Terminology. International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Issues in Specialized Communication - Volume 17, Issue 1, 2011

Dynamicity is the condition of being in motion, and thus, is characterized by continuous change, activity, or progress. Not surprisingly, dynamicity is generally acknowledged to be an important part of any kind of knowledge representation system or knowledge acquisition scenario. This means that it might be a good idea to reconsider concept representations in Terminology, and modify them so that they better reflect the nature of conceptualization in the mind and brain. In this sense, recent theories of cognition have emphasized that situated or grounded experiences are activated in cognitive processing (Louwerse and Jeuniaux 2010; Barsalou 1999; Zwaan 2003). According to these theories, meaning construction heavily relies on perceptually simulating the information that is presented to the comprehender. Specialized knowledge representation that facilitates knowledge acquisition could thus be conceived as a situation model or event that enables comprehenders to use communicated information to better interact with the world

The present paper discusses how scholarly areas are subject to different kinds of external pressure resulting in both concept and term changes. When representing domains in knowledge bases, a central purpose will be to capture the conceptual structures of the domains together with the terminology denoting the concepts. This pursuit is fundamentally challenged by the fact that domains are dynamic and develop over time. In the paper, this challenge is discussed in view of examples from three different domains, i.e., Organisational Behaviour, Financial Accounting and Crisis, Restructuring and Growth. All these three economic-administrative domains are subject to external pressure which causes both concept and term changes. However, the factors causing the knowledge development are quite different.

Today, term variation is commonly accepted to be a widespread phenomenon in specialised communication. Although some degree of arbitrariness is inevitable, the expert’s choice of a term variant is generally motivated to some extent. This article presents a methodology for describing the conceptually motivated patterns of term variation in a real corpus of special language. This method — which analyses the conceptual information displayed on the term’s form — represents an attempt to provide a framework accounting for the flexibility of concepts and conceptual structures in a systematic way. Using data from a bilingual (French and Galician) corpus of texts related to coastal fishing and aquaculture, the applicability of proposed method for analysis is illustrated with a description of the variation patterns pertaining to terms designating human entity concepts within the corpus.

In this article, the dynamics of legal language is analyzed from the perspective of a lawyer The focus will therefore be, not on the linguistic mechanisms of change, but on the reasons that can explain why, on the one hand, legal language, and more particularly, legal terminology has a tendency to remain unaltered, and why, on the other hand, legal language does change, albeit in a very slow way

This paper addresses the dynamics of terms and meaning in specialised communication by means of a semantic investigation into the domain of machining terminology in French. Studying meaning in specialised language raises two main research questions: how to identify terms or specialised entities in a technical corpus and how to study their meaning. In order to answer these questions, a double quantitative analysis is conducted, consisting of the identification and quantification of specialised vocabulary as well as the quantification of the semantic analysis by means of a monosemy measure. This approach requires the use of computer tools and scripting language and involves a statistical analysis in order to come to linguistic conclusions. Accordingly, this study aims to question the univocity ideal in a quantitative way. It focuses on the methodology and shows that an interdisciplinary approach can yield valuable results

The dynamics of terms deals with the evolution of terminology, and terminometric analyses measure this evolution. Based on an analysis of term usage in specialized communication in the domain of nanotechnology over a period of two consecutive years, this study demonstrates that terminometrics can produce a precise description of the dynamics of terms in multicultural, bilingual or multilingual settings. The discussion also highlights how terminometric analyses of specialized texts shed light on the dynamics of terms in knowledge development

This article presents a first description and a proposal for the classification of the evolution phenomena involved in short-term diachrony in the field of space. It is based on the principles of Textual Terminology and relies on a tool-based analysis of two diachronic corpora. The linguistic methodology is briefly described but the emphasis is on the list of evolution phenomena revealed through our analysis. These results present an original description of knowledge evolution: 17 types of evolution are listed, revealing the heterogeneity and richness of terminology dynamics and offering a descriptive basis to start new subsequent research that would complete this typology

European accounting terminology is dynamic as term creation and formation occurs on national, European Union and international levels. Although English is the lingua franca of accounting, international accounting standards in English exist on a par with their translations into other languages. However, an analysis of online dictionaries shows that these cannot cope with the dynamic nature of accounting terminology. We discuss a network of internet dictionaries in English, Danish, and Spanish that was compiled using the functional approach to specialised lexicography. We show how terminologists can work in subject fields where culture and context play a key role in the development of nationally accepted and internationally recommended terms, and propose ways to remedy deficiencies identified in the dictionaries examined. Finally, we discuss strategies for translating English metaphorical terms into Spanish assuming that bilingual accounting dictionaries should use conceptually similar terms in both source and target languages