The usage of field labels in English-Spanish bilingual e-dictionaries from the perspective of translators

Resumen

Translation is the vehicle to spread progress among societies that do not share the same language. However, the translation of specialized vocabulary is a problem that translators have to face. The first sources they look to when they do not know an equivalent are general bilingual e-dictionaries, according to previous research. In order to distinguish specialized vocabulary from general vocabulary, dictionaries use different mechanisms and the most prevalent one is field labelling. Our aim is to study how field labels are used to tag specialized vocabulary, so we analyse these field labels in the macrostructure and microstructure of a selection of general bilingual e-dictionaries from a translator's perspective. In the macrostructure of each dictionary, we look for references to the use and selection of field labels, we search for a list of field labels, then we check whether all of these are included in entries, and we extract the most representative fields, having counted the number of entries tagged with field labels. In the microstructure, we find where dictionaries place field labels in the structure of the entry, the typology used, and we test whether dictionaries label the same units by analysing five randomly selected units. Finally, we show the analysis results found in each dictionary, we compare them and we draw conclusions.