Cultural Information In English-Chinese Dictionaries

Language is a symbolic communication system, which is an important carrier of culture and even a part of culture. As a language can reflect a given culture, lexicon in a language will inevitably have cultural connotation. In foreign language teaching and learning, the importance of the relationship between language and culture in intercultural communication has gradually been recognized.Bilingual dictionaries deal with two language systems as well as two cultures. By coordinating the lexical units of one language with those of another language which are equivalent, a bilingual dictionary can act as a decoder of the source language and an encoder for messages in the target language. Therefore, the bilingual dictionary serves as a bridge between two languages and two cultures.This thesis is an exploration of cultural information in bilingual dictionaries in general and English-Chinese dictionaries in particular. The distribution of cultural information in bilingual dictionaries is analyzed from macrostructure and microstructure respectively. The macrostructure is discussed in terms of coverage of vocabulary, front matter and back matter. The microstructure is studied in spelling and pronunciation, equivalents, illustrative examples, cultural notes, etymological information, and pictorial illustrations.In an analysis of cultural information in four existing English-Chinese dictionaries, i.e. ECD, AECD, NECD and TECD, various methods of treating cultural information have been discovered, and deficiencies revealed. For example, etymological information and pictorial illustrations are rarely provided in the dictionaries, which may be detrimental to the usefulness of the dictionaries.In the last part of the thesis, research findings in intercultural communication and foreign language teaching and learning are introduced. The relationship between language awareness and cultural awareness is emphasized, which justifies the importance of bilingual dictionaries in EFL. Stereotype in intercultural communication is analyzed, and the issue of how to cultivate intercultural communicative competence in EIL context is explored. Bearing in mind these research findings, tentative suggestions are given to improve cultural information in English-Chinese dictionaries.