Example Translation In Bilingual Dictionaries

The compilation of a bilingual dictionary is,in fact,the process of translation.In bilingual dictionaries,the choosing and translating of its examples are so important to people.Definitions are the core in a dictionary,while examples which are the extension of them,make a supplement to the core.Both definitions and examples become the body or soul of a dictionary.Apart from providing language environments for the target reader to supplement definitions,examples in bilingual dictionaries also add collocation information of words and usages so as to help readers' understanding of its definitions.Dictionary reviewers often talk that "examples in a dictionary are just like the fresh and blood of the body",which means examples and their translation are very important in dictionaries.In 1995,Liu Zhongde expatiated his views that "there isn't a fixed definition on words,and there isn't a fixed method on translation" in Shandong Foreign Language Teaching Journal.In other words,the meaning of a word depends on its context which is changeable,so the methods of its translation are also changeable.All this indicates that translation is closely related to its context.Based on the lexicographical field,this thesis is aimed at demonstrating the influence of context theory on example translation with the framework of the context theory of the semantic prototype model. Through the contrastive analysis of the differences of context theory in textual translation and example translation,we come to know that context also exists in example translation.However,example translation is a kind of special translation which lacks of a paragraphic or textual context which is provided by general translation,it needs translators to study it under its inadequacy of context or its small context.Therefore,the idiosyncrasy of examples determines that it can't be looked through when it is translated.At present,there are only a few researchers who have worked on example translation,gave a rational consideration out of its practice.This thesis which is aimed at lacking of relative macroscopical guiding theories,explains the most important function of example translation is to provide a typical context to headwords so as to avoid invalidation or inadequacy of the context.Moreover,the thesis,on the one hand,gives a brief introduction of the developing history and characteristics of the OALD.Then it launches on the semantic structure comparison,that is, from the angle of textual semantics,to choose 21 examples to analyze the translation in OALD₆.Through analyzing these examples,the author thinks that the main task of an example is to keep the equivalence with the example of its source language.On the other hand,we make a discussion on the methodology of example translation from its evaluating standard and consider that example translation should adopt the principle of "taking the literal translation as the main approach and the free translation as the supplementary approach".Therefore,this thesis,points out that example translation should follow some relevant guiding principles such as the principle of meaning verifying,the principle of meaning extending,the principle of appropriateness and word growing to achieve the functional equivalence.