Idioms in Bilingual Dictionaries
IDIOMS IN BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more languages, and it reflects the vocabulary of a language. Its purpose is to provide information on the meaning of words, combinations with other words, sometimes also pronunciation and other aspects of a language. Dictionaries can be classified by many different aspects – for example, a dictionary can be monolingual, bilingual, bilingualised or even multilingual. If the dictionary is bilingual, it can be either unidirectional or bidirectional. Dictionaries can deal with general language, with special terms or specific area of a language and dictionaries vary for their purposes. Thus, dictionaries can also be classified according to their size. Usually the most popular dictionaries are monolingual and bilingual, and this essay aims at exploring the usage of multiword expressions, idioms in particular, in bilingual dictionaries.
Burkhanov (1998) defines a bilingual dictionary as “a work of reference whose word list is organized in the following way: L1→L2, which means that lemmata of one language usually referred to as an object of language, are explicated using another language – a target language” (Burkhanov, 1998: 29). Bilingual dictionaries have a longer history than monolingual, and their position is already well-established. Typically bilingual dictionaries are translation dictionaries, and at this point the treatment of idioms and other multiword expressions should be seriously considered. Bilingual dictionaries can be general or specialized, encyclopaedic or linguistic, alphabetical or thematic, diachronic or synchronic, in print or electronic format and they also vary according to various user groups and various sizes. Bilingual dictionaries can be divided according to their purpose – if your native language is the SL, then the dictionary is for encoding needs (also called an active dictionary), but if your native language is the TL, then the dictionary is for decoding
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more languages, and it reflects the vocabulary of a language. Its purpose is to provide information on the meaning of words, combinations with other words, sometimes also pronunciation and other aspects of a language. Dictionaries can be classified by many different aspects – for example, a dictionary can be monolingual, bilingual, bilingualised or even multilingual. If the dictionary is bilingual, it can be either unidirectional or bidirectional. Dictionaries can deal with general language, with special terms or specific area of a language and dictionaries vary for their purposes. Thus, dictionaries can also be classified according to their size. Usually the most popular dictionaries are monolingual and bilingual, and this essay aims at exploring the usage of multiword expressions, idioms in particular, in bilingual dictionaries.
Burkhanov (1998) defines a bilingual dictionary as “a work of reference whose word list is organized in the following way: L1→L2, which means that lemmata of one language usually referred to as an object of language, are explicated using another language – a target language” (Burkhanov, 1998: 29). Bilingual dictionaries have a longer history than monolingual, and their position is already well-established. Typically bilingual dictionaries are translation dictionaries, and at this point the treatment of idioms and other multiword expressions should be seriously considered. Bilingual dictionaries can be general or specialized, encyclopaedic or linguistic, alphabetical or thematic, diachronic or synchronic, in print or electronic format and they also vary according to various user groups and various sizes. Bilingual dictionaries can be divided according to their purpose – if your native language is the SL, then the dictionary is for encoding needs (also called an active dictionary), but if your native language is the TL, then the dictionary is for decoding