Refine
Document Type
- Part of a Book (5)
- Article (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (6)
Keywords
- Lexikogaphie (6) (remove)
Publicationstate
- Veröffentlichungsversion (6) (remove)
Reviewstate
- Peer-Review (4)
- (Verlags)-Lektorat (1)
- Verlags-Lektorat (1)
Any bilingual dictionary is contrastive by nature, as it documents linguistic information between language pairs. However, the design and compilation of most bilingual dictionaries is often no more than mere lists of lexical or semantic equivalents. In internet forums, one can observe a huge interest in acquiring relevant knowledge about specific lexical items or pairs that are prone to comparison in a more comprehensive manner as they may pose lexical semantic challenges. In particular, these often concern easily confused pairs (e.g. false friends or paronyms) and new terms increasingly travelling between languages in news and social media (Šetka-Čilić/Ilić Plauc 2021). With regard to English and German, the fundamental comparative principles upon which contrastive guides should be build are either absent, or specialised contrastive dictionaries simply do not exist, e.g. comprehensive descriptive resources for false friends, paronyms, protologisms or neologisms (see Gouws/Prinsloo/de Schryver 2004). As a result, users turn to electronic resources such as Google translate, blogs and language forums for help. For example, it is English words such as muscular which have two German translations options.
These are two confusables muskulär and muskulös both of which exhibit a different semantic profile. German sensitiv/sensibel and their English formal counterparts sensitive/sensible are false friends. However, these terms are highly polysemous in both languages and have semantic features in common. Their full meaning spectrum is hardly captured in bilingual dictionaries to allow for a full comparison. Translating protologisms such as German Doppelwumms as well as more established new words is one of the most challenging problems. Currently, German neologisms such as Klimakleber are translated as climate glue (instead of climate activist glueing him-/herself onto objects) by online tools, simply causing mistakes and contextual distortion. Most challenges users face today are well-known (e.g. Rets 2016). New terms are often unregistered in dictionaries and it is often impossible to make appropriate choices between two or more (commonly misused) words between two languages (e.g. Benzehra 2007). These are all relevant problems to translators and language learners alike (e.g González Ribao 2019).
This paper calls for the implication of insights from contrastive lexicology into modern bilingual lexicography. To turn dictionaries into valuable resources and in order to create productive strategies in a learning environment, the practice of writing dictionaries requires a critical re-assessment. Furthermore, the full potential of electronic contrastive resources needs to be recognised and put into practice. After all, monolingual German lexicography has started to reflect on how users’ needs can be accounted for in specific comparative linguistic situations. Some of these ideas can be comfortably extended to bilingual reference guides. On the one hand, this paper will deliver a critical account of some English-German/German-English dictionaries and touch on the shortcomings of contemporary bilingual lexicography. On the other hand, with the help of fictitious resources I will demonstrate contrastive structures as focal points of consultations which answer some of the more frequent language questions more reliably. Among others, I will explain how we need to build user-friendly dictionaries to allow for translating false friends or easily confusable words from the source language into its target language efficiently. With regard to neologisms, I will show how discursive descriptions and definitions that are more elaborate can support language learners to learn about necessary extra-linguistic knowledge. Overall, this could improve the role of specialised dictionaries in the teaching or translating process (cf. Miliç/Sadri/Glušac 2019).
The paper presents the results of a survey on lexicographic practices and lexicographers’ needs across Europe that was conducted in the context of the Horizon 2020 project European Lexicographic Infrastructure (ELEXIS) among the observer institutions of the project. The survey is a revised and upgraded version of the survey which was originally conducted among ELEXIS lexicographic partner institutions in 2018 (Kallas et al. 2019a). The main goal of this new survey was to complement the data from the ELEXIS lexicographic partner institutions in order to get a more complete picture of lexicographic practices both for born-digital and retro-digitised resources in Europe. The results offer a detailed insight into many aspects of the lexicographic process at European institutions, such as funding, training, staff, lexicographic expertise, software and tools. In addition, the survey reflects on current trends in lexicography and reveals what institutions see as the most important emerging trends that will affect lexicography in the short-term and long-term future. Overall, the results provide valuable input informing the development of tools, resources, guidelines and training materials within ELEXIS.
This paper presents the methodology of a research project on the use of specialised German dictionaries. A mixed-methods research approach will help to answer the following main questions, concerning the lexicographic presentation of the data on the one hand and the data collection on the other hand: How do different systems of data organization and presentation affect the likelihood that users will correctly find and select the data they look up? And does the probability of success increase if users are familiar with the system? Which advantages and disadvantages do lexicographers and specialised languages experts see in using quantitative methods to extract terms? And are these methods accepted and considered reliable by the user community?
Wörterbuchkultur
(1986)
In this paper, we discuss an efficient method of (semi-automatic) neologism detection for German and its application for the production of a dictionary of neologisms, focusing on the lexicographic process. By monitoring the language via editorial (print and online) media evaluation and interpreting the findings on the basis of lexicographic competence, many, but not all neologisms can be identified which qualify for inclusion in the Neologismenworterbuch (2006-today) at the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim (IDS). In addition, an automated corpus linguistic method offers neologism candidates based on a systematic analysis of large amounts of text to lexicographers. We explain the principles of the corpus linguistic compilation of a list of candidates and show how lexicographers work with the results, combining them with their own findings in order to continuously enlarge this specialized online dictionary of new words in German.
Grammatik
(2005)