Abstract:
Indicating the meaning of words is the most important task of a
lexicographer. The branch of Linguistics that deals with meaning is called
semantics. It is necessary for a lexicographer to be familiar with semantic
concepts in order to produce translation equivalents for a dictionary. The compiler
of a bilingual dictionary should make adequate use of the cultural information in
her/his/their description of meanings. An attempt is, therefore, made to study the
problems that the compiler of a bilingual dictionary faces in presenting meaning.
These problems can be categorized under the following topics: the lack of
equivalence in the Target Language, culture-bound words, onomasiological gaps
and sense discrimination in bilingual dictionaries. In all these problems,
translation plays a vital role with different procedures. Therefore, the study
analyses the problems in Bilingual-Lexicography based on the second re-printed
version (2000) of Peter Percival’s bilingual dictionary (Tamil-English) which was
published by the Asian Educational Services, New Delhi. The findings of the
study indicate that certain translation procedures including synonyms, descriptive
equivalence, transliteration and cultural substitution were widely applied in
composing the dictionary to produce equivalents for the easy reference of users.
The words which were in use in the 19th century were included in the dictionary.
According to the findings, the translation procedures handled by Peter Percival
were brilliant. This study will the help reader to become familiar with Peter
Percival’s contribution to the field of Translation and to the people of Jaffna
during his period. Further, this study is expected to enrich the understanding of
researchers who focus on the role of lexicographers as translators in the
compilation of bilingual lexicons particularly in the Tamil and English languages.
