ARTICLES

 

The Inclusion of Neologisms in the Revision of the Grand Dictionnaire Chinois-Français Contemporain

 

Die insluiting van neologismes in die hersiening van die Grand Dictionnaire Chinois-Français Contemporain

 

 

Fang Huang^I; Jianhua Huang^II

^ICentre for Linguistics and Applied linguistics, Center for Lexicographical Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China (huangfang@gdufs.edu.cn) (https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6947-8364)
^IICentre for Linguistics and Applied linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China (jhhuang@gdufs.edu.cn) (https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2597-1037)

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Language change presents continuous challenges for lexicographers, especially with the rapid emergence of neologisms. The Grand Dictionnaire Chinois-Français Contemporain (GDCFC) was published in 2014 and its revision began immediately in order to keep the dictionary up to date. A central focus of the revision has been the inclusion of new words and new senses. This article describes the experiences of the dictionary revision team on the inclusion of neologisms using a wide spectrum of sources, ranging from the latest monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, monolingual and bilingual corpora, to online resources. It addresses four major challenges encountered by the team in the ongoing revision process, that is, the inclusion of neologisms absent from Chinese authoritative dictionaries into the GDCFC, the selection of variant neologisms and their French equivalents, the dilemma of whether to include neologisms as entries or merely as examples, and the challenge of ensuring complete relevance between neologisms and the existing entries. In light of these challenges, the article puts forward four criteria, namely, descriptivism complemented with prescriptivism, frequency, supplementation, and relevance. With the recommendations offered herein we hope to provide valuable insights into future lexicographic work on neologisms in bilingual dictionaries.

Keywords: grand dictionnaire chinois-français contemporain, neologisms, parallel corpora, sources, challenges, criteria

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OPSOMMING

Taalverandering bied, veral met die vinnige ontwikkeling van neologismes, voortdurende uitdagings aan leksikograwe. Die Grand Dictionnaire Chinois-Français Contemporain (GDCFC) is in 2014 gepubliseer waarna onmiddellik met die hersie-ning daarvan begin is om die woordeboek bygewerk te hou. 'n Sentrale fokus van die hersiening was die insluiting van nuwe woorde en nuwe betekenisse. In hierdie artikel word die woordeboek-hersieningspan se ervarings rakende die insluiting van neologismes beskryf. Hulle het gebruik
gemaak van 'n wye spektrum bronne wat strek van die jongste eentalige en tweetalige woorde-boeke en eentalige en tweetalige korpusse tot aanlyn bronne. Vier hoofuitdagings wat die span tydens die deurlopende hersieningsproses teëgekom het, word bespreek: die insluiting van neologis-mes in die GDCFC wat ontbreek in Chinese gesaghebbende woordeboeke, die seleksie van variante neologismes en hul Franse ekwivalente, die dilemma rakende die insluiting van neologismes as inskrywings of bloot as voorbeelde, en die uitdaging om algehele relevansie tussen neologismes en bestaande inskrywings te verseker. Met inagneming van hierdie uitdagings word daar in hierdie arti-kel vier kriteria, naamlik deskriptivisme, aangevul deur preskriptivisme, frekwensie, aanvulling, en relevansie, voorgestel. Met die aanbevelings wat in hierdie artikel gemaak word, word daar gehoop om waardevolle insigte in toekomstige leksikografiese werk rakende neologismes in tweetalige woordeboeke te verskaf.

Sleutelwoorde: grand dictionnaire chinois-français contemporain, neologismes, parallelle korpora, bronne, uitdagings, kriteria

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1. Introduction

The Grand Dictionnaire Chinois-Français Contemporain (GDCFC), chief-edited by Chinese lexicographer, Professor Jianhua Huang, is one of the largest Chinese-French dictionaries. Published in 2014 by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, it was "designed and compiled to meet the needs of both Chinese-speaking learners of French and French-speaking learners of Chinese" (Huang and Xu 2019: 325). Cao (2021: 234) commends the dictionary for responding to the needs experienced in the training of Chinese-French professional translators, emphasizing its crucial role in fostering improved communication and cultural exchange across the two languages. In 2018, it was honored with the "Chinese Government Award for Publishing", the highest-level award in the Chinese publishing industry (Huang and Xu 2019: 336).

As Chen (1980: 137) observed, "when a dictionary is published, it is already outdated" because new words and expressions crop up at rapid rate each year. In recent years, China has seen the rapid emergence of new terms that mirror its societal and technological phenomena and advancements. Notable examples include "一带一路" (the Belt and Road Initiative), "微信" (WeChat), (sense of gain), "获得感" (power bank), "自动驾驶" (autonomous driving), "电动汽车" (electric car), "生成式人工智能" (generative artificial intelligence), etc. To keep the dictionary abreast of time and address the evolving needs of users regarding neologisms, the GDCFC revision team has been occupied with updating the dictionary since its publication. Neologisms are defined in this article as recent words or meanings not yet included in the dictionary's first edition.

This article details the team's methodical investigation of neologisms, specifying the challenges encountered and the criteria suggested to tackle these challenges within the GDCFC. It aims to offer valuable perspectives for future research on neologisms in bilingual dictionaries.

 

2. Literature review

Determining how to include a neologism in a dictionary presents significant challenges for lexicographers (Wang 1992; Su and Huang 2003; Yu et al. 2003). Relevant research primarily addresses lexicographers' different attitudes towards the inclusion of neologisms, the challenges associated with neologisms in bilingual dictionaries, and the principles and strategies lexicographers have suggested to tackle the challenges. The following subsections of this literature review highlights how these critical issues have been presented in the existing scholarship.

2.1 Attitudes towards the inclusion of neologisms

Lexicographers' attitudes towards new words vary, representing a spectrum from prescriptive to descriptive stances. This array of perspectives mirrors the ongoing debate over the role of dictionaries.

On the one hand, the prescriptive method is a long-term tradition in lexicography (Balteiro 2011; Gouws and Potgieter 2010). Many dictionaries, particularly early ones, take a prescriptive approach, advocating for guiding language usage among their users. Samuel Johnson's dictionary (1755) confirmed this approach in lexicography (Gouws and Potgieter 2010). Similarly, the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (Walter 2016) and the Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española (Hanks 2013: 515) also adopt a prescriptive stance. The tradition considers dictionaries as gatekeepers for new words. Based on this perspective, Cheng (2006), taking the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (CCD) as an example, maintains that dictionaries should follow national standards in dealing with the variants, pronunciation of Chinese characters, and the inclusion of scientific terms, in order to further highlight the normative characteristics of dictionaries and enhance their practicality. Some lexicographers also advocate for avoiding the inclusion of new loanwords from foreign languages to maintain the purity of a language (Marello 2020: 176).

On the other hand, following the advent of descriptive linguistics, the field of English lexicography has been predominantly influenced by descriptivist approaches since the 1960s (Wang and Lu 2007: 6). Following this trend, many dictionaries adopt a descriptive synchronic principle, as the American College Dictionary (Hanks 2013) and the English-Chinese Dictionary (Unabridged) (Wang and Lu 2007) do in their revisions. Wang and Lu (2007: 7) also highlight "the importance of the principle of descriptivism in bilingual-dictionary revision" because it is the principle by which lexicographers "examine and exploit all types of evidence and all sorts of facts and complexities in language use".

Nevertheless, some researchers hold the view that dictionaries are not purely descriptive or prescriptive. Ten Hacken (2020) discusses the contrasting perspectives based on different theoretical frameworks of language. He points out that while lexicographers generally perceive their role as descriptive, documenting actual language usage, users often expect dictionaries to function as gatekeepers. Mugglestone (2015: 546) maintains the interaction between the two approaches in dictionary making, claiming that "descriptive processes of collection and evaluation of evidence can be accompanied by prescriptive (and proscriptive) reservation". The combinatory perspective is also adopted in some Chinese-foreign language dictionaries. For example, the Chinese-English Dictionary (unabridged) pursues a reserved descriptivism (Lu 2015), primarily describing the actual usage of the language, while not merely recording "anything heard", but instead following a normative principle of selection and elimination for inclusion. As for the GDCFC, it focuses on both approaches when including neologisms. This will be further discussed in detail in 5.1.

2.2 Challenges associated with neologisms in bilingual dictionaries

Scholars in the field of bilingual lexicography, such as Gao (2003), Jin (2007, 2008, 2009), Wang (2010), Zhao (2014, 2015) and Du (2019), have highlighted challenges of including neologisms in bilingual dictionaries.

A prominent challenge is the imbalanced inclusion of neologisms. Zhao (2015: 462) argues that dictionaries typically focus on adding numerous neologisms in the fields of science, technology, and economics, while often overlooking everyday terms, old words with new meanings, and old words with new usage. For instance, the New Age Chinese-English Dictionary (2nd edition) fails to include some popular Chinese neologisms like "私房菜" (family cuisine; private kitchen cuisine), "招牌菜" (signature dish or house special), etc. (Zhao 2014: 448).

Another area of focus pertains to the translation of neologisms. Wang (2010) identifies four deficiencies in translating neologisms in Chinese-Japanese dictionaries: improper translation, redundant definitions, absence of translation for implicit components, and neglect of cultural elements. Gao (2003) highlights discrepancies and imprecise definitions for neologisms, while Yang (2014) focuses on excessive translations and inconsistent translation of terminology in political neologisms. Besides, Jin (2008, 2009), Gao (2003), Zhao (2014), and Du (2019) provide specific instances of errors and unidiomatic expressions in the translation of neologisms in bilingual dictionaries. For example, Jin (2009) finds that the term "金球" (golden goal) in the football domain is incorrectly translated as "gold goal". Similarly, the figurative meaning of "充电" is "acquiring new knowledge and skills through learning", yet it is translated as "recharge one's batteries", which in English refers to "restoring physical strength and energy" (Jin 2008). Jin (2007) points out that such erroneous translations could be misleading or confusing, which illustrates the need for precise translation of neologisms.

When it comes to the presentation of neologisms, some lexicographers (e.g., Marello 2020: 176) have observed that dictionaries normally introduce neologisms, but neglect to represent them in a comprehensive way. For instance, dictionaries rarely give examples of usage-in-context for them, nor do they provide certain morphosyntactic items of information because lexicographers assume that such linguistic patterns governed by morphological and grammatical rules should be known to all. Wang and Chen (2024: 50) also note that when including neologisms, aspects such as definition, examples and outside matter also deserve the attention of lexicographers.

2.3 Criteria and strategies to include and represent neologisms

Faced with the above challenges, lexicographers have proposed various criteria for the inclusion of neologisms from the macrostructural perspective, their arrangement, presentation and strategies of translation from the microstructural perspective, as highlighted by Metcalf (2004), Xiao (2017), Yang (2014), and others. Metcalf (2004) outlines five criteria, known as the "FUDGE rule" (Frequency, Unobtrusiveness, Diversity of users and situations, Generation of meanings and forms, Endurance of concept), for including new words into a dictionary. However, Wang and Lu (2004: 404) argue that frequency is not the sole criterion for inclusion as dictionaries could not entirely omit nonce words, which users may still wish to consult. Regarding the endurance of a concept, some scholars (Chao 1992; Su and Huang 2003) believe that the inclusion of new words should be subject to the test of time to demonstrate their long-term value in social interactions. However, others argue that dictionaries should promptly include neologisms to serve users' needs. For example, Liu (1984) and Lv (1984) note that dictionaries are often overly cautious in adding new words, focusing too much on maintaining stability. They suggest that lexicographers should broaden their inclusion of neologisms.

As for the translation of neologisms, researchers such as Jin (2007), Yang (2014) and Xiao (2017) propose various rules or strategies for identifying appropriate equivalents. Yang (2014) holds that translations of political neologisms should be accurate, conventional, authoritative, unified and concise. Jin (2007) addresses the problem of potential confusion arising from the equivalents offered for the entries of neologisms. He argues that to lower the chance of misunderstandings, it is necessary to include usage notes or explanations in addition to the equivalents listed.

Xiao (2017) explores eight translation strategies for new words and expressions from the Chinese-English Dictionary (unabridged, volume 1, 2015), chief-edited by Gusun Lu, including pure literal translation, literal translation combined with explanation, literal translation combined with free translation, pure free translation, free translation combined with explanation, free translation combined with transliteration, coinage, and back translation. He believes that the exploration of these strategies holds certain guiding significance and reference value for improving the translation quality of new words and expressions, better facilitating cultural exchange between China and the West.

Relevant studies provide excellent theoretical and practical insights for research on the inclusion of neologisms in Chinese foreign language dictionaries. This study, building upon these insights, concentrates on the specific methodologies employed by the revision team on the inclusion of neologisms and their French equivalents in the GDCFC, with the objective of identifying more effective approaches to satisfy the user needs regarding neologisms.

 

3. Neologisms in the revision of the GDCFC

In the first edition of the GDCFC, the editorial team meticulously extracted neologisms from printed sources like books and newspapers, first recording them on index cards before digitizing the information. This manual data collection process was not only labor-intensive but it also delayed the dictionary's publication by nearly 16 years. In the big data era, Huang (2016) highlights the necessity of the corpus-driven approach for dictionary revision. According to Zhang and Yong (2007: 421), corpus data provides lexicographers with a comprehensive understanding of a word's characteristics, including its syntactic patterns, collocations, semantic meanings, and contexts of use. This approach, as Fontenelle (2015: 14) points out, enables lexicographers to make informed decisions about including and defining neologisms based on evidence from parallel corpora, rather than relying solely on intuition or prior knowledge. Wei (2009) further emphasizes that such a methodology ensures a more objective and scientific dictionary compilation process.

Therefore, in order to achieve more reliable results before including neologisms in the GDCFC, the team identifies neologisms through various sources such as parallel corpora, monolingual corpora, monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, and the Internet. The main source is a parallel Chinese-French corpus, which includes expressions in both languages and is primarily sourced from Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. The data was mainly constructed by a group of Chinese lexicographers who translate new words and expressions from French news media into Chinese, and vice versa. Another part of the parallel corpus was collected by the revision team from authoritative online texts, such as government reports and important conferences, ensuring the quality of equivalents for Chinese neologisms. This approach addresses the challenge mentioned by Gao (2003), where suitable equivalents for Chinese neologisms are often lacking, necessitating lengthy definitions.

Through seven years (2016-2023) of work, the team has sorted out more than 3,000 neologisms, together with their French equivalents, appropriate examples and usages. The neologisms are collected mainly from eight key domains: politics, including terms like 反腐 (anti-corruption) and 多边主义 (multilateralism); economics, with terms such as 供给侧 (supply side) and 跨境电商 (cross-border e-commerce)); health care, encompassing terms like 埃博拉病毒 (Ebola virus), 新冠肺炎 (COVID-19), and 抗疫 (anti-epidemic); environment, with terms such as (low carbon) and (new energy); the Internet and information technology, including (internet addiction), 网瘾 (generative AI), and 生成式人工智能 (large language model); education, featuring terms like 慕课 (MOOC) and 在线教育 (online education); transportation, including 无人驾驶汽车 (shared bike), 无人驾驶汽车 (driverless car), and 磁悬浮列车 (maglev train); and daily life, with terms such as 蚁族 (antizen) and 布基尼 (burkini).

Apart from new words, the team has also noted the development of new meanings for existing terms. For instance, "跳水" originally refers to "diving", but it has acquired an additional meaning in the financial sector, where it denotes a sudden drop in prices. "应用" is originally used as a verb, meaning "to apply" or "to use", but it has now gained a noun sense, referring to "app", particularly in the context of software applications for mobile devices. "钓鱼", traditionally associated with the act of fishing, now refers to "phishing", the practice of using deceptive methods to trick individuals into revealing personal information online.

The GDCFC revision team has also included new words formed by affixes derived from nouns, such as "奴"(slave), "云"(cloud), and "零"(zero). For instance, the suffix "奴" denotes a slave in a metaphorical sense in Chinese. The team has included new words formed with this suffix, such as "房奴" (mortgage slave), "孩奴" (child slave), "卡奴" (credit card slave), and "车奴" (car slave). Furthermore, terms with the prefix "零" (zero), like "零容忍" (zero tolerance) and "零利息" (zero interest), have also been added.

 

4. Problems encountered when including neologisms

When including neologisms into the GDCFC, the team has encountered mainly four types of problems.

4.1 Challenge of including neologisms that are absent from authoritative Chinese dictionaries

Bilingual dictionaries typically take as reference the latest authoritative monolingual dictionaries for their inclusion of neologisms. The revision of the GDCFC is no exception. It takes as references the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (7th edition, cCd) and the Normative Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese (4th edition, NDCC). Neologisms not found in the first edition of the GDCFC but included in the recent editions of these authoritative Chinese dictionaries, such as "大数据" (big data), "供给侧" (supply-side) and "点赞" (like), are generally added into the GDCFC unless there is no appropriate French equivalent available. However, for terms not officially recognized by these dictionaries but widely used and supported by corpus evidence or online resources, such as (sense of achievement), "获得感" (bikini), "布基尼" (COVID-19), "伤不起" (in a humorous manner: can't afford to be hurt), and "神马" (a homophone for "什么", whose meaning is "what"), lexicographers should establish some criteria to decide their inclusion because not all of them could be included in the dictionary.

4.2 Dilemmas regarding variant neologisms and their French equivalents

Neologisms often have variant forms. For example, zika virus have three variant

forms in Chinese: "兹卡病毒", "寨卡病毒", "齐卡病毒". Which form is more acceptable? What criteria should lexicographers adopt? This is a very tricky problem. And for "一带一路", there are at least three translational versions for it: une ceinture et une route, I'initiative Ceinture et Route, la Ceinture et la Route. The first equivalent is extracted from the parallel corpus, the second and the third ones are from the French versions of Chinese authoritative journals. Which one should be chosen as an equivalent in the dictionary? Lexicographers must set up a criterion to treat the problems of variants concerning the neologisms and their equivalents.

4.3 Dilemma of including neologisms as entries or examples

Determining whether neologisms should be recognized as separate entries, subentries, or merely included as examples within existing definitions in dictionaries is a challenge requiring careful editorial consideration. For instance, "咖啡机" (coffee machine) was included as an example of the entry "咖啡" (coffee) in the first edition of the GDCFC. While the revision team has found in the bilingual corpora and in the search engines Baidu and Bing occurrences of several types of coffee machines, such as "胶囊咖啡机" (capsule coffee machine), and "全自动咖啡机" (fully automatic coffee machine). Therefore, users may need to consult these expressions and their French equivalents. Lexicographers have to decide whether "咖啡机" continues to be cited as an example under the broader category of "咖啡", with its various types also listed as examples, or whether "咖啡机" itself should be treated as a separate entry, with its kinds then becoming examples under "咖啡机".

Another example is "酸辣汤" (sour and spicy soup), which was treated as a separate entry in the first edition. However, with the appearance of similar entries as "酸辣粉" (sour and spicy rice vermicelli), "酸辣面" (sour and spicy noodles) and "酸辣酱" (sour and spicy sauce), lexicographers have to consider if all these neologisms should be treated as entries. If all similar terms are treated as separate entries, the dictionary could become overly extensive with unwieldy number of entries, leading to a lack of diversity in entry types and a failure to effectively illustrate the interconnections of entries related to similar concept.

4.4 Challenge of capturing relations between neologisms and existing entries

Many bilingual dictionaries focus on offering equivalents for neologisms, neglecting relations between these words and existing entries. The revision team endeavors to reveal such connections by making use of the parallel corpus. The problem is that the size of the corpus from which neologisms are selected is limited, which sometimes make it difficult to fully demonstrate the relations centered by one entry or by one concept in some semantic fields.

For example, for the entry "充电" (charge or recharge), in the first edition, besides the French equivalents, only four examples (充电器, 给蓄电池充电, 重新充电, 充电设备) were offered. New words and phrases relevant to "充电" (such as 充电桩, 充电宝, 充电站, 无线充电, 隔空充电, and 快速充电) should also be represented as examples or relevant entries in the dictionary, which also offers a quick access for users. Nevertheless, in the parallel corpus only "充电宝" and "充电桩" can be found, others (such as 无线充电, 隔空充电, and 快速充电) not. A search conducted in the monolingual Chinese web corpus, as well as in the search engines Baidu and Bing, has revealed that the latter expressions appear in large quantity in these sources. If the team only includes the data in the parallel corpus, the complete wordnet representing the concept "充电" would not be formed. More sources should be explored.

 

5. Criteria proposed to include neologisms

To better solve the afore-mentioned issues and challenges encountered during the revision work, the GDCFC revision team, based on their observations, continuous practice and discussions, together with previous lexicographers' research insights, and especially with the assistance of multiple resources, established four criteria to comprehensively include and present neologisms in the second edition of the GDCFC in an optimized way to better cater for the needs of the users.

5.1 Criterion of descriptivism complemented with prescriptivism

The GDCFC adopts the criterion of combining descriptivism and prescriptivism. The GDCFC revision team primarily adopts a descriptive criterion for the inclusion of new words, which means to describe the language use in an objective way by trying to include as many neologisms as possible based on their frequency. At the same time, the team strictly adheres to linguistic and terminological norms. The majority of new terms and their translations are sourced from parallel corpora, primarily from authoritative websites, and the examples of entries are mainly extracted from the official bilingual documents (see the following two entries). This guarantees that the inclusion of neologisms and their translations follow strictly official and academic standards.

【供给侧】du côté de l'offre 深入推进供给侧结构性改革poursuivre en profondeur la réforme structurale du côté de l'offre

【获得感】 sentiment m de satisfaction, sentiment m d'obtention 让人民群众有更多"获得感" Que le peuple puisse avoir un plus grand sentiment de satisfaction.

As for the selection of word forms, the team adheres to national or international standards. For example, there are three variant forms of Chinese loanwords from zika virus: "兹卡病毒", "寨卡病毒" or "齐卡病毒". Only "寨卡病毒" is included in the terminology bank created by the National Committee for the Standardization of Scientific and Technical Terminology, which officially shows its standard for the right form of zika in Chinese. Therefore, "寨卡病毒" is selected as the entry instead of the other two variant forms. And for the three equivalents of "一带一路" mentioned in 4.2, the team has carefully identified the instances when equivalent terms are presented and has observed an evolution of translation strategies for this term. The latest translations from authoritative Chinese web-sites have been ultimately adopted: "la Ceinture et la Route" and "l'initiative Ceinture et Route", rejecting the earlier translation "une ceinture et une route".

Meanwhile, in order to standardize the Internet language, neologisms that are often used for banter, jokes, or by onomatopoeia, such as "神马" (a homo-phone for "什么", whose meaning is "what") and "伤不起" (used in a humorous manner: can't afford to be hurt), are generally not included in the revised GDCFC.

5.2 Criterion of Frequency

Corpus-based frequency analysis is a common practice in lexicography. The revision team uses the criterion of frequency to select and define new entries. It focuses on three aspects: (1) choosing among variant forms of a neologism or of its equivalents, (2) deciding whether to include a neologism as an entry or an example, and (3) whether to add new meanings. By verifying these issues through multiple sources, especially search engines and corpora (both monolingual and bilingual), the team has managed to ensure the selection of neologisms and the precision of translations, thereby preventing omissions or inaccuracies that can arise from over-reliance on lexicographers' introspection or on the content of the print dictionaries.

5.2.1 Choice among variant forms

Lexicographers working on bilingual dictionaries regularly face the challenge of deciding on the right form among the variant forms of neologisms that have not yet been documented in established Chinese dictionaries. The occurrence of variant forms in large-scale corpora can assist lexicographers in their decision. The revision team primarily relies on Chinese web corpus of the corpus tool Word Sketch Engine¹ to verify the frequency of variant forms.

For example, the word brunch is translated as "早中餐" in the parallel cor-pus. However, a search by the team in Chinese web corpus reveals other trans-lations such as "早午餐", "早中饭" and "早午饭". None of the four variants is included in the CCD or in the NDCC. The frequency of "早午餐" in the corpus is significantly higher than the other three variants (see Table 1). Consequently, the revision team has opted to include "早午餐" as the entry in the dictionary, while excluding the other three translations.

 

 

5.2.2 Decision of inclusion of neologisms as entries or examples

Frequency serves as the basis for lexicographers to decide whether new words should be included as examples or as entries. For example, 【酸辣汤】 mentioned in 4.3 was treated as a separate entry in the first edition. While in the Chinese web corpus, new words similar to "酸辣汤" emerge, like "酸辣粉", "酸辣面", and "酸辣酱". The frequency of "酸辣粉" (8092 hits) is considerably higher than "酸辣汤" (1809 hits). Therefore, the revision team has created the entry 【酸辣】, with two most frequently used words "酸辣汤" and "酸辣粉" presented as exam-ples (see the following entries). This approach helps users better understand these terms and the semantic relations between them.

【酸辣汤】 potage acide et âcre ; potage poivré et vinaigré

【酸辣】 acide et âcre a; poivré(e) et vinaigré(e) a 酸辣粉 vermicelles [nouilles de riz] poivrés et vinaigrés ‖ 酸辣汤 potage acide et âcre ; potage poivré et vinaigré

Another example mentioned in 4.3 is "咖啡机", which was presented as an exam-ple under the entry 【咖啡】 (coffee). If the high-frequency terms (see 4.3) related to "咖啡" including "胶囊咖啡机" and "全自动咖啡机" are all presented together with "咖啡机" as examples under the entry "咖啡", it would result in an excessive number of examples and unwieldy amount of information for the already example-rich entry of "咖啡", making it difficult for users to find the informa-tion they need. Therefore, based on the criterion of frequency, the revision team treats "咖啡机" as a separate entry rather than an example of 【咖啡】, and the related derivative terms are presented as examples under this new entry.

【咖啡】➊caféier m ; café m ~种植la culture du caféier ‖ ~园plantation de caféiers ➋café m en poudre ; café m ➌café (boisson) m >一杯~ une tasse de café ‖ 牛奶~ café au lait ‖ 速溶~ café instantané ‖ 清~ café noir ‖ ~杯tasse à café ‖ ~伴侣succédané de lait pour le café◆~厅[馆］café m ‖ ~壶cafetière f ‖ ~机cafetière f

【咖啡机】 cafetière f; machine f à café >研磨咖啡机machine à moudre le café ‖ 胶囊咖啡机 machine à café à capsule ‖ 全/半自动咖啡机machine à café entièrement automatique/semi-automatique

5.2.3 Determining whether to add new meanings

The revision team uses the criterion of frequency to decide whether new meanings of old words, such as "应用" (app) and "跳水" (sudden drop in prices), should be considered for inclusion in the dictionary. For instance, the term "应用", besides its usages as a verb, has a new meaning used as a noun: "app", which is widely used and supported by corpus data and search engine results. Therefore, the team has decided to include this new meaning in the revised GDCFC.

5.3 Supplementary criterion

Traditional bilingual dictionaries often provide equivalents for entries without any explanatory notes. This approach sometimes falls short in clarifying the meaning or usage of an entry. Adamska-Salaciak (2015) advocates for "supplementary meaning-elucidating strategies" in the compilation of bilingual dictionaries. She contends that when the provision of equivalents alone does not suffice to convey a source language (SL) meaning, lexicographers should enhance the entries with additional semantic information. Similarly, Lu (2003) emphasizes the necessity of supplementary explanations for neologisms in cultural domains and loanwords of foreign origins. Based on these insights and the revision practices, the GDCFC revision team has set up the supplementary criteria primarily in mainly two aspects: adding explanations to the equivalents of neologisms, especially for new loanwords or cultural words, and offering full forms for new abbreviated words. This approach aims at a deeper understanding of the neologisms.

5.3.1 Adding explanations to the equivalents of neologisms, especially for new loanwords or cultural words

The team has added explanations to the equivalents for new words or expres-sions, especially for new loanwords or cultural words to help understanding. For example, when including "布基尼" into the GDCFC, lexicographers would not only offer burkini extracted from the parallel corpora as its equivalent, because it would not help much for the understanding of its meaning. To make it much clearer, an explanation with brackets is added: burkini m (tenue de bain des femmes musulmanes).

5.3.2 Offering full forms for new abbreviated words

The team has offered full forms for new words created through abbreviations to enhance comprehension of their meanings. For example, the full form 农业学校 is added in brackets for its abbreviated form 【农校】, and 亚洲基础设施投资银行 for【亚投行】.

【农校】[〈abrév.〉pour 农业学校] école f agricole [d'agriculture]

【亚投行】[〈abrév.〉pour 亚洲基础设施投资银行] Banque f Asiatique d'Investissement pour les Infrastructures (BAII ou AIIB en anglais)

5.4 Criterion of relevance

As Li and Huang (2017) claim, words do not exist in isolation within a linguistic system. There are various associations between lexical units and concepts, which together form an intricate network of semantic relationships. Therefore, to comprehensively describe a neologism, lexicographers must highlight its systematic semantic associations. From this perspective, the team has focused not just on providing equivalents to describe a neologism, but has also applied the criteria of relevance in their work. To better organize the neologisms and their related entries and present them within the context of the semantic framework, the team tries to provide semantic field components and relevant collocations associated with the headword. The aim is to help dictionary users build a semantic network of mental vocabulary, creating a net that covers the entire semantic field.

For instance, the entry "充电" mentioned in 4.5 already provides some exam-ples for its original meaning in the first edition of the GDCFC and in the paral-lel corpus, while some new words concerning the concept "充电" and other key elements are not included. The revision team, based on monolingual corpus data and online sources, tries to reveal all these elements within the semantic framework linking to the concept. Therefore, new words concerning the charging devices or equipment, such as "充电站" (charging station), "充电桩" (charging pile), "充电线" (charging cable), and "充电宝" (power bank), are organized as subentries under the entry "充电". In addition, the VN collocation construction referring to charging objects, such as "给手机、手提电脑、电动汽车等充电" (to charge a cell-phone, a portable computer, an electric car, etc.) and the ADJ+N construction referring to various types of charging, including "无线充电" (wireless charging), "有线充电" (wired charging), "快速充电" (fast charging), "移动充电" (mobile charg-ing) and "常规[慢速]充电" (slow charging), are treated as examples of the entry. It should be noted that "充电器" was treated as an example of "充电" in the first edition, while in the second edition, it is regarded as an entry with

The ameliorated entries are presented below.

【充电】1. charger [recharger] v ; charge [recharge] f 给手机、手提电脑、电动汽车、蓄电池等充电charger [recharger] un téléphone portable, un ordinateur portable, un véhicule électrique, une batterie d'accumulateurs ‖ 快速充电 recharge rapide ‖ 常规[慢速]充电recharge lente ‖ 无线充电recharge sans fil ‖ 有线充电 recharge avec fil 2.<fig.> enrichir ses connaissances

【充电器】chargeur m >手机充电器chargeur pour téléphone portable ‖ 无线充电器 chargeur sans fil

【充电线】câble m de recharge

【充电宝】batterie f portable, batterie f externe >乘坐飞机时， 充电宝必须随身携带。La batterie portable n'est autorisée qu'en cabine lors d'un vol.

【充电站】centre m de recharge >建立充电站mettre en place [installer] des centres de recharge

【充电桩】borne f de recharge >电动车充电桩borne de recharge pour véhicule électrique ‖ 快速充电桩point de recharge rapide

As for concept-related word groups where there are differences in French equiv-alent expressions, the revision team provides a more diverse range of examples. For instance, in Chinese, "无人" refers to phenomena that do not require human service or operation, while in French, to express the concept, different transla-tion equivalents must be used depending on the context. For example, "无人超市" (unmanned supermarket) can be translated as "supermarché sans caisse" or "super-marché libre-service"; "无人汽车" (driverless car) can be translated as "voiture autonome" or "voiture sans conducteur"; and "无人机" (unmanned aerial vehicle) is translated as "drone". All these expressions with different equivalents are presented as examples for the entry 【无人】 to serve as translation references for users, assuring the accuracy of each neologism and help avoid translation errors.

Through this approach, dictionary users are able not only to understand the meaning, usage and the accurate translations of new words but also to explore their connections with existing entries, centered around a key concept.

As Huang (2016: 5) has pointed out, for lexicographers, "writing a few articles, using only a limited number of entries to showcase their semantic relationships or semantic networks, seems to be manageable [...] However, facing the vast ocean of vocabulary, it is far from easy for them to exhaustively describe the interconnections among all these terms". Therefore, the criterion of relevance is only experimental, and needs ongoing enhancement, revision, and refinement in the future.

 

6. Conclusion

This study describes the special practices and experiences of the revision team of the GDCFC on the inclusion of neologisms for its second edition using a wide spectrum of sources, ranging from the latest monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, monolingual and bilingual corpora, to online resources. To respond to the challenges encountered by the team, we propose four criteria for the inclusion of neologisms in the GDCFC: descriptivism plus prescriptivism, frequency, supplementation, and relevance. The application of these criteria helps achieve a more objective, more precise inclusion and a more comprehensive description on the neologisms in bilingual dictionaries, forming a complete syntactic and semantic network centering on the neologism or the core concept. It also provides a better reflection of the dynamic changing process of Chinese and French languages while guiding users on the use and learning of neologisms. The recommendations offered herein are expected to provide valuable insights into future lexicographic work on neologisms in bilingual dictionaries.

 

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Chinese Academic Translation Project of the National Social Science Foundation (22WYYB009). We are grateful to Prof. Dion Nkomo and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions, as well as to the typesetters, Ms Tanja Harteveld and Ms Hermien van der Westhuizen.

 

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