2.2. Special Divisions of Contrastive Linguistics

Several constituent branches or divisions of contrastive linguistics may be distinguished, using two time-honoured classifications in linguistics, structural 'levels' and semiotic 'dimensions¹. The first starts from the assumption of a layered ranking of basic units from simple (and short) to complex (and large), e.g. in phonology from phoneme to syllable, in graphology from grapheme to logogram, in lexicology from

57 lexeme to idiom, in grammar from morpheme to sentence, in textology from speech act to discourse. The second classification posits linguistic relationships in terms of the three aspects: paradigmatic (choice of items from an inventory), synragmatic (sequence of items in chains), and pragmatic (communicative effect in context). Combining these two classifications, we can establish a grid like the one in Figure 1. The main divisions are formed by arranging linguistic levels, along the y-axis, from patterns of substance (phonology and graphology) at the bottom, via patterns of form (lexicology and grammar) in the middle, to patterns of interaction (textology) at the top, and by correlating them, along the x-axis, with the three semiotic dimensions (paradigmatic or semantic, syntagmatic or syntactic, and pragmatic or contextual).

It may be that not all these 15 divisions of contrastive linguistics turn out to be relevant to the concerns of bilingual lexicography, But at least some forms of (especially 'synchronic' and 'applied') contrastive analysis are suitable for solving some of the problems of bilingual dictionary-making. Some specific examples follow in Section 3.

1. s egmental phonology

2. phonotactfes

3. pragma-phonology

4. segmental graphology

5. graphouttics

6. pragma-graphology

7. lexical semantics

8. sematactics

9. pragma-lexicology

10. morphology

11. syntax

12. prigma-grammir

13. text semantics

14. text syntax

15. text pragmatic*

3. CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS APPLIED TO BILINGUAL LEXICOGRAPHY

The relation between (various forms of) contrastive analysis and (various forms of) bilingual lexicography is never even, direct, or mutual, ll is sometimes claimed that a descriptive comparison of a set of phenomena from a particular pair of languages can lead to an improved codification of items representing these phenomena in the interlingual dictionary. However, it is doubtful whether such contrastive work has always materially affected lexicographical practice; what is more, it may well have been the bilingual dictionary that provided the contrastive linguist with appropriate data, or their verification, in the first place (cf. Di Pictro 1971). The comparability criterion that both contrastive linguistics and interlingual lexicography share is the translating competence of their respective practitioners. Because of the 'anisomorphisnV (or non-correspondence of surface forms) between any two languages, it is only the bilingual analyst who, via his/her mental lexical stores, can approximate any formal or functional equivalence: '"Da es keine echte sprachliche Kongruenz gibt, ist der Lexikograph gezwungen, sich bei der Festlegung zweisprachiger Emsprechungen stets nur mit Annaherungswerten zu begnugen"' (Schimtz 1960, 234).<..>