On The Phenomenon Of Equivalence In Terms Of Definitions In Bilingual Dictionaries--An Empirical Study

The main task of a bilingual dictionary is to find an equivalent in the target language. Hence, translation equivalence is of great importance to compilation of a bilingual dictionary.In the 1950s and 1960s, theoreticians started to systematically analyze translation, and began to debate over equivalence. Many years after that, equivalence was regarded a central concept in translation. Equivalence can be roughly categorized into three types: complete equivalence, partial equivalence and non-equivalence. Of the types, solution to the issue of non-equivalence is particularly important and difficult.Translators and scholars tried various means to solve the issue of non-equivalence ever since they met this problem. Compilers of bilingual dictionaries try to solve the issue of non-equivalence on the basis of their achievements.Dictionary translation is based on general translation, but is different from the latter. Therefore, some methods that can be used to solve the issue of non-equivalence in general translation may not be useful in dictionary translation.Dictionary translation can be classified into two types: translation of headwords and that of examples. In this thesis, strategies used to solve non-equivalence should be analyzed, then a comparison will be made between general translation and dictionary translation, after that, strategies used to solve non-equivalence in bilingual dictionaries will be analyzed, and on this basis, recommended techniques to deal with non-equivalence in bilingual dictionaries will be presented.The thesis will end with some implications, limitations of the present study and suggestions for further research.