English Noun-noun Compounds And Their Selection As Entries In E-C Unabridged Bilingual Dictionaries

The entry selection of English noun-noun compounds (NNCs) in E-C unabridgedbilingual dictionaries is still a piece of uncultivated land in bilingual lexicography.English NNCs are characterized by their great number, low frequency of use andsome degree of semantic transparency, which shows that they are different fromcommon nouns and likely to pose problems to Chinese learners of English, and thatthe strategies for entry selection of common nouns may not be appropriate to entryselection of English NNCs in E-C unabridged bilingual dictionaries.In terms of word frequency, if the same standards for entry selection of commonnouns are applied to entry selection of English NNCs in E-C unabridged bilingualdictionaries, a number of English NNCs that should be included are left out, whichdegrades the quality of dictionaries. If the standards for entry selection of all EnglishNNCs are consciously lowered, lots of precious space of dictionaries is likely to betaken up. The most effective strategies for entry selection of English NNCs arestarting with users’ retrieval demands. The users of the E-C unabridged bilingualdictionaries mostly are Chinese learners of English (CLEs), most of whom have greatretrieval demands for English NNCs in low degree of semantic transparency and viceversa.Out of the considerations above, the author employs Conceptual IntegrationTheory (CIT) to make analysis of the relation between the dynamic conceptualintegration of NNCs and semantic transparency of NNCs from the perspective of thelearners, from which the mental space shifting in the process of integration mayinfluence the semantic transparency of English NNCs. Hence, the English NNCs aredivided into three categories, six groups and15sub-groups, according to the analysisof mental space shifting based on CIT. At the same time, the rationality ofconclusions above is backed up by a quantitative survey study.This paper makes a CIT classificatory study of NNCs in English, on the basis ofwhich the author proposes principles and suggestions for entry selection of EnglishNNCs in E-C unabridged bilingual dictionaries. The author puts forward generalprinciples of “Three Dos and Three Don’ts” for entry selection of all NNCs in E-Cunabridged bilingual dictionaries. Taking The English-Chinese Dictionary(Unabridged) and Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (Second Edition)as the data source, the author proposes specific suggestions for entry selection of NNCs in E-C unabridged bilingual dictionaries with examples, based on CITclassification of English NNCs.