Abstract This article looks at the possibility of using morphemes, in this case suffixes in relational adjectives, as markers of conceptual relations. Noun phrases with relational adjectives involve a head noun, an adjective derived from a noun, and a suffix. Following the hypothesis of constructional morphology, we can assume that the suffix will help define the interpretation of the relationship between these two nouns, which is one of the roles of conceptual relation patterns. The functioning of six French suffixes, considered to be the most widely used in the language, is studied in six corpora belonging to several domains and textual genres. The possibility of these suffixes to mark meronymy is examined; annotation of selected adjectives is carried out for all six corpora. The results are then examined from two points of view: one which concerns the role of domain and textual genre in this marking, the other which studies the link between the possibility for a suffix to mark meronymy and the number of non-ambiguous lexico-syntactic meronymic markers present in the corpus. The results of these two studies show that, of the 6 suffixes studied, -ique is the most semantically stable.
Transliteration has been widely practiced in the translation of cultural terms, yet it is commonly seen as mere phonetic transfer, neglecting its diverse semiotic potentials. Drawing from Peircean Semiotics, this paper reframes transliteration as a combination of iconic transference, indexical interpretation and symbolic interaction. It then moves to reclassify transliteration strategies of cultural terms with examples taken from the termbase of Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture, a Chinese national term translation project. Three major transliteration strategies are then presented, namely iconic transliteration, indexical transliteration and conventional transliteration, each targeting at different term functions. A three-step transliteration process is then proposed to facilitate cultural terminology translation practice. It hopes to deepen our understanding of transliteration in the translation of cultural terms, which may open new spaces for term translation studies.
This study examines the role of term consistency and text continuity in specialized translation, as well as the challenges translators face in maintaining them. It defines and illustrates terminological chains, highlighting the difficulty of balancing term consistency and text continuity across languages. Using examples from the German-Italian language pair, the paper argues that maintaining referential continuity in the target text requires recognizing terminological chains, comparing conceptual structures across languages, and applying appropriate translation strategies. Since standard terminology alone may not always suffice, various strategies can help preserve terminological chains, particularly when languages differ in how they form clusters. However, some of these strategies may conflict with existing translation quality evaluation standards, raising the question of whether transferring terminological chains should be a quality criterion. The need to preserve these chains in the target text and their impact on translation evaluation will also be assessed.
Term variation relates to the representation and communication of specialized knowledge in different contexts. Terminological choices reflect how a speaker understands a concept or wishes to present it in a given context; they can shape understanding within specialized fields and influence public opinion on scientific issues. However, capturing systematic patterns in these choices is challenging due the highly contextual nature of categorization. This study applies frame analysis to study the behavior and motivations behind the use of term variants related to surrogacy, a controversial topic with legal, social and economic dimensions. First, it performs a cognitive-semantic analysis of 30 term variants identified in scientific and activist discourse, revealing different perspectives that range from critical to favorable towards the practice. Second, it examines how these terms are used and framed in a corpus of Spanish press from different ideological orientations. Results show a correlation between the evaluative valences of terms and frames in the case of less frequent variants, whereas the most frequent variants are used across different frames. Furthermore, critical framings and terms are more common in progressive media outlets, emphasizing the illegality and commodification of the practice. In contrast, liberal newspapers adopt more neutral and/or favorable framings, focusing on the need for regulation or the personal experiences of intending parents. The findings provide insights into how cognitive frames and terminological choices reflect broader ideological struggles in scientific and public discourse.
This paper stands at the intersection between specialised translation and terminology. Terms and their relations are rather central in specialised texts and become even more important when texts are transferred into another language, i.e. within specialised translation. The analysis discusses the needs of specialised translation and how they could be covered through a terminological representation method in order for it to be a useful tool for translators of specialised texts. The needs of specialised translation are presented thoroughly following an analysis divided into levels of equivalence. A graphic representation of two axes of a Cartesian coordinates system is used to depict the progressive saturation of the needs at several levels of equivalence in specialised translation using an adequate terminology representation.It is argued that in order to provide a good translation of a specialised text, translators do not just need equivalents for the terms involved. They also need a good domain representation that will help them increase their domain knowledge, translate the text sufficiently up to the highest levels of equivalence and suggest new translations for terms in case of non-equivalence. Moving from terminological resources that mainly focus on terms as linguistic units to resources that consider terms not just as linguistic but also as domain-specific units can be the key to the saturation of the needs of specialised translation at all levels of equivalence.
Frame-Based Terminology (FBT) proposes the use of frames as a model for the representation of terminological relations. Frames provide an alternative to the hierarchical concept systems of W & uuml;ster's Allgemeine Terminologielehre (ATL; 'General Theory of Terminology'). For some domains, frames are more useful than for others. In order to find out which properties of a domain determine this, three domains are compared. In the domain of rodents, a hierarchical concept system is an insightful representation of the core relations. FBT was developed for the domain of coastal management and the frame for this domain deserves special attention for this reason. For the domain of football matches, it is shown that hyponymy and meronymy only cover a small part of the domain, but a frame of the type used in coastal management does not improve this significantly. Instead, a frame based on an analysis of the football match into episodes is developed. In the conclusion, the factors that are responsible for the degree of usefulness of frames and the type of frame that is necessary are summarized.
In this paper, we study how meaning of a polysemous lexical item is distinguished in a terminological research study to account for terms from the field of the environment in Brazilian Portuguese. This research is related to two multilingual terminological resources, the DiCoEnviro - Dictionnaire fondamental de l'environnement - and A framed version of DiCoEnviro, both under the coordination of the Observatoire de Linguistique Sens-Texte (OLST), Universit & eacute; de Montr & eacute;al, Canada. The focus is on the verb poluir (to pollute), a polysemous lexical item, extracted from a corpus, especially compiled for the research, made up of scientific articles on the topic of pollution. The research draws on the lexicon-driven approach (LDA) encompassing two frameworks, Explanatory Combinatorial Lexicology (ECL) and Frame Semantics (FS). Based on eight methodological steps, the terminological research adopts a specific perspective on the linguistic properties of terms and on the expression of specialized knowledge in semantic frames. The results show two meanings for poluir, poluir1a and poluir1b, each meaning presenting a different argument structure, with a different number of arguments and semantic roles, and attributed to different frames, Contamination and Cause_Contamination respectively.
The complexity of terms in the humanities and social sciences (H&SS) poses significant challenges to translation. Drawing on the translation practice of The History of Chinese Printing, this paper first identifies four key stages in terminology translation where such difficulties predominantly arise, namely term identification, meaning determination, target-text representation, and consistency maintenance. Subsequently, the paper takes the Chinese-to-English (C-E) terminology in The History of Chinese Printing as a case study to compare the human-translated version with AI-generated translations. Guided by the Communicative Theory of Terminology, it then explores the multidimensionality of terminology translation from cognitive, linguistic, and communicative perspectives. The study reveals the multidimensional nature of H&SS terminology translation and highlights the translator's irreplaceable role, providing valuable implications for translation practice and translation teaching.
This paper examines the use of gender-sensitive language in terminology databases, focusing on terminological definitions. It is based on a case study on definitions of legal agentives in Italian, a grammatical gender language. The key question shaping many crucial choices is whether gender should be regarded as a characteristic of concepts or a property of objects. We discuss the challenges of (re)writing terminological definitions of legal concepts stored in a terminology database. These concern the conceptual, linguistic and comparative levels. With our study, we aim to contribute to the broader debate on language and gender. At the same time, we illustrate gender as a dimension of terminology that goes beyond terms and concerns the description and representation of concepts (e.g. in ontologies).
In institutional settings, terminology management is essential to ensure efficient communication. Traditionally, this task has been carried out manually or through the use of corpus analysis tools. However, recent advances in generative artificial intelligence have opened new avenues for automating terminographic tasks. In this context, the use of generative models is proposed for the extraction of specialised terminology in academic institutions. Specifically, this study compares two approaches to terminology extraction. On the one hand, a corpus-based approach using the Sketch Engine tool and, on the other hand, an approach based on generative artificial intelligence. To this end, UniPDTerms was implemented - a chatbot designed with ChatGPT-4o specialised in institutional terminology of the University of Padua (Italy) and fed with an ad hoc corpus. The evaluation of both systems was performed using a reference list and analysing precision, recall, F-score and MRR metrics for each model. The results indicate that Sketch Engine and UniPDTerms performed at a comparable level under identical evaluation conditions. Although the two systems use different extraction mechanisms, their outputs produce similar results: Sketch Engine extracts relevant term candidates using frequency-based corpus analysis, whereas UniPDTerms draws on contextual and semantic relations. These results highlight the potential of incorporating generative artificial intelligence into terminographic workflows, offering new possibilities for improving efficiency and supporting end-users in terminology management.
Wine discourse is fundamentally shaped by metaphor, transforming sensory and aesthetic qualities into culturally meaningful concepts that influence communication, evaluation, and consumer engagement. This systematic narrative review synthesizes 77 publications on wine language and metaphor published between 2007 and 2024, spanning cognitive linguistics, cultural linguistics, and sensory science. By integrating Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), Cultural Linguistics, and the Descriptive Analysis framework from sensory science, the review demonstrates how metaphor bridges sensory perception and communicative practice. It identifies recurrent patterns, including anthropomorphism, cross-sensory metaphors and correspondences, and embodied imagery, and traces their variation across linguistic and cultural contexts. Findings highlight both the potential and limitations of metaphor in facilitating cross-cultural communication, with implications for translation, marketing, and education. The review contributes to terminology studies by demonstrating how specialized wine discourse and its metaphorical terminology evolve at the intersection of cognition, culture, and commerce, and by offering strategies for more inclusive and effective global wine communication.
The International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP) is a vital component in marine radio communication for vessel traffic service (VTS) operators and other marine personnel, playing a critical role in preventing maritime accidents caused by miscommunication. The current paper presents a Ship-shore Radio Communication Technical Vocabulary List (SRCTVL), which was developed based on an analysis of the IMO SMCP and the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) guidance. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to develop the SRCTVL. The quantitative analysis involved the use of computer programs designed for corpus analysis, while the qualitative analysis consisted of collaboration with trade experts and a thorough examination of technical documents. The resulting SRCTVL contains 188 word types. Coverage evaluation demonstrates that the SRCTVL covers 25.02% of the SMCP corpus and 11.47% of an authentic ship-shore communication corpus. The SRCTVL serves as a valuable resource for maritime English instructors, facilitating targeted training for both native and non-native English-speaking bridge crews, VTS operators, and other personnel who use radio communication in VTS areas. Implementing vocabulary-based training using the SRCTVL could contribute to reducing miscommunication in multilingual workplaces, thereby enhancing overall safety at sea.
Multiword terms are units that terminologists deal with in their everyday work. In terminology, the relevance of multiword terms is argued on the basis that they label concepts in knowledge structures. However, the identification of multiword terms in texts, their specific features when compared to other multiword expressions, and their representation in terminology resources raise many questions. This article examines some problems related to the traditional recording in terminology resources which basically consists in creating separate entries for multiword terms. It then compares two alternative approaches: 1. a lexical approach that records different kinds of multiword expressions as subentries; and 2. a construction-based approach that captures sets of multiword expressions as patterns. The two methods are illustrated with environment terms. The comparison shows that the construction-based approach is very promising as that it can prevent some of the shortcomings of the other ones. A proposal for its implementation is presented.
Identifying hyponymy is essential in terminology work. This article addresses the lack of a comprehensive inventory of hyponymic knowledge patterns (KPs) in English by presenting a robust methodology for their collection. Drawing on six complementary strategies - literature review, machine translation, parallel corpora, human translation, bootstrapping, and generative artificial intelligence - the study identified and validated 110 distinct English hyponymic patterns, many of which had not been previously documented. These patterns will serve to update the English version of the EcoLexicon Semantic Sketch Grammar (ESSG-en), a KP-based tool for extracting semantic relations from corpora in Sketch Engine. The findings highlight the strengths and limitations of each strategy and underscore the value of combining methods to achieve coverage. Ultimately, this research fills a significant gap by delivering the most extensive list of English hyponymic patterns to date.
Over the past decades, automatic term or terminology extraction (ATE), a natural language processing (NLP) task that aims to identify terms from specific domains by providing a list of candidate terms, has been challenging due to the strong influence of domain-specific differences on term definitions. Leveraging the advances of large-scale language models (LLMs), we propose LlamATE, a framework to verify the impact of domain specificity on ATE when using in-context learning prompts in open-sourced LLM-based chat models, namely Llama-2-Chat. We evaluate how well the LLM-based chat (e.g., using reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF)) models perform with different levels of domain-related information in the dominant language in NLP research (e.g., English) and other European languages (e.g., French, Slovene) from ACTER datasets, i.e., in-domain and cross-domain demonstrations with and without domain enunciation. Furthermore, we examine the potential of cross-lingual and cross-domain prompting to reduce the need for extensive data annotation of the target domain and language. The results demonstrate the potential of implicit in-domain learning where examples of the target domain are used as demonstrations for the prompts without specifying the domain of each example, and cross-lingual learning when knowledge is transferred from the dominant to lesser-represented European languages as for the data used to pre-train the LLMs. LlamATE also offers a valuable compromise by reducing the need for extensive data annotation, making it suitable for real-world applications where labeled corpora are scarce. The source code is publicly available at the following link: https://github.com/honghanhh/terminology2024.
Terminology originated in Europe and drew its theoretical and practical foundations primarily from European sources. However, it is essential to note that ancient China also possessed its own system of terminology, which has largely been overlooked in contemporary terminology studies. This paper aims to delve into the realm of ancient Chinese terminology, examining both its practical applications and theoretical underpinnings. The findings indicate that there existed a variety of methods for term classification, approaches to term explanation, and practical works related to terminology. Theoretically, ming xue (studies of names/naming) represents the distinctive terminology studies in ancient China. Ancient Chinese terminology investigates various aspects such as the definition, typology, function, interpretation of terms, and intricate relationship between names and realities, with special emphasis on the importance of rectifying names. This study is valuable for gaining insights into ancient Chinese terminology and broadening our understanding of terminology across various areas and eras.
The recent version of the Slovenian Linguistic Atlas (SLA) classifies a significant number of speech varieties from the Republic of Croatia as part of the Slovenian language using genetic-linguistic criteria. A critical analysis of the conceptual framework and criteria employed in the SLA reveals that the project incorporates terminology from other scientific disciplines into the field of genetic linguistics, often without consistently adhering the original definitions and conceptual boundaries of those terms. When speech varieties are labelled with terms carrying sociolinguistic connotations, their analysis must be guided by sociolinguistic criteria. Conversely, if classification is based exclusively on genetic-linguistic criteria, new terminology specific to genetic linguistics should be developed to avoid confusion with established meanings in other disciplines. This paper highlights the potential for arbitrariness in genetic-linguistic studies and suggests safeguards to ensure methodological rigor in future research.
This paper explores medical terminology translation from an ethical perspective, focusing on the Chinese translation of "Alzheimer's disease." Historically translated as both "(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)" and "(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)", the latter is now more commonly used. The study examines the intersection of medical and translation ethics, emphasizing the balance between scientific accuracy and humanitarian concern. By tracing the term's development in China, it reveals the complex context of terminology translation. Drawing on ethical theories, the paper highlights the need for accuracy, standardization, and ethical responsibility toward patients. It argues that medical translation goes beyond language conversion to include ethical sensitivity and respect for patient dignity. Ultimately, medical translation should prioritize precision while embracing ethical considerations to promote a humanistic spirit in healthcare communication.
