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The present study assesses Al-Mawrid dictionary from the perspective of the degree of its usefulness as a translational tool. It starts by reviewing available published studies on related subjects such as cognitive semantics, neologism lexicography and terminology compilation; and how useful Al-Mawrid is as a tool in the hands of professional translation practitioners. The choice of Al-Mawrid as a subject of investigation stems from the fact that it is the most popular, the most sold and the most utilized tool in a market considered to be similar in size to that of Western Europe. The study attempts to assess the degree of efficiency and adequacy of Al-Mawrid as a tool in a translational context and this assessment is carried out through an empirical investigation, which includes a 20,000 word-long corpus, randomly compiled and translated by randomly selected professional translators. The study unveils a number of areas of weakness in Al-Mawrid based on the premise that it is a prominent translational tool and also when compared to other prominent dictionaries in other languages such as The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998). Furthermore, the analysis highlights areas in a number of Al-Mawrid’s entries that contain confusing and at times unclear explanations which were shown to be of little use to the translators in some contexts. The study also provides a number of suggestions which could be considered to produce a more up-to-date version of Al- Mawrid in order for it to be of a greater help to the translator/interpreter. |
