The bilingual oracle : teaching students to use english dictionaries

Abstract EN

The paper begins with our own observations concerning the way Arabic-speaking learners of English use dictionaries for their work in translation and composition, We find that they cio not generally make the best use of the dictionaries and other lexical tools available to them.

We then define the kinds of information that are most vital to such students, undofferexercises which wc hope may serve as a pattern for student practice in the skills needed in obtaining this information.

The exercises themselves involve use of The Oxford English Dictionary, The Concise Oxford Dictionary, the thesaurus, and etymological dictionaries to soKe problems concerning poems by Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Lewis Carroll, and Hugh MaeDiarmid.

The problems are presented JII the form of worksheets which will guide I he student through the process ot discover^ with the minimum of effort, and in a manner designed lo teach him or her the most efficient w^ay to use these reference sources.

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19*4- Based in part on the worksheets themselves we offer a list of categories of words, which range from the specialized technical vocabulary of MacDiarraid to the nonsense words of Carroll's poem, "Jabberwocky." The exercise on Hardy also emphasises the dual nature of the English vocabulary stemming from its origins in Old English and other languages.

Finally, we acknowledge the considerable work that remains to be done in the methodology of teaching students to use lexicographical reference sources: monolingual English and Arabic sources, as well as bilingual Arabic-English dictionaries.

This paper will discuss the task oi the student translator at upper intermediate level (undergraduates in their third year) and above in searching for lexical equivalence between Arabic and English.

Wc shall go on to propose a series of exercises which might serve to teach the student the skills required and to practise him or her in achieving this task.