The General Bilingual Dictionary as a Working Tool in Thème

Abstract

Because of his lack of native-speaker intuition for the target language, the thème translator requires of the general bilingual dictionary much more explicit lexical information than does his version counterpart. On the basis of a study of lexical errors made by thème translation students, we examine the weaknesses of the general bilingual dictionary for thème, and relate these to either a non-observance of lexicographic principles, or to a lack of such principles. Finally, we propose three teaching strategies to help thème translation students deal with the general bilingual dictionary.