| Sources
for the collection of material for the compilation of
a bilingual dictionary depend upon whether monolingual
dictionary or dictionaries in that particular language
exist or not.
As Zgusta (1971) observes,
as far as the collection of material goes, the bilingual
dictionary-maker is in a comfortable as well as an enviable
position, particularly if there is already a good, comprehensive,
descriptive dictionary or an overall descriptive dictionary
with a standard descriptive nucleus in the source language,
the work of the lexicographer would be simple. Then
the compiler need not refer to the literature and other
texts for the collection of words and their meanings.
He may use them only as the secondary sources, if necessary.
He can, otherwise, simply select the important vocabulary
from the monolingual dictionary for his world-list.
In that case, the lexicographer simply translates the
definitions into the Target Language. The compiler need
not give all the meanings of polysemous words. He can
choose and translate the important meanings which are
necessary for the Target language people to know. In
bilingual dictionaries lexicographic contexts are generally
avoided.
If there are many monolingual
dictionaries in a given language, the compiler of a
bilingual lexicon must choose one of them, which is
the most similar the planned one. For example, a strictly
modern standard descriptive monolingual dictionary should
be chosen, if the planned bilingual dictionary is intended
to cover only the words from the standard language.
Even after the selection
of an excellent monolingual dictionary, which is similar
to the planned one, the material contained in it must
be compared with the other existing monolingual dictionaries
to determine whether all the important and functional
words are covered in it or not. The area covered in
the monolingual dictionary may not be sufficient, if
the areas planned to be covered in the bilingual dictionary
are vast. For example, the monolingual dictionary may
be based on the literary texts, whereas the bilingual
one intends to cover the administrative and technical
words also. In such cases the collection of entries
should be completed with other sources such as specialized
excerption from the respective texts.
The monolingual dictionary
selected as the basis for the bilingual lexical work,
will naturally be older than the planned one. But the
difference of time should be very great. For example,
to compile a bilingual dictionary in 1994, the compiler
should not select the monolingual dictionary compiled
in 1890 or 1925. Because in the meantime a lot of vocabulary
would have entered in that language. The meanings of
some words might have changed in course of time. If
the time gap is three or four years, it is easy to include
the new lexical units or new senses in the bilingual
dictionary. By special excerption, the compiler can
fill the gap satisfactorily.
If there is not a single
monolingual dictionary in the source language, then
the work of the compiler is likely to be very challenging.
The materials for the bilingual dictionary must be collected
in the same way as it is collected for the monolingual
dictionary. The compiler himself must then do much descriptive
and other work. He must decide what are to be considered
stabilized lexical units and what not. He has also to
deal with the multiple meanings of each lexical unit.
All these difficulties make his work considerably more
difficult and longer.
Sometimes other bilingual
dictionaries can also be used as a source for the preparation
of a bilingual dictionary provided the compiler of the
proposed bilingual dictionary knows the target language
of the other bilingual. For example, a Telugu-Kannada
bilingual dictionary can be used as a source for the
preparation of a Telugu Tamil dictionary, if the compiler
of the latter knows Kannada well. In such conditions
he need not look into a large number of the monolingual
Telugu dictionary, excepting the essential ones. If
he has a good knowledge of Kannada, he can simply translate
the definitions of the Telugu words from Kannada into
Tamil.
Finally, the existing
good literary translations of texts both from the SL
to the TL and vice versa are also be a good source for
the compilation of a bilingual dictionary. They show
how the translators handle the culture-bound and other
difficult words. The footnotes provide the required
explanation or definitions for the culture-bound words. |
