Style And Style Labels In English-Chinese Bilingual Dictionaries

Competent language use entails not only knowing how to combine words (grammar) and what the words denote (meaning) but also developing an instinct about the situations in which words can be used. To indicate information about the use and situation, most dictionaries resort to what are often called "style labels".With the study of ECBD, we soon found that though style labels are used widely, their use is not at all consistent and most dictionaries do not even explain what they mean by "style" in the dictionary. Besides, a close look at the front matters of a few well-known dictionaries also reveals that the labeling system is in such a disorder that would confuse foreign learners in a certain degree. Furthermore, labeling has long been one of the major bugbears of lexicography. Theoretical documentation on this topic is sparse, which makes the present study more difficult and complicated.This present thesis probes into the style labels on the aspects of 1) Ideas on style and the related concepts in lexicography; 2) Contrastive analysis of different ECBDs' front matters; 3) Questionnaire of how dictionary users' understanding and applying of style labels in ECBDs and which style labeling system is more user-friendly; 4) Contrastive comparison of style labeling practices in different dictionaries' entries; 5) Corpus analysis to help determine the style labeling and the correctness of the style labeling.Suggestions and improvements in style labeling practices in EC bilingual dictionaries have been made at the end of the thesis for further study.