Friend or enemy?: a case study of lexical comparison between Italian, German and Japanese bilingual dictionaries

• Autores: Mauro Costantino
• Localización: Proceedings of the XIII EURALEX International Congress (Barcelona, 15-19 July 2008) / coord. por Janet Ann DeCesaris, Elisenda Bernal, 2008, ISBN 978-84-96742-67-3, págs. 821-825
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This work aims to demonstrate with a case study of bilingual Italian-German, Italian- Japanese, and German-Japanese dictionaries, exactly to what extent lexical drifting can manifest itself. Through a few examples, the study will raise issues of gender and cultural problems in bilingual dictionaries, and the peculiar case of a distant language like Japanese in comparison to German and Italian. The importance of considering both cultural and background knowledge when both building and consulting bilingual dictionaries will be stressed, in order for one not to obtain an outcome contrary to expectation. Finally, suggestions about how to overcome these problems will be made, with consideration given to the difficulty of dealing with strongly culturally-bound terms and their meanings.