Turning the New Ground: Critical and Pedagogical Reflections on the Production of the First Japanese–Lithuanian Dictionary

Dalia Švambaryt

doi:10.15388/aov.2005.0.3970

Abstract

Centre of Oriental Studies, Vilnius University This paper is based on author’s own experience of compiling the first Japanese–Lithuanian character dictionary (in Japan there are converse Lithuanian–Japanese dictionaries). It contains hermeneutical, pedagogical and pragmatic reflections on the production of bilingual dictionaries, and discusses the problem of how to make Japanese studies attractive in a country with no tradition of the studies. To create the basis for the studies, not only an intellectual background, but also linguistic material, such as textbooks, dictionaries, etc. is needed. In the case of a country where Japan has just recently become an object of academic studies, such reference book for language learning could also become the primary source of information on the country in which the language is spoken.

Highlights

This paper is based on author’s own experience of compiling the first Japanese–Lithuanian character dictionary
I was the first lecturer of the Japanese language and was charged with building Japanese studies at Vilnius University with the collaboration of colleagues
Lithuania is a small country, and we have always known more about others than they know about us

Summary

DALIA ŠVAMBARYTƠ

It may be said that the learner ‘communicates’ with the dictionary, reaching a social interaction with it, and the communication, especially during the learning process, is more articulate when it is carried on in native language as a starting point This consideration may help answer the question about the necessity of a Japanese language dictionary in Lithuania whose language is qualified as LWULT, the abbreviation for ‘less widely used and less taught’ languages. With the language one gains access to the cultural heritage of a country, but culture is not solely concerned with art, literature, or music; it encompasses everything that people learn to do, all aspects of human life It includes personal behaviour, the patterns of everyday life, all points of interaction between the individual and the society, since whatever one does, is done in a cultural context. Dictionary, as the codification of a language, is a book about words, not about things, but its users turn to “pass from words to things, from names to natures” (Adler, 1941), and in this sense a dictionary provides means for the circulation of experiences and values

Pragmatic and pedagogical considerations

Conclusions