Terminology. International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Issues in Specialized Communication - Current Issue

Abstract

Frame Semantics provides a powerful cross-lingual model to describe the conceptual structure underlying specialized language. Building specialized frames is challenging because of the complex nature of predicate-argument structures, and because of the domain-specific uses of general-language predicates. Our semi-automatic method elicits semantic frames from specialized corpora. It aims to discover lexical patterns that reveal the structure of specialized frames and to populate them with corpus-based data. Firstly, we automatically extracted verb-noun triples from corpora using bootstrapping to identify noun-verb-noun phraseological patterns. Secondly, we annotated each noun-verb-noun triple with the lexical domain of the verbs and the semantic class and role of the noun filling each argument slot. We then used these annotations and patterns to classify similar triples. Thus, the structure and the types of lexical units that belong to each specialized frames were inferred. Specialized corpora analysis of environmental science texts in English and in Spanish illustrate our methodology.

Abstract

This paper focuses on the study of word combinations “of common usage” which are “lexicalized”, have “syntactic and semantic stability, may be idiomatized and carry connotations, and have an emphatic or intensifying function.” (Gläser 1994/1995, 45). Following previous research on Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) and legal phraseology, we will define, identify and classify these units in English and Spanish according to their form and meaning, using a comparable corpus of sales contracts. To carry out our study, we will focus on a number of descriptors that are commonly used within these units on the basis of the headwords they collocate with, in order to determine how specific or general they are in their form, use and meaning since this issue poses translation problems. As genres determine matters such as or terminology and phraseology, the results will be useful for specialized translators and legal drafters.

Abstract

This article explores terminological variation, in particular denominative variation, in popular science discourse. Our objective is to analyse the terminological complexity and instability of terms referring to the controversial notion of biocontrol (lutte biologique in French) in two types of publications. The analysis is based on the identification of the different denominations used in this interdisciplinary subject field, both in a Journal specialized in plant protection and in the most popular French daily newspapers. Our study aims to give an in-depth linguistic and cognitive analysis of French terms and explain the reasons for the observed variation. As most scientific research topics gaining public attention, biological control (or biocontrol) is prone to a multiplication of terms. In this study, we show how the profusion of terms, in a domain with important scientific and societal implications, can maintain or even exacerbate terminological and conceptual confusion.

Abstract

This paper describes TermEnsembler, a bilingual term extraction and alignment system utilizing a novel ensemble learning approach to bilingual term alignment. In the proposed system, the processing starts with monolingual term extraction from a language industry standard file type containing aligned English and Slovenian texts. The two separate term lists are then automatically aligned using an ensemble of seven bilingual alignment methods, which are first executed separately and then merged using the weights learned with an evolutionary algorithm. In the experiments, the weights were learned on one domain and tested on two other domains. When evaluated on the top 400 aligned term pairs, the precision of term alignment is over 96%, while the number of correctly aligned multi-word unit terms exceeds 30% when evaluated on the top 400 term pairs.

This article reviews The Human Factor in Machine Translation978-1-138-55121-3978-1-315-14753-6

This article reviews Figement et discours spécialisés978-3-86596-413-7