Which Microstructural Features of Bilingual Dictionaries Affect Users' Look-Up Performance?

Author: H. Al-Ajmi¹

Source: International Journal of Lexicography, Volume 15, Number 2, June 2002 , pp. 119-131(13)

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The International Journal of Lexicography was launched in 1988. Interdisciplinary as well as international, it is concerned with all aspects of lexicography, including issues of design, compilation and use, and with dictionaries of all languages, though the chief focus is on dictionaries of the major European languages - monolingual and bilingual, synchronic and diachronic, pedagogical and encyclopedic. The Journal recognizes the vital role of lexicographical theory and research, and of developments in related fields such as computational linguistics, and welcomes contributions in these areas. IJL will include a regular feature on some practical aspect of dictionary-making and will publish, also on a regular basis, reviews of dictionaries and books reflecting the full range of the Journal's interests.

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Abstract:

This study has been conducted with the aim of detecting possible links between the structural features of English-Arabic dictionaries and errors made by 46 English majors at Kuwait University when translating individual items they encountered in current English texts. Specially designed look-up records were used by the subjects for each problematic word. It was found that success rates decreased when long entries of polysemous words were consulted in the bilingual dictionary and the senses needed in the entries were located some distance away from the senses that these users actually extracted. Some of the students' erroneous translations were attributed to the problematic macro- and microstructural features of the English-Arabic dictionary: method of sense ordering, untranslated derivatives, column width, spacing between monosemous entries, typeface size, etc. The study also detected a part played by structural effects of the original English text, e.g. word division at line endings. The users were also responsible for some of these errors, e.g. by misreading the item in the text, especially in cases of English confusables.

Document Type: Original article

Affiliations: 1: Department of English (Faculty of Arts, Kuwait University, Kuwait) hashan98@yahoo.com