Evaluation of article structure components in English-Kwanyama Dictionary (EKD) with reference to the target users

Abstract

This paper evaluates the article structure components in English-Kwanyama Dictionary (EKD) with reference to the target users. For any bilingual dictionary to satisfy the needs of the target users, it should be user-friendly. Important aspects that have to be considered when one compiles a bilingual dictionary are, among others, orthography, pronunciation, inflections, parts of speech, and translation equivalents. All these aspects are all parts of the microstructure (Gouws, 2002; Gouws & Prinsloo, 2005; Svensén, 2009). A target user should also be defined in any bilingual dictionary, and should be indicated in the dictionary’s front matter texts (Gouws & Prinsloo, 2005). EKD was compiled in 1954, about four and half decades ago, and there is no comprehensive research done to analyse its quality. The study’s theoretical frameworks are the Function Theory and the Text theory. Sven Tarp and Henning Bergenholtz are the leading proponents of the
Function theory which was established in the late 1980s, and deals with dictionary functions and the user needs. The Text theory, proposed by Herbert Ernst Wiegand in the 1990s, deals with dictionaries’ textual structures. It is a qualitative study in a form of text analysis. Systematic dictionary research, which consists of two types, functional text segmentation as well as philological methods, is adopted. The findings reveal that EKD has become old and much needs to be improved in terms of aspects such as orthography. EKD’s target users are not defined in the dictionary’s front matter text, therefore, this paper recommends that lexicographers should define their target users in their future dictionaries’ front matter texts. They should also take into consideration the correct presentation of article structure aspects, based on the comment on form and the comment on semantics, such as spelling, parts of speech indication, lemma inflection, morphology and translation equivalents.