Assessing the effectiveness of bilingual dictionaries for translation with reference to Al-Mawrid English/Arabic dictionary
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The present study assesses Al-Mawrid dictionary from the perspective of the degree of its usefulness as a translational tool. It starts by reviewing available published studies on related subjects such as cognitive semantics, neologism lexicography and terminology compilation; and how useful Al-Mawrid is as a tool in the hands of professional translation practitioners. \nThe choice of Al-Mawrid as a subject of investigation stems from the fact that it is the most popular, the most sold and the most utilized tool in a market considered to be similar in size to that of Western Europe. \nThe study attempts to assess the degree of efficiency and adequacy of Al-Mawrid as a tool in a translational context and this assessment is carried out through an empirical investigation, which includes a 20,000 word-long corpus, randomly compiled and translated by randomly selected professional translators. \nThe study unveils a number of areas of weakness in Al-Mawrid based on the premise that it is a prominent translational tool and also when compared to other prominent dictionaries in other languages such as The \nNew Oxford Dictionary of English (1998). Furthermore, the analysis highlights areas in a number of Al-Mawrid’s entries that contain confusing and at times unclear explanations which were shown to be of little use to the translators in some contexts. The study also provides a number of suggestions which could be considered to produce a more up-to-date version of Al- Mawrid in order for it to be of a greater help to the translator/interpreter.
Author: Smsg Al Mazrouei
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2109958724