Design of a terminological learner’s dictionary in the customs sphere: A corpus approach

Abstract

The article discusses the principles of designing of a multilingual educational terminological dictionary in the customs sphere for the Russian-Belarusian-Kazakh-Kirghiz-Armenian language pairs. The dictionary is planned in electronic format and is intended for the University of Tyumen’s students majoring in Customs. A review of the existing dictionaries of the customs subject area is made. The prerequisites for compiling such a dictionary are analyzed: both in the professional customs domain and from a linguistic point of view. The thematic criteria for determining the boundaries of the discourse of the named subject area are described, the principles of modeling the elements of discourse are listed. The corpus-based study (AntConc, SketchEngine) describes the qualitative and quantitative principles of determining the coverage of discourse, algorithms for the formation of the general population and the sample size, the selection of relevant terminological units for the dictionary. Lexicographic work involves the consideration of different types of sources: (a) official documents (standards, program documents of the EAEU, regulatory legal acts, agreements on international treaties, protocols of meetings of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council); (b) official websites of the customs services of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan; (c) scientific/educational texts (summary monographs, articles in relevant specialized journals, new research in the field of customs studies); (d) dictionaries and encyclopedias. Each term has been selected on the basis of importance and usage within an area of the customs sphere. This dictionary will include various types of information: multilingual equivalents of terms, references to synonyms, antonyms, hypohyperonyms, and abbreviations. An ideographic dictionary - built using the corpus approach - will allow (a) analysing and structuring key concepts and trends in a simplified form using equivalents, pointers and links that reflect the subject area of the customs sphere; (b) collecting the minimum number of terminological units of real usage that are most effective in professional communication. (c) solving the problems posed by the different lexicalization of the same concepts in different languages. Quantitative and systemic criteria were used for this purpose. The learner’s dictionary can help students to understand and translate terminological texts, perform more effectively in a multilingual workplace, and advance knowledge in professional communication. The results can be applied not only to terminology representation, but also to terminography, documentation and translation. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.