Chinese-English Dictionary Research Articles

The British Missionaries' Attempts to Identify Chinese Medicine.

The Western world has a profound historical engagement with medicinal resources originating from China. Following the Opium War, missionaries were granted access to China and established residence there. Motivated by clinical necessities and the inquisitiveness of the Western scientific community, these missionaries meticulously documented the medicinal resources available in China, endeavoring to incorporate this knowledge into Western pharmacology. Among the various reports produced in multiple languages, the contributions in English have emerged as particularly influential. This article seeks to analyze the information-gathering processes within the missionary network and among other naturalists, commencing with Robert Morrison, the inaugural compiler of the English-Chinese dictionary, and extending to Stephen A. Hunter, who collaborated with Chinese officials to develop a complete translation for pharmaceutical nomenclature.

The encounter of English and Chinese lexicographical traditions

Abstract The publication of Wilhelm Lobscheid’s (1822–1893) English and Chinese Dictionary, with the Punti and Mandarin Pronunciation (1866–1869) marked a turning point in the history of English-Chinese lexicography. This article traces the genealogy of Lobscheid’s English and Chinese Dictionary by examining its multiple sources and discusses how the lexicographical tradition of English-Chinese dictionaries was built on previous dictionaries in the East and the West.

Making known the what and the why

Language is deeply intertwined with culture, and understanding the cultural nuances embedded in words and phrases is crucial for effective communication. Bilingual dictionaries play an important role in bridging the linguistic and cultural gap between languages. This paper examines the inclusion and representation of cultural information in bilingual lexicography, with a particular focus on Chinese-English dictionary compilation. It emphasizes the need to provide not only the meaning and usage of words and phrases (the what), but also the cultural nuances and the background behind them (the why). Furthermore, the presentation of cultural information in bilingual dictionaries requires the exploration of different methods and techniques. In this context, the paper explores the concepts of defamiliarization and foregrounding as means of emphasizing cultural aspects through explanatory notes, cultural annotations, examples from literature or popular culture, and other relevant resources.

A Cognitive Analysis of “Power”

Cognitive linguistics, as a newly established method for the study of language that emerged in the 1970s, focuses on the study of general cognitive abilities and conceptual processes of human beings. With the development of society, many new lexical items and concepts emerge, and they all need to be encoded in the form of language expression. An economical and practical way is to give a word multiple meaning. Based on the prototypical theory of cognitive linguistics, this paper analyzed the semantic network and semantic distribution of the polysemous word “power.” Fourteen senses of “power” used as nouns were collected from the Oxford Advanced English-Chinese Dictionary (9th Edition), and connections between different senses were explored by analyzing the semantic features. Meanwhile, 100 sentences containing “power” were randomly extracted from the BNC corpus to figure out the distribution of different senses. It was found that the prototypical sense and extended senses of “power” revealed the characteristics of family resemblance, and extended senses centered on the prototypical sense and extended radially outward. Among the 14 senses of “power,” the sense of “political right” is the most commonly used, while the senses of “multiplication” and “deity” are rarely used. Finally, some suggestions on the teaching of polyseme are put forward hopefully to offer valuable guidance for English learners.

Intertextuality, World Literature and Migration: Dictionaries and the Female Body in Najat El Hachmi’s L’últim Patriarca and Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary for Lovers

This essay argues that globalization has textual implications and leads to increasing similarities between literary texts that emerge from the experience of migration but are located in disparate contexts. These textual entanglements are unintended but not necessarily arbitrary, since they are deeply rooted in today’s high interconnectivity between people, economic systems and cultural artefacts. The essay bridges the gap between the fields of world literature and literary theory by complementing Julia Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality with a contextual approach that adds understudied aspects of migration, multilingualism, gender and the market as key factors in discovering new resemblances between texts in a transnational context. By defining migration literature as a genre characterized by an open-ended web of intertextual relations and conceiving of intertextuality – the intersection of texts – as a concept that mirrors the crossing of different cultures that goes hand in hand with globalization, the essay also takes world literature studies into new directions. The essay shows how world literature’s focus on circulation and centre–periphery dynamics has implicitly favoured a narrow understanding of intertextuality as an intended world literary device that does not account for less linear crossings. Through a comparative analysis of A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary for Lovers by the Chinese-British author Xiaolu Guo and L’últim patriarca by the Catalan-Amazigh writer Najat El Hachmi the essay examines the processes of linguistic and sexual maturation that are at the core of both narratives of migration. The intertextual entanglements between these novels can be explained neither through conscious practices of rewriting nor through notions of intertextuality that focus exclusively on aesthetic matters and leave aside the cultural dimensions of globalization, but through a new approach that highlights the similarities between different subjectivities of migration and the social embeddedness of literature in a global context.

A lexicographical approach to neologisms created through blending

Blending has long been regarded as an unproductive word-formation process. “Portmanteau”, a word formed through blending, can be traced back to Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking-glass, published in 1871, but the earliest words created this way were found to be in use in the late Middle English period and many of them did not survive. The number of blends failed to experience any apparent increase in the several centuries that ensued. Since the beginning of the 20th century, blending has been playing an ever-increasing role in forming neologisms. Simonini (1966) found that blend words comprised approximately 3% of new English words. Algeo’s (1991) research into neologisms revealed that about 5% of the words were blends. Among the 1,186 new words analyzed by Cook and Stevenson (2010), around 43% were blends. The growing number of new blends in the English vocabulary means the inclusion of more such words in English dictionaries. In the recent updates of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), neologisms such as shockvertising, sharenting, Xennial, and staycation are formed through blending. This paper intends to make a thorough research into new blends recorded not only in monolingual English dictionaries such as the OED, Collins English Dictionary, and Merriam-Webster Dictionary but also in bilingual dictionaries such as An English-Chinese Dictionary of Neologisms in Present-day English and A Dictionary of Blends in Contemporary English. The blends found therein will be classified, and the deficiencies in the coverage of blends in dictionaries like the OED will be discussed in detail.

‘If Our Love Existed in Chinese Tense’: Temporal Tensions in Xiaolu Guo’s <i>A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers</i>

This article is a close textual reading of Xiaolu Guo’s <i>A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers</i> (2007). In the novel, the protagonist Z confesses she is not good at tenses. Her uncertain command of temporality transposes from the context of grammatical tense to her love life, where her desire to forever be with her English partner conflicts with his belief that the future is not in the present. As her language learning struggles mirror the widening fissures in her relationship, temporal tensions arise. For one, Z’s first language (Chinese) does not have tenses, while her second (English) is dominated by time-sensitive verbs. This article is interested in the temporal tensions (time as linear or as looping) that illuminate the cultural and linguistic factors affecting Z’s perception of love, and reveal the gendered power structure (her male partner’s dominance over Z’s female subservience) that steers the relationship. Her ruminations on love and efforts at making sense of tenses draw together an ideographic scripting of a kind of love that deprioritises temporality to counteract the discipline and development of love in a linear time culture. Love in ‘Chinese tense’, as Z desires, is one that defies progression, future-proofed and faithful as a picture is unchanging.

Network Translation Criticism Model from the Perspective of Communication Studies

In this era of the Internet, criticism of network translation is rising gradually. The criticism of network translation is not only a communication tool, but also closely related to all aspects of translation. This paper takes Chinese-English Dictionary of Chengdu 2021 FISU World University Games Publicsigns as an example, combined with the characteristics of network communication, studies a series of discussions on the network before and after its publication, and analyzes Chinese-English Dictionary of Chengdu 2021 FISU World University Games Publicsigns. This paper discusses the characteristics and methods of the translation of public signs from Chinese to English, the great role of the network translation criticism mode in translation and the enlightenment it brings to the development of Chinese culture.

On the C-E Translation of the Chengdu Public Signs from the Perspective of Communication Theory

With the rapid development of economy and technology, China’s overall national strength, international status and influence have increased considerably. China has entered into the cultural output era, and it is important to tell China’s stories well, spread China’s voice and present a real and comprehensive China to the world. In the past several decades, China’s practical cooperation with other countries continues to develop, as well as the larger international games and conferences, attracting a quantity of people from overseas travelling in and out of China. Most public places have offered pubic signs in bilingual language, which effectively serve people at home and abroad. The public signs have become the most direct and common medium for people around the world to get to know China. Meanwhile, the quality of public signs’ translation directly reflects the social landscape and human civilization of a country and a city. This essay will focus on the Chengdu 2021 FISU World University Games to be held from July to August 2023, and jointly study the 5W mode of communication with the Chinese-English Dictionary of Chengdu 2021 FISU World University Games Public Signs, discuss and analyze the quality and communication effect of Chinese-English public signs in the five aspects of communication subject, content, media, audience and effect, hoping can provide some new insights to the public signs’ translation.

Guanghua Wu (chief editor). The Century Chinese-English Dictionary (Two volumes)

The Century Chinese-English Dictionary (《世纪汉英大辞典》, henceforth TCCED) edited by the veteran Chinese lexicographer Wu Guanghua is a new large-size comprehensive general dictionary which boasts over 800,000 entries. TCCED has been funded by China’s ‘National Plan for the Compilation and Publication of Lexicographical Works (2013-2025)’. As one of the ‘nationally important books’ listed in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), TCCED has inherited merits of Wu’s previous Chinese-English dictionaries such as Chinese-English Dictionary (1993, 1999), A Comprehensive Chinese-English Dictionary (2004, henceforth CCED), and The Chinese-English Dictionary (2010, third edition of Chinese-English Dictionary, henceforth TCED3), and its compilers have incorporated new features into the dictionary proper. The target users are not indicated in TCCED. On October 23, 2021, Zhu Yajun and Xu Ling with the dictionary publisher delivered a report entitled ‘On the Characteristics of The Century Chinese-English Dictionary’ at the 14th Symposium of the Commission of Bilingual Lexicography, the Lexicographical Society of China. Zhu and Xu pointed out the target users of the said dictionary, including translators, CFL (Chinese as a Foreign Language) learners, teachers, and researchers. The dictionary is also intended for foreign users who wish to know about Chinese history, culture, and life. Wang and Wu (2017: 157) summarized their main compilatory principle as user-friendliness. Considering the broad target users of TCCED, this reviewer focuses on the user-friendliness of the dictionary to its users, and translators in particular. Features of the dictionary in the inclusion and translation of entries, and exemplification that would be useful to translators are discussed in Sections 1 to 3 below while deficiencies in these aspects are addressed in Section 4. Several other representative major Chinese-English dictionaries (henceforth C-E dictionaries) are used to make comparisons with TCCED. These include the second edition of New Age Chinese-English Dictionary by Pan (2014, henceforth NACED2), the second edition of New Century Chinese-English Dictionary by Du (2016, henceforth NCCED2), and the above-mentioned CCED and TCED3.

The Work of Art in the Age of Transnational Reproduction: Form and Intertextuality in Xiaolu Guo's A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers and A Lover's Discourse

The Work of Art in the Age of Transnational Reproduction: Form and Intertextuality in Xiaolu Guo's A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers and A Lover's Discourse

Deterritorializing Hegemonic Globalization Progressively in Xiaolu Guo’s Experimental Writing: A Comparative Reading of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers and A Lover’s Discourse

ABSTRACT The narrative patterns of family saga, international romance, and hyphenated identity are popular with overseas Chinese authors who wish to enter the Anglophone market. In fact, they are implicated in the homogenization and marginalization of the ethnic minorities’ cultural discourse under asymmetrical globalization. This article argues that Xiaolu Guo’s A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers and its sequel, A Lover’s Discourse, are a continuous literary experiment in writing about the Chinese diaspora and pushing against those stereotypes. By shaping her protagonists not as recollectors but as observers via a documentary approach, Guo includes their international love within criticism of Western masculinity and links their diasporic experience to a cosmopolitan journey. The analysis of her experimental style of challenging Anglophone cultural imperialism and seeking global justice reveals the innovation and diversity of the Chinese diaspora’s translingual writing. Thus, Guo’s counter-hegemonic literary practice not only distinguishes itself from literature categorized as “ethnic” but also contributes to the discursive equality of international English-language literature by minority writers.

A Corpus-Based Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of Taste Words: The Case of English “Bitter” and Chinese Ku

This study explores the polysemy of the word “bitter” in English and ku in Chinese. It examines the similarities and differences between their semantics and identifies the cognitive mechanisms that motivate their semantic expansion. The study attempts to answer two questions: (1) What are the similarities and differences between Chinese ku and English “bitter” in terms of meaning? (2) What cognitive mechanisms motivate meaning extensions of these two words? To this end, 汉语大词典 (Chinese Dictionary), 英汉大词典 (English-Chinese Dictionary), the British National Corpus (BNC) and BLCU Corpus Center (BCC) were employed. The two dictionaries were utilised to investigate the multiple meanings of the two terms, while the BNC and the BCC were employed to identify metaphors and metonymies in sentences. Theoretically, the study is informed by Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy. The results showed that half of the meanings of “bitter” and ku overlapped, but there were still some differences. Their semantic expansion is motivated by both conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor. In addition, the words under investigation differ in the emotions expressed. English “bitter” is more negative, while Chinese ku is more positive. The present findings have important implications for education and cross-cultural communication in language.

Treatment of Pragmatic Information in the Chinese-English Dictionary

The study aims to investigate the pragmatic information in Chinese-English dictionaries. A general survey was made to examine the status quo of the pragmatic information in the existing Chinese-English dictionaries. It was found that all large- and medium-sized dictionaries under investigation provided some pragmatic information. However, these dictionaries only provided the pragmatic information about the Chinese headword but not the English equivalent. The author argues that since the target users of these dictionaries are Chinese EFL learners, they should state clearly the pragmatic differences between the headword in the source language and the equivalent in the target language. Moreover, the cultural notes provided should be focused on the English equivalents instead.

A Genealogical Study of Kuang Qizhao’s An English and Chinese Lexicon (1868)

Abstract Embedded in historical and genealogical research, this study investigates the influence of English-Chinese dictionaries compiled by missionaries on Kuang Qizhao’s (1836?–1891?) An English and Chinese Lexicon, compiled in part from those of Morrison, Medhurst and Williams (1868). Drawing on Hartmann’s genealogical approach and the lexicographical findings and linguistic evidence presented in three case studies, we argue that Kuang depended not only on Walter Henry Medhurst’s (1796–1857) English and Chinese Dictionary (1847–48), Samuel Well Williams’ (1812–1884) An English and Chinese Vocabulary (1844) and Robert Morrison’s (1782–1834) English and Chinese dictionary (1822), as indicated in the dictionary title, but also on Wilhelm Lobscheid’s (1822-1893) An English and Chinese Dictionary (1866–69) for his own dictionary. And yet Kuang never acknowledged Lobscheid’s dictionary as one of his source dictionaries. This article discusses the reasons why Kuang failed to acknowledge the importance of Lobscheid’s contribution to his dictionary. It is expected to that the findings we have made will provide insights into the genealogical study of English-Chinese dictionaries in general, as well as confirming Kuang’s remarkable merit in compiling his English-Chinese dictionary in the 19th century.

Occidentalism, Undergraduate Literary Reading, and Critical Intercultural Pedagogy

The purposes of this paper are to investigate Taiwanese undergraduate students’ responses to a selected fictional text, and to propose a critical intercultural pedagogical approach of reading global literature in the EFL educational context based on the insights from the research findings. The authors first critically analysed Xiaolu Guo’s third novel, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, in terms of Occidentalism, in order to unpack the ideologies underlying her representation of the British and the Chinese. The analysis of the text was conducted through a qualitative approach of critical content analysis. After that, a semi-structured interview was adopted to scrutinise Taiwanese undergraduate students’ perceptions of the ideologies underlying the fiction. The analysis of the text identified three themes of British-Chinese binary opposition together with the juxtaposition of ethnocentric Occidentalism and reverse Occidentalism. The findings obtained from interviews indicated that two of the three dichotomies, i.e. individualism versus collectivism and cosmopolitan versus rooted, underlying the fictional text were commonly perceived by the interviewed undergraduates while they had diverse views on the second dichotomy, sexual freedom versus sexual reticence. Furthermore, some students’ responses to the fiction signified a subtle, implicit and delicate form of reverse Occidentalism. Based on the above research findings, the authors configured a critical intercultural pedagogy for raising students’ capability of decoding and deconstructing Occidentalist ideologies underlying global literature.

Affective Geographies and Narratives of Chinese Diaspora ed. by Melody Yunzi Li and Robert T. Tally Jr.

Reviewed by: Affective Geographies and Narratives of Chinese Diaspora ed. by Melody Yunzi Li and Robert T. Tally Jr. Tingting Hu Melody Yunzi Li and Robert T. Tally Jr., editors. Affective Geographies and Narratives of Chinese Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. 171 p. Affective Geographies and Narratives of Chinese Diaspora examines the Chinese diaspora, one of the world's largest migration phenomena. Bringing in the perspective of affect to probe the problem, it offers diverse ways of interpreting or complicating "Chineseness" as mainly entangled with "homeness" and illuminates "the affective geographies implicit in diasporic identity and community" and aims to "explore the intricate ways in which diaspora interacts with space, place, and emotional attachment in various cultural forms" (2). Its examination of literature, film, and visual culture texts that "seek to connect and reconnect with their 'homelands,'" strikes a needed discussion about the contemporary tide of precarious migration (2). Affective Geographies understands "diaspora" as a displaced experience of being "far away from 'home'" while at the same time being "homed" in another place (1). Geographically, it covers movements from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong, Taiwan, France, the UK, the US, and more. It expands the notion of diaspora, commonly understood as a geographically "transnational" movement of people, and demonstrates the specificity of the Chinese diaspora. The idea of diaspora reveals not only a geographically transnational movement but also a dialogue between the affective, imaginary, and disputed realm. For instance, Kenny K.K. Ng's chapter "Borderscape, Exile, Trafficking: The Geopolitics of Ying Liang's A Family Tour and Bai Xue's The Crossing" discusses the cinematic expression of "intranational migration" that is "occurring within the borders of one country" (5). Huanyu Yue's "Displaced Nostalgia and Literary Déjà vu: On the Quasi-Archaic Style of Li Yongping's Retribution: The Jiling Chronicles" observes the relationship between a Malaysian writer's lived experience as "an overseas wanderer" and his literary construct of a "fantasized motherland of China" (71). Both cases envision "diaspora" as more porous than has been commonly perceived. Underlying the idea of diaspora to understand the flow of people from mainland China to other places including Hong Kong [End Page 336] and Taiwan can be indicative of political controversy due to the "transnational" implication of a "diaspora." Though this problem remains intractable, this book expands the scope of "diaspora" and renders it more flexible in the case of the Chinese diaspora, claiming that it happens "both in and out, both of and off, China" (7). Sheng-mei Ma's "The Holy Hole in Chinese Patriarchal Culture: Going Pop and South" reminds us that rather than be limited to the realm of "China studies" "Sinophone studies" or "diaspora studies," academic research can benefit more from emphasizing a diasporic perspective that looks at the intersection of the homeland with other spatial cultures. In this sense, the keyword "remapping the homeland" highlighted in the introduction serves as an accurate supporting pillar to the study of "Chinese diaspora." The phrase "remapping the homeland" also helps complicate the idea of "homeland" as not purely a space or a place, but a concept immersed in affect. Relying on "China" as the origin of "homeness," it also tries to critique the China-centered perspective, referencing "contact zone" theories and analyzing how "homelands" are reimagined and recreated in diasporic spaces. Chapters include various diasporic experiences, especially those that remain marginalized or understudied. Elizabeth Ho's "'The Geography Helps': Affective Geographies and Maps in Xiaolu Guo's A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers" investigates the linguistic dilemma of immigrants from developing countries. Dorothee Xiaolong Hou's "From Rust Belt to Belleville: Two Recent Films on Chinese Migrant Sex workers in Paris" exposes the hyper-exploitation of women sex workers in the global chain of consumption. Ping Qiu's "Literary Exile in the Third Space: Ha Jin's Critique of Nation-States in A Free Life" and Melody Yunzi Li's "Remapping New York's Chinatowns in the Works of Eric Liu and Ha Jin," both rely on texts by the Chinese immigrant writer Ha Jin. The first examines the relationship between the writer's transnational movement and his literary creation to...

Library and Bookstore of Sergei A. Polevoy in Beijing

The article reveals previously unknown facts about the sinologist Sergei Alexandrovich Polevoy (1886—1971), who became famous due to his scientific, pedagogical and social activities in China. Being a native of dynasty that gave the world talented literary critics, writers and journalists, Polevoy from his youth was passionate about literature and collecting books alongside learning about China. His first academic work, prepared as a graduation paper at the Oriental Institute (Vladivostok), was devoted to periodicals in China; and his unique library composed of literature in many languages originated from the books on Oriental studies and linguistics. Living in China since 1917, Polevoy was a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin (since 1918) and then Peking University (since 1921), where he taught Chinese students the Russian language and literature. Using the introduction to Russian culture and literature as a new method of teaching, he brought up some famous Chinese writers and translators. His bookstore, opened in Beijing and having contacts with the International Book Company in Moscow, became a cultural bridge between Russia and China. Using the bookstore, Polevoy supplied Chinese students with textbooks and Russian classical literature, replenished the department of Slavic literature at the Beijing National Library, distributed Marxist literature and helped Chinese communist leaders establish contacts with the USSR. The authors also report the facts on the biography of Polevoyʼs son, Leonid, thanks to whom the Oriental Institute of the Far Eastern Federal University (Vladivostok) received the manuscript of S. Polevoy’s English-Chinese dictionary and his other materials on oriental studies. Leonid also presented his father’s book collection to Irkutsk, and these books served as the basis of the Humanitarian Centre — Library named after the Polevoys’ family. The article is based on materials from the Polevoys’ family archives and other private collections abroad.

Big Data in the Translation of Terminology for Foreign-Related Public Crisis Events

<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Today, as the world enters the age of informationization and digitalization, big data technology has become a key area of cooperation and development between China and foreign countries, and friction is inevitable when the language is not interchangeable, and foreign-related major public crisis events are major public crisis events involving foreign countries, which can easily lead to greater disasters if not handled properly, so it is very important to pay attention to the translation problems and propose countermeasures in this field. The purpose of this paper is to study the translation of terminology of big data technology in the handling of foreign-related public crisis events. This paper uses the research methods of description, induction and comparison to analyze the real corpus, mainly to further promote linguistic analysis of the terminology of foreign-related public crisis event handling in the context of big data. The paper analyzes and summarizes the patterns of terminology through individual cases, helping to identify accurate expressions and deepen the understanding of the field. The experimental results show that the accuracy rate of finding the terminology of foreign-related public crisis events through web pages and online dictionaries simultaneously reached 93%, indicating that the method and system of automatically obtaining terminology translation through web pages and online Chinese-English dictionaries under big data has good accuracy and the system is less time-consuming and more practical.</span>

Differentiated Treatment of Cultural Items in Lexicographical Products: A Necessary Adaptation to the Digital Environment

The paper focuses on the lexicographical treatment of cultural objects. It argues that second-language learning requires second-culture learning and that digital technologies call for new solutions to both old and new challenges. As an example, it takes traditional Chinese musical instruments and starts with a critical analysis of their treatment in five Chinese–English dictionaries for both foreign learners and native speakers. It continues with some reflections on media convergence and its consequences for lexicography and reaches the conclusion that the one-size-fits-all dictionary must be replaced with a variety of lexicographical products on different platforms. Lexicographers' focus must therefore move from the dictionary to the database that supports these products. This leads to a discussion of equivalent and explanation types and the need to prepare four different database fields for equivalents and two for explanations. To exemplify this, the paper presents a lexicographical database with equivalents, explanations, and other types of culturally relevant items. It then uses a few examples to show how these lexicographical items stored in the database can be selectively employed on different platforms and adapted to specific user needs. The paper links directly to sound files and video clips with some of the discussed instruments. Finally, the paper provides some conclusions and perspectives for further improving the cultural dimension of learners' lexicography.