Interfaces between Lexicography, Semantics and Translation

Abstract

This article discusses possible connections between Lexicography, Semantics, and Translation. Through the experience of writing a bilingual dictionary in the Portuguese-Spanish direction, made for Brazilians, it was verified the need to reflect on the semantic load attributed to lexical units in its native language before it was registered in a dictionary. It was verified that Lexicography follows the assumptions of Formal Semantics, whereas Semantics of Enunciation suggests that all meanings of lexical units according to the utterance(s) must be registered, which becomes unfeasible in a dictionary. Nor would it be feasible to register all the meanings lexical units has for everyone, according to their subjectivity, if the dictionary were to follow the presuppositions of Cognitive Semantics. On the other hand, Translation could be benefited more freely from the contributions of these three models of semantic analysis, since, in both intralinguistic and interlinguistic translation, fidelity to the original utterance(s) is sought. Thus, integrated work among Lexicography, Semantics and Translation specialists could be beneficial to all these areas of knowledge and may result in a more complete register of the meaning(s) of lexical units in dictionaries.

Keywords

• Lexicography
• semantics
• translation