8th
International Conference of the
African
Association for Lexicography
AFRILEX
2003
Bilingual
Dictionaries
Programme
& Abstracts
To
front and back cover of this booklet (pdf 1.198KB)
|
Dates: |
7-9 July 2003 |
|
Host: |
Department of Germanic & Romance Languages, University
of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia |
|
Local Conference Organiser: |
Mr. Herman Beyer |
|
Abstract Reviewers: |
Prof. Rufus H. Gouws, Prof. D.J. Prinsloo, Dr.
Elsabé Taljard, Ms. Anneleen Van der Veken |
|
Programme Committee: |
Mr. Herman Beyer, Mr. Gilles-Maurice de Schryver,
Prof. D.J. Prinsloo |
edited
by
Gilles-Maurice
de Schryver
Organiser:
AFRILEX
Copyright
© 2003 by the African Association for Lexicography
ISBN
0-620-30795-1
Pretoria:
(SF)2 Press
Cover
Screenshots by David Joffe: “From TshwaneLex to Online Dictionary”
(david.joffe@africanlanguages.com
| http://africanlanguages.com)
Cover
Artwork by Giovanni Plozner
(info@giovanniplozner.com | http://www.giovanniplozner.com)
A FEW WORDS FROM THE CHAIRPERSON
Afrilex welcomes you
to our 8th International Conference which also marks our 8th
year of existence. We are proud to be a member of the international –lex
family and to present you with this Conference Abstract Booklet, once again
meticulously compiled and edited by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver.
I wish to thank you
for attending the Conference and for your loyal support for our Association and
lexicography in Africa.
Afrilex greetings
D.J. Prinsloo
§
Ulrich Heid — The Handling of
Collocations and Idiomatic Multiword Expressions: From Corpora to Dictionaries
§
Rufus H. Gouws — Outer Texts in
Bilingual Dictionaries
§
Gwyneth Fox — Corpus Research and
Lexicography
§
Thierry Afane Otsaga — Hybrid
Dictionaries – The Future of Lexicography
§
Mariëtta Alberts — Lexicography and Terminology Training at University Level
§
Herman L. Beyer — Can We Quantify the Effects of Dictionary Use?
§
Emmanuel Chabata —
Interviewer-Interviewee Interaction in Oral Interviews
§
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver — Concurrent Over-
and Under-treatment in Dictionaries — The Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal
as a case in point
§
James D. Emejulu — Revisiting
Equivalence in Bilingual Lexicography
§
James D. Emejulu, Yolande Nzang-Bie,
Pierre Ondo-Mebiame & D. Franck Idiata — Le
rôle des dictionnaires bilingues dans le développement des langues Gabonaises: Le cas du fang
§
Rachélle Gauton — Bilingual Dictionaries, the Lexicographer
and the Translator
§
Wilfrid H.G. Haacke — A Khoekhoegowab Dictionary in the Making: Some
Lexicographic Considerations in Retrospect
§
Samukele Hadebe — The Proposed Ndebele – Shona Dictionary: Prospects and
Challenges
§
Kathy Kavanagh — English
for New South African Bilingual Dictionaries
§
Langa Khumalo — From a General to an Advanced Ndebele Dictionary: An
Outline
§
John M. Lubinda — The Incorporation and Handling of Metaphorical or
Figurative Meaning in Bilingual Dictionaries
§
Matete Madiba, Lorna Mphahlele & Matlakala Kganyago — Capturing Cultural Glossaries. Case
Study II: Medical Terms
§
Mandlenkosi Maphosa — The Users’ Perspectives on Isichazamazwi SeSiNdebele
§
Webster Mavhu — Bilingual versus Monolingual: A Comparative Analysis of
Two Trends in Shona Lexicography
§
Gift Mheta — The
Impact of Translation Activities on the Development of African Languages in
Multilingual Societies: Shona – Ndebele – English Musical Terms Dictionary, a
Case Study
§
Linkie Mohlala, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver & Rachélle Gauton — The Lexicographic Treatment of the Feminine/Augmentative
Suffix ‑kazi in isiZulu
§
Nomalanga Mpofu — The ALRI
Experience in the Compilation of a Dictionary of Biomedical Terms
§
Cornelias Ncube — Language Development or Language Corruption: A Case of
Loanwords in Isichazamazwi SeSiNdebele
§
Salmina Nong & M.P. Mogodi — The Lexicographic Treatment of the Demonstrative
Copulative in Sesotho sa Leboa – An Exercise in Multiple Cross-referencing
§
Thapelo J. Otlogetswe — Challenges to Representative and
Balanced Corpora for African Lexicography
§
Annél Otto & Nerina Bosman — The User Perspective: Bible Reference
Resources as Example
§
D.J. Prinsloo — The Lemmatisation of
Adverbs in Northern Sotho
§
M.P. Rakgokong — Are the Setswana Mockery Words that
Objectionable?
§
Mariza Steyn & Liezl Gouws — Woordeboek sonder
Grense: A Typological and Communicative Bridge
§
P.H. Swanepoel — Dictionary Tailoring, SL Lexical
Acquisition and Computer-Assisted Language Learning: The LINC Approach
§
Elsabé Taljard — On the Semi-automatic Extraction of Definitional
Information: A Case Study for Northern Sotho
§
Dirk J. van Schalkwyk — Language Variation and the
Lexicographer
Programme
AFRILEX 2003
Keynote papers
The Handling of Collocations and Idiomatic Multiword Expressions: From
Corpora to Dictionaries
Ulrich Heid
Institut für maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung – Computerlinguistik,
Universität Stuttgart, Germany
Corpus
query tools, such as WordSmith Tools or Qwick (Birmingham University), come
with a function to extract collocations of a given word from a corpus. As a
result, they provide lists of word pairs, often together with a measure
indicating how much the two elements belong together. Already years ago, a
computational linguist told me in a discussion that, with these tool functions,
the problem of collocations in corpus lexicography was solved. This talk is
intended to show why this is not the case.
The
abovementioned collocation tools are based on statistical association measures
that determine statistically significant co-occurrences of words. Examples of
such association measures include the t-test (Church & Hanks 1992), the
log-likelihood ratio test (Dunning 1993), the Mutual Information measure, etc.
They are all used to reorder lists of collocation candidates, possibly
extracted beforehand by means of corpus query (e.g. for nouns and the verbs
these nouns are objects of, as in “pay attention”, “ask a question”, etc.).
Examples and a few well-known problems of the underlying statistics will be
discussed; for example, Mutual Information unduly privileges low frequency
words, and log-likelihood seems to be good in particular for the upper half of
the frequency spectrum, however being quite dependent on frequency.
An analysis of some German and English
data obtained in this way from corpora will show that the results of the
statistical procedures, even though to some extent useful for lexicographic
work, are far from homogeneous: they typically include a mixture of
collocations and idiomatic word groups, as well as of trivial,
lexicographically irrelevant, word combinations which may, for example, be
artefacts of the corpus under analysis.
We thus need additional linguistic
criteria to further classify the material, but also, more importantly, to
discover additional morphosyntactic, syntactic and semantic properties of the
word combinations identified so far only in terms of the lexemes involved. It
is not sufficient to know that “pay” and “attention” go together, we must also
know that “pay attention” has no article; or that “former” and “time” typically
come as a plural expression, often with a preposition: “in former times”. These
aspects contribute to the partial idiomatisation of collocations, and a learner
of a foreign language must memorise them along with the collocation. For German
and English noun+verb-combinations, an attempt will be made to provide a
classified list of phenomena which need to be kept track of, beyond lexical
co-occurrence, to make up for a detailed description of the respective
multiword items. The claim we would like to make is that collocations and
idiomatic multiword expressions must be lexicographically described in as much
detail as any single-word lemma; this means that information about the
components of the collocation, as well as about the collocation as a whole must
be given with respect to morphosyntactic, syntactic (e.g. construction),
semantic and pragmatic (e.g. style/register, frequency) properties.
Furthermore, collocations tend to be combined, such that texts often include
significant triples or quadruples of words (e.g. (pay+attention) +
(careful+attention): pay careful attention). Along with the phenomena, a few
suggestions for their corpus-based acquisition will be made (Heid &
Zinsmeiser 2003).
In the third part, the question of the
lexicographic data presentation will be discussed. Beyond the question of where
to lemmatise collocations and idiomatic multiword groups, the detailed
phenomena discussed above make the writing of an article somewhat more
difficult, as they need to be kept track of. We look at this problem with
bilingual (active) dictionaries in mind, printed as well as electronic. Inspiration
for the article layout may come from experimental dictionaries such as
Mel’cuk’s Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionaries, but also from printed
dictionaries for general users, such as the Van Dale series of bilingual
dictionaries in the Netherlands. Sample entries in different “styles” will be
briefly discussed.
Outer Texts in Bilingual Dictionaries
Rufus H. Gouws
Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, University of Stellenbosch, South
Africa
Metalexicographic
research of the recent years has been characterised by a growing interest in
and focus on various aspects regarding the structure of dictionaries. In this
regard both the mutual features and dictionary-specific features have received
attention. Dictionary research no longer only includes attempts to describe and
analyse the contents of dictionaries and the different data types on offer, the
different structural components of dictionaries also fall within the scope of
this field of research. As a carrier of text types a dictionary is not only
regarded as a source of information displaying a variety of data types in the
central list. A new emphasis deviates the attention from a central list bias
towards a more inclusive frame structure approach. This approach works with the
assumption that the central list is complemented by front and back matter
texts, constituting the outer texts of a dictionary.
Utilising the frame structure approach this paper
focuses on the use of outer texts in bilingual dictionaries. The distinction
between integrated and unintegrated outer texts is maintained and both these
text types, their purpose and the role they play in devising the data
distribution structure of a dictionary are examined. In using integrated outer
texts it is shown that the data distribution does not have to focus exclusively
on the default article in the central list although article stretches still
accommodate the most typical data categories directed at the lemmata as guiding
elements of articles and primary treatment units. It is shown how an
interactive relation between the integrated outer texts and the central list
can achieve an optimal realisation of the genuine purpose of a bilingual
dictionary and can enhance the quality of dictionary consultation procedures.
As examples of unintegrated outer texts the use of
alphabetically ordered equivalent registers, the listing of items representing
the lemmata included in complex and synopsis articles as well as additional
pedagogical data will be discussed. It is also shown how back matter texts can
add a typological hybrid character to a dictionary by using alternative
ordering systems, e.g. a thematic ordering as opposed to the alphabetical
ordering of the central list. The way in which outer texts can ensure that a
dictionary has a poly-accessible character that meets the needs of a
user-driven project is also discussed. Looking at the user and usage situation
the role of dictionary functions in the planning of the outer texts may never
be underestimated and various aspects of the theory of lexicographic functions
come to the fore in the discussion.
The successful use of outer texts demands a new look at
the data distribution structure of bilingual dictionaries. Emphasis is yet
again placed on the importance that each dictionary project should include a
well-devised dictionary plan.
In this paper a dictionary is seen as a comprehensive
container of knowledge and suggestions are made to improve the quality of the
access structure to ensure an optimal retrieval of information by the intended
target user.
Corpus Research and Lexicography
Gwyneth Fox
Macmillan Education: Publisher, Dictionaries
Work
with corpora over the past 20 years has shown us a great deal about how we use
English. In particular, there have been many revelations about the ways in
which vocabulary patterns are surprisingly predictable, and these findings are
now being reflected in learners’ dictionaries. This means that such
dictionaries are probably the best record we have of the way in which English
is now being used. Many examples will be given to justify this statement. But
there is no reason why corpus research should not influence bilingual
lexicography more than it presently seems to.
People are fascinated
by language. And researchers have been studying it for centuries. But it is
only in the past twenty years or so that we can be sure that the statements we make
about the language are accurate. That is because the advent of computers has
allowed us to build corpora, as large or as small as are appropriate for our
particular needs, and analyse them for frequency, grammar, vocabulary,
pragmatics, discourse functions, and so on. Perhaps the two areas where we have
learned most are those of frequency and vocabulary.
Although we always knew that some words
were more frequent than others, we now know which words these are, and how
often they are used and in what contexts. This must be important information
for learners of a language: they need to know which words are worth expending
effort on!
We also realise that it is not enough
just to look at words, however frequent they might be, in isolation.
Collocation and colligation patterns stand out in the data, and force us to
reassess the way in which we describe words, both in the classroom and in
dictionaries. Collocation patterns range from the relatively fixed and
difficult to decode, as in idioms and proverbs, through binomials and
trinomials, through chunking, right down to those that are weak and perhaps not
worth mentioning. The same is true of colligation. The phraseology of the
language is much less random, much more predictable than we ever imagined.
Another vocabulary ‘discovery’ is that
of semantic prosody. Why is it that some words have attracted to them other
words, either positive or negative, so that it is almost impossible to use them
in any other way? Some of these words are obvious, others much less so. How
could a learner know about their prosody if it were not pointed out to them?
Corpus findings are now well known, and
are expressed at their best in the new breed of learners’ dictionaries produced
in the UK in the past fifteen or so years. This makes these dictionaries the
best, most up-to-date, most accurate record of English as it is presently being
used. Some bilingual dictionaries are now being compiled with the benefit of
two, often parallel, corpora; but it seems to me that they are not yet as good
(or as helpful) descriptions of the language as you find in monolingual
learners’ dictionaries.
Parallel sessions
Hybrid
Dictionaries – The Future of Lexicography
Thierry Afane Otsaga
Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, Stellenbosch,
South Africa
Dictionaries have been
compiled for several thousand years. Their need arose when it became more
difficult to read and understand religious texts. Therefore, dictionaries were
invented in order to assist in the understanding of these texts that were
actually written in a language that was no longer understood by the interested
people. Nowadays, dictionaries are still produced because certain human
linguistic and knowledge needs are observed in society and they are compiled to
satisfy these needs. This basic characteristic is the main purpose of
dictionaries.
In order to always satisfy user needs,
lexicographers have been trying to compile different types of dictionaries,
according to different aspects: the users’ language competences, users’ general
culture and knowledge, users’ respective field subjects, users’ translation
needs, etc. In general, they have to take into account the objectives of users
when these users are using dictionaries. In that regard, various types of
dictionaries have been compiled to be used by a specific target user group.
Indeed, some dictionaries are directed at the extra-linguistic features of the
items treated (encyclopaedic dictionaries), while other dictionaries focus on
the linguistic and pragmatic aspects (linguistic dictionaries). Some
dictionaries focus on the origin, history and development of the treated
language (diachronic dictionaries), while still others focus on the lexicon of
a language at a specific time in its development (synchronic dictionaries). In
the category of linguistic dictionaries, monolingual dictionaries can aim at a
scholar approach (school dictionaries), a learning approach (learners’
dictionaries), a normative approach (standard dictionaries), or a comprehensive
approach (comprehensive dictionaries). Conversely, bilingual or multilingual
dictionaries can be compiled for a polyfunctional purpose (polyfunctional
dictionaries), they can also be monoscopal or biscopal. All these various types
of dictionaries were directed by the necessity to satisfy users’ needs.
The main objective of
lexicographical works is to satisfy the needs of the users. When dealing with
the methodology and even with the planning of a dictionary, one must first
define the target user; otherwise the compilation will not be efficient.
However, in every lexicographical work the main interest is on the dictionary
user. In modern lexicography, the role and the place of the user is more and
more taken into account. The users are a great lobby and the publishing houses
know it so well: even if a dictionary is compiled within a good methodology, if
a user does not find the information he/she needs, this dictionary will not be
sold or used. Thus, the user appears to be the focal point on which each
element of the lexicographical process focuses. Because user needs are
increasing and because most people want knowledge regarding different aspects
of life, it is becoming increasingly difficult to satisfy user needs in one
specific type of dictionary. At the same time, users do not want to spend more
time and money by buying different dictionaries according to what they are
looking for. The ideal solution for them could be to find most information they
need in one single dictionary. On the other hand, it is important to specify
that it is not possible to satisfy all the user needs in one dictionary, even
in a multi-volume dictionary. Yet the lexicographer must try to come as close
as possible to satisfying user needs. For that reason, the only solution could
be the compilation of hybrid dictionaries. In fact, in modern-day lexicography
hybrid dictionaries will be the solution of the future that will allow
lexicographers to give to the users what there are looking for in a dictionary.
In that regard, some dictionaries will not have one specific purpose, but could
include two, three, four, and even five functions. A bilingual dictionary for
instance will not only give translation equivalents of lemmas, it will also
give paraphrases of meaning in order to allow the users to utilise the same
dictionary to solve not only their problem of translation, but also to be able
to improve their knowledge in the same language. The main purpose of this paper
is to show that as a result of new and increasing user needs, the best way for
future lexicography will be the compilation of hybrid dictionaries.
Dictionaries focusing on one unique and specific aspect will no longer satisfy
a public who needs to have knowledge about various aspects and domains.
Lexicography
and Terminology Training at University Level
Mariëtta Alberts
Manager:
Lexicography and Terminology Development, PanSALB, South Africa
The multilingual dispensation
creates job opportunities for language practitioners. These language
practitioners need training in various aspects regarding the language practice
since lexicography, terminography, translation and editing (to name but a few)
are practices that need highly skilled and knowledgeable practitioners.
Several
of the focus areas of the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB)
concentrate to a certain extent on language development, such as terminology
development, lexicography or aspects like translation and interpreting
services. PanSALB is aware that all these language practices need skilled and
highly trained personnel.
The
Lexicography and Terminology Development (L&TD) focus area deals with the
eleven National Lexicography Units (NLUs) and one national terminology office.
The eleven national lexicography units were established and each is situated at
a tertiary institution in the geolinguistic area where most of the
mother-tongue speakers of the specific language are found. Unfortunately, there
are only a few trained lexicographers available to work at these units. The
only national terminology office in the country, the Terminology Coordination
Section (TCS) is part of the National Language Service (NLS), Department of
Arts and Culture (DAC). The terminologists receive in-house training on
terminological and terminographical principles and practice. It is of the
utmost importance to train language practitioners and students to be able to
compile general as well as technical dictionaries for communication purposes.
The
value of lexicography and terminology training cannot be stressed enough. The
need might even be greater in South Africa than in other countries given the
multilingual clause in the Constitution that provides for eleven official South
African languages. Multilingual general as well as technical dictionaries are
needed for proper communication between linguistic communities. Presently there
are very few trained lexicographers and terminologists, especially in the
African languages. Language practitioners, who are going to work on
lexicographical or terminographical projects in future, need training as soon
as possible.
This paper addresses
the current situation regarding lexicography and terminology training.
Suggestions are made regarding the utilisation of Schools for Languages as
training venues for lexicography and terminology courses. The benefits for the
Schools of Languages are spelled out. The value to other departments and
faculties at the given university, the benefit to other students at other
universities in the country and worldwide and to language offices or language
units receives attention. The process as described would train students in the
theory, principles and practice of lexicography and terminology. It would be to
the advantage of the NLUs as well as the TCS and the to be established language
units to appoint trained personnel rather than to devote time on in-house
training. Production of general dictionaries as well as various technical
dictionaries would show progress.
The
various tertiary institutions such as the universities and technikons would
benefit because they would train students and there would be positive and
worthwhile outcomes.
The
Human Language Technology virtual network would benefit by receiving
multilingual general words and multilingual, polythematic terms into its
database for dissemination to linguistic communities.
The
language community would benefit since they would have words and terms
available for better communication. Minority languages would be developed to
become functional languages in the higher echelons of science and technology.
Finally, the South African languages would be available as functional world
languages on the Internet.
Can We Quantify
the Effects of Dictionary Use?
Herman L. Beyer
Department of
Germanic & Romance Languages, University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia
This paper aims to
give an overview of the empiric research into the possibility of quantifying the
effects of dictionary use among school learners, which has been conducted as a
pilot study at the University of Namibia. The initial processes and results are
explained, which provides insight into how the project may be amended to
continue meaningfully.
The first instances of
data captured in this project took place in 1997 while the researcher was a
language teacher in Swakopmund, employed by the Ministry of Basic Education and
Culture of Namibia. The working hypothesis was to determine whether the use of
dictionaries by school learners would result in improved linguistic
performance. One linguistic skill, that of spelling, was chosen for the
experiment. The respondents comprised of two classes of Grade 11 learners who
took Afrikaans as a first language. One class group was labeled the test group,
the other the control group. Both groups were given a series of four
unannounced spelling tests, the intervals ranging from three days to as much as
two months. Each test consisted of the same 25 items, chosen on the basis of
the potential spelling difficulties they might pose for learners. The learners
were not informed that the test would be repeated. They were, however, on each
occasion advised that the tests did not contribute to their continuous assessment
mark and were not designed to measure any aspect of intelligence. By doing
this, it was hoped that conditions resembling as closely as possible to normal
class conditions could be created.
The first spelling test was written by
both groups under similar conditions: normal test conditions without the
benefit of a dictionary.
During
the second test each member of the test was provided with a dictionary on
his/her desk. The respondents were given the freedom to look up any item in the
dictionary to make sure of its spelling, provided that they would indicate
dictionary use. This would enable the researcher to identify those items that a
particular respondent chose to look up. The control group wrote the second test
under conditions identical to those during the first test, i.e. without the
benefit of a dictionary. Unlike the test group, however, the control group
members were given immediate feedback on their tests by having them marked
after exchanging the scripts among the respondent (i.e. a respondent would not
mark his/her own test). Respondents were instructed to clearly indicate
mistakes on their fellow respondents’ scripts and to write down the correct
form in full each time. After the respondents received their tests back, they
were given about 30 seconds to take a look at the results, including the
corrections made by their fellow respondents. The test group was given no
feedback of any nature on their tests.
The third and fourth tests were conducted
under the same conditions as the first, i.e. normal test conditions without the
benefit of a dictionary.
This experimental
procedure provided the researcher with extensive data, from which it is hoped
the following questions could be approached with quantitative support:
·
Does a respondent who looks up a word for
spelling purposes remember its correct spelling later? If yes, for how long? If
no, are any consistencies identifiable that may allow us insight into the
reasons for the perceived failure to learn and perhaps into spelling
rehabilitation?
·
Is a respondent who looks up a word for spelling
purposes more likely to remember its correct spelling than a respondent who
does not utilise a dictionary but who is provided with rehabilitative feedback in
the ‘traditional’ way? If yes, what is the role of the dictionary in this case?
If no, why has learning seemingly not taken place?
The above questions
underlie the basic research question that this project aims to address: Does
dictionary use result in quantifiable improved linguistic performance?
Interviewer-Interviewee
Interaction in Oral Interviews
Emmanuel Chabata
African
Languages Research Institute, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
The intended
presentation will be an analysis of language used by an interviewer and that of
the interviewee during an oral interview. It will focus on the language of
penetration by the interviewer, that is, the language somebody usually uses
when he/she approaches a person for an interview in search of specific
information. It will also look at the respondent’s language when he/she
responds to different types of questions as well as that used by the people
concerned in their subsequent conversation. The presentation will also look at
the factors that may shape the respondent’s answers as well as the
interviewer’s follow-up questions. It will furthermore look at the element of
‘misfiring’ by either of the parties and its consequences.
The intended presentation
will focus on the strategies that an interviewer may use when he/she tries to
get information from a respondent. In doing this, the presenter will be guided
by the principle that each interview and each interview setting is different
and needs different skills and also that each situation involves expectations
and assumptions. He/She will also be guided by the assumption that whenever the
sender of information, in this case the interviewer, sends a question, he/she
hopes to be understood by the receiver/interviewee. However, the message may or
may not go through. To see whether it has gone through or not, one has to
assess the feedback that the sender gets. The presenter will also look at the
interviewer’s challenges, some of which will include respondent’s attitude
towards interviewer or the subject under discussion, the environment of the
interview, misfiring by the respondent as well as lack of knowledge by the
interviewee.
The presentation will also focus on
what an interviewer needs to do before he/she gets out to conduct an interview.
For example, the interviewer has to be thoroughly prepared. Being prepared
means that one has to formulate one’s questions before starting an interview.
One has to come up with questions that can incite the respondent to say what
he/she knows about the subject under discussion. For example, the questions
have to be structured in a way that is most effective and friendly.
Preparedness also entails getting the right person to interview. Depending on
the purpose or subject of the interview, the interviewer has to get somebody
who can supply the desired information. Besides knowing the subject, the person
has to be willing to spare time for answering questions. This is an important
dimension, especially given the fact that most people are usually busy. Thus,
one may expect to obtain better results if one interviews a person who is
prepared to give out information. The presenter will look at the common
strategies that interviewers usually use to cultivate interest in the respondent.
The presenter will also devote some
time to the qualifications one should possess as a good interviewer. For one to
be effective in getting information, one has to have the skill to ask
questions. The assumption to be adopted here is that a skilled interviewer is
better than one who is not. But this assumption also triggers a few questions.
For example, how does one become skilled? Is it through training or not? How
does personal character determine the end result?
In trying to understand exactly what
goes on between an interviewer and an interviewee, an analysis of their
respective body languages will be part of the investigation. In this case, the
assumption to be adopted is that verbal communication should match what is
implied by body language. The assumption is based on the fact that verbal and
non-verbal messages are intertwined, with the non-verbal symbols usually
complementing the verbal ones. However, the analyses to be made will not be
blind to the fact that sometimes non-verbal symbols may substitute verbal ones
and also that non-verbal symbols may be inconsistent with verbal ones. Body
language is considered important in oral interviews because it has a direct
impact on what either of the persons involved will say after observing the gesture(s).
The intended
presentation was inspired by the writer’s experiences as an oral interviewer
during data collection for the Shona linguistic corpus. As a result of this,
some of the illustrative examples to be used in the presentation will be drawn
from the oral Shona corpus, that is, from audiocassettes that were recorded
during the mentioned exercise. Other examples will come from general
observation, as well as from analyses of what one usually sees in television
interviews.
Concurrent
Over- and Under-treatment in Dictionaries — The Woordeboek van die
Afrikaanse Taal as a case in point
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver
Department of African
Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Department of
African Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
In Prinsloo & De
Schryver (2002) a so-called multidimensional lexicographic Ruler was
introduced. With this powerful instrument measurements and predictions can be
made on various macro- and microstructural dictionary levels. Three levels
received thorough treatment so far, viz. considerations regarding the relative
size of each alphabetical stretch, the corresponding number of lemma signs, as
well as compilation-time aspects. In this paper the interplay between these
levels is studied with a focus on ‘moving’ average article length, and the
correlated aspects of inclusion versus omission of lemma signs.
In
its most basic form, a Ruler is simply an instrument to guide the relative
alphabetical breakdown in semasiological dictionaries. As such, each
alphabetical category is assigned a certain percentage, reflecting the relative
size of that category. Different languages, and even different types of
dictionaries for a specific language, have different Rulers. The Rulers
themselves are built from statistics derived from electronic corpora, as well
as from existing dictionary data. Just as physical rulers with which one
measures, they can be made as fine-grained as one wishes, by simply breaking
down the alphabetical categories further into smaller sections. Just as the
human rulers who govern us, a multidimensional lexicographic Ruler can be
called in to manage a project. To date, general-language Rulers for isiNdebele
(De Schryver 2002), Afrikaans (Prinsloo & De Schryver 2003a), and Sesotho
sa Leboa (Prinsloo & De Schryver 2003b), as well as for Tshivenda,
Xitsonga, Setswana and Sesotho have been designed.
During the presentation
it will be indicated that the very same Ruler for a specific language can now
also be used with regard to average article length. The value of this
new dimension can be successfully illustrated when one analyses the huge
multi-volume overall-descriptive Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal
(WAT), in compilation for the past three-quarter century and published up to
the letter O (volume XI). Comparing
WAT with a so-called ‘Afikaans AO-Ruler’ immediately reveals extreme
inconsistencies with regard to average article length. For the letters A
and B, for instance, it is clear that both number of pages and number of
lemma signs are heavily under-treated in WAT. The under-treatment in terms of space
allocation, however, is much more severe, which results in a very low average
article length. Up to the letter J, the relative allocation to space is
always smaller than the relative allocation to the number of lemma signs. From K
onwards, a sudden reversal in this pattern occurs, and this remains so up to O.
Throughout K, both space allocation and number of lemma signs are extremely
heavily over-treated compared to the AO-Ruler. It should not come as a surprise
that, after having spent almost 30 years on the compilation of K,
the editors at WAT decided to drastically reconsider their compilation
strategies, and entered a ‘new’ era (cf. Botha 1994: 423). Page-wise the
compilers indeed moved closer to the AO-Ruler, with L and M
slightly above and N and O under the AO-Ruler. As far as the
number of lemma signs is concerned, however, these have been consistently
under-treated, with O an all-time low.
Although everyone will agree that the
compilation of K was unfortunate for WAT, a new negative trend might
have started with the completion of L and then M, where one
observes a concurrent over- and under-treatment, in terms of space
allocation and number of articles respectively. One should guard against the
temptation to move ever faster through the alphabet, as seems to be the case in
the last volume, where space allocation is now also under-treated, the number
of articles even more so, yet where this is masked by an ever-increasing
average article length.
In order to substantiate the latter
claim, an in-depth comparison between WAT and the desktop Verklarende
Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT) will be presented for the
category O. Given that the entire HAT is smaller than the single
category O in WAT, it is logical to assume that every single lemma
sign in HAT should in principle also be entered in WAT. Upon comparison,
however, one has to conclude that as many as 499 o-initial lemma signs from HAT
have not been lemmatised in WAT. Just one of these 499 has been treated as a
sub-lemma in WAT, 40 can only be found as untreated sub-lemmas and 175 as
untreated run-ons, while 211 have not been lemmatised and do not occur anywhere
in the WAT text either. The remaining 72 have not been lemmatised in WAT –
either as lemmas, as sub-lemmas or as run-ons – despite the fact that those
very same items are used throughout the WAT text itself. Especially
problematic are those missing items that are not only highly frequent in a
10-million-word Afrikaans corpus, but are moreover cross-referred to
from other items in WAT. Numerous examples of such cases will be discussed.
Monitoring
the compilation of especially a multi-volume dictionary project with an average
article length Ruler is crucial if one is to avoid such major inconsistencies.
A concurrent over- and under-treatment in terms of space allocation and number
of articles respectively, must alert compilers of an overall-descriptive
dictionary that they are starting to miss out on too many lemma signs.
Revisiting
Equivalence in Bilingual Lexicography
James D. Emejulu
Groupe de
Recherche en Langues et Cultures Orales, Université Omar Bongo, Gabon
The problem of equivalence is based in the fact about
which there exists interdisciplinary consensus: the lexical-semantic structures
of the lexicon of a particular language are language-specific and therefore
partly unique. That implies that the lexical-semantic structures of two (or
more) languages are not isomorphous. — Wiegand (2002)
The postulate of non-isomorphism
of languages is an underlying factor governing translations and translation
dictionaries, and poses the crucial question of equivalence. Even with kindred
languages that have in common some linguistic and anthropological affinities,
the problem of equivalence always thwarts meanings. This is all the more subtle
in quality when one is dealing with languages of different linguistic families
and/or of variant cultural levels. Several linguistic and lexicographic
theories do show serious differences for the very concept of equivalence.
Translation theories are not all unanimous on the theoretical perception and
even not on the practical treatment of the concept of equivalence. Regarding
(meta)lexicography, Wiegand (2002) criticised some salient conceptual
discrepancies that he judiciously called
grave differences of opinion that have led to a whole range of misjudgements
about the features of equivalent relationships in bilingual lexicography. Arguing
from the Saussurian distinction, language system vs. parole system, he
suggested some conceptual changes that reserved the term correspondence for the language system and equivalence for the
parole system. Though subtle, these suggestions do little to clarify these misjudgements.
If
one can postulate that equivalence in
languages is all about conveying meaning in a language-to-language
communication situation, and that bilingual lexicography (or to be more
precise, translation-oriented lexicography) is by definition called upon to
provide compatible referential interfaces and tools to make meanings work, then
language should be perceived in its totality when one is retaining and treating
equivalence in lexicography and
dictionary research. Language per se
is a communal conventional construct, a theoretical representation of the real, hence the Saussurian bicameral
signifier vs. signified perception. Another postulate is that language is
dynamic and within time and space no language is absolutely and reflexively
homogenous. This fact undermines the symmetrical relations between the
signifier and the signified across dialects. The objective consequence of this
is that the non-reflexivity and non-symmetry thus observed do handicap
effective translation into another language. Translation per se is transitivity. The question of equivalence is therefore
posed on two levels: the language system level and the reality system that are
always dissymmetrical among languages. Here, real conceptual clarity of the theoretical
constructs of equivalence and their
logical adequacy programming are needed. In a computer environment, equivalence as a theoretical
translingual matrix should support a
logical array of compatible data that can generate required sets of meanings
across the languages present.
Gabon is a multilingual systemic maze with over 40 Gabonese heritage
languages (GHLs) of the Niger-Congo family. The predominance is Bantu according
to Guthrie’s definition. Paradoxically, the school and development environments
are officially monolingual, based on French that is of the Latin and
Indo-European stock. The sociolinguistic dynamics of this situation are all the
more complicated in favour of French as a result of the political, social and
economic set-ups that exclude the official use of any of the GHLs. The official
status of French makes it a compulsory and privileged mediation in all social
and official communications on the macro-level. It is insidiously permeating
the micro-level and gradually eroding interpersonal communications. That is to
say that all communicational exchanges, be it economical, political, judicial
and the like, must go through French. One cannot overemphasize the excruciating
problems that this poses to the less lettered. Hence, the problems of the
cognitive development of the Gabonese child are keenly associated with the
systemic linguistic imbalance between two language families with unequal social
status. However, diverse sociolinguistic patterns have been identified at the
micro-level. The urban tendency is towards French monolingualism. The rural
areas present divergent patterns of GHL monolingualism, inter-GHL bilingualism
and/or GHL-French bilingualism. Multilingual cases of various GHLs and
GHLs-French combinations have also been attested. All these combinations, that
are theoretically sociolectal, pose some tough cognitive and equivalence questions when it comes to
translating French texts into GHLs for use as instruments of knowledge and
crafts acquisition.
This paper is a modest contribution to the ongoing
debate on the concept of equivalence and its applications in bilingual
(meta)lexicography. Its approach is rather concerned with experience derived
from Gabonese bilingual lexicography where the source language (SL) is Indo-European
and the target language (TL) is of Greenberg’s Niger-Congo. Conclusions from
this study are expected to shed new light on the debate.
Le
rôle des dictionnaires bilingues dans le développement des langues
Gabonaises: Le cas
du fang
James D. Emejulu, Yolande Nzang-Bie, Pierre Ondo-Mebiame & D. Franck Idiata
Groupe de
Recherche en Langues et Cultures Orales, Université Omar Bongo, Gabon
Pour rendre compte du rôle
du (des) dictionnaire(s) bilingue(s) dans le développement du parler fang du
Gabon, notre propos commencera par montrer en quoi, sur le plan général, les
dictionnaires participent-ils au développement des langues. Outil didactique de
référence, le dictionnaire est l’ouvrage par excellence du transfert des
connaissances. Il peut être considéré comme le patrimoine collectif, culturel,
technologique, social, de la communauté à laquelle il est destiné. Il est perçu
comme étant la norme à laquelle la communauté linguistique doit, en toutes
circonstances, pouvoir se référer.
A
ce jour, constatons-nous, de nombreux peuples ont réalisé l’importance de
l’outil dictionnaire. Ce n’est malheureusement pas le cas des peuples africains
dont les langues manquent, la plupart du temps, d’être accompagnées par cet
outil. Au Gabon, en l’occurrence, l’élaboration des dictionnaires se trouve
encore au stade embryonnaire ; l’activité, pensons-nous, doit être
assortie d’une culture de cet outil, si l’on veut percevoir son importance et
partant, garantir le développement des langues. C’est cette vision que nous
voulons porter sur le parler fang.
Nous
présenterons ensuite le parler et les populations fang, ainsi que les espaces
dans lesquels on les rencontre. Nous indiquerons en effet que le fang est parlé
dans un espace constitué par :
·
Une partie de l’extrême sud du Cameroun ;
·
La moitié est de la Guinée Equatoriale ;
·
Une portion de la partie nord-ouest du Congo
Brazzaville ;
·
La moitié Nord du Gabon.
Nous poursuivrons avec
l’inventaire et la présentation succincte des différentes propositions
lexicographiques qui ont été faites sur le fang du Gabon. C’est suite à cela
que nous aborderons le rôle des dictionnaires dans le développement du fang.
Nous y montrerons d’abord l’apport des textes existants en indiquant ce à quoi
ils ont servi, s’ils ont été consultés ou exploités, et s’ils le sont encore à
ce jour. Nous exposerons ensuite les perspectives d’avenir, en montrant que le
développement actuel de la science linguistique au Gabon peut aider à améliorer
la qualité des propositions anciennes, et nous suggérerons les types de
dictionnaires fang que l’on peut élaborer à court, moyen et long terme, pour
promouvoir le développement de ce parler.
Nous
terminerons par la proposition d’éléments portant sur la relation entre la
vitalité du fang et le dictionnaire, pour montrer qu’il faut préalablement que
le fang soit utile et utilisé, pour que le dictionnaire participe à son
développement. En d’autres termes, l’importance du dictionnaire dans le
développement du fang, réside dans l’importance que l’on pourrait lui accorder
en tant que médium de communication. L’adéquation vitalité linguistique et
dictionnaire assurerait d’une part, un développement durable du fang, et
d’autre part, sa meilleure intégration dans le système éducatif. Ce
développement peut, de la sorte, soutenir sa standardisation, de même que les
programmes d’alphabétisation.
Nous
montrerons en définitive, que le dictionnaire se présente comme un atout majeur
pour la conservation et la promotion du fang parmi ses différentes couches
socioculturelles.
Bilingual
Dictionaries, the Lexicographer and the Translator
Rachélle
Gauton
Department
of African Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
This paper focuses on
the problems, advantages and disadvantages of the bilingual dictionary from
both the lexicographer and the translator’s point of view, with specific
reference to bilingual Zulu dictionaries.
Clearly the
fundamental problem regarding the bilingual dictionary from both the
lexicographer and translator’s points of view is the basic lack of equivalence
or anisomorphism between languages.
According
to Nida (Al-Kasimi 1983: 58), for the lexicographer, the semantic problems
involved in bilingual dictionaries are different from, and also more
complicated than, those encountered in the compilation of monolingual
dictionaries. The reason for this is that whereas monolingual dictionaries are
prepared for users who participate in and understand the culture being
described, bilingual dictionaries describe a culture that differs in various
proportions from that of the users’.
The
non-equivalence between languages is also the root cause of the difficulties that
the translator or user of the bilingual dictionary has to contend with. The
problems experienced by translators, therefore, overlap to a great extent with
those problems that the lexicographer experiences in compiling a bilingual
dictionary.
For
the translator, the bilingual dictionary could be a dangerous tool. It is
therefore imperative that the user should be aware of what a bilingual
dictionary is, and what it is not.
Manning
(1990: 159) indicates that the bilingual dictionary is the translator’s basic
tool, and that it is the bridge that makes interlingual transfer possible.
Pinchuck (1977: 223) warns, however, that the bilingual dictionary is an
instrument that has to be used with caution and discernment. Pinchuck (1977:
231) further cautions:
The
bilingual dictionary has a particular importance for the translator, but it is
also a very dangerous tool. In general when a translator needs to resort to a
dictionary to find an equivalent he will do better to consult a good
monolingual dictionary in the SL and, if necessary, one in the TL as well. The
bilingual dictionary appears to be a short cut and to save time, but only a
perfect bilingual dictionary can really do this, and no bilingual dictionary is
perfect.
Swanepoel (1989:
202–203) agrees that it is a misconception to assume that the general bilingual
dictionary is sufficiently sophisticated to be an ideal translator’s aid for
the professional translator. It is merely a useful, albeit a limited, aid.
This
paper will show that there are clear criteria that the lexicographer can follow
in compiling the bilingual dictionary, which would then enable the user to
disambiguate the recorded information with great(er) success.
A Khoekhoegowab
Dictionary in the Making: Some Lexicographic Considerations in Retrospect
Wilfrid H.G. Haacke
Department of
African Languages, University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia
The present paper
deals with certain lexicographic issues that had to be addressed in deciding on
the editorial policy for the compilation of A Khoekhoegowab Dictionary with
an English – Khoekhoegowab index, which appeared in December 2002.
Khoekhoegowab is the revived name for the language formerly known as i.a.
Nama/Damara.
The dictionary project
had a dual aim: firstly practical, to provide a comprehensive bilingual
dictionary for general usage; secondly academic, to record the lexicon of this
last surviving language of the Khoekhoe branch of Central Khoesaan for
comparative and other linguistic purposes. Hence certain compromises had to be
made in an attempt to meet the widely diverging demands of the target users.
Aims of corpus planning to counteract the further recession of an endangered
language on the one hand, and scholarly interests in documenting this declining
language in as much lexical and tonological detail as possible on the other
hand, may require conflicting strategies. While the compilers strived to be
descriptive by only documenting lexicon that was actually encountered, without
attempting to fill lacunae by coining equivalents for English concepts, the
dictionary is prescriptive with regard to orthography, as it employs the
officially approved orthography (with some systematic adaptations in order to
accommodate tonal diacritics). (Near-)obsolete catchwords are included –
occasionally with cultural elaboration – for the dual purpose of
(re-)introducing Khoekhoe speakers to cultural concepts about to be forgotten,
and of providing comparative linguists with data that may be crucial in
reconstructing a proto-lexicon of Central Khoesaan.
The paper elaborates on how the choice
of target users and specific purposes of the dictionary determined the
lexicographic strategies that had to be adopted, and eventually resulted in the
publication of two separate works: a simplified bidirectional glossary without
tone marking for the less discerning user and schools (1999), and a
unidirectional comprehensive Khoekhoegowab – English dictionary with a
glossary-type English – Khoekhoegowab index for the more demanding user (2002).
The main issues that are discussed are:
prescriptiveness versus descriptiveness; redundancy (what to include; what to
omit at the expense of user-friendliness by relying on predictability); the
arrangement of catchwords in articles for tonological reasons; alphabetisation
according to (sometimes polygraphic) phonemes instead of letters; and the kind
of linguistic information supplied. Technical aspects like the retrieval
facilities of the electronic database and the customised programme for
conversion to text format are also briefly touched upon.
An earlier version of
this paper was published in Schladt, M. (ed). 1998. Language, Identity, and
Conceptualization among the Khoisan (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 15). Cologne:
Rüdiger Köppe. p. 35-64. At the Afrilex conference the present paper is to be
augmented by an exhibition of materials and posters.
The Proposed
Ndebele – Shona Dictionary: Prospects and Challenges
Samukele Hadebe
Department of
African Languages and Literature, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
The ALLEX Project
master plan includes a bilingual Ndebele – Shona dictionary in its proposed dictionary
projects. According to this master plan, the bilingual Ndebele – Shona
dictionary would be compiled after the completion of the general Shona and the
general Ndebele dictionaries. The two dictionaries have since been completed
and published in 1996 and 2001 respectively. The stage has been set for the
compilation of the bilingual dictionary. At the time of writing, this proposed
bilingual dictionary project has not begun as the lexicographers at the African
Languages Research Institute (ALRI) are still working on other projects
like the trilingual dictionary of musical terms, the dictionary of linguistic
and literary terms and the advanced Ndebele dictionary. Bilingual and
multilingual dictionaries are prevalent in Zimbabwe, yet the proposed Ndebele –
Shona dictionary raises some interesting challenges, especially for those who
intend to compile it.
First,
dictionary making in Zimbabwe more-or-less reflects the language development
needs of the nation. In this paper I intend to outline how different dictionary
types for both Ndebele and Shona reflected the intentions of those responsible
of language planning in Zimbabwe. For instance, the early dictionaries compiled
by missionaries were bilingual, that is, English to Ndebele/Shona and vice
versa. These bilingual dictionaries mainly targeted Ndebele and Shona speakers
learning English and Europeans who wanted to learn African languages. The
recently compiled monolingual ALLEX dictionaries are targeted at the mother
tongue speakers of African languages and attempt to redress the inadequacy of
reference books in African languages. One can also link the types of
dictionaries with historical periods. The colonial period saw mainly bilingual
dictionaries where English was always one of the languages. The post-independence
period saw mainly the monolingual ALLEX dictionaries. The compilation of a
trilingual dictionary of musical terms and more significantly the proposed
bilingual Ndebele – Shona dictionary will set a new trend back to bilingual
dictionaries. Nonetheless, it is a different type of bilingual dictionaries
where English is not always one of the languages. It would be two African
languages.
Second,
this proposed bilingual dictionary will be corpus-based like other ALLEX
dictionaries. This will require a parallel Ndebele – Shona corpus. This corpus
is still in its infancy and its structure also poses very interesting
challenges. Using the corpus has its own challenges too. In the paper I intend
to highlight possible advantages and setbacks in using corpora for such a
dictionary.
Third,
there is the issue of the potential target users to take into consideration.
The various monolingual ALLEX dictionaries have clearly defined user groups.
Defining the target users raises both sociolinguistic and political questions.
So far there is little research on user needs and reference skills in Zimbabwe.
The lexicographers for the proposed bilingual Ndebele – Shona dictionary will
have to be clear on who the target users will be. Language debates in Zimbabwe
usually trigger political concerns. Some of the language controversies in
Zimbabwe have been on whether the two languages, that is, Ndebele and Shona,
have to be compulsorily taught to everyone. Questions have been asked whether
pupils could write both Ndebele and Shona at O Level for instance, and have
these counted as different subjects. In short, who needs the bilingual Ndebele
– Shona dictionary? In addressing some of these sociolinguistic and
lexicographic questions, I hope to bring out the challenges that have to be
seriously considered when this project of national significance is pursued. I
also intend to propose some solutions and approaches to these challenges that
could be useful not only to the prospective compilers of the bilingual Ndebele
– Shona dictionary, but also to other lexicographers facing similar situations.
Finally, I will show how the proposed bilingual Ndebele – Shona dictionary
reflects the language planning needs of Zimbabwean society.
English
for New South African Bilingual Dictionaries
Kathy Kavanagh
Dictionary Unit
for South African English, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
A number of bilingual
dictionaries are in various stages of preparation in South Africa. Others are
being planned. Most of these dictionaries include English and an African
language. The English is contained in the headword list, in, for example, an
English – isiNdebele dictionary, whereas in an isiNdebele – English dictionary
the English consists of translations of the African-language headwords. The
quality of either type of dictionary will be greatly influenced by the sources
of the English used by the lexicographers.
The scope of any dictionary depends on
the needs of the target users. This will dictate the approximate number and
range of headwords to be included, the macro- and microstructure, and also the
physical size of the dictionary. Compilation of the headword list will take
account of all these factors. In the English – African language type dictionary
there are several possible ways of developing the English headword list. Words
may be drawn from corpora or databases, or from published dictionaries, perhaps
supplemented by lists of specialist terms and words picked up from the media.
It is also possible to obtain an English headword list by ‘reversing out’ the
translations used in an African language – English format dictionary. The pros
and cons of these very different approaches, and some of the pitfalls likely to
be encountered, are discussed in detail.
Dictionaries and other sources of
English, which may be used as the basis for or to supplement a headword list,
are evaluated. Dictionaries aimed at first-language speakers and those written
for learners of English are compared in this context. Lists of specialist terms
for science or mathematics may be of value in some circumstances. British and
American dictionaries contain little, if any, South African English, which will
need to be obtained from South African material. New World English words, which
have become current since the publication of the source dictionary, may also
need to be gathered.
Frequency information given in some
learners’ dictionaries may be a useful guide, especially when deciding which
headwords to include in a pocket dictionary, but must be treated with
discretion. For instance, the Collins Cobuild English Dictionary
indicates the highest level of frequency with five diamonds. Words of this
frequency level include and,
house, and old. Many words with lower levels
of frequency are also essential in any bilingual dictionary, words such as bridge (4 diamonds), medicine (3 diamonds) and ice cream (2 diamonds). Words of
even lower frequency, such as geometry
and invoice, will be
vital to students and businesspeople respectively and will need to be included
in dictionaries whose target audience includes such people. Frequency
information is attached to lemma not to sense, so there is no guidance as to
how many senses of a polysemous word should be included in a headword list. The
main purpose of an English – African language type dictionary is to help users
understand English texts. English has a huge lexicon, and selection of
headwords is a challenge.
In an African language – English type dictionary
the English may often take the form of a single-word English translation or
several synonyms. Some of the problems associated with the latter approach are
briefly mentioned. The quality of translation and number and appropriateness of
synonyms chosen will have implications for ‘reversing out’, if that method is
used to form an English headword list.
Bilingual dictionaries are complex
works and benefit from collaborative effort between speakers of both languages.
It is suggested that collaboration is more valuable if it occurs throughout a
dictionary project. A checking process by first-language speakers that occurs
only after all translation work has been completed is of limited use. It may
pick up spelling and typographical errors, some inconsistencies, and some
problems relating to synonymy, but does not permit a detailed assessment of the
headword list or systematic checks on the treatment of related headwords. The
quality of expression in both languages needs to be of the highest order, and the
Dictionary Unit for South African English looks forward to collaborating
with other lexicographical units in order to achieve this.
From a General
to an Advanced Ndebele Dictionary: An Outline
Langa Khumalo
African
Languages Research Institute, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
This paper seeks to
discuss the prospective Advanced Ndebele Dictionary, henceforth the AND.
The paper will be divided into two major parts. The first part of the paper
will discuss the forerunner of the AND. The AND comes after the Ndebele team of
editors produced Isichazamazwi SeSiNdebele, henceforth the ISN, which is
the first-ever monolingual dictionary in the Ndebele language, published in the
year 2001. The title of the dictionary itself indicates that it is a dictionary
of Ndebele in Ndebele, in which the resources of the language are used for the
first time lexicographically to analyse and describe itself. Until then,
Ndebele people were using a bilingual Ndebele-English dictionary by J.N.
Pelling entitled A Practical Ndebele Dictionary, with a total of about
four thousand headwords. The ISN is a medium-sized, general-purpose dictionary
designed to be inexpensive and easy to handle. The dictionary has a total of
twenty thousand and eighty (20,080) headwords. Because the ISN is a general
dictionary, that is, a general-purpose reference work, it appeals to a wide
spectrum of users. It is principally targeted at secondary school teachers and
students’ classes to assist them understand and teach the structure of their
language through the provision, for the first time, of a technical terminology
in Ndebele, dealing with its linguistic features. Teachers and students of
Ndebele are more likely to need to consult a dictionary than others are and to
make use of its contents in the course of their daily lives as well as to
mediate its contents to others. For the ordinary reader, such a reference work
can provide, with ease and understanding, the meaning, use, and function of
words. This would not be so easily or fully grasped if conveyed in, and then
translated from, a foreign language, as has hitherto been the case. The
animating heart of the project is to promote the status and use of the
language. The dictionary, it is hoped, will help to make people use it
appositely in widening areas of life, and to value it as conferring
self-respect and the means towards a better and developed standard of life. It
is therefore a contribution to a change of policy, for Ndebele to be recognised
as an official language in Zimbabwe and to allow the Ndebele people to carry
out their affairs in all spheres of life in their mother tongue. Hitherto it
has remained inferior to English, which is the only official language in
Zimbabwe.
The second part of the paper will
discuss the structure and content of the advanced monolingual Ndebele
dictionary that is in its infancy. The target groups of this dictionary are
first and foremost high schools and tertiary institutions and other specialised
disciplines. It will be argued that the AND is not just going to be a bigger
volume than the ISN, but will be advanced in terms of its depth and scope
relative to both the lexical items and definitions. Whereas the ISN was based
on a corpus of about a million running words, the AND is envisaged to be based
on a corpus of about five million words. The paper will discuss how additional
targeted quality fieldwork will improve the size of the corpus and provide
appropriate context and content for an advanced dictionary of this nature.
Unlike its forerunner the AND will have additional grammatical information that
includes a phonetic transcription of each lexical item, tone marking and
etymology. Etymology will be of two types, i.e. semantic etymology and lexical etymology.
The paper will also discuss how the semasiological fields of the lexical items
in the AND will be different from those in the ISN. Finally the paper will
discuss how the scope of headword selection will be broadened to accommodate
modern or international terms, mathematical terms, scientific terms, cultural
terms and other specialised terms. The paper will demonstrate as a way of
concluding that the prospective AND will not just be a volume with just more
headwords than its forerunner, but its target audience will be different, its
depth and scope will be greatly improved and hence worth its title, “An
Advanced Ndebele Dictionary”. The Ndebele language will have a special
reference work that should change or improve both the status and use of the language.
The
Incorporation and Handling of Metaphorical or Figurative Meaning in Bilingual
Dictionaries
John M. Lubinda
Department of
French, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana
The presentation of
the meaning(s) of recorded lemmas in a dictionary is one of the essential tasks
of the lexicographer and one that certainly requires very careful consideration
in practical lexicography. There are several different types of lexical meaning
and all these ought to be taken into consideration in a dictionary that
purports to give a full account of word meaning. Semanticists (e.g. Leech 1974)
have long recognized that, in addition to its conceptual (denotative) meaning,
a word may have several other meanings, e.g. figurative or connotative meaning.
One criticism that one may be justified to make against some bilingual
dictionaries, especially compact pocket dictionaries, is their tendency to
neglect figurative and other ‘secondary’ meanings that words may have in
particular contexts. Thus, the dictionary user is given only a partial semantic
account of the lemmas presented in the central list. We know, from practical
linguistic experience with languages that we are familiar with, that
metaphorical use of words is extremely common. Many words are in fact used more
often in their figurative sense. Consequently, language users will come across
the use of these words more often in their figurative sense than in their
denotative one.
Dictionaries
vary considerably in size and scope. They also differ (in some cases quite
substantially) in their approach to semantic presentation. However, regardless
of whether they are of the explanatory or translation type, some dictionaries
offer only what could at best be described as the barest minimum in terms of
meaning specification. They supply only the basic conceptual meanings of lemmas
of the type:
head noun upper part of the body above
the neck that contains the brain and on which are located the eyes, ears, nose and
mouth. [in a monolingual dictionary of English]
head noun tête (n, f). [in an English
– French dictionary]
head noun tlhogo. [in an English –
Setswana dictionary]
On the other hand,
there are other dictionaries that provide much more than this minimal
conceptual meaning by also indicating the various polysemic distinctions that
the lemma head, for example, may have figuratively, colloquially or
collocationally, depending on the context of usage. A dictionary that provides
such extensive semantic information will usually, as a matter of necessity and
sound lexicographical convention, make use of usage labels to indicate
contextual restrictions of usage of particular senses of the lemma as well as
numbers to delineate the various semantic values. It will also provide explicit
examples, in the form of illustrative sentences to capture the different
distinctions of meaning presented in the definition or translation equivalent.
The
paper argues that it is this type of dictionary that the foreign or second language
learner and the language practitioner (such as the translator / interpreter,
script writer / editor, language teacher, etc.) is most interested in. The
proposed conference paper sets out to highlight the different types of meanings
as defined in semantics literature and then goes on to compare and contrast the
practices of semantic presentation followed in two bilingual dictionaries.
David Crystal (1987: 108) points out that ‘the best way to evaluate the
coverage of a dictionary is to compare the words and senses it includes with
another dictionary of about the same size’. The paper draws attention to
the shortcomings of the type of dictionary that registers only the conceptual
meaning of lemmas while neglecting the rest – a sort of ‘glorified wordlist’.
It pleads the case for a lexicographical practice that seeks to present a full
semantic account of lemmas with special reference to figurative/metaphorical
meaning. Issues of semantic broadening (polysemic expansion), meaning transfer
and dialectal variations in meaning are briefly discussed. The paper further
highlights the problems and pragmatic limitations to be expected (encountered?)
in terms of scope, organising principle and size of the dictionary in trying to
follow this practice.
Capturing
Cultural Glossaries. Case Study II: Medical Terms
Matete Madiba & Lorna Mphahlele
Technikon
Northern Gauteng Pretoria North, South Africa
Matlakala Kganyago
Nkoshilo High
School, South Africa
This work is a
continuation of a project that was initiated in 2002 and presented by the same
authors as a case study at the 7th International Conference of
AFRILEX, Rhodes University, South Africa. The project aims at capturing
cultural glossaries within an authentic context of a school setting in a rural
area in the Limpopo Province. Of particular interest is the potential projects
of this nature have to capture and record cultural words that would otherwise
be lost. The previous presentation concentrated on a cultural glossary of
cooking terms in Northern Sotho. The present work, considered as Case study II,
is dedicated to medical terms, gleaned from the preparations and execution of
medicinal processes in the Northern Sotho culture. The authors do not claim to
present a comprehensive glossary, instead, they hope to share what a school
project was able to uncover; with the wish that other ventures and bigger
projects will focus on more comprehensive products.
Working
on projects like these also investigates how these glossaries can help
realising and implementing innovative lexicographic methodologies and concepts
such as ‘simultaneous feedback’ (De Schryver & Prinsloo 2000), and ‘hybrid
dictionaries’, to support major dictionary work in South Africa, as suggested
in the previous presentation. As with the previous project, it is also
interesting to note that the glossary is a ‘secondary’ and not a ‘primary’
product of the project, in the sense that the project had a different target.
The main target is the teaching and learning of Northern Sotho as a first
language within the Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) environment. The project is
also an acknowledgement that the OBE approach has stimulated thinking about
activities for teaching and learning that were previously not thought of.
Mother-tongue teaching and learning in African languages, Northern Sotho in
particular, was far less engaging for both teachers and learners in the past.
It is this distinctive feature (of being a ‘secondary’ product) that also has
to be investigated for further implications.
The
case study approach is found to be more suitable to a project like this as it
will be easier to formulate lessons learnt in the process of compiling this
brief glossary. It is the exploration of these lessons that is considered
another step in the process to work towards a possible and authentic model for
the collection of other glossaries of this nature.
This
work also hopes to provide ways to supplement the corpus-based approach in the
writing and producing of dictionaries for African languages. It is also seen as
a project with enormous potential to contribute towards initiatives in
Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). One more benefit is that the capturing of
such cultural terminologies within an authentic setting helps to provide
contextual information for related idioms and proverbs. The meanings of the
idioms and proverbs become more transparent. It is also worth mentioning that
the contextual capturing moreover helps in providing ‘encyclopaedic information’
that would otherwise not be captured, a challenge that this work would also
like to raise for other African languages.
The Users’ Perspectives on Isichazamazwi SeSiNdebele
Mandlenkosi Maphosa
African
Languages Research Institute, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
This paper seeks to
discuss the findings that came to the fore after the Isichazamazwi SeSiNdebele (ISN) editorial team embarked on a
feedback exercise in the Ndebele speaking provinces of Zimbabwe. The paper will
discuss the objectives of the exercise, the outline of the fieldwork, the
research frame, the seminars that were conducted on aspects of the dictionary
and the users’ responses. The whole exercise was carried out with the aim of
getting feedback from the users of the ISN, which is the first-ever monolingual
dictionary of Zimbabwean Ndebele. However, the exercise was not meant to
benefit the editorial team only as it also involved the enculturation of users
into the dictionary world since the dictionary was the first of its kind that
was expected to be widely used by the Ndebele language community. It should
also be stated that the exercise was a way of laying the foundation for the
advanced Ndebele dictionary and the revised ISN.
The
fieldwork exercise was carried out in the Ndebele speaking provinces of
Zimbabwe and it covered schools and teachers’ colleges. The exercise looked at
various aspects of lexicography that cover the very foundation on which the
dictionary is based, i.e. the corpus. The corpus was explained in detail since
it had a bearing on the final product in many ways. The corpus was defined and
this was a way of summing up the main source of lexical entries of the ISN and
to show the extent to which the speakers of the language had themselves
contributed to the final output. A general background on the structural aspects
of the dictionary was also presented enunciating the major structural aspects
of the dictionary and their roles emphasising on how they complemented each
other. Headword selection was also covered explaining in detail to the users
how the headwords that they saw in the dictionary found their way there. This
also brought to light the issue of lemmatisation. The team also explained the
defining formats that were used in the dictionary and the grammatical
information that they could find in the dictionary. The aim of doing all these
presentations on lexicography was to enlighten the users on the process of
compiling dictionaries so that they could give their feedback from an
enlightened position.
Having
received the ‘lexicographic enlightenment’ the users then gave their
perspectives on the dictionary. These perspectives will be the major aspect of
this paper. The field research provided a variety of responses some of which
were expected by the editors whilst some were a complete surprise. Some of the
responses bordered on lexicographic ignorance whilst some bordered on
nationalistic assertions on their language. It is these perspectives that this
paper wants to discuss; to indicate the divide that the lexicographer
encounters of user needs versus lexicographic principles. The paper will also
deal with the contents of the discussions that took place in the seminars. As
such headword selection will take centre stage especially with regard to
loanwords.
Bilingual
versus Monolingual: A Comparative Analysis of Two Trends in Shona Lexicography
Webster Mavhu
African Languages
Research Institute, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
The intended paper
will focus on lexicographic trends in Shona, an indigenous Zimbabwean language
that is made up of five dialects and that is spoken by about seventy-five
percent of the country’s total population. The Shona language has a
lexicographic tradition that stretches backwards for nearly one and a half
centuries, to 1856 when W.H.I. Bleek published the first lexicographic work on
the language, a work that was bilingual in nature. From that date, more
bilingual dictionaries, comprising mainly Shona and English, continued to be
produced by missionaries. Up to 1923, the bilingual dictionaries appeared in a
dialect that each compiler favoured. It was only after Doke suggested, in 1931,
that the five Shona dialects were supposed to be unified, that bilingual
dictionaries were compiled that represented the five varieties. The bilingual
trend continued for some time until it was ‘broken’ in 1996.
Indeed, in 1996 the African
Languages Lexical (ALLEX) Project, which was housed in the Department of
African Languages and Literature at the University of Zimbabwe, published the
first-ever Shona monolingual, synchronic, medium-sized and general-purpose
dictionary, Duramazwi ReChiShona (DRC). The publication was followed by
yet another monolingual dictionary that can be regarded as an advanced version
of the same dictionary and whose title is Duramazwi Guru ReChiShona
(DGC) in 2001. A six-member team of mother-tongue speaker-writers of the Shona
language, of which the present writer is part, produced the latter monolingual
Shona dictionary.
Just like in many
other African countries, there is a poor dictionary culture in Zimbabwe. Most
people, some of them notable scholars, are not able to see how Shona bilingual
dictionaries are different from monolingual ones. In fact, one scholar
proclaimed in 1996 that Dale (1981) and not DGC (1996) is ‘the first Shona
dictionary’ (SAPEM 1996/97: 34). By this statement he intended to imply
that Dale’s dictionary (which is bilingual) would be the first monolingual
dictionary, which is not true. Even though Dale reduces the English component
quite drastically in his dictionary, the work is still bilingual. It is from
the realisation that there are such misunderstandings as the one that is
mentioned above that the intended paper arose.
In the intended paper, the present
writer will offer a comparative analysis of the bilingual and monolingual
lexicographic practices in Shona lexicography. This will be done through the
use of selected bilingual dictionaries: Hannan (1959, 1974 & 1984) and Dale
(1981); and the current monolingual Shona dictionaries: Chimhundu et al. (1996
& 2001). The focus will be on how the above-mentioned dictionaries present
both the lemma and lexical meaning in their entries. The lemma is that part of
a dictionary entry that gives information revolving around the lexical unit
itself (Zgusta 1971: 249). The information includes headword identity and
spelling, tone indication, noun class numbering, etymological data, and the
marking of dialectal origin of the lexical item. Lexical meaning, on the other
hand, is the main part of a dictionary entry. The basic instruments for the
description of lexical meaning are the plural field of the headword, the
lexicographic definition, exemplification, and the location of the headword in
the system of synonyms and illustrations.
From
the discussion of the above-mentioned items, the present writer will attempt to
clearly show how problems, issues and advances in monolingual dictionary making
are distinct from those in bilingual dictionary making. The researcher hopes
that the paper will help scholars in general, and speaker-writers of the Shona
language in particular, to clearly understand the different approaches in these
two lexicographic practices. He also hopes that the paper will suggest the way
forward for further advances in improving lexicographic traditions in Africa in
general and in Zimbabwe in particular.
The Impact of
Translation Activities on the Development of African Languages in Multilingual
Societies: Shona – Ndebele – English Musical Terms Dictionary, a Case Study
Gift Mheta
African Languages
Research Institute, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
The paper will examine the impact of translation activities on the
development of African languages. It will analyse Shona musical terms that were
created through term-creation and translation processes and strategies such as
borrowing, blending, coining, compounding, clipping, derivation and
paraphrasing. Focus will be on how such strategies are contributing or
hindering the development of the Shona language. The importance of such strategies
and processes will be discussed in the broader context of empowering African
languages. Recommendations on the best strategies to employ when dealing with
specific musical terms will be given with a view to creating a uniform body of
musical terms. Non-linguistic recommendations that can contribute to the
development of the Shona language will also be offered in the presentation.
The main aim of the
paper is to reveal the inconsistencies inherent in the music discipline with
regard to the creation of terms used for music education and appreciation.
Term-creation has been going on in this field and the main problem is that it
has largely been unplanned and uncoordinated. In Zimbabwe, there are no
language or term banks, which can come out with consistent methods of
term-creation and standardisation of created terminology. The chaotic situation
in term-creation is not confined to the music field but is a general problem
affecting nearly all sectors in the Zimbabwean community. According to
Chimhundu (1987: 142), term-creation is a growing phenomenon, particularly in
the post-independence era in Zimbabwe. It is proliferating in business, central
and local government, commerce, industry, mining, agriculture, broadcasting,
education and other spheres of life.
To reveal the above-mentioned problems
the paper will focus on Shona, the main indigenous language in Zimbabwe. Shona
musical terms that have been collected by the African Languages Research
Institute (ALRI) for the compilation of a Shona, Ndebele and English
Dictionary of Musical Terms, will be analysed in the proposed paper.
In Zimbabwe, music is a
well-established discipline that uses specialised terms in the analysis and
teaching of sound components. Like in most specialised fields, it is taught in
English and some Shona terms that exist are equivalents created from English
through translation. Chimhundu (1996: 449) aptly notes that:
a main trend in translation between international
languages or languages of wider communication (LWCs) and indigenous languages
or national official languages (NOLs) is unidirectional transfer from the LWCs
as SLs to NOLs as TLs during the translation process. Both ideas and words are
transferred as African societies modernize and change.
Examples of such terms created through translation in the musicology
branch of music are tabulated below:
|
English form |
Shona form |
|
alto |
aruto |
|
bass |
bhesi |
|
beat |
bhiti |
|
chorus |
korasi |
|
soprano |
sopurano |
|
verse |
vhesi |
In analysing translations from which some Shona terms in the music field
emanate, the present researcher will use Chimhundu’s ‘scan and balance theory’.
Chimhundu (1996: 452) proposes that part of the process that involves searching
for equivalence or creating new terms may be viewed as moving in and out of
each language and culture with a scanner (i.e. brain) to identify equivalent
terms and expressions. When these have been found or created, the translator
compares their senses or ranges of meaning, usage, appropriate registers and
impact, and then makes selections accordingly. This, according to Chimhundu, is
the balancing part that comes after the initial scanning phase of the
translation process, hence the term scan and balance theory. This theory emphasises
the translator’s creativity when dealing with cultural and linguistic
differences in the SL and TL texts. This makes the theory readily applicable to
issues of language development, especially for languages of limited diffusion
(LLDs) such as Shona, which have limited technical terminology.
The paper will analyse
the term creation strategies, most of which have been mentioned in the first
paragraph, in terms of how they affect language development. It will highlight
phonological, morphological and semantic processes and changes undergone by
terms in the creation process.
The paper will discuss the problems
evident in the above-mentioned grammatical categories. It will focus on:
·
problems created by the Shona alphabet;
·
problems created by consonant and vowel
combinations in Shona;
·
problems created by dialectal variations.
It will offer
solutions that emanate from acceptable linguistic analyses of existing musical
terms. Such solutions are hoped to encourage uniformity in the creation of
terms. This is very important, as it is a way of contributing to the ongoing
standardisation of African languages. It is also a way of enhancing the
communicative power of Shona, a goal quite in line with the resurgent African
renaissance.
The paper will also present recommendations,
not on the development of musical terms per se, but on how to develop
term-creation activities in general. It will focus on how such linguistic
activities can be supported by various stakeholders in Zimbabwe. The roles to
be played by the government, to-be term bank committees, language committees
and representatives from fields that use specialised terms will be highlighted.
The
Lexicographic Treatment of the Feminine/Augmentative Suffix ‑kazi
in isiZulu
Linkie Mohlala
Department of
African Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver
Department of
African Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Department of African
Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Rachélle Gauton
Department of
African Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
According to Barnhart
(1953: ix), a good dictionary is a guide to usage much as a good map primarily
shows you the nature of the terrain. It is this view that underpins the current
investigation into the usage of the isiZulu feminine/augmentative suffix ‑kazi.
Usage, as clarified by Allen (1964: 272), “is the relationship between what
goes on inside a language and the context of speaker, audience, time, place,
and the occasion in which it occurs”.
Modern technology has made it possible
for lexicographers and linguists to revisit long-held notions on usage in order
to provide for more accurate descriptions. In this regard we specifically refer
to the recent availability of an electronic isiZulu (text) corpus, known as the
University of Pretoria Zulu Corpus (PZC). PZC presently stands at 5.0
million running words (or tokens), and can be analysed with software such as
WordSmith Tools. As a matter of fact, by testing the prevailing views regarding
the suffix ‑kazi as found in standard isiZulu reference works
against PZC, one is in a position to arrive at a description that is
conditioned not by preconceived notions, introspection or anecdotal data, but a
description that is based on a vast storehouse of actual language usage. Such
descriptions can then be used to prepare truly modern dictionary articles.
A total of 11,857
occurrences of the suffix ‑kazi affixed to nouns are found in PZC,
which amounts to 92% of all examples containing this nominal suffix. The corpus
study confirms what is implicit to Taljaard & Bosch (1988: 144 et seq.)
and Doke’s (19736: 70 et seq.) discussions of this suffix, and
explicitly stated by Wanger (1917: 138) and Van Eeden (1956: 725 & 726),
namely that the primary significance of the suffix ‑kazi is the
expression of the feminine form, with the augmentative significance as
secondary. There are, however, a few claims found in standard isiZulu sources
that are proven incorrect when tested against the corpus data. Poulos &
Msimang (1998: 112), for instance, claim that ‑kazi is never used
to derive feminine forms from nouns denoting wild animals. In the corpus, as
many as 700 instances are found of the suffix ‑kazi in exactly
this environment. As another example, Wanger (1917: 139) states categorically
that the feminine suffix ‑kazi does not occur with nouns ending in
–o. The corpus data disproves this claim, as there are 206 instances of
the feminine ‑kazi suffixed to o-final nouns. Furthermore,
when studying the corpus, certain aspects of the suffix ‑kazi come
to the fore that have been under-emphasised, inadequately treated and/or
omitted in standard works on the isiZulu language. Such sources tend to define
augmentatives as primarily indicating ‘bigness’ or ‘greatness’ (cf. Poulos
& Msimang 1998: 110). Yet, it would seem from the corpus data that when ‑kazi
is used as an augmentative suffix, it primarily serves to indicate ‘added
value’, ‘importance’ or ‘intensity’ (sometimes in a neutral context, but often
in either a positive or a negative context), as opposed to an increase in size.
The main aim of this paper, then, is to
revisit the lexicographic treatment of the feminine/augmentative suffix ‑kazi
in existing isiZulu dictionaries. Our investigations have firstly shown that
many lexicographers apparently do not regard this suffix as a word category
that merits thorough treatment in the central text of a dictionary, especially
when it comes to its meaning and usage. Indeed, whereas most dictionaries (e.g.
Roberts 1942, Dekker & Ries 1958, or Nkabinde 1985) do not treat this
suffix at all, those that do (such as e.g. Bryant 1905, Nyembezi 1992), often
do so in the front matter of the dictionary only. It is unfortunately well
known that very few dictionary users consult front and back matter material.
Only a handful of dictionaries (e.g. Doke & Vilakazi 19532) do
treat ‑kazi in the central section of the dictionary itself.
All these dictionary treatments of ‑kazi
will be carefully scrutinised, compared to one another, placed next to the
grammars, and contrasted to the fresh corpus data briefly outlined above.
Moreover, in order to ascertain current, spoken mother-tongue usage of this
suffix and its relative frequency, the results of various recordings centring
on the use of this suffix will be presented, for, as stated by Matthews (1925:
1173):
...
language is never in the exclusive control of scholars. It does not belong to
them alone, as they are often inclined to believe; it belongs to all who have
it as a mother-tongue. It is governed not by elected representatives, but by
direct democracy, by the people as a whole ...
In conclusion, various
model articles will be drawn up that summarise the findings and illustrate how
the feminine/augmentative suffix ‑kazi should be treated in a
modern, user-friendly isiZulu dictionary.
The ALRI Experience in the
Compilation of a Dictionary of Biomedical Terms
Nomalanga Mpofu
African
Languages Research Institute, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
The paper will seek to
highlight the experience and the challenges that were faced by a team of four
researchers in the African Languages Research Institute (ALRI) at the
University of Zimbabwe, in the compilation of the first bilingual Shona-English
dictionary of biomedical terms, Duramazwi
reUrapi neUtano (A Dictionary of Biomedical Terms). This dictionary project
was started in August 2001 and is set to be completed in May 2003. The product
of this research, a bilingual dictionary of biomedical terms, will aim at
improving efficiency of communication between doctors and patients. The
dictionary is composed of terms from both modern and traditional medicinal
practices.
The project was
initiated by the Institute of Continuing Health Education (ICHE), which
is based at the University of Zimbabwe’s Medical School. The Dictionary of
Biomedical Terms is being compiled with the aim of providing a tool for
communication between the doctor and his/her patient. There seemed to be a need
for doctors and patients to communicate better so that patient expectations
would be fulfilled after he/she has been to the doctor. The present scenario
that has been observed and that has acted as a barrier to communication between
doctor and patient in Zimbabwe, is that doctors are trained in English while
the majority of the people they will be dealing with use indigenous languages,
in this case Shona. It was thus seen that there would automatically be a
communication problem because of the different languages and levels at which
the two people in contact use language. Quite often, there is also a generation
gap between the doctor and the patient, since some of the doctors are young
people fresh from medical school. As a result, there are cultural nuances that
are loaded in the language that are usually missed by the younger generation of
doctors. This dictionary would thus serve to address the needs of doctors to
understand the terms and expressions used by the patients and to standardise
terms that are used by different age groups in different parts of the country.
The
dictionary is divided into two sections. The first section comprises of Shona headwords
with English equivalents. The headwords in this section are defined in Shona.
The second section has a reversal of the words in section one. In the second
section the English headword is the main entry followed by the Shona
equivalent. There are no definitions in this section. The reversal is in
alphabetic order.
The
paper will look at: (i) the method(s) that led to the production of this
dictionary; (ii) the presentation of entries in the dictionary as well as some
sample entries; and (iii) the challenges encountered in the compilation
process, namely to develop Shona medical terminology in a cultural context and
the problems of equivalence between English and Shona biomedical terms.
Language
Development or Language Corruption: A Case of Loanwords in Isichazamazwi SeSiNdebele
Cornelias Ncube
African
Languages Research Institute, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
This paper identifies
and analysis loanwords in Isichazamazwi
SeSiNdebele, henceforth referred to as
ISN. In particular the paper looks at the acceptability and/or
non-acceptability of loanwords by the target users of the first monolingual
Ndebele dictionary. The Ndebele language of Zimbabwe has not been immune to the
phenomenon of language contact and its resultant effect of cultural borrowing
and dialect borrowing. In Zimbabwe the language shares the same linguistic
environment with English, Shona and official minority languages such as
Kalanga, Tonga and Nambya. The language also has a historical heritage that
links it with its Nguni sister dialects such as Zulu and Xhosa spoken in South
Africa. The Ndebele language of Zimbabwe draws some of its lexicon from these
languages. In some cases Afrikaans words have found their way into the language
through Zulu. In selecting headwords for the ISN the Ndebele Lexicography
Unit (NLU) mostly used the frequency list derived from, and the lemmatised
headwords found in, the corpus. This method inevitably gave leeway to the
adoption of loanwords in the ISN with resultant public outcry.
The paper will be
divided into two broad sections. The first section gives a general review of
comments from users of ISN about the
inclusion of such ‘passport words’, also referred to as loanwords in the
dictionary. The NLU conducted its outreach programme in 2002 to solicit views
from Ndebele language speakers about the user-friendliness of the dictionary.
The team received criticism from the target users for having included loanwords
in the dictionary. It must be noted however that acceptance of loanwords in the
ISN varies with different age groups. The younger generation freely accepts the
loanwords as part of the Ndebele lexicon as opposed to the older generation.
The second section analyses the justification by editors for lemmatising
loanwords against views by the target users. This section will show that the
editors’ justification is at variance with the expectations of the target users
because of the latter’s reasons which go beyond lexicographic principles. The
paper will prove that reservations against loanwords in ISN go beyond
principles of dictionary making. At the forefront is the users’ attitude
towards the source language. Language attitude in Zimbabwe is by and large a
result of socio-political and economic power that characterise the different
tribal groups in the country. It also draws from the historical tribal
relations in Zimbabwe before and after the country’s independence. As a result,
Ndebele lexicographers find themselves torn in-between adhering to principles
of corpus-based dictionary making and language conservationists championing
‘language puritism’ and ‘language emancipation’. Suffice it to say that
‘language puritism’ and ‘language emancipation’ are forms of protest by speakers
of the borrowing language against domination (of any form) by speakers of the
lending language. ‘Language puritism’ and ‘language emancipation’ are a
nostalgic longing for the defunct historical ‘prestige status’ of the Ndebele
people over other tribal groupings before the pre-colonial period in Zimbabwe.
The paper concludes by discussing possible solutions to the problem of
loanwords to be adopted in the forthcoming Advanced Ndebele Dictionary
(AND).
The
Lexicographic Treatment of the Demonstrative Copulative in Sesotho sa Leboa –
An Exercise in Multiple Cross-referencing
Salmina Nong
Department of
African Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
M.P. Mogodi
Sesotho sa Leboa
National Lexicography Unit, Pretoria Branch, Pretoria, South Africa
The main aim of this
paper is to expound on some of the procedures used during the compilation of SeDiPro,
i.e. the Sesotho sa Leboa Dictionary Project. Just like any other modern dictionary,
also this dictionary is corpus based. This basically means that high-frequency
items are treated first, whilst lesser-frequency ones are left for a later
phase of the project. However, for the African languages it is sometimes
advisable, in fact even crucial, to treat all items that belong to a
given paradigm as a group. This will be illustrated for the
demonstrative-copulative paradigm.
It is well known that nouns are grouped
into noun classes in the African languages. Depending on the class, each series
of demonstrative copulatives will have a different form. Current grammars
indicate that there are 6 different types of demonstrative copulatives in
Sesotho sa Leboa, for 15 classes, or thus 90 demonstrative-copulative forms in
all. Our research, however, soon revealed that there are many more; we
recovered 152 forms so far. Obviously, some of these are many times more
frequent and thus more important than others, while still others occur only
exceptionally. Taken at face value, frequency counts could and should thus be
the arbiter in order to decide on inclusion or omission. On the other hand, it
feels awkward not to provide a complete paradigm – for what basically is a
single concept – in a dictionary. The research question thus revolves around the
issue of how to reconcile these two opposite aims. As it turns out, it is an
exercise in applying various cross-referencing devices.
The first step in the
research process was to draw up a matrix, consisting of all the noun classes
and their different demonstrative copulatives, according to the positions that
are distinguished for each class. During the second phase of the research our
aim was to verify and record the frequency counts of each demonstrative
copulative to enable us to make an informed and lexicographically sound
decision as to which items should be treated in the central lemma-sign list and
which ones should be treated in tabulated form in the front or back matter,
with appropriate cross-references.
A Sesotho sa Leboa corpus, consisting of
6.l million running words chosen from 350 texts, was used as an electronic
database to do this research. Several problematic issues had to be addressed
during this phase of the research, many of them on a purely practical level.
Since the corpus used is an untagged one, homonymy posed a real obstacle.
Contrary to what one may think, demonstrative copulatives being agreement
morphemes, some are indeed homonymous to other lexical items. For example, the
demonstrative copulative of classes 8 and 10, position I, šedi ‘here
they are’ is homonymous with the class 9 noun šedi ‘care; attention’. A
blind concordance search therefore did not produce satisfactory results.
Instead, all concordance lines had to be read through in order to isolate and
to identify the true occurrences of the demonstrative copulatives.
Another problem that is equally
relevant to the issue of frequency is the fact that some demonstrative
copulatives of different classes are morphologically similar; for instance,
those of classes 1 and 3, or those of classes 4 and 9. This has a direct
bearing on the decision as to whether items should be treated fully in the
central list or else only sketchily through cross-referencing.
Dialectal variation is another
challenging issue. In some cases it was found that there are dialectal variants
which are frequently used in everyday spoken language, but do not appear in the
corpus. The reason for this is that these forms are regarded as non-standard,
with their usage as a result being discouraged in written language.
Since dictionary making continues to
move from prescriptiveness to descriptiveness, these issues have to be
addressed in order to enable us to compile a dictionary that is not only
lexicographically sound, but also answers the need for user-friendliness. In
this case, corpus-informed cross-referencing was used as a powerful device to
link over 150 members of a highly complex paradigm.
Challenges to
Representative and Balanced Corpora for African Lexicography
Thapelo J. Otlogetswe
Department of
English, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana
Some of the latest
corpus-based lexicography researches consider issues of representation and
balance (Ooi 1998) as marks of standards of authenticity and robustness in
corpus construction. A language corpus must be balanced and representative of
the language from which it is extracted. By representativeness is meant ‘the
extent to which a sample [text] includes the full range of variability in a
population’ (Biber 1993: 243) and as Summers (1993: 186) maintains ‘unless
the corpus is representative, it is ipso facto unreliable as a means of
acquiring lexical knowledge’. Therefore for the corpus to be representative
it must reflect the typical cross-spectrum of language use of a defined
language community or period (Ooi 1998: 49). But we would return to Summers’
(1993) claim since it raises considerable difficulties, particularly for corpus
building in many African contexts and to certain linguistic theories.
The problem of what
constitutes balanced and representative corpora still remains controversial.
The selection of language from different genres to include in the language
database is largely unresolved. The compilation of text must finally capture
language from a specified population from which a sample is taken, which
reflects how that particular language community uses language. This is
significant since as Summers (1993: 186, 190) points out, the results of
corpora analysis must be generalised to the general language community from
which the samples were abstracted. It is in a way clear that issues of balance
and representativeness of corpora are related. A representative corpus must
reflect a representation of different genres of language use in a language
community; while a balanced corpus should attempt to capture those different
percentage levels or ratios in the way they occur in the specified language
community. This is obviously difficult to achieve, mainly because it is
difficult to know precisely all the text types and their proportions of use in
a population with its ever-changing dimensions. The difficulties are compounded
when one faces the building of a corpus of spoken language. This is the case,
since as Kilgarriff (1997) points out, dialectal varieties stand at different
ratios to one another and should be represented within a corpus that attempts
to accurately capture the language characteristics as a whole. We must also
contend with whether spoken text can be accurately sampled and represented
along the same lines as written text. How many words are we looking for and
what percentage of the spoken language do such words constitute? Whether spoken
text can be sampled in a representative manner is greatly questionable.
Although we can have a sample of the Sengwaketse dialect or Sekwena or
Sekgatla, establishing an acceptable representative percentage of the spoken
form of these dialects poses great difficulties, since speech is a flood that
refuses to be adequately accounted for numerically. Even as we attempt to
quantify it, more of it is being produced.
Atkins proposes a way of getting around
this problem of an ever-changing corpus. Atkins (1997) proposes an ambitious
approach of maintaining a corpus by using it, then identifying its strengths
and weaknesses, and then adding or deleting material from it to enhance it.
This approach of continuous checking of a corpus reveals how difficult it is to
have a reliable corpus since there is an ever-flowing text that gets added to
the language corpus on a daily basis. Atkins doesn’t say whether proportions of
language representation should be checked frequently to ensure that language
patterns reflect the proportional language change. That is, should the
percentage of newspaper data be checked against that of novels and other
genres? Perhaps Atkins’ approach may be feasible in the construction of a
corpus of written texts, but it is difficult to see how it would be successful
in the construction of a spoken corpus.
With this background
in mind, this paper attempts to investigate the problems associated with the
construction of corpora for dictionary building in many African contexts. It argues
that some of the challenges facing the construction of robust corpora to be
used in language research are the poverty of data, the lack of text to
construct corpora that can be representative of the different instances of
language usage in a specific speech community. High illiteracy levels in
African countries posses great challenges to researchers who hope to collect
written text read by populations. Added to that is the fact that even where
levels of literacy have increased, the literate members of the society read and
write text written in English or French and not in their native languages. Even
where such texts could be found in African languages such texts are mostly of a
certain genre, like novels, plays and poetry, to the exclusion of another
genre, like newspapers and academic texts. Even if we attempted to use such
data, we would have to contend with ‘sanitised’ data, purified by the editorial
policies and stylebooks of many publishing houses and newspapers, calling into
question its authenticity as original and credible text. The problem of
representing speech still stands as one of the great challenges not only to
African lexicographic research but also to research in many western countries
and is handled in this paper.
The User
Perspective: Bible Reference Resources as Example
Annél Otto & Nerina Bosman
Department of
Afrikaans, Vista University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
The fact that more
research on user needs should be done has been stressed in the lexicographical
literature. Compare the following statement by Stein: ‘Dictionaries are
obviously written for their users. We therefore need much more research on the
dictionary user, his needs, his expectations, and his prejudices’ (1984:
4). Hartmann (1987: 12) distinguishes between four groups of research on
dictionary use:
· research
on the categories of information which are provided in dictionaries (dictionary
typology);
· research
on specific dictionary user groups (user typology);
· research
on the contexts of dictionary use (needs typology);
· research
on dictionary consultation strategies (skills typology).
Hartmann (1987: 27)
concludes that research on dictionary use has only been done on a small scale
and that this research is often non-representative, non-comparable,
non-correlational and non-repeatable.
According to Hatherall (1984: 184) the
inherent restrictions of research based on questionnaires should also be taken
into account. These restrictions may be especially valid when research with
regard to look-up procedures are being investigated. At that point closer
direct observation would certainly provide better results. When respondents
should merely indicate which resources they use and which information types
they would like to have in a particular type of resource, then the use of
questionnaires may be valid, despite possible inherent restrictions.
Hatherall (1984: 189) also indicates in
which direction research should move in order to make progress. This may
include ‘closer direct observation by means of protocol, film and audio
recordings as well as personal interviews, plus computer tests involving the
logging-in and processing of data through video screens (for the latter, cf.
Fox et al. 1980)’ (Hartmann 1987: 22-23).
Since these findings/problems stated by
Hartmann and Hatherall, several studies have been done and articles and books
published on this topic, e.g. Using Dictionaries: Studies of Dictionary Use
by Language Learners and Translators, edited by Atkins (1998). In this book
there are for instance several reports on how different users used different
dictionaries to perform various project-specific linguistic exercises.
Questionnaires are also being used during fieldwork when user preferences need
to be established, e.g. the study about loanwords versus indigenous words in
Northern Sotho by Nong, De Schryver & Prinsloo (2002). Despite the possible
shortcomings of questionnaires, it is still an acceptable way to determine user
needs and expectations, especially when supplemented with other methods.
In this survey the
needs and expectations of respondents regarding the use of Bible reference
resources have been investigated. The survey has been conducted among 100
randomly selected persons, who are either ministers or other persons reading
and/or studying the Bible. These respondents are from different age and gender
groups, different denominations, places of residence, etc.
A first step was to determine which
types of users actually use Bible reference resources and for which purposes,
and to find out whether current Bible reference resources meet the needs and
expectations of different types of dictionary users, based on the information
types that they indicated as either essential, desirable or superfluous and the
purposes for which the dictionaries are used.
The findings of these questionnaires
are supplemented by a list of Bible dictionaries found on the Internet together
with a list of characteristics which these dictionaries contain and which are
(i) saying what the editors think the positive aspects of the dictionaries are,
and (ii) how the different dictionaries are rated by customers as well as their
opinions with regard to the usefulness or not of the dictionaries. It is being
argued that valuable information can be gleaned from these customer reviews.
The
next step was to see if there is any correlation between the needs and
expectations of the users and the implied needs and expectations of the
editors.
In line with Tarp (2000: 199) it is being
argued that a ranking of functions and user types, giving first priority to
some of them, second priority to others and third priority to still others, is
needed. That means at least that you are sure that you are making a homogeneous
quality product that meets the functions and serves the user types that you
regard as most important for this particular dictionary. For the second and
third categories of functions and user types, the dictionary may not be
perfect, but it provides at least some kind of assistance to the users.
The
Lemmatisation of Adverbs in Northern Sotho
D.J. Prinsloo
Department of
African Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
To date, Northern
Sotho metalexicographers have focused their attention on lemmatisation problems
in respect of the so-called main or primary part-of-speech (POS) categories,
viz. nouns and verbs. No attention has been given to lemmatisation of the adverb,
which is regarded as a secondary POS. Adverbs in Northern Sotho appear
thousands of times in the Pretoria Sesotho sa Leboa Corpus (PSC). These
enormous overall counts clearly indicate not only that they should be included
as lemmas but also that exhaustive treatment is required/justified especially
for the encoding needs of inexperienced target users.
The aim of this paper is to offer
solutions to the lemmatisation problems regarding adverbs in Northern Sotho and
to propose guiding entries for paper and electronic dictionaries that could
serve as models for future dictionaries. The current treatment of adverbs in
Northern Sotho dictionaries will also be critically evaluated, especially in
terms of frequency of use and target users’ needs.
A prerequisite to a
successful lemmatisation strategy for, and treatment of, adverbs, is a thorough
understanding of the nature of adverbs in Northern Sotho. Lombard (1985: 166,
167) rightfully states that, morphologically, adverbs are heterogeneous, i.e. a
specific form, or specific structural characteristics, cannot be attached to
adverbs. Van Wyk et al. (1992: 118) simplify the issue for first-year students
in dividing adverbs into three categories namely basic adverbs, derived adverbs
and adverbs which have been adopted from other word categories:
·
Basic adverbs:
ruri ‘really’, fela ‘just, only’, ntshe ‘there’
·
Derived adverbs: gagolo ‘mostly’, gantši ‘often’, gatee,
‘once’
·
Adverbs adopted from other word categories: bošego ‘at night’, mošate ‘in
the capital’, gae ‘at home’
When consulting other
basic grammars as well, the learner soon gets entangled in the terminology when
additional/alternative terms and phrases are used in the description and
classification of adverbs such as ‘developed’, ‘common adverbs’ and ‘used as adverbs
without becoming purely adverbs’.
The distinction between basic, derived
and adopted is of special importance to the lexicographer. They are problematic
in terms of decisions regarding inclusion in, or omission from, the dictionary.
Although all being ‘adverbs’, it will be argued that different approaches
towards inclusion versus omission should be followed:
·
Only a limited number of basic adverbs
exist in Northern Sotho and since they are all frequently used, they should all
be lemmatised.
·
Since the number of derived adverbs is
unlimited/open-ended, it is not possible to lemmatise all forms separately. A
strategy for inclusion versus omission has to be found. The need for such a
strategy is for example clearly indicated in the case of numeral adverbs. It
simply boils down to the question: If once, twice, ... ten
times are lemmatised, why not twenty times, hundred times,
etc. Frequency of use can be used as criterion for inclusion or omission,
supported by proper description of the policy in the guidelines to the users
and more elaborate patterns in the back matter.
·
In the case of adopted adverbs, frequency
could once again be used for decisions on dual POS labelling or even single
versus multiple entries. For example, should nouns which are used more frequently
with an adverbial than a nominal function be entered twice, or only once with a
dual label, or should it be assumed that all nouns can be used as
adverbs and thus not be labelled as adverbs? A sound application of the
metalanguage could be to order the POS-labels according to the dominant
function, i.e. n./adv. if the nominal function is more frequent, and adv./n. if
the word is more frequently used as an adverb. This has to be clearly explained
in the front matter of the dictionary.
What should be avoided
is a situation where the same adverb is labelled differently in different
dictionaries, or even in different editions of the same dictionary, or clearly
‘related’ adverbs labelled differently in the same dictionary. The treatment of
the three nouns listed by Lombard (1985: 167) as adverbs that developed from
class 6 nouns, i.e. maabane, maloba and mantšiboa will be
considered as a case in point, and suggestions for improvement in paper and
electronic dictionaries will be offered.
It will be concluded that compiling
user-friendly dictionaries of a high lexicographic standard for African
languages poses a great challenge to prospective lexicographers. They often are
the mediators between complicated grammatical structures and the decoding and encoding
needs of their target users. Adverbs should not be lemmatised haphazardly as
they cross the compiler’s way. They should be carefully researched and
lemmatised in a structured way. On the macrostructural level, candidates for
inclusion (or omission) should carefully be considered, preferably based on
corpus data. On the microstructural level, data should be presented in such a
way that it satisfies both the needs of encoding as well as decoding users.
Are
the Setswana Mockery Words that Objectionable?
M.P.
Rakgokong
Setswana
National Lexicography Unit, Mmabatho, South Africa
“Hai!
wena o dimpa di matogo, mpiletse mosimane yo o digoro a tle go ja
semanya se sa bogobe se. Kana ke raya wena o ditsebe di
makgela, kgotsa o a bo o gopotse ‘mmataago’ yo o tlhogo e letlapirwa
yole?”
“Hey
you with a bulging stomach, call me that boy with in-curving legs to come and
eat this stodgy porridge (normally without relish). I am talking to you with
thick ears or are you thinking of your friend with a big head?”
The words in bold above used to be heard in abundance among the Setswana
speakers of yesterday. It was at the time when the language was still ‘pure’ – when
it was not yet invaded by other languages. It was at a time Setswana was rich
with idiomatic and poetic expressions. A million-dollar question to be answered
is why these words are palpably marching into oblivion?
Indeed, providing an answer to this question
is no easy task to perform. The main reason may be that they are used in a
mockery, derogatory, humiliating or denigrating manner and thus unpalatable or
offensive; they are avoided at all cost, especially in dialogue. As the
avoidance goes on for a certain time, the words become tabooed and
automatically call for euphemising.
Another possible reason may be that,
unlike in the past, the Setswana language, like other African languages, does
no longer enjoy the status it used to. This may partly be blamed on the
colonial and apartheid era when only English and Afrikaans were accorded the
status of ‘official languages’. Most unfortunate and ironical too, after
gaining independence and democracy we became first-class citizens and
proclaimed our languages official languages, but government now says “away with
humanities in favour of science, technology and commerce”. In their
motivational speeches politicians and government officials brazenly tell high
school students that they should move away from the ‘softies’ – referring to
humanities – as the government is in dire need of people who can develop a
sustainable economy for the country. While one is not disinclined to agree with
this move, the risk is that it is exaggerated. It strongly encourages the youth
to disrespect the values, customs and norms of their communities as these are
embedded in, and find expression in, language. The present situation is
terrifying, and the future horrifying. Maybe it is high time that we learn
Cingo’s words of wisdom in Duminy (1967: 137):
When
a nation loses this intimate vehicle “which runs like a golden thread through
the warp and hoof of its very existence, that nation will cease to exist in the
exalted sense of a real nation.” A nation, then, which wishes to preserve its
identity and its language heritage for posterity, and which wishes to enrich
humanity with its special contribution must take steps to preserve its
language.
Yes, the plain truth is
that mockery words are somewhat objectionable because they are emotionally
disturbing. The paper argues that whatever function these words have and
whatever connotations they have, they remain words and as words they are part
and parcel of the Setswana language even if we may wish them away – just as we
did with swear words which finally found their way into our dictionaries. On
the importance of inclusion of this type of words Rawson (1979: 11) cautions: ‘keep
in mind Shakespeare’s advice (Henry IV, Part 2, 1600): It is needful that the
most immodest word be looked up and learned’.
The general aim of
this research is to collect Setswana mockery words from the Batswana, as well
as from written materials in Setswana, in order to access the range of these words
currently available and to explore (via content analysis) the meanings and
attitudes they convey. For the purposes of this paper a reasonable collection,
good enough to serve as a sample, will be assembled. In other words, this is a
pilot study. The research will be of great significance for the advocacy of the
inclusion of mockery words in Setswana dictionaries.
Data will be collected randomly from
men and women, aged 30 to 80, in the districts of Bafokeng and Molopo
respectively, by means of a questionnaire and interviews. The results of the
two districts will be compared. Where necessary a tape recorder will be used.
Existing dictionaries and manuscripts
will be examined to determine the extent to which they have included the
Setswana mockery words.
The words collected will be subjected
to semantic and content analysis.
Recommendations, based
on the findings, will be made vis-à-vis inclusion or exclusion of mockery words
in Setswana dictionaries.
Woordeboek sonder
Grense:
A Typological and Communicative Bridge
Mariza Steyn
& Liezl Gouws
Unit for Afrikaans, Language Centre, University of Stellenbosch, South
Africa
Research in
pedagogical lexicography has gained momentum over the past fifty years.
Recently, research on the influence of language learning and language
acquisition theories, as well as the incorporation of the mother tongue in
learners’ dictionaries, have come under the spotlight. The dictionary practice
has centred on advanced learners’ dictionaries within the British lexicographic
tradition. These dictionaries have been praised for their technological
advances and innovative and creative presentation and structure. A good deal of
criticism has also been expressed about the complexity of the presentation and
the level of reference skills expected from the users of these dictionaries.
There
are two important theoretical issues/problems within pedagogical lexicography
that are relevant for this presentation/paper. Kernerman (2000: 922) identifies
the first problem with existing learners’ dictionaries: ‘This will give rise
to dictionary research for beginners and intermediates and a new generation of
English learners’ dictionaries designed specifically for lower levels’.
Present-day learners’ dictionaries focus mostly on the advanced learner, at the
expense of learners at pre-high school levels. Secondly, lexicographers
experience problems with the typological classification of learners’
dictionaries on account of the insertion of the learners’ mother tongue. An
example of the typological confusion is the switching between terms like for
instance ‘bilingualised’ and ‘semi-bilingual’ for hybrid learners’
dictionaries.
The same problems can
be identified within the South African lexicographical context. No provision
has been made for beginners and intermediate learners. The typological
classification of learners’ dictionaries also creates problems for South
African lexicographers. A new learners’ dictionary attempts to address these problems.
Woordeboek sonder Grense is written for learners form grades four to
seven who have Afrikaans as a second, third of even fourth language. The
dictionary aims at assisting the learners in everyday communication and usage
in the classroom. Woordeboek sonder Grense is a hybrid dictionary that can be
classified as a monolingual dictionary with a bilingual feature. Translation
equivalents of the lemma are added in the example sentences and as a
consequence the dictionary functions as a language bridge. Text reception is
also facilitated and accelerated.
Learners
using monolingual dictionaries also experience the following problem, as
formulated by Atkins (1985: 21): ‘Users of a monolingual L2 dictionary can
access the material in it only by means of a foreign language headword. It
might be just that word that they do not know’. Woordeboek sonder Grense
includes an equivalent register as outer text, thus helping the learner to find
the lemma via an English equivalent. This outer text functions as a communicative
bridge whereby learners are referred from a foreign language, English, to the
object language, another foreign language, Afrikaans. The dictionary bridges
the boundary between different dictionary classes, because it is primarily
monolingual with one bilingual feature, namely translation equivalents.
Woordeboek
sonder Grense differs from other learners’ dictionaries on account of the
following two reasons: The dictionary forms part of a series of established Afrikaans
handbooks for primary school students, namely Nuwe Afrikaans sonder Grense.
The dictionary therefore agrees in title and look with the series. This
connection has major implications for the database and macrostructure of the
dictionary and will be discussed in the latter part of the paper. A second
advantage that goes along with the first point is the extensive knowledge
available about the users. Hartmann’s desideratum that the success of a
dictionary depends on the product’s suitability for the particular needs of the
users can be realised optimally. Knowledge about the primary, secondary and
reference skills of the learners also has immediate and extensive implications
concerning the microstructure. These implications will be discussed and illustrated.
Like
most other dictionaries, Woordeboek sonder Grense started with a dictionary
plan consisting of five phases. During the first phase, the general preparation
phase, a style guide was formulated, decisions about the frame structure were
made and the database was compiled. The compilation of the database from the
specific primary references ensured that relevant and familiar words were
included. The general preparation was followed by the gathering and preparation
of material and finally the processing of the specific material. It is
especially the micro- and article structures and the micro-architecture as part
of the processing phase that will be dealt with in this paper. The next phase
concerns the preparation for publication.
Woordeboek
sonder Grense functions as a bridge between different typological classes
within the learners’ family in order to assist the inexperienced
users/learners. Being integrated within a handbook and workbook series, the
dictionary can be used as an optimal communication instrument in the classroom.
Dictionary
Tailoring, SL Lexical Acquisition and Computer-Assisted Language Learning: The
LINC Approach
P.H. Swanepoel
Department of
Afrikaans & Theory of Literature, University of South Africa, South Africa
In information design,
tailoring refers to the practice of presenting information to clients in such a
way that it meets their immediate needs, interests or concerns and not in some
generic way, forcing them to sift through irrelevant information to get to what
they are interested in. In this sense, information tailoring is not altogether
foreign to the world of dictionary design, as is testified to by the various
kinds of specialised dictionaries that are on the market for different
languages aimed at the linguistic needs of different kinds of users. Despite
these efforts, we are well aware of the problems SL or FL dictionary users
encounter, for example, when consulting pedagogical dictionaries, despite some
innovative redesigns of some of the most well-known ones.
In this paper I will
focus on the principles that underlie the design of a minimalist dictionary,
tailored to meet the demands set for SL lexical acquisition in an interactive
CD-ROM SL language acquisition package. What is of broader interest is the fact
that the design of the SL acquisition package, including the design of the
minimalist dictionary, was based on current theories and theory-driven
empirical research on SL lexical acquisition.
The architecture of the package itself
is rather simple: 10 lessons, each beginning with a short video, a set of
exercises, a self-reference grammar, a WWW-link to a tutor and a dictionary. In
designing the dictionary, however, a myriad of possibilities existed. For
example, one could have opted for any one of the existing hard-copy pedagogical
dictionaries of the languages for which LINC caters, or any one of those
available on-line; one could have commissioned a smaller dictionary based on vocabulary-levels,
or one could have opted for monolingual or bilingual dictionaries, or for no
dictionary at all and could have used annotations instead, etc.
In designing the dictionaries for LINC
however, the approach adopted was to match exposure to the input materials
(video and exercises) and their cognitive processing to the theoretical
requirements set for lexical acquisition and to adopt the design of the
dictionary to complement these processes. The result was a dictionary design
that provides minimal linguistic information when the dictionary is consulted
and which, unlike most other dictionaries, reduces cognitive load, leaving more
cognitive resources for the lexical acquisition process itself.
The empirical question is, of course:
Did the design lead to better SL lexical acquisition? In the final part of this
section of the paper, I will discuss the results of the research of my partners
at the University of Antwerp. I will also focus on the drawback of ‘tailoring’:
personalised service is always labour-intensive and ways are needed of
capitalising on existing lexical resources such as dictionaries.
Within the field of lexicography
however, this project has two broader implications that I would like to stress
in the rest of the paper:
·
the need for theory-driven research on dictionary
(re)design;
·
the need for theory-driven research to support
dictionary use as a sub-field of inquiry in the field of lexicography.
On the Semi-automatic
Extraction of Definitional Information: A Case Study for Northern Sotho
Elsabé Taljard
Department of African Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South
Africa
Pearson (1998: 1)
states that the use of corpora in general lexicography is a well-established
practice, but that corpora have not been used for specialised lexicography,
i.e. terminology, in the same way as they have been used for general-language
lexicography. This is also true for the South African context, and specifically
for the South African Bantu languages. A number of reasons could be cited for
this state of affairs, the main one being the hitherto unavailability of
suitable specialised corpora, thus denying terminologists the opportunity to
base their terminological work on authentic special-field texts. Also, the
perception that terms are context-independent has for a long time dominated
terminological work and it is only recently that the emphasis has moved to usage
of terms and making use of real texts as a primary source of data. It is
furthermore generally accepted that the input of special-field experts is
indispensable in the identification and definition of terms. Unfortunately,
there seems to be a lack of commitment on the part of special-field experts who
are mother-tongue speakers of the South African Bantu languages to develop
terminology in these languages. South African terminologists therefore have no
option but to investigate other avenues to overcome these obstacles.
The increasing availability of special-field
texts, many of them in electronic format, enables terminologists to build their
own corpora for special purposes. Access to user-friendly and affordable
software such as WordSmith Tools further opens the door for
terminologists to base their work on authentic special-field texts. It has
already been illustrated by Taljard & De Schryver (2002) that it is indeed
possible to extract terms semi-automatically from Bantu-language corpora
composed of special-field texts, thus reducing (but of course not eliminating)
the dependence of the terminologist on the co-operation of the subject-field
specialist. The next logical step in this process would therefore be to
investigate the possibility of not only extracting terms from special-purpose
corpora, but to also extract definitional information semi-automatically from
these corpora.
Three issues are
addressed in this paper. In the first instance, Pearson (1998: 5) states that
authors writing within certain specified communicative settings are likely to
provide explanations of at least some of the terms they use. This hypothesis is
tested with regard to Northern Sotho, using linguistic texts as authentic data.
Secondly, the possibility of extracting definitional information in a
semi-automatic way from these texts is investigated. For this purpose, 50
linguistics terms have been identified, the main aim being to retrieve
definitional information on as many of these terms as possible. It has to be
borne in mind that the texts which are currently available are unmarked and
untagged, thus restricting the scope of the study to the identification of
mainly lexical and orthographical markers as indicators of definitional
information. A third aspect which is investigated is to ascertain whether or
not there is a connection between the strategy being used for identification of
definitional information on the one hand, and the kind of information being
provided in the text on the other.
The aim of this paper is therefore to
indicate that a corpus-based approach to terminology is not only a possibility
for the South African Bantu languages, but indeed an imperative and that
terminologists stand much to gain in making use of such an approach.
Language
Variation and the Lexicographer
Dirk J. van Schalkwyk
Bureau of the
Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT), Stellenbosch, South Africa
Variation in language
There is no language
community where all speakers exhibit the same linguistic behaviour. No two
individuals in the same language community exhibit identical linguistic
behaviour. Each individual has his own so-called idiolect.
The
variation in the idiolects of the speakers of a language is sometimes minimal. As
soon as this variation is larger in scope, varieties of a language and even
dialects develop.
Varieties and dialects
A variety of a
language consists, just as a dialect does, of the sum of the idiolects of all
speakers who speak the variety or dialect.
The
distinction between a variety and a dialect is to a certain degree artificial,
as it is at the very least difficult, probably impossible, to distinguish
between a variety and a dialect. Since a pejorative value is often given to the
term ‘dialect’, the term ‘variety’ is used in this paper.
Different
varieties may be the result of geographical, historical or social factors.
The extent of language
variation
Variation may affect
all aspects of language, e.g. phonology, morphology, syntax and the lexicon. In
this paper, however, only the lexicon will be discussed.
Varieties of Afrikaans
Afrikaans developed
from Dutch and kept its Dutch character in several respects. Many different
forces impacted upon Dutch at the Cape since the time Jan van Riebeeck established
his way station in 1652 at the Cape of Good Hope. The result was a new
language, i.e. Afrikaans.
South
Africa is a vast country and the influences on Dutch and later on Afrikaans did
not apply everywhere or not everywhere to the same degree. As a result,
different varieties of Afrikaans developed, e.g. Cape Afrikaans, Malay
Afrikaans, Afrikaans as spoken in the Swartland, the Boland, in Namaqualand and
Boesmanland, and Afrikaans as spoken by the Griquas and the people from
Rehoboth in Namibia.
Language variation and
dictionaries
The degree to which
variation is included in the macrostructure of a dictionary depends on the kind
of dictionary being compiled.
Standard
dictionaries, school dictionaries and multilingual dictionaries do not reflect
variation fully, but comprehensive dictionaries such as the Woordeboek van
die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT) cannot evade this responsibility.
In
order to report on lexical variation in a language in a dictionary, many
requirements must be met.
The demands language
variation in Afrikaans make on the Bureau of the WAT
It falls within the
brief of a comprehensive dictionary to report exhaustively in a lexicographical
manner on the specific language. It makes stiff demands on a lexicographic
project like the Bureau of the WAT, because:
·
both the written and the spoken form of the
Afrikaans language must be recorded, and
·
in addition to the standard variety of
Afrikaans, all other varieties must be recorded.
The data collection
policy of a comprehensive dictionary project must be directed in such a way
that the collected data meets the requirement of comprehensiveness as far as
possible.
In
order to carry out such a policy in the best possible way, a reliable data
collection network must be established.
Dealing with lexical
variation in the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal
Lexical variation in
the WAT is dealt with in the form of variants (wisselvorme). Variants
are a mention or reference to one or more equivalent or non-equivalent lexical items
that are variants of the specific lemma with respect to pronunciation and
spelling.
Variants
are equivalent if they are as commonly or almost as commonly used in a language
and non-equivalent when one or more variant(s) is/are more common than any other(s).
When
mentioning a variant, a formula with “Ook” is used if the variant is
equivalent, followed by an italic entry: bosgasie Ook boskasie (a
wild bush of hair). In the case of non-equivalent variants, formulas such as
“Ook soms”, “Selde ook” or variations thereof are used, followed by the variant
in italics. In the case of a reference, a “Sien” formula is used, followed by
an entry in small capitals: Sien bosgasie.
The fact that the user is referred to bosgasie at boskasie, shows
the user that bosgasie is used more often than boskasie and that
further information, e.g. meaning, etc., can be found there.
As
boskasie has not been provided with a label that shows that it is seldom
used, the user may deduce that both of the variants are used in the standard
variety of Afrikaans.
Sometimes
there may be many variants. At the lemma kasaterwater, for example, 39
forms have been listed. If the details given at kasaterwater and at all
variants are carefully studied, the user not only receives information on how often
all variants are used, but also on the geographical area(s) where they are used
and the variety (-ies) within which they occur.
Lexicographic dilemmas
caused by variation
As long as no
dialectal dictionaries or dictionaries describing a specific variety have been
compiled and no extensive and carefully compiled databases exist, it is almost
impossible to record all variants within a language accurately in order to
determine precisely where a certain variant is used, whether it is commonly
used and whether it belongs to the standard variety or another variety.
Correspondence
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