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翻译概述--Part I 课文学习--第六页
（ Some Views on Translation in General ）
　
6. Dictionary Explanation and Translation

    It is important for a college student to have a good dictionary. It is more important for a teacher to be armed with some good dictionaries. It is even more important for a translator to have some good dictionaries available as no translator can do without. However, no dictionary is so good as to solve all the problems that a translator faces, even the best one is by no means a master key. Nobody can do without the help of a dictionary in his translation, but on the other hand, no translator can be a great success if he cannot be free from the yoke of dictionary explanation, which is the relation between translation and dictionary. But what is the good of a dictionary to a translator? How to make a proper use of a dictionary? We are going to make a study of these problems as follows

    (1)  Langue Meaning, Parole Meaning and Dictionary Explanation

    As we all know, translation is an information transmission from one langue into another, which is far from being a simple interchange, but an interpretation of the original from various angles, especially the cultural angle. Therefore, translation involves almost all the factors between different cultures, especially, various factors concerning language and parole.

    Translation is an indirect information transmission to the greatest possible extent between different languages, which is attributed to the category of parole or that of langue; dictionary explanation, however, is attributed to the category of langue, no matter whether the explanation is given by a monolingual dictionary or a bilingual dictionary. Langue meaning is corresponding to concepts, which is established and accepted by the public, and appears in a dictionary as the fixed interpretation that cannot be changed individually; whereas parole meaning is corresponding to concrete objects of the objective world, which shares individual flavour and greatly concerns the status, self-cultivation and experience of the speaker, to some extent, also special context of situation and background.

    A perfect dictionary may provide its readers with various explanations such as word meaning, grammatical meaning, pragmatic meaning and even stylistic meaning. These meanings, however, are only limited to explanations within the langue category, and explanations attributed to parole category are seldom made in any kind of dictionary. Thus it can be seen that the range of dictionary explanation is, generally speaking, smaller than the semantic range of parole words. And in addition, there are lexical gaps and semantic gaps caused by various factors of cultural diversities.

    So dictionary explanations are of limited help to translators, who are sometimes disappointed at his failure to find the corresponding words in a dictionary. Such being the case, translators can only seek the help from the thorough comprehension and the correct analysis of the context of the original (the direct context and the indirect context as well) before he makes sure of the accurate meanings of the words in question.

     (2) Context, Meaning and Dictionary Explanation

    The meaning of a word, to a great extent, is conditioned by context. The contextual meaning of a word is exact and fixed, and only the exact and fixed meaning of a word can prove its value of pragmatics. But, how many contexts a single word (with the exception of terminologies) can be placed, how many fixed meanings a single word can get from various contexts, remain unknown, as most words can radiate semantically into various fields around their centers of semantic cores, which forms semantic circle that cover all the meanings of words in question. Dictionary explanation, even if that of a great dictionary can only provide readers with most of the meanings of a word at most.

    Therefore, there are times when one makes a choice of words in translation for a given word in a certain context, he can hardly find its semantic equivalent and he can not find the proper corresponding word even if he has consulted almost all the big dictionaries.

    Taking dictionary explanation as reference and based on specific context, the process of semantic analysis and word selection is carried out from generality to specification, from abstract to concrete, which is the complete and only process of word selection in translation. Carrying out each step of the process well to the point is of great importance to accuracy of word selection in translation.

     (3) Reference, Discrimination and Selection

    To a translator, a dictionary is a teacher. But depending too much on it, one would be harmed. Samuel Johnson, the famous English lexicographer, believed that “Dictionaries are like watches, the worse is better than none and the best can not be expected to be quite true.” What Johnson said above not only summarized the function of dictionaries, but explained indirectly the dialectical relation between translation and dictionaries. Translators cannot expect one hundred percent accuracy of dictionary explanation. In fact, errors and mistakes are common in dictionary explanation at present. Translators cannot be too careful when they make use of dictionary explanation for word selection.

    Mario Pei, an American linguist, points out: “Dictionaries are of limited help, because most words in one language have a dozen possible translations in another.” Dictionary is a tool instead of an open sesame. One can make use of this tool to attain his object directly or indirectly, but he cannot regard a dictionary as an Aladdin's cave, still less an Aladdin's lamp.
 
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