On Pragmatic Failure In C-E Dictionary Translation

As authoritative reference books, Chinese-English dictionaries play an important role in translation practice and other foreign language teaching and learning activities. Among factors that contribute to the success of Chinese-English dictionaries, the quality of translations in them is a key factor.Pragmatics, as a relatively new branch of linguistics, has been developing rapidly in the past decades. More and more lexicographers, both at home and abroad, have found pragmatics useful and helpful in natural language understanding and have made some studies of its application to lexicography. However, what they concern most is the treatment of pragmatic information in dictionaries. Few of them have probed into dictionary translation from a pragmatic perspective. Translation in C-E dictionaries, seen from the perspective of pragmatics, is far from satisfactory since a great number of pragmatic failures exist in current C-E dictionaries. Therefore, under the guideline of pragmatic theory and dictionary translation principles, the present author attempts to identify pragmatic failures in current C-E dictionaries by way of case study, analyze the causes of those failures, and put forward some tentative solutions or strategies to solve those problems.After an investigation into the relationship between pragmatics, translation and dictionary translation, the present author proposes a pragmatic approach to dictionary translation. Then, through case studies of four popular Chinese-English dictionaries, she proceeds to explore the various causes of pragmatic failure in C-E dictionary translation. Finally, she puts forward some tentative suggestions as to how to avoid such failures in C-E dictionary translation.