Analysing contextual guidance in selected Sepedi-English dictionaries

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyse contextual guidance in selected Sepedi-English dictionaries. It analysed different issues related to the manner in which contextual guidance is presented in the selected Sepedi-English dictionaries. Firstly, it looked at how the relationship between the headword and the translation can positively or negatively affect the presentation of contextual guidance. Also, it focused on the presentation of structural markers and how they contribute to contextual guidance which is not well presented. It then looked at the manner in which the dictionary compilers could present the lexical items in accordance with microstructural aspects. Lastly it focused on the need and manner in which microstructural aspects could make the dictionary user-friendly with the usage of pictorials as other means of contextual guidance assistance to the target users. The researcher has separated and allocated the lexical items according to themes and contexts. The researcher discovered that there is a need for user-friendly dictionaries which consist of contextual guidance which has a relationship with the lexical item. That will assist the target users to understand how the translation equivalent could be used