In the area of translation studies efforts have been made to establish a China-based discourse system with the view to embracing a prospect of a mutually reliable academic ecology worldwide. In this regard, evidence could be found in the textual fabric of those lexicographical works in Chinese translation studies. A diachronic comparison has revealed that both the form and content of Chinese traditional discourse in the dictionary series have been changing as a response to the need of discourse construction and discipline development. The present study argues that these textual changes are actually motivated to a large degree by the conception of lexicographical practice in this field and that the conception is open to further evolvement. Based on the analysis of domestic lexicographical practice in the field of translation studies, this paper points out that specialized lexicography is fundamentally a process of knowledge collection, analysis, dissemination and application, and that in the practice of discourse construction, indigenous Chinese dictionaries function distinctly from those imported from the West. This piece of conception innovation could help to make full use of the instrumentality of dictionaries in inheriting and developing traditional academic resources in the practice of China-based discourse construction.