Meaning-Text Theory in the translator's classroom

Abstract

The paper brings a brief presentation of key concepts of the Meaning-Text Theory and focuses on the practical value of its lexicographical tool for the description of syntagmatic meaning relations, i.e. the lexical functions (LFs). Although originally developed to facilitate the description of lexical relationships within the monolingual explanatory-combinatory dictionary, the system of lexical functions proves highly valuable in the bilingual setting as well, particularly in the L1-L2 translation, i.e. in encoding tasks. While translation into the translator’s mother tongue is commonly regarded as less likely to suffer from poor knowledge of collocations, it is the L1-L2 translation that is typically affected by the translators’ erring on the collocational side. On the basis of selected lexical items the paper will bring a brief comparison of lexicographical presentations used in encoding (Slovene-English dictionaries) with the results of the LF-based approach. Applied systematically and consistently within a given lexical field, the encoding-adapted system of LFs will help translation students get a better grasp of the elusive collocability of lexemes.