Pragmatic Labelling In Advanced Learner's Bilingualized English-chinese Dictionaries

The achievements made in the study of pragmatics have become more and more significant in lexicographic teaching and lexicographic studies,the presentation of pragmatic information in a dictionary has risen to be one of the most important elements in the study of it.Pragmatic labels,indicating pragmatic information in a dictionary,have always been a strong support for learners to properly use their language and facilitate successful cross-cultural communication.Basically,labels in dictionaries are to provide information about restrictions and constraints regarding the use of certain words or senses in the contexts in which they occur or in relation to other words described in a dictionary.To learners of English as an EFL,a dictionary should not only guide them how to properly use words and senses,but also should provide them with necessary pragmatic information to guarantee successful communication.Being in an increasingly complicated linguistic environment,the issue— how to describe and present the pragmatic labels in the advanced learner's bilingualized English-Chinese dictionaries in a more justified way so as to provide learners with more reliable pragmatic information — is becoming an indispensable research field for the current lexicographic studies both theoretically and practically.This thesis has made an effort to make a comprehensive investigation into the development status and trends of pragmatic labelling in advanced learner's bilingualized English-Chinese dictionaries.During the investigative process,we find that the labeling system,usage standard and categorization have given rise to much confusion and discrepancies which result in misleading the learners/users of this type of dictionaries in their understanding and using of certain words.Therefore,this thesis has conducted a research on several representative advanced learner's bilingualized English-Chinese dictionaries regarding the pragmatic labels in each of them.We have inquired into the issues existed in the label list as well as the meaning scope of the labels listed in the front matter of the dictionaries.Both the inconsistency and consistency in the labelling of the entry words in eachdictionary have also been investigated.Based from the above analysis we come to the conclusion that the labelling system in this type of learner's dictionaries is not that well-grounded and perfect enough with many problems unsolved.Thus,the author has attempted to put forward several suggestions regarding the labelling system from a user's perspective: 1)to set up a label list in the front matter,to strictly clarify the meaning scope of the labels and to avoid the misusage of some synonymous labels in the dictionary;2)to unify the labelling system of dictionary of the same type in order to save time and energy for learners in their accommodation and using of labels to facilitate prompt dictionary use;3)a unified system can also avoid the misleading resulted from labelling discrepancy or inconsistency for learners;4)to timely update and adjust the labelling system to catch up with the changes and development occurred to the language;5)as for the domestic-made advance learner's bilingualized English-Chinese dictionaries,they can use or draw experience from the authoritative monolingual English dictionaries as a guidance in their practice of labelling so that their labelling system could be synchronous with international level.The author shall make great effort to integrate those suggestions into both the micro and macro structure of the labelling system of a dictionary from the user's perspective to strive for an optimized labelling system and show learners the pragmatic information of an entry word in a more reasonable way which is adapted to their cognitive models.