| Terms take up a large portion in the entry words of specialized bilingual dictionaries(hereafter referred to as "SBD").The Chinese terms can be classified into single-character terms and multi-character terms as far as their constituents are concerned.With regard to the use of SBDs,the first step is to cut up the proper semantic units of terms from the texts they are embedded in.However,due to the feature of blurred semantic boundary in Chinese texts,it is difficult for users,especially laypeople and semi-experts,to decide from the texts where a term starts and ends especially when it is made up of several words in combination,due to the lack of bilingual terminological experience in relevant fields.Since users are likely to segment the terminological units improperly,the dictionary consultation failure is highly possible.The current specialized lexicographical study follows mainly the Function Theory in lexicography and the theories of terminology.The Function Theory is based on defining the functions of dictionaries and focuses on users' concrete needs within specific contexts,but the study within the functional approach does not cover the variance of terminological entry words in different contexts.The theories of terminology,in contrast,focus mainly on terms and their variants and barely touch upon the concrete contexts of dictionary use.With regard to the theories of terminology,there are prescriptive and descriptive approaches.The traditional terminology study is based on the prescriptive approach,and it argues that terms should be standardized and unified in form.The modern terminology study is based on the descriptive approach,and it claims that terms may vary within different contexts and among different people.The claim indicates that different users may want different lexicographical help for terms.This study is designed to investigate what users actually want from an SBD in terms of retrieving proper entry words from online Chinese-English SBDs(hereafter referred to as "C-E SBDs")and offer some solutions to the problems.In contrast to the traditional "user needs" study,the dissertation raises the concept of "user wants".It proposes that the user study should be user-oriented and be investigated through empirical study.To examine what users actually want from an ideal C-E SBD regarding retrieving the proper entry words,the study creates a theoretical frame on the basis of the proposition put forward by the Communicative Theory of Terminology(hereafter referred to as "CTT")regarding terminological variance within different contexts and the classifications of the contexts of dictionary use proposed by the Function Theory.According to the frame,the user wants are affected by the contexts of dictionary use,the texts they deal with,their language skill,their level of specialized knowledge as well as their habits of dictionary use.Based on the concept of "User Wants" within the theoretical frame,the study starts from the concrete contexts of dictionary use and tries to uncover user's specific "Wants" regarding terminological entry words through empirical studies on layman and semi-expert users and in the non-technical and semi-technical texts.It is mainly comprised of four related parts:a formative survey on "User Wants",a test on how users identify terms to verify the hypothetical conclusions from the formative survey,qualitative analysis on the findings from the two studies and solutions to the problems regarding retrieving entry words in an online SBD.They can be summed up as following:Part I is a questionnaire given to subjects chosen from the universities in Fujian province that offer BA or MA programs in translation and interpreting.The questionnaire is formulated to find out four aspects relating to the contexts of SBD use among the subjects at different levels:the contexts of SBD use,the rate of SBD ownership,the problems of entry word retrieval as well as the subjects' views on terms.Ten questions are included in this study.By analyzing the contradicting outcomes,it is found out that:1.SBDs are mainly used in technical writings and translations;2.SBD ownership rate is low,and users prefer searching bilingual equivalents from the internet;3.Users want some help regarding the language for general purposes(hereafter referred to as "LGP");4.It is a common problem that users are unable to find the equivalents of target language for proper terms in SBDs,and the problem is mainly caused by users' failure to identify proper terms and the unreasonable information retrieving system in SBDs;5.The investigation also indicates that users have little credence to current SBDs.Part II is a test on users' terminological capacity.It is extended from the formative questionnaire.The study uses the same batch of subjects and is carried out to verify the findings from the formative survey.It is set within the context of Chinese-English translation,and the subjects are requested to identify terms from the texts of different levels of technicality.The results of their operations are sorted into four types:"total match","partial match","not match" and "fail to identify".By variance tests in SPSS 19.0,it is uncovered that all the four possibilities exist among different text types and terminological performance does not necessarily relate positively to users' level of knowledge or language.The study to a great extent verifies the findings from the previous study that:users need LGP help in specialized fields according to the result of"not match";the problem of "partial match" and "fail to identify" verify the point that users have problems with retrieving the proper terms in SBDs;when the two factors take effect in dictionary use,users would certainly lose credence of SBDs.Part III is a qualitative analysis on the findings from Parts I and II.It is based on the issues regarding the features of the Chinese language,the characteristics of specialized knowledge of civil engineering and the use of LGP dictionaries(hereafter referred to as "LGPDs")in the past.The compounding feature of the Chinese language makes it difficult for users to cut up the proper terminological semantic units from the text they are embedded in;the feature of specialized knowledge of civil engineering may result in users identifying anything they don' t know as terms and consult them vainly in SBDs;the use of LGPDs in the past can be another cause,as the headwords of LGPDs are single-character based and users can access through any word they don' t know for its collocations,while the entry words in SBDs are oftentimes multi-character based,and hence SBDs rely heavily on users identifying terms in complete from texts for successful information retrieval.The fourth part is about the solutions to the problems uncovered.It proposes some measures for improving entry word retrieval for online C-E SBDs with a reference to some major online search engines as well as the concordance tools for corpus study.To settle the potential problems,we propose that a multi-character search with a spelling correcting function and visual information be included to help users find and understand proper terms.In the meantime,the study also proposes upgrading the current access strategy from the most prevailing mode of "proper entry word(the term identified by users from texts and searched in the dictionary)-context of proper entry word(the SBD presents to users)",to the mode of "user's term(the term identified by users and searched in the dictionary)-the contexts that contain potentially-proper term(the contexts the SBD presents to users according to the search words)-proper terms(users choose the terms that fit the text they are dealing with)-context of proper entry word(the SBD presents to users according to their choice)",in order to maximally settle the problems arising from identifying improper terms from texts.In addition,some proposals are made on including terminology and specialized lexicography into the current translation courses.As a lexi-giant,China has a long tradition of "large dictionary production in the heydays of social development".The country has gone through two lexicography plannings and accumulated a lot of experience in writing dictionaries,but we still lag a long way behind a true lexi-giant,especially in the theoretical study.In the new era,the spreading of specialized knowledge has been hastened by the rapid development of information and technology,the MTI programs are increasingly shimmering up,the demand on bilingual needs from specialized fields is increasing and the third lexicographical planning is about to begin.Against such a backdrop,there is still a long way to go in terms of the theoretical study of SBDs.This dissertation thus proposes that more attention be given to the study of SBDs,and the study of C-E SBDs should be based on the features of Chinese language,the characteristics of the specialized knowledge involved as well as users' habits in dictionary use,in order to create our own theoretical studies and write dictionaries that fit our own users.In this way we can push our own lexicographical studies ahead rather than blindly copy the theory and experience from other languages.The innovative aspects of this study are as following:In terms of the theoretical aspect,the concept of "User Wants" is put forward,which argues for adopting empirical studies to examine what users want from an SBD and lay a practical foundation for writing SBDs.The study is arranged in a progressively-advanced style.It starts with hypotheses from a formative survey,proceeds with an empirical study carried out to verify the conclusions and a qualitative analysis to construe the findings,and ends with some suggestions given on retrieving entry words.The whole set of methodology can be applied to SD studies of other specialized fields.Regarding the lexicographical practice,a brand new mode of retrieving entry words is proposed.It is available with some functions from the major search engines:multi-character search,spelling correction and visual information.It also proposes upgrading the current entry word access strategy from "proper terms(users identify from texts)-contexts of proper terms(the SBD presents to users)" to "user's term(users identify from texts)-potentially-proper term(the SBD presents to users)-proper terms(users choose the terms that fit the text they are handling)-context of proper terms(the SBD presents to users according to their choice)",to maximally reduce the problems arising from identifying wrong terms. |
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