Data-Identifying Entry Components in an Online Bilingual Dictionary

Abstract

The article discusses the possible uses of innovations in the treatment of various types of zero equivalence in an online bilingual English-Slovene dictionary, whose primary target audience is native speakers of Slovene who use the bilingual dictionary mostly for decoding. The use of special symbols that indicate either the absence of equivalents (slashed zero, hash) or an approximate equivalent (double tilde) is commented on, and suggestions are made for including these in an online dictionary in a more user-friendly way, since online dictionaries can offer much more than printed dictionaries not only in terms of the nature and extent of linguistic data but also in terms of new access options. Since not all information is shown on screen, additional information found in a number of locations can be retrieved – if needed or wanted – by clicking on data-identifying buttons. These buttons can be regarded as search routes leading the user to the required information category. They accommodate various types of clearly demarcated information, which contributes to the more personalized approach adopted by an online dictionary. Sample dictionary entries are used to show what kind of buttons (notes on the usage of the lemma; more illustrative examples; expansion of truncated examples; notes on cultural specificity of culture-bound lemmata) can be included in an online bilingual English-Slovene dictionary. The suggestions presented in the article do not apply only to an English-Slovene online dictionary but can also be applied to other bilingual online dictionaries with modifications and adaptations resulting from the particular language pair treated in a given dictionary.