Foreign Dictionaries Research Articles

ON TERMINOLOGY OF TYPES OF CHINESE DICTIONARIES

The paper is devoted to the study of different Chinese terms that denote types of dictionaries/reference books in Chinese. The English word dictionary has several Chinese equivalents, including the archaic term 字书 (zìshū, character book) and modern terms 字典 (zìdiăn, character dictionary), 词典 (cídiăn, word dictionary, or simply dictionary), and 辞典 (cídiăn, lexicon), and the more general term 辞书 (císhū, lexicographical works). Depending on the kind of linguistic units that are selected as its entries, Chinese - foreign dictionaries can be a character dictionary, a word dictionary, or a dictionary of characters and words. A Chinese lexeme can be a monosyllabic morpheme in the form of a single character like 眼 (yǎn, eye), 看 (kàn, look), 不 (bù, no; not) and 了 (le), or a multi-syllabic morpheme consisting of two or more characters, like 葡萄 (pútao, grape) and 巧克力 (qiǎokèlì, chocolate). Unlike conventional dictionaries in which multi-syllabic morphemes are treated as sub-entries, the dictionary of Chinese lexemes 辞位 (cíwèi) that serves the needs of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, treats them on an equal footing as single characters. The sub-entries of 辞位 (cíwèi) dictionary correspond to English words and are composed of a head character or head lexeme plus another character or lexeme. For instance, the sub-entries under 眼 (yǎn, eye) are 眼 光 (yǎnguāng, vision), 眼睛 (yǎnjīng, eye), etc.; and the sub-entries under 葡萄 (pútao, grape) are 葡萄干 (pútaogān, raisin), 葡萄酒 (pútaojiǔ, wine), 葡萄糖 (pútaotang, glucose) and 葡萄牙 (pútaoyá, Portugal).

Virtual Reality Attraction as a Source of Harm in Tort Obligations

The article focuses on virtual reality attractions as a source of harming. Taking into consideration the rapid development of scientific and technological progress in the field of entertainment, virtual reality attractions are becoming increasingly popular. Along with exciting stories and fun special effects, virtual reality carries a lot of risks. Compensation for such damage is not regulated by the legislation of Ukraine. The author researched the historical background of entertainment in the field of virtual reality. It has been established that virtual reality dates back to the invention of the first stereoscopes in the 1830s. The second impetus in the development of virtual reality was received in the 1920s, during the invention of the first flight simulators. And in 1982, the world’s first laboratory was created to research and develop virtual reality devices. At the same time, the very term ‘virtual reality’ appeared. The features of the virtual attraction, which are inherent in it as entertainment, are highlighted. Using domestic and foreign dictionaries, the author analyzed etymological meaning by ‘virtual reality’ and ‘virtual reality attractions.’ The features of a virtual attraction, inherent in it as entertainment in the field of virtual reality, have been identified. The author examined how the virtual reality attractions affect the visitor’s mind. The article indicates the ventral and dorsal flows as systems of the brain that encode perceived visual information. The interaction of virtual reality with the human body is connected through these flows. The author identified vulnerable areas of the human body that may get harmed first by the virtual reality attraction. The article considers diseases of the central nervous system that can be provoked by virtual reality attractions that affect the visitor’s mind. The author identifies the injuries that can provoke functional diseases of the nervous system, namely neuroses, and injuries to the autonomic nervous system, such as migraine, Raynaud’s disease, Meniere’s disease.It is established that the virtual reality attractions is a source of harming. The author identified the characteristics of virtual reality attractions as a source of harming. It has been offered the definition of virtual reality attraction as sources of damage. The author summarises and highlights the most popular types of modern virtual reality attractions. The subject of liability for damage caused by the activities of the virtual attractions has been identified.

Разработка тонально-тематического словаря EcSentiThemeLex для анализа экономических текстов на русском языке

The main goal of the research is to develop a publicly available tonal-thematic dictionary in Russian, which allows identifying the semantic orientation of groups of economic texts, as well as determining their sentimental (tonal) characteristics. The article describes the main stages of compiling a dictionary using machine learning methods (clustering, word frequency allocation, correlogram construction) and expert evaluation of determining the tonality and expanding the dictionary by including terms from similar foreign dictionaries. The empirical base of the research included: annual reports of companies, news from ministries and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, financial tweets of companies and RBC news articles in the area of "Economics, Finance, money and business". The compiled dictionary differs from the previous ones in the following ways: 1. it is one of the first dictionaries which can be used to rate the tone of economic and financial texts in Russian language by 5 degrees of tonality; 2. allows you to rate the tonality and content of the text by 12 economic topics (e. g., macroeconomics, monetary policy, stock and commodity markets, etc.) 3. the final version of EcSentiThemeLex dictionary is included in the software package (library) ‘rulexicon’ for the programming environment R and Python. Step-by-step examples of using the developed library in the R environment are given. It allows to evaluate the tone and thematic focus of an economic or financial text by means of a concise code. The structure of the library allows you to use the original texts for their assessment without prior lemmatization (the reduction to elementary forms).The resulting EcSentiThemeLex dictionary is included in the rulexicon software package for the R modeling environment .The tonal-thematic dictionary EcSentiThemeLex with all word forms compiled in this work will simplify the solution of applied problems of text analysis in the financial and economic sphere, and can also potentially serve as a basis for increasing the number of relevant studies in the Russian literature.

The treatment of cultural words in Chinese foreign dictionaries--a case study on “粽子”

Abstract The treatment of cultural words in bilingual dictionaries has always been an aporia for lexicographers who differ greatly in their opinions and practices on methods and strategies used on cultural words. The present study, taking Chinese cultural speciality 粽子 (zongzi) as an example, examined the treatment of this word in Chinese foreign dictionaries. Problems were found through both investigation on dictionaries and comparison with the data presented in a Chinese corpus: 1. inconsistent presentation; 2. insufficiently presented information; 3. difference in translation strategies. This paper gives suggestions to solve these problems by fully presenting cultural information and stressing the accuracy, sufficiency and the identity of 粽子 in Chinese foreign dictionaries in order to meet the consulting needs of foreign users of this cultural word.

Book in the media systeme

Book functioning in the modern society, called by the researchers not only as an information but also a media one, has changed. Book and media are considered as unique phenomena the essence of which being reflected in sense-filled notions. The aim of the article is to reveal the place of book in the media space. Its tasks are: 1) on the base of modern home and foreign dictionaries and encyclopedias to show the difference in approaches to definitions and expose the content of the concepts “book” and “media”; 2) to demonstrate the specifics of the book entering into contemporary media sphere both on the level of its transformation into new existence forms in the electronic environment and on the level of its being as an independent unit in the form of a printed book; 3) to establish the possible methodological approaches to the investigation of the problem and suggest the methodology of transdisciplinarity as the basic one. Methods used are: theoretical analysis and generalization, terminological analysis, transdisciplinary approach. The term “media” describes the whole sphere of activity (“media sphere”) in the centre of which are means of information and communication, social institutes, dealing with the content production and delivering it to the public. The book is included into this sphere transforming its form into a new electronic one and getting benefits through the variability ofelectronic resources, virtuality, a new language and communicative formats. A printed book with its great number of valuable properties, first of all ability to influence inner cognitive and psychological perception structures while reading faces significant difficulties in its publishing and dissemination; it’s transferred into the second row of information policy and mass cognition. Thus, it’s methodologically important to consider book in any form as a significant element in the modern media sphere. It’s promising to use the transdisciplinary approach to book research when it is studied not by aspects from the viewpoint of this or that discipline but as a whole using all acquired knowledge.

The image of the poet Mihai Eminescu in the literary dictionaries

Mihai Eminescu is known as the Romanian national poet, the most important writer of the XIXͭʰ century in Romanian literature, whose writings have been intensely interpreted since his poetic debut. Therefore, this paper proposes a study of the way the literary dictionaries build the image of “the national poet”. This identity construct is significant to our investigation because it influences the interpretation of the poet figure through history. In order to have a wider view of the problem, we consulted a series of literary dictionaries and, also, dictionaries for students use to see how the figure of Eminescu is taught in schools. Moreover, we did not put aside foreign dictionaries, which bring a more objective perspective to the issue. The majority of Romanian dictionaries alter the poet’s portrait in favor of a “national construct”, created partly by the use of rhetoric figures. Another way of composing him a deformed image is accomplished by writing subjective and opaque interpretation of his poems. Consequently, such hermeneutics focuses on developing a myth that reflects mainly the way Romanians as nation want to be recognized and remembered.

Corpus Linguistics Tools for Loanwords and Borrowings Studies

The present article deals with studies and analyzes the lexical innovations of French origin in the Russian literary language on materials of fiction, opinion journalism, as well as etymological, defining, and foreign dictionaries under well-defined criteria of foreign word extraction. Various investigations dedicated to the study of language contacts offer variety of criteria describing the functioning of foreign vocabulary in the Russian lexical system as the result of interaction of various manifestation of language contacts. The article highlights the main principles and potentials of using methods of corpus analysis for studying language contacts from a historical perspective. This study analyzes the gallicisms of the military terminology that came to the Russian language at the end of the 18th and the 19th centuries and were recorded in numerous significant examples of Russian literature. Conducting the diachronic analysis of their functional development using the methods of corpus linguistics allows us to establish and demonstrate some common and particular processes of foreign language vocabulary: the development of the form and the content of foreign vocabulary, the periodization of their maximum and minimum distribution, and the correlation of language data with extralinguistic factors.

Semasiological Relations between the Lexical Parallels in the French and Russian Languages (A Case Study of the French Borrowed Vocabulary)

The relevance of the paper is determined by the intensification of international and intercultural contacts contributing to further promotion of the Russian language lexical system enrichment. The paper is devoted to the study and scientific analysis of neologisms of the French origin in the Russian language of modern period in terms of semantic adaptation of the foreign word in the recipient language. The basic mechanisms of reception and adaptation of the French language ethno-cultural components in the Russian language were identified through the analysis of various sources, including etymological, defining, and foreign dictionaries. This article describes four basic mechanisms of lexical-semantic assimilation of the foreign words in the Russian language environment (narrowing or expanding of the semantic range of a word; semantic structure sustainability; semantic shift). The study data of the article suggest the universal character of the proposed analysis criteria that can be applied to foreign language vocabulary of any language of any etymology.

English, German, French, Italian and Spanish Medical Vocabulary and Phrases

This is a useful book containing words and phrases used in medicine in all of the languages mentioned in the title, arranged in such a manner that the same word is given in each language upon the same line. The vocabulary is arranged alphabetically and occupies 341 pages, while the medical phrases occupy 10 pages in an Appendix.For the writer, student, research worker and scientific physician this work should prove of great service and result in much saving of time in looking up words in foreign dictionaries. It is well printed and bound and will undoubtedly find its place in the libraries of physicians who desire a ready reference to the commonly used medical terms in the various languages mentioned.