{"title":"Literary Quotations in Bilingual Dictionaries: A Case Study of a Nineteenth-century Dutch–Chinese Dictionary","authors":"A. Heijns","doi":"10.5788/31-1-1625","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The phenomenon of literary quotations in dictionaries finds its origin in the days when the search for equivalents was intertextual rather than interlingual based. For both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries the purpose of literary quotations is to supply evidence of usage and illuminate the meaning of the relevant headword, with the difference that for bilingual dictionaries this is done via translation. This article examines this phenomenon in a nineteenth century Dutch–Chinese dictionary by analysing sample sentences that the compiler has extracted from original Chinese texts. Discussion of examples from different types of text will probe the functioning of the quotations and the intention of the compiler. The inclusion of the quotations in the dictionary appear to be the result of both linguistic and cultural intention, in the sense that they are revealing of the syntax of Chinese but also aspects of Chinese culture. These findings will contribute to the understanding of the practice of the inclusion of literary quotations in bilingual dictionaries and the role of the compiler in introducing foreign cultural aspects.","PeriodicalId":43907,"journal":{"name":"Lexikos","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Lexikos","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5788/31-1-1625","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The phenomenon of literary quotations in dictionaries finds its origin in the days when the search for equivalents was intertextual rather than interlingual based. For both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries the purpose of literary quotations is to supply evidence of usage and illuminate the meaning of the relevant headword, with the difference that for bilingual dictionaries this is done via translation. This article examines this phenomenon in a nineteenth century Dutch–Chinese dictionary by analysing sample sentences that the compiler has extracted from original Chinese texts. Discussion of examples from different types of text will probe the functioning of the quotations and the intention of the compiler. The inclusion of the quotations in the dictionary appear to be the result of both linguistic and cultural intention, in the sense that they are revealing of the syntax of Chinese but also aspects of Chinese culture. These findings will contribute to the understanding of the practice of the inclusion of literary quotations in bilingual dictionaries and the role of the compiler in introducing foreign cultural aspects.
期刊介绍:
Lexikos (Greek for "of or for words") is a journal for the lexicographical specialist. It is the only journal in Africa which is exclusively devoted to lexicography. Articles dealing with all aspects of lexicography and terminology or the implications that research in related disciplines such as linguistics, computer and information science, etc. has for lexicography will be considered for publication. Articles may be written in Afrikaans, English, Dutch, German and French.