciation and avoid getting either obsolete or ahead in pronunciation transcription in the dictionary, and for the users, especially the EFL learners, dictionary is a major source for them to seek pronunciation information and learn how to pronounce. However, EFL learners are more often than not at a loss for looking up the proper pronunciation information in the English dictionaries, which do not deal with the pronunciation consistently in some cases or lack related information. This is particularly true for the bilingual dictionaries in China.The English-Chinese Dictionary (ECD henceforth), published in 2007 with Lu Gusun as the chief editor, is regarded as by far the largest bilingual dictionary in China and enjoys the outstanding status in the bilingual dictionary circle. The ECD fails to provide sufficient pronunciation information to satisfy its users, though it is aimed at the advanced Chinese English learners who are working in the fields of translation, foreign affairs, teaching and technology, etc. The present research strives to point out its deficiencies in pronunciation transcription so as to improve its quality through the research into the following four issues: (i) the feasible schemes for the ECD to react to the newest variant pronunciations that have been widely used by the native speakers; (ii) the current situation of American English pronunciation in the ECD; (iii) the manner for the ECD to deal with the syllabification; (iv) the treatment of stress in compounds, verb phrases and expressions in the ECD.Furthermore, this proposed study mainly adopts a qualitative method since all the investigation and illustration collections in dictionaries are probably descriptive without concrete statistics of variables for quantitative analysis. In order to attain the research purpose, a comparative analysis method has been employed and the major findings are: in the present study. (i) conservativeness in pronunciation, which includes usage of the two weak vowels of /i/ and /u/ and transcription of the first recommended pronunciation; (ii) incompleteness of American pronunciation, which is dealt with from two aspects, i.e. phoneme equivalent and suffix equivalent; (iii) imperfection of phonetic syllabification; and (iv) inadequacy of stress information, in which three cases are analyzed, i.e. stress in the compounds, phrase verbs and expressions.Finally, the study has great practical value. On the one hand, it manages to give useful advice for the ECD to improve its quality on the whole and set a good example for the other domestic bilingual dictionaries. On the other hand, the study will cast some new light on textbook compiling and be helpful to the phonetics teaching and learning in our country.