Translating Slang: a Comparative Analysis of Enn Veldi’s and TEA’s Estonian English Bilingual Dictionaries

Abstract

This BA thesis comparatively analyses the slang entry translations found in Enn Veldi’s Estonian-English dictionary and the TEA Estonian-English dictionary and aims to answer the following research question: How similarly are slang entry translations handled in Enn Veldi’s Estonian-English dictionary and the TEA Estonian-English dictionary? To answer this question, the thesis analyses all entries marked as slang in the dictionaries, 399 in total, to uncover the most common way of translating in the dictionaries, which in turn is used as the base to critically analyse the similarities and differences in slang entry translations in the dictionaries, alongside the positives and the problems that stem from different translations.

The thesis starts with an introduction, where the author provides a short insight into bilingual dictionaries and slang, followed by the literature review, which discusses the topics of slang, bilingual dictionaries and translation from the points of various authors, with the aim of providing a background for the analysis both in the form of a slang definition as well as problems that have arisen in dictionary entry translations. The empirical study consists of an overview of the analysis, as well as the analysis itself, followed by the discussion on the findings. The thesis ends with the conclusion.