Examples in the bilingual dictionary.

Abstract

Of all the components of the bilingual dictionary microstructure, examples usually take up more space than all others combined. This means that there is a de facto consensus that examples are essential. However, despite this consensus, existing bilingual dictionaries are inconsistent in their exemplification of lexical items and the current literature in the field does not provide any explanation of this inconsistency. In fact there is no exhaustive or systematic study of examples in bilingual or unilingual lexicography. This thesis attempts to fill this gap. It analyzes several aspects of examples, with special attention to the role they perform in bilingual dictionaries and the importance of their presentation to highlight their functions.