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Terminology
Practice - Session 1 - 16-11-2021

Christian Olalla-Soler
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Introduction

What is the difference between:

▪ Lexicology
▪ Lexicography
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Introduction

What is the difference between:

▪ Terminology
▪ Terminography
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Introduction
▪ Lexicology. Discipline that describes the lexical functioning of the general
language of a group of speakers and the ways those speakers build new lexical
units based on systematic structural procedures.
▪ Lexicography. Discipline that deals with the elaboration of dictionaries of the
general language of a group of speakers.
▪ Terminology. Discipline that describes the functioning of the relationships
between concepts and terms and their use in specialised languages.
▪ Terminography. Discipline that deals with the elaboration of terminological
instruments such as specialised dictionaries, glossaries, databases, etc.
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Introduction

The terminographic practice is onomasiological.

The lexicographic practice is semasiological.

What is the difference between onomasiology and semasiology?

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Introduction

▪ Onomasiology. Branch of semantics that studies the denominations

of linguistic signs starting from their concepts.
From concept to term -> conceptual dictionaries

▪ Semasiology. A branch of semantics that studies the concepts

of linguistic signs starting from their designations.
From the word to the concept -> semantic dictionaries
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The terminographic workfow

1. Plan your termbase.

2. Collect reference materials.

3. Extract terms.

4. Systematise terms.

5. Create your termbase.

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1. Plan your termbase

1. Define the domain.

2. Define the aim(s).

3. Define the language(s) involved.

4. Define the addressees.

1. Plan your termbase
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Physics
▪ Define the domain

Mechanics

Classical
Aerodynamics Biomechanics
mechanics

Kinematics

Homeokinetics

Astronomy Biophysics
 1. Plan your termbase
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Photography

▪ Define the domain

Cameras

DSLR Compact

Bridge Mirrorless
Breadth

Lenses Format Composition

Symmetrical Asymmetrical
Pinhole Standard Wide angle Telephoto Digital Analogic
balance balance

Radial
Short Daylight film Tungsten film Infrared film Rule of thirds
balance

Depth Medium
Black & white
film
Leading lines Golden Ratio

Framing (pho
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1. Plan your termbase
▪ Define the aim(s)
▪ Translation?
▪ Interpreting?
▪ Technical writing?
▪ Knowledge dissemination?

▪ Define the language(s) involved

▪ Monolingual: aimed at describing/standardising terminology in a single language
▪ Monolingual with equivalents: the result of monolingual searches, to which
equivalents are added post-hoc; approach frequently adopted for specific
translation/interpreting tasks
▪ Multilingual: aimed at describing/standardising terminology across languages
 1. Plan your termbase
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▪ Define the addressees

▪ Who is the originator? An expert.

▪ Who are the addressees? Experts, semi-experts, or non-experts.

Originator Addressees Domain knowledge Terminological density* Examples

Expert Experts Shared High (terms are expected to be understood) ?

Expert Semi-experts Partially shared Lower (terms are used but may ?
be accompanied by definitions)

Expert Non-expert (Almost) not shared (Very) low (terms are avoided and concepts ?
are explained through general language)

Expert Non-expert (Almost) not shared, Some (terms are used but accompanied -
(teacher) (students) but must acquire it by definitions)

*Terminological density: ratio of terminological to non-terminological units in texts

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1. Plan your termbase
▪ Let’s work on your project!

▪ Plan your termbase:

1. Define a domain for your termbase.

Careful with the breadth and depth of your domain!

We recommend you to pick a domain in which you have some knowledge.

2. Define the aim of your termbase.

3. Select two languages for your termbase (English + …).

4. Define your addressees (expert > expert or expert > semi-expert).

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2. Collect reference materials
1. Create a corpus for each language.

2. Extract a list of candidate terms in each language.

3. Create a list of bilingual candidate terms.

4. Systematise the terms.

 1. Create a corpus for each
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language
▪ Find online reference materials for your domain.
▪ Between 5-10 texts per language. The texts must be comparable.

▪ Establish some text selection criteria (e.g., texts for semi-experts*,

specific text genres, authoritative sources, non-translated texts, etc.).

▪ Use search operators!

▪ You will need to list your selection criteria, the searches your performed, and the URLS in
your readme.txt file!
 1. Create a corpus for each
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language
▪ Texts for experts vs. texts for semi-experts:

For experts For semi-experts

Are terms signalled? Not frequently Frequently, with orthotypographic features
(e.g., bold or italics).
Are terms defined? Not frequently Frequently and in an explicit way
Are terms used in context? Frequently Frequently
Are terms linked to other sources? Not frequently Frequently
Are terms represented graphically? Could happen Could happen
 1. Create a corpus for each
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language
▪ Use the online reference materials to build a manual corpus for each language.
▪ Careful with document conversion in txt format!

▪ Careful with metadata in the file!

▪ Use AntConc to extract (both simple and complex) terms from your corpora.
 1. Create a corpus for each
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language
▪ Expand your bilingual comparable corpus with BootCat.
▪ Include your report.csv file in the project folder!

▪ Analyse your expanded corpora with AntConc and, for each language,
extract at least 30:
▪ Simple terms

▪ Complex terms (+ keep track of collocations/phraseologisms)