Literary Quotations in Bilingual Dictionaries: A Case Study of a Nineteenth-century Dutch–Chinese Dictionary

The phenomenon of literary quotations in dictionaries finds its origin the days when search for equivalents was intertextual rather than interlingual based. For both monolin­gual and bilingual purpose is to supply evidence usage illuminate meaning relevant headword, with difference that dic­tionaries this done via translation. This article examines a nineteenth century Dutch–Chinese dictionary by analysing sample sentences compiler has extracted from original Chinese texts. Discussion examples different types text will probe function­ing intention compiler. inclusion dic­tionary appear be result linguistic cultural intention, sense they are revealing syntax but also aspects culture. These findings contrib­ute understanding practice role introducing foreign aspects.