A Comparative Analysis Of Illustrations In Chinese And English Learning Dictionaries

Dictionaries are the most commonly used and important tools in the process of language learning,which can help users better understand the meaning of words.As one of the important microstructures of dictionaries,illustrations play an important role in aiding interpretation and conveying cultural information,especially in learning dictionaries,where they play a vital role in helping learners to understand the text and learn the language as visual material.This paper takes the illustrations in learning dictionaries as the object of study and the Chinese learning dictionary,"Learner’s Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese","The commercial Press Learner’s Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese","International Chinese Learning Dictionary" and the English learning dictionary,"Oxford Advanced English-Chinese Double Solution Dictionary" as the scope of study,compares the illustrations in the Chinese and English learning dictionaries from the aspects of word distribution,type and color,summarizes the similarities and differences between the two,and analyzes the problems existing in the pictures of Chinese learning dictionaries from the perspectives of cognitive lexicography and multimodal discourse analysis theory.Combined with the survey results of users,this paper tries to put forward the principles that Chinese learning dictionaries should follow in terms of picture matching and suggestions on image selection.This article consists of seven parts:The introduction section explains the background of the topic selection of this paper,and determines the research object and research method of this paper on the basis of combing the current research status.The first chapter provides quantitative statistics on the distribution of word types illustrated in the two kind of language learning dictionaries.The results show that illustrations are used for all word types,but mainly for nouns and verbsThe second chapter statistically analyzes the type distribution of illustrations in four learning dictionaries based on Feng Chunbo’s classification criteria of illustration types.It is found that learning dictionaries are mainly used a single illustration as the main type,and each part of speech has a corresponding suitable illustration type.Chapter 3 compares and statistically analyzes the color of illustrations in the four learning dictionaries,with black and white illustrations being the most common,but not as effective as color illustrations;Compared to drawing,the photo is not clear enough and it is difficult to highlight the key points in a targeted manner.Chapter 4 conducts a questionnaire survey on the types and colors of illustrations in Chinese learning dictionaries from the user’s perspective,and the results show that learners prefer illustrations with color photos and in terms of type prefer combined illustrations.Chapter 5 summarizes the problems of Chinese learning dictionaries in the context of cognitive lexicography and multimodal discourse analysis.Chapter 6 attempts to propose principles that should be followed in the illustration of learning dictionaries and suggests further improvements for the selection of illustrations.The concluding section summarizes the main research work,the existing shortcomings and the direction of the next efforts.