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Towards a Bilingual Adjective-Noun Collocation Dictionary of English and German

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Towards a Bilingual Adjective-Noun Collocation Dictionary of English and German Mag. Philippa Maurer-Stroh Towards a Bilingual Adjective-Noun Collocation Dictionary of English and German DISSERTATION zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktorin der Philosophie Universität Klagenfurt Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften 1. Begutachter: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Allan R. James Institut: Anglistik und Amerikanistik 2. Begutachter: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dusan Gabrovsek (Universität Ljubljana, Slowenien) Institut: Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften Klagenfurt, Dezember 2004 EHRENWÖRTLICHE ERKLÄRUNG Ich erkläre ehrenwörtlich, dass ich die vorliegende Schrift verfasst und die mit ihr unmittelbar verbundenen Arbeiten selbst durchgeführt habe. Die in der Schrift verwendete Literatur sowie das Ausmaß der mir im Arbeitsvorgang gewährten Unterstützung sind ausnahmslos angegeben. Die Schrift ist noch keiner anderen Prüfungsbehörde vorgelegt worden. Klagenfurt, am 15. Dezember 2004 Towards a Bilingual Adjective-Noun Collocation Dictionary of English and German by Mag. Philippa Maurer-Stroh A Doctoral Thesis Submitted to the FACULTY OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF KLAGENFURT In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor philosophiae At the Institute for English and American Studies Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Allan R. James Co-Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dusan Gabrovsek (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) Klagenfurt, December 2004 To my late grandmothers, Christi Balling-Stroh f Sept 2003 and Eva-Maria Rahm f Jan 2004 Towards a Bilingual Adjective-Noun Collocation Dictionary of English and German Abstract (English): Collocations are recurrent, usage- rather than semantically based word combinations. The fact that they are largely language-specific - even with respect to languages as closely related as German and English - suggests the need for a bilingual collocation dictionary. This need is proven by analysing a representative selection of comprehensive present-day general bilingual dictionaries as well as by evaluating outputs from machine translation tools, both online and commercial. The doctoral thesis starts with an outline of the different concepts, methods, sources and applications as regards collocations in both the contemporary and historical perspectives. Next, collocations are discussed in the contrastive (English-German) light. Before embarking on the discussion of the methods I have tested with a view to compiling such an English-German adjective-noun dictionary, I outline the main principles of bilingual lexicography at large. By way of conclusion, the applicability of such a dictionary is tested along with the hypothesis as to the expansion possibility of the adjective-noun dictionary to other collocational structures. Abstract (German): Kollokationen sind wiederholte, usuelle Wortkombinationen, deren Zusammensetzung sich meist nicht semantisch begründen lässt, sondern vielmehr lexikalischen und konventionalisierten Ursprungs ist. Kollokationen sind zudem größtenteils sprachenspezifisch, und auch ein engverwandtes Sprachenpaar wie das Deutsche und das Englische weist eine Vielzahl an semantischen und strukturellen Unterschieden auf. Anhand von Wörterbuchanalysen und Übersetzungsmaschinen (online oder kommerziell) wird die Notwendigkeit eines zweisprachigen Kollokationswörterbuchs deutlich gemacht. Zunächst werden die unterschiedlichen Begriffe, Methoden, Quellen und Anwendungen der Kollokationsforschung in historischer und zeitgenössischer Perspektive umrissen, darauf folgt eine Abhandlung über Kollokationen im Sprachenvergleich (Englisch-Deutsch). Danach werden die Grundlagen der zweisprachigen Lexikographie erläutert, bevor im Hauptteil der Arbeit auf die verschiedenen Methoden zur Erstellung eines Englisch-Deutschen Adjektiv-Nomen- Kollokationswörterbuchs näher eingegangen wird. Abschließend wird die Anwendbarkeit eines solchen Wörterbuchs diskutiert und dessen Erweiterung auf andere Kollokationsstrukturen besprochen. Philippa Maurer-Stroh PREFACE I occasionally work as a freelance translator. Whilst undertaking translation work, I have put in many hours of unnecessary work trying to find the correct equivalent of a multi-word unit. Having checked various bilingual and general monolingual dictionaries as well as monolingual collocation dictionaries and being finally convinced that my choice of a word combination is perfectly fine, it may nevertheless seem odd to a native speaker. Having a degree in English Studies and making extensive use of existing dictionaries is obviously not enough to know which words go together... Accordingly, the aim of my thesis is to present an appropriate method of compiling a bilingual dictionary specialised on collocations. Language cannot be invented; it can only be captured. (John McH. Sinclair) 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been riveted on dictionaries and phrases ever since I was first introduced to dictionaries by a former English teacher of mine, way back in 1988, and I would like to thank my two supervisors, Univ. Prof. Allan James and Univ. Prof. Dusan Gabrovsek for greatly encouraging me with their support to engage in lexicography and phraseology - and, naturally, for supervising this doctoral thesis. I would like to sincerely thank Professor James not only for introducing me to linguistics in general but also for finding me the best possible second supervisor ever. Apart from being my most valuable academic source concerning dictionaries and phraseology (and linguistics in general), Professor Gabrovsek is even more enthusiastic about dictionaries and phrases than I am - and if we had been able to do so, we would have spent (more) hours (in bookstores) indulging in "dictionariesms" and "collcoations". LEXICOGRAPHY & PHRASEOLOGY GALORE - as Prof. Gabrovsek would say. I am deeply grateful to him for being there for me (in person, e- mail, phone and MS Messenger) whenever problems occurred or there was a danger of "losing track". Also, I would like to thank him for helpful hints on and making available to me most of the literature on my topic. Finally, Prof. Gabrovsek provided me with the mental support I needed and without which I would never have finished this thesis. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! Right after my graduation, Professor James made me aware of a number of relevant courses, workshops and other events to participate in. Without these hints I would not have been able to gain from the expertise of John Sinclair, Elena Tognini-Bonelli, Goran Kjellmer, Patrick Hanks, Sue Atkins, Adam Kilgarriff, Mike Rundell, Perailla Danielsson and Frank Müller. At this point I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the STUDIENREKTORAT at the University of Klagenfurt. It was their grant that made my participation in these courses possible. Additionally, I was able to use the grant for my journeys to Germany (Professor Michael Stubbs in Trier) and Britain (Professor Wolfgang Teubert in Birmingham). m I would like to thank Mike Stubbs for initiating me into corpus linguistics, for supporting me with advice and for inviting me to Trier to get to know the university and for hands-on sessions on various computer programs. Prof. Teubert is a valuable contact as regards (contrastive) corpus linguistics and phraseology; he has ever since supported me wholeheartedly and I wish to personally thank him for that. Furthermore, I would like to thank Ao. Univ. Prof. Günther Fliedl for his support. His enthusiasm and readiness to help were a driving force in setting up a project of international dimensions from a "small" computer program. Especially, I am deeply grateful to my brother Sebastian. He was the one who wrote that initial program - and set the ball rolling. Also, I wish to express my thanks to Ingrid Fernandez de Retana, Andreas Homa, Werner Sühs and Georg Weber, all members of the team. With sadness, I wish to acknowledge the support of one of my deceased teachers, Ao. Univ. Prof. Hans Köberl. His translation courses were intriguing and illuminating. I wish I could have learned more from him concerning contrastive phraseology. Researchers and professionals from other institutions also helped me gain better understanding of the subject or introduced me to specialist colleagues: Philipp Koehn, Cambridge (MA); Ann Lawson, Oxford University Press; Oliver Mason, Birmingham University; Matthias Richter, Leipzig University; Olaf Thyen, Duden-Redaktion, Mannheim. I would like to thank all my close friends - Michael Dabringer, Ingrid Fernandez de Retana, Karolin Knoch, Daniel Koban, Philipp Loebell, Lotte Maurer, Nikolaus Neubauer, Philipp Nicolelli-Fulgenzi, Johannes Pagitz and Ursula Zager, in particular - for their support and help. Finally, in the most private sphere of acknowledgements, Mum, Dad, Johnny, Basti and Fernanda, you are the best. Thank you for making all this possible! We all know that the situation is not easy, but together we can handle more than that! IV TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface i Acknowledgements ii Abbreviations vii List of Figures ix List of Tables xii 1. Introduction 1 1.1. An Adjective-Noun Collocation Dictionary 1 1.2. A Bilingual Adjective-Noun Collocation Dictionary 2 1.3. The Need for a Bilingual Collocation Dictionary 5 1.4. What Should an English-German Adjective-Noun Collocation Dictionary Look Like? 8 1.5. Monolingual Collocation Dictionaries vs. Bilingual Collocation Dictionaries 11 1.6. Outline of the Chapters 13 2. Collocation: Concepts, Sources and Methods 14 2.1. Different Approaches, Interpretations and Applications of the Concept of Collocation 15 2.2.1. The Pedagogical Approach to Collocations 16 2.2.2. The
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