@® 2.1 ‘Terminology and specialized language Pamela Faber, Clara Inés Lépez Rodriguez 2.1.1 Introduction Terminology or specialized language is more than a technical or particular in- stance of general language. In today’s society with its emphasis on science and technology, the way specialized knowledge concepts are named, structured, de- scribed, and translated has put terminology or the designation of specialized knowledge concepts in the limelight. The information in scientific and technical texts is encoded in terms or spe- cialized knowledge units, which are access points to more complex knowledge structures. Underlying the information in the text are entire conceptual domains, which are both explicitly and implicitly present, and which represent the spe- cialized knowledge encoded. In order to create a specialized text, translators and technical writers must have an excellent grasp of the language in the conceptual domain, the content that must be transmitted, and the knowledge level of the addressees or text receivers. In order to translate a specialized language text, translators must go beyond correspondences at the level of individual terms, and be able to establish interlinguistic references to entire knowledge struc- tures. Only then can they achieve the level of understanding necessary to create an equivalent text in the target language. 2.1.2 Specialized knowledge acquisition There has been a great deal of debate regarding how much a translator or techni- cal writer really needs to know about the specialized domain in order to translate or write about a scientific or technical text. Some people even seem to believe that such texts should only be translated or written by experts in the field be- cause, Although it is not infrequent for experts with an acceptable level of a sec- ond language to try to write or translate texts because of their knowledge of terminological correspondences, they generally find that writing an article in another language is far from simple. Similarly, there“are:writers or translators who believe that their syntactic and semantic knowledge of one or more lan-10 Pamela Faber, Clara Inés Lépez Rodriguez e/a Both erfdeavors can be extremely difficult to perform successfully. ‘The reason for this lies in the fact that specialized languages are not a series of water-tight compartments. Terminological units and their correspondences possess both paradigmatic and syntagmatic structure. In other siloadendtag tems within general language. In this sense, merely knowing terminological correspondences is often not enough since such units, when inserted in context, affect the text at all levels. However, it also must be said that linguistic knowledge in itself is not a'suf- ficient guarantee to produce an acceptable text in a specialized knowledge field. A translator or technical writer must likewise be aware of the types of concep- ‘tual entities that the text is referring to, the events that they are participating in, and how they are interrelated. This signifies that writers and translators of spe- cialized:texts must also be:cléget terminologists and be capable of carrying out S . This is one of the reasons why an understanding of terminology and specialized knowledge representation is a key factor in successful scientific and technical text genera~ tion and translation. 2.1.3 Terminology as a discipline Terminology as a discipline of study is a relative newcomer. In fact, it came into being because of the growing need to facilitate specialized communication and translation, as well as knowledge transfer between text users belonging to different language communities and with similar knowledge levels. The theo- retical proposals in this field have been mostly practice-based, and focus on the elaboration of glossaries, specialized dictionaries as well as terminological and translation resources. According to Cabré (2000a: 37), “as a subject field with explicit premises, terminology emerges from the need of technicians and scien- tists to unify the concepts and terms of their subject fields in order to facilitate professional communication and the transfer of knowledge”. Precisely for this reason, . Over the years, this quest for a'set of theoretical principles has led terminologists to ask themselves inter alia whether ‘Sociology, Cognitive'Science, or Linguistics (to name a few).2.1, Terminology and specialized language 11 Rather than say that Terminology may stemsfrom any or all of them, we take the position that Terminology is essentially a linguistic and cognitive ac- tivity. In this sense, terms are linguistic units which convey conceptual meaning within the framework of specialized knowledge texts. In the understanding of the nature of terms, this process of meaning transmission is as important as the concept or concepts that they designate. Terminological units are thus subject to linguistic analysis. Since this type of analysis can be carried out in a number of ways, it is necessary to choose the linguistic approach most in consonance with the object of study. Such an approach should be lexically-centered and usage-based. It should also have its primary focus on meaning and conceptual representation. As shall be seen, such is the case of theoretical approaches based on Cognitive Linguistics. In the past, Terminology and Linguistics have mostly ignored each other. In its initial phase, Terminology was interested in asserting its independence from other knowledge areas, and creating a totally autonomous discipline. This goal led terminologists to go to great lengths to emphasize differences between Terminology and Lexicology even to the extent of affirming that terms are not words. In a parallel way, linguistic theory has largely ignored Terminology, probably because specialized language has been and is often regarded as merely special case of general language. Thus, it was not considered worthy of serious study because anything pertaining to general language was also presumed to be true of specialized language. However, interesting conclusions about specialized language, scientific translation, and language in general can be obtained when terminology is stud- ied in its own right. As such, it is most certainly susceptible to linguistic analy- sis within the framework of a linguistic model. Oddly enough, some years ago this seemingly innocuous affirmation would have caused quite a hue and cry in terminological circles. The reason for this was that the first approximations to terminology had normalization as a primary objective. Great pains were taken to strive for totally unambiguous communication through standardization. This signified univocity or one-to-one reference between term and concept. The fact that the majority of terms designate concepts that represent objects in a special- ized knowledge field meant that such an objective seemed possible to achieve. Nevertheless, it soon became apparent that this was more a desideratum than a realistic goal. 2.1.4 Theories of Terminology ‘As has often been observed, terminology means many things to many people (Sager 1994: 7). Terminology is a word that can either begin with an upper or12 Pamela Faber, Clara Inés Lopez Rodriguez lower-case letter. When terminology begins with a small ¢, it refers to the units in any specialized knowledge field. When it begins with a large T, it refers to the study of specialized language. As a rule, Terminology theories can be clas- sified as either prescriptive or descriptive. General Terminology Theory, which has the virtue of being the first theoretical proposal in this area, is essentially prescriptive in nature. As shall be seen, the theories that subsequently arose in reaction to the General Terminology Theory are descriptive, and show an increasing tendency to incorporate premises from Cognitive Linguistics since they focus on the social, communicative, and cognitive aspects of specialized knowledge units. The vision that they offer is more realistic because they ana- lyze terms as they actually appear and behave in texts. One might say that these new theories are representative of a cognitive shift in Terminology. 2.1.4.1 General Terminology Theory Terminology as a discipline began in the 1930's with Eugen Wiister, the author of The Machine Tool, an Interlingual Dictionary of Basic Concepts (Wiister 1968), a systematically organized French and English dictionary of standard- ized terms (with a German supplement) intended as a model for future technical dictionaries. This multi-volume work inspired the General Terminology Theory, and set out the initial set of principles for the compilation and description of termi- nological data with a view to the standardization of scientific language. The General Terminology Theory was later developed in Vienna by Wiister’s suc- cessors, who interpreted his ideas and carried on his work. Although for many years, the General Terminology Theory offered the only set of principles and premises for compiling terminological data, its view of the semantics of ter- minological units projected a uniformly limited representation of specialized knowledge concepts without allowing for their multidimensional nature. Need- less to say, the General Terminology Theory did not attempt to account for the syntax and pragmatics of specialized language, which was not regarded as rel- evant. In this sense, it could not be usefully applied to translation or specialized text generation. The General Terminology Theory focused on specialized knowledge con- cepts for the description and organization of terminological information. Within this framework, concepts were viewed as being separate from their linguistic designation (terms). Concepts were conceived as abstract cognitive entities that refer to objects in the real world, and terms were merely their linguistic labels. As Terminology struggled to acquire a semi-independent status, a consider- able amount of effort was invested in distinguishing specialized language from2.1, Terminology and specialized language 13 general language and in differentiating terms from words. This radical empha- sis on differences often seemed to convey the idea that terms were not even language at all, but rather abstract symbols referring to concepts in the real world. One of the basic assertions of General Terminology Theory (Wiister 1979; Felber 1984) is that terms in specialized language are inherently different from general language words because of the monosemic reference between terms and concepts. The general claim is that a term or a specialized language unit can be distinguished from a general language word by its single-meaning relationship with the specialized concept that it designates and by the stability of the rela- tionship between form and content in texts dealing with this concept (Pavel and Nolet 2001: 19). However, this is an extremely idealized vision of specialized communica- tion. Even the most cursory examination of specialized language texts shows that terminological variation is quite frequent, and that such variation seems to stem from parameters of specialized communication, such as the knowledge and prestige of the speakers, text function, text content, user group, etc. The same concept can often be designated by more than one term, and the same lin- guistic form can be used to refer to more than one concept. Furthermore, terms have distinctive syntactic projections and can behave differently in texts, de- pending on their conceptual focus. This is something that happens in texts of all languages, and is a problem that translators and technical writers inevitably have to deal with. Since Wiister believed that the function of Terminology was to create and standardize names for concepts, syntax was not regarded as falling within the scope of Terminology. The General Terminology Theory also regarded Termi- nology as exclusively synchronic, and thus ignored the diachronic dimension of terms. Wiister’s principal objectives (in Cabré 2003: 173) were: ~ “To eliminate ambiguity from technical languages by means of standardiza- tion of terminology in order to make them efficient tools of communication; — To convince all users of technical languages of the benefits of standardized terminology; — Toestablish terminology asa discipline for all practical purposes and to give it the status of a science”. Cabré (2000a: 169) rightly points out that Terminology has suffered from a lack of innovative theoretical contributions because until very recently, there has been little or no theoretical discussion or confrontation of opinions. Another possible reason for the slow development of Terminology is the lack of interest shown by specialists in other areas of knowledge, such as Linguistics:14 Pamela Faber, Clara Inés Lopez Rodriguez The fifth reason, which may explain the continued homogeneity of the estab- lished principles, is the lack of interest in terminology by specialists of other branches of science, for example linguistics, psychology, philosophy and history of science and even communication and discourse studies. For many years ter- minology saw itself as a simple practice for satisfying specific needs or as a field of knowledge whose signs had nothing to do with the signs of language. However, the 1990s brought new proposals and ideas that paved the way to inte- grating Terminology into a wider social, communicative, and linguistic context. According to L’ Homme, Heid, and Sager. (2003), examples of such approaches are Socioterminology (Boulanger 1991; Guespin 1991; Gaudin 1993, 2003), the Communicative Theory of Terminology (Cabré 20002, 2000b, 2001a, 2001b, 2003; Cabré et al. 1998), and Sociocognitive Terminology (Temmerman 1997, 2000, 2001, 2006). 2.1.4.2 Social and communicative Terminology theories In the early 1990's Socioterminology and Communicative Terminology Theory appeared on the horizon as a reaction to the hegemony of the General Terminol- ogy Theory. Both theories present a more realistic view of Terminology since sociological and discourse conditions that give rise to different types of texts. “Socioterminology, = ersten A Gems baud oh Sushi ‘Socitrmielogy mpnes SRE 1993), Pihkala (2001)2.1. Terminology and specialized language 15 systems and definitions are not static. This is a reality that any theory aspiring to explanatory adequacy must deal with. In this respect, the premises of Socioter- minology are closely linked to Gregory and Carroll's (1978: 3-4) characteriza> tion of linguistic variation according to use and user even though this reference is not explicitly mentioned. Although Socioterminology does not aspire to independent theoretical sta~ tus, its importance resides in the fact that it opened the door for other descriptive theories of Terminology, which also take social and communicative factors into account, and which base their theoretical principles on the way terms are actu- ally used in specialized discourse. ae we of does The Communicative Theory Or 4 Linguistics and Terminology began to draw closer to each other with the Com- municative Theory of Terminology (Cabré 1999a, 1999b, 1999c, 2000a, 2000b, 2001a, 2001b, 2003; Cabré et al. 1998). This proposal is more ambitious than Socioterminology and endeavors to account for the complexity of specialized knowledge units from a social, linguistic, and cognitive perspective. According to Cabré (2003), a theory of Terminology should provide a meth- odological framework for the study of terminological units. She underlines the fact that specialized knowledge units are multidimensional, and have a cogni- tive component, a linguistic component, and a sociocommunicative component. In this respect, they behave like general language words. Their specificity re- sides in a series of cognitive, syntactic, and pragmatic constraints, which affirm their membership in a specialized domain. In this sense, the Communicative Theory of Terminology regards termino- logical units as “sets of conditions” (Cabré 2003: 184) derived from, inter alia, their particular knowledge area, conceptual structure, meaning, lexical and syn- tactic structure, and valence, as well as the communicative context of special- ized discourse. Cabré (2003) proposes the Theory of the Doors, a metaphor representing the possible ways of accessing, analyzing, and understanding ter- minological units. She compares a terminological unit to a polyhedron, a three- dimensional solid figure with a varying number of facets. Similarly, a termi- nological unit can also be said to have three dimensions: a cognitive dimen- sion, a linguistic dimension, and a communicative dimension. Each is a sep- arate door through which terminological units can be accessed. Nonetheless, ‘one’s choice of door (or focus) does not entail a rejection of the other two perspectives, which continue to reside in the background. According to Cabré, the Communicative Theory of Terminology approaches units through the lan- guage door, but always within the general context of specialized communi- cation.16 Pamela Faber, Clara Inés Lopez Rodriguez At this time the Communicative Theory of Terminology is probably the best candidate to replace the,General Theory of Terminology as a viable, working theory of Terminology. It/has'led'to’a valuable body of research on different aspects of Terminology such as conceptual relations, terminological variation, term extraction, and the application of different linguistic models to Terminol- ogy. This has helped Terminology as a field to get its act together, and'begin to question the premises of General Terminology Theory, which previously were not open to doubt or criticism. However, the Communicative Theory of Terminology is not without its shortcomings. Despite its clear description of the nature of terminological units and the fact that it mentions a term’s “syntactic structure and valence”, the Communicative Theory of Terminology avoids opting for any specific linguis- tic model. The relation of the Communicative Theory of Terminology to Lin- uistics is more in the nature of a light flirtation with various models than a monogamous relationship with any one model in particular. Its view of concep- tual semantics is also in need of clarification. Although in a very general way, the Communicative Theory of Terminology bases its semantics on conceptual representation, it is more than a little vague when it comes to explaining how such representations are created, what they look like, and what constraints they might have: Cabré (2003: 189) states that the knowledge structure of specialized dis- course could be represented as a conceptual map formed by nodes of knowl- edge, which can be represented by different types of units of expression, and by relations between these nodes, Within this framework, terminological units are recognized as such because they represent knowledge nodes of a structure, and have a special meaning in this structure. If these factors are the prerequisites for term status, then one would think that conceptual representation, knowledge structure or ontology, and category organization would be an extremely impor- tant part of the Communicative Theory of Terminology. However, this does not seem to be the case. Another area in need of clarification in the Communicative Theory of Ter- minology is semantic meaning. According to this theory, a lexical unit is gen- eral by default and acquires a specialized meaning when it appears in a specific type of discourse. A terminological unit is regarded as the specialized meaning of a lexical unit since its meaning is extracted from the “set of information of a lexical unit” (Cabré 2003: 184). With this affirmation, the Communicative Theory of Terminology seems to be avoiding the question of what specialized meaning is and what its components are. The only clue provided is when Cabré (2003:190) states that terminological meaning consists of a specific “selection of semantic features according to the conditions of every speech act”, which2.1, Terminology and specialized language 17 seems to implicitly say that she is in favor of some type of semantic decom- 2.1.4.3 Cognitive-based theories of Terminology Over the last decade, linguistic theory seems to be in the process of undergoing a cognitive shift (Evans and Green 2006), which has led it to increasingly focus on the conceptual network underlying language. The fact that linguistic form cannot be divorced from meaning has led linguists to begin to explore the inter- face between syntax and semantics (Faber and Mairal Usén 1999). This trend is also present in the area of Terminology. Cognitive-based Terminology theories, though similar in some ways to the Communicative Theory of Terminology, also differ from it. It is not an accident that such theories have arisen largely in the context of Translation. Despite the fact that they also focus on terms in texts and ed integrate premises from Cognitive Linguistics and Psychology in their accounts i iti i (Temmerman 1997, 2000, 2006) and Frame» (Faber, Marquez Linares, and Vega Expésito 2005; Faber et al. 2006, 2007; Faber and Leén Aratiz 2010; Faber 2011). ‘Sociocognitive Terminology = femype ics (e.g. prototype structure and metaphor) be-) (1997, 2000). Sociocognitive’ ‘G¥@lenviFONMents (Temmerman, Kerremans, and Vandervoort 2005). SSS 16) criticizes General Terminology Theory, and offers _ General Terminology Theory are unrealistic and incapable of describing or ex-- Seana cnas Ta18 Pamela Faber, Clara Inés Lépez Rodriguez — Concepts have a central role in regards to their linguistic designations. — Concepts and categories have clear-cut boundaries. = Terminographic definitions should always be intensional. — Monosemic reference is the rule in terminology, where there is a one-to-one correspondence between terms and concepts. — Specialized language can only be studied synchronically. Temmerman (2000) argues that these premises are not valid, and asserts that: — Language cannot be regarded as divorced from concepts since it plays a crucial role in the conception of categories. — Many categories have fuzzy boundaries and cannot be clearly defined. — Optimal definition structure and type should not be limited to only one mode and ultimately depend on the concept being defined. — Polysemy and synonymy frequently occur in specialized language and must be included in any realistic terminological analysis. — Categories, concepts, as well as terms evolve over time and should be stud- ied diachronically. In this sense, cognitive models play an important role in the development of new ideas. This declaration of principles is the launching pad for Sociocognitive Termi- nology. This theory is also in consonance with Gaudin's Socioterminology and Cabré’s Communicative Theory of Terminology since it is descriptive rather than prescriptive, and regards terms as the starting point for terminological anal- ysis. However, in the same way as the other approaches, it has very little to say about the syntactic behavior of terms“7 main oisocdwemiogg- What makes Sociocognitive Terminology different from other theories is its emphasis on conceptual organization, and its focus on category structure from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics. While concept systems in the General Terminology Theory are organized in terms of type_of and part_of conceptual relations, sociocognitive categories are said to hav structure, and conceptual representations initially take the form of cognitive models. Another significant difference is that Sociocognitive Terminology is perhaps the first and only approach to truly take on board the historical or diachronic dimension Temmieritian (1997, 2001) analyzes three concepts from the same general domain of Biology, and comes to the conclusion that only one of them can be adequately described by the methods of the General Terminology Theory. The other two are much more susceptible to sociocognitive terminological meth- ods, She claims that such methods give less prominence to traditional ways of defining concepts (generic term and differentiating features), and focus more2.1. Terminology and specialized language 19 (Temmerman and Kerremans 2003). i idealized cognitive models were first proposed by Lakoff (1987) in order to account for rypicality effects, the phenomena whereby a particular instance is judged as being a good example of a given category. According to Lakoff, the prototype is not defined in relation to the real world or the knowledge of an individual, but in relation to one or vari- ous idealized cognitive models. Lakoff (1987: 9-28) defines idealized cognitive models as conventional conceptual representations of the way we perceive and organize reality (encyclopedic knowledge). Idealized cognitive models are idealized because they are abstract, and do not represent specific instances of a given experience. They are also schematic or simplified because they partially represent what a particular culture knows about a concept. Idealized cognitive models indicate the social expectations about a particular concept within a culture, and even include myth and beliefs in acertain society. Finally, they are cognitive because they can explain cognitive processes such as categorization and reasoning. In fact, according to Lakoff, exemplars not recognized in the idealized cognitive model of a particular culture are considered peripheral in the category. This model of categorization in Rosch’s (1978) Prototype Theory, which is the culmination of Wittgenstein’s (1953) notion of family resemblance, of anthropological research by Berlin and Kay (1969) on focal colors, and of linguistic research by Labov (1973) on household containers (CUPS, MUGS, etc.).-As opposed to the idea that cate- epee ing (Classical Theory of Meaning), Prototype Theory states20 Pamela Faber, Clara Inés Lépez Rodriguez For example, Temmerman, Kerremans and Vandervoort (2005) study the word splicing to identify the history of its meaning, particularly its evolution over time, its use by different cultural groups, and its presence in both general and specialized language. In this sense, the study supports the fact that metaphorical modeling is one of the mechanisms consciously or unconsciously used in the creation of scientific terms. The objective is to gain insight into cognition as it emerges from terms and descriptions in scientific publications. More recently, Sociocognitive Terminology has also begun to focus on on- tologies as a more viable way of implementing conceptual representations. This combination of terminology and ontology is called termontography. Termon- tography is a hybrid term, which is a combination of terminology, ontology, and terminography. Its objective is to link ontologies with multilingual terminolog- ical information, and to incorporate ontologies into terminological resources. Temmerman and Kerremans (2003) describe termontography as a multidisci- plinary approach in which theories and methods for multilingual terminological analysis (Temmerman 2000) are combined with methods and guidelines for on- tological analysis (Fernandez et al. 1997; Sure and Studer 2003). Termontography, as outlined by Temmerman, seems to owe a great deal to the work done by Ingrid Meyer (I. Meyer 2001; I. Meyer, Bowker and Eck 1992; L. Meyer and McHaffie 1994; I, Meyer, Eck and Skuce 1997; Bowker and L’Homme 2004) who was one of the first terminologists to perceive that termbases would be even more useful if their organization bore some resem- blance to the way concepts are represented in the mind. According to I. Meyer, Bowker and Eck (1992: 159, “term banks would be more useful, and useful to a wider variety of people, eventually even machines, if they contained a richer and more structured conceptual component than they do at present”.2.1. Terminology and specialized language 21 ‘When termbases become terminological knowledge bases, they enhance data because the concepts and designations are linked to each other by meaningful relationships. Although the traditional generic-specific and part-whole relation- ships are contemplated, there is a greater emphasis on other types of relation- ships that enrich the resulting knowledge structure, such as conceptual relations that encode cause-effect, object-function, etc. (Bowker and L’Homme 2004). This opens the door to the multidimensional representation of concepts. Within the sociocognitive terminological framework, Kerremans, Temmer- man, and Tummers (2004) state that before building a domain-specific con- ceptual model or ontology, it is necessary to have an excellent grasp of the categories and their existing interrelationships, independent of any culture or language in the domain of interest. Such categories are referred to as units of understanding. However, one might reasonably question the existence of ‘pure’ units of understanding, when language and culture permeate mental represen- tations at all levels of conceptualization. And supposing that such language- independent entities actually do exist, one might well ask what form they would actually take. Even though termontography was initially a brainchild of Sociocognitive Terminology, over the last few years, it seems to have evolved far beyond it to the extent that it now seems to have acquired a life of its own, and to have be- come a totally different entity. The sophisticated knowledge engineering tech- niques and ontology creation processes described in articles, such as Kerre- mans, Temmerman, and Zhao (2005), have little or no relation to the cognitive model analysis first described by Temmerman (2000, 2001: 84-85). Asit stands now, termontography seems to have undergone a complete metamorphosis to the point of bearing little resemblance to the initial premises of Sociocognitive Terminology. For example, the conceptual representations proposed are in the form of computer-implemented ontologies. No mention is made of prototypes, idealized cognitive models, or radial categories, all of which seem to have been overrid- den. This is not necessarily a bad thing since, if the truth be told, cognitive linguistics representations, with the possible exception of frames, do not work well in computer applications. Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to recon- cile the ontology engineering described in recent articles with the conceptual representation advocated in Sociocognitive Terminology. The examples of ter- montographic conceptual relations mentioned by Kerremans, Temmerman and Zhao (2005) (e.g. has_subtype and is_kind_of) appear to be rather similar to genetic-specific relations of the traditional sort, which Sociocognitive Termi- nology eschews.22 Pamela Faber, Clara Inés Lépez Rodriguez This seems to point to the fact that prototypes, despite being a very seductive concept, are not viable as the sole and exclusive mode of category organization because they ultimately depend on the subjective evaluation of the terminolo- gist. It is impossible to define the exact nature of the center of prototypical cate- gories or explain how degrees of prototypicality can be objectively measured. A possible solution lies in Hampton’s proposal (in Croft and Cruse 2004: 81-82), which states that Prototype Theory comes in two versions (a feature-list version and a similarity version), both of which recognize the existence of borderline cases. In the feature-list version of Prototype Theory, concepts are represented in terms of a list of the attributes of category members, and the prototype is represented by the member with the highest number of relevant features of the category. Finally, as previously mentioned, in the same way as other Terminology theories, Sociocognitivism studiously avoids dealing with syntax. The reason for this is probably that any syntactic analysis, whether of general or specialized language, must be either explicitly or implicitly based on a syntactic theory, and so far Terminology and syntax have had little or nothing to say about each other. jérquez Linares, and Vega Expésito 2005; Faber et al. 2006, 2007; Faber and Le6n Aratiz 2010; Faber 2011) is another premises as the Communicative Theory of Terminology and Sociocognitive Terminology. For example, it also maintains that trying to find a distinction be- tween terms and words is no longer fruitful or even viable, and that the best way to study specialized knowledge units is by studying their behavior in texts. Be- cause the general function of specialized language texts is the transmission of knowledge, such texts tend to conform to templates in order to facilitate under- standing, and are also characterized by a greater repetition than usual of terms, phrases, sentences, and even full paragraphs. This is something that special- ized translators capitalize on when they use translation memories. Scientific and technical texts are usually terminology-rich because of the quantity of special- ized language units in them, and they also are distinctive insofar as the syntactic constructions used. Specialized language units are mostly represented by compound nominal forms that are used within a scientific or technical field, and have meanings specific of this field as well as a syntactic valence or combinatorial value. Nat- urally, such noun phrases have configurations that may vary from language to language. The heavy concentration of such units in these texts points to the specific activation of sectors of domain-specific knowledge. As a result, under-2.1, Terminology and specialized language 23 standing a terminology-rich text requires knowledge of the domain, the con- cepts within it, the propositional relations within the text, as well as the concep- tual relations between concepts within the domain. This is the first step towards creating an acceptable target language text. All of these elements are the focus of study in Frame-based Terminology. ‘As its name implies, Frame-based Terminology uses an adapted version of basic principles of Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1976a, 1976b, 1982, 1985, 2006) to structure specialized domains and create non-language-specific representa- tions. The idea that meaning is context-dependent is the basis of the notion of frame, which is in consonance with the encyclopedic approach to meaning in Cognitive Linguistics. Lexical items provide access to a structured body of non- linguistic or encyclopedic knowledge. ‘As is well-known, frames are a type of cognitive structuring device based on experience that provides the background knowledge and motivation for the existence of words in a language as well as the way those words are used in discourse. However, frames have the advantage of making explicit both the potential semantic and syntactic behavior of specialized language units. This necessarily includes a description of conceptual relations as well as a term’s combinatorial potential. Frame Semantics and its practical application, the FrameNet Project (Fill- more and Atkins 1998; Fillmore, Johnson, and Petruck 2003; Ruppenhofer et al. 2010), assert that in order to truly understand the meanings of words in a language, one must first have knowledge of the semantic frames or conceptual structures that underlie their usage. Evidently, the same can also be said for specialized language units. In Frame Semantics, words and constructions in texts evoke a particular un- derstanding\(or frame) for a particular activity (Croft and Cruse 2004: 7-8). Lee (2001a: 9) emphasizes the conceptual and cultural dimension of frames, and states that frames embrace the traditional concept of connotation. For example, holiday carries a complex range of associations to activities, time periods, emo- tional states, interaction with other entities, etc. Even specialized terms, such as tsunami ot acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), carry cultural con notations and associations that transcend their basic meaning. The most frequent examples given of frames are COMMERCIAL TRANSAC- TION and RISK (Fillmore and Atkins 1992). Jn this linguistic interpretation of frame, each word in a frame allows the speaker and the hearer to focus their at- tention on one part of the entire frame. Words evoke a frame, but by filling slots in the frame, they profile or foreground only those parts of the frame closely linked to the slot. This linguistic phenomenon manifests itself in the argument structure of sentences.24 Pamela Faber, Clara Inés L6pez Rodriguez The broadest interpretation of the notion frame appears in Evan's (2009c) Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models and in Barsalou (2003). Evans (2007: 85) defines frame as “a schematization of experience (a knowl- edge structure), whi As shall be seen, conceptual representations in Frame-based Terminology “tions (see 3.1.10). Although the frame-like representations of Frame-based Terminology ini- tially stem from Fillmore, as shall be seen, there are several differences since they also integrate insights from other linguistic approaches. Such configura- tions take the form of conceptual templates underlying specialized texts in dif- ferent languages, which thus facilitate specialized knowledge acquisition. The concept of domain in Frame-based Terminology and Cognitive Linguistics The concept of domain is problematic both in Terminology and Linguistics. The structure of categories of specialized concepts is and always has been a crucial issue in Terminology, precisely because the General Terminology The- ory opted for an onomasiological rather than a semasiological organization of terminological entries. However, in the type of conceptual representations pro- posed by the General Terminology Theory, there is no effort made to create representations with explanatory adequacy from a psychological perspective. Domains are also essential to the Communicative Theory of Terminology and Sociocognitive Terminology. It is unfortunate that this focus has not as yet been accompanied by a systematic reflection on how to elaborate, design, and organize such a knowledge structure. For example, in even the best Terminol- ogy manuals, the question of how to develop such configurations is never truly explained, and as a general rule, they are regarded as a product of the termi- nologist’s intuition, which is afterwards validated by consultation with experts. Regarding conceptual domains, in Terminology there seem to be two views on the matter, which are not necessarily incompatible with each other. A do- main sometimes refers to the knowledge area itself, and other times, refers to2.1. Terminology and specialized language 25 the categories of concepts within the specialized field (see 3.1.12.1). Evidently, whether a domain is defined as one or the other has dramatic consequences for its internal structure. If the concept of domain or category is ambiguous in Terminology, it is even more so in Linguistics. In many linguistic models, conceptual structure is not mentioned or even regarded as a serious issue. However, conceptualization and categorization are both vital to language understanding and meaning represen- tation. Taylor (1995: ix) defines categorization as the “ability to see similarity in diversity”. Categorization is the mental process that enables human beings to classify entities of the world by perceiving similarities and differences between them, and mentally storing concepts that represent these entities. Categorization enables humans to understand the world. Taylor (1995) also claims that categorization is both a question of motiva- tion (categories have a perceptual base) and convention (i.e. learning). Catego- tization is a cognitive process involving the following activities: (i) forming a structural description of the entity; (ii) finding categories similar to the struc- tural description; (ii) selecting the most similar representation; (iv) making in- ferences regarding the entity; (v) storing information about the categorization in long-term memory. Language is the symbolic representation of these complex processes. There have been many proposals regarding category organization (Evans and Green 2006: 248-285). Two of the most cited are Prototype Theory, which is based on judgments of graded similarity, and the Classical Theory, which holds that conceptual and linguistic categories have definitional structure and are based on componential features. As it stands, the use of one theory or the other often depends on the nature of the category. According to Pinker and Prince (2002), both classical categories and family resemblance categories are psychologically real and natural. In principle, most human concepts can be ex- plained by means of family resemblance categories, which are mainly used for the quick identification of category exemplars, based on perceptual information, or for rapid approximate reasoning. However, when speakers of a language are asked under no time pressure if a penguin is a bird, they have no doubt that itis a bird, thus contradicting prototype theory. On the other hand, certain categories (TRIANGLES, ODD NUMBERS, etc.) which are the result of explicit instruction or formal schooling are better explained and defined by the Classical Theory. According to Langacker (1991b: 6), a conceptual domain can also be under- stood as the close connection between the concepts of foregrounding and frame. For example, hypotenuse derives its meaning from the concept, RIGHT TRIAN- GLE, and profiles one particular side of a right triangle (base): the side opposite the right angle. Therefore, “the word hypotenuse foregrounds an element in a