An Investigation of the Quality of Bilingual English-Persian and Persian-English Dictionaries: The Attitudes of the Iranian Translators, Instructors, and Students

Due to the importance of the lexicography and the scarcity of empirical research on the attitudes of the bilingual dictionary users, the current mixed-methods research attempted to investigate Iranian EFL learners, teachers, and translators’ attitudes toward the equality of the online and off-line bilingual English-Persian dictionaries. In doing so, first, a five-point Linkert scale questionnaire including 30 multiple-choice and five open-ended items that was developed and validated by the researchers, was filled out by 34 translators, 86 university professors who taught translation courses at BA, MA, and PhD levels, and 254 English translation studies students. Then, 10% of the participants were orally interviewed. Finally, focus group discussions (FGDs) were carried out with translation students. Participants mentioned negative attitudes toward the use of the current bilingual Persian-English dictionaries and the mentioned problems such as inadequate equivalents, inappropriate translations, obsolete use of Persian words, absence of all meanings and so forth. They mentioned that printed dictionaries were better than off-line and online ones. Kruskal-Wallis test showed no significant differences among the attitudes of the three groups of participants. The findings of this study can help Iranian lexicographers develop better printed, offline, and online bilingual English Persian dictionaries.