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3.2 Specialized language pragmatics
Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
3.2.1 Introduction
Pragmatics is the study of the ability of speakers to communicate more than
that which is explicitly stated. A possible exception to this is relevance prag-
matics, where it is postulated that some dimensions of explicitness (explicature-
derivation) can be a matter of Pragmatics. Generally speaking, however, Prag-
matics deals with meaning arising from language in context, in other words, the
meaning intended by the speaker or text sender and understood by the listener
or text receiver. When the communication act is successful, these meanings co-
incide, and when it is not, they diverge to a greater or lesser degree. As such,
Pragmatics focuses on the effect of context on communicative behavior as well
as on how inferences are made by the receiver in order to arrive at the final
interpretation of an utterance. The scope of pragmatic meaning can be entire
utterances as well as individual lexical units. As Mey (2004: 42) points out,
“pragmatics is essentially about the users of language in a real-life situation,
and about the conditions that enable those users to employ linguistic techniques
and materials effectively and appropriately”.
Alternatively, Verschueren (1999: 7) has described Pragmatics, not as a lan-
guage component, but rather as “a general cognitive, social, and cultural per-
spective on linguistic phenomena in relation to their usage in forms of behavior.
According to this view, “pragmatics does not constitute an additional compo-
nent of a theory of language, but it offers a different perspective” (Verschueren
1999: 2). Verschueren thus denies that Pragmatics can be regarded as a compo-
nent of language with its own set of features.
However, we are more in agreement with Mey (2001: 9), who claims that a
perspectivist view emphasizes the pragmatic aspects of all parts of Linguistics,
and can serve as an umbrella for the various components and areas of Linguis-
tics. It is thus possible for the perspectivist view to coexist with the component
view, and to expand rather than narrow the horizon on Pragmatics.
There is no specialized language Pragmatics per se. Research on Pragmatics
in specialized language and Terminology tends to exist in the form of individual
studies on different aspects of specialized communication. Pragmatic studies of
178 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
specialized language generally focus on: (i) interactions between user groups in
some specialized context (Lehtinen 2007; Vickers 2009); (ii) parameterization
of specialized contexts for computer modeling or database design (Gero and
Smith 2007; Kerremans et al. 2005; Kerremans, Temmerman, and Zhao 2005);
(iii) specialized text analysis (Myers 1992; Darian 1997); (iv) terminological
variation (Bowker and Hawkins 2006; Freixa 2006; Tercedor Sánchez 2011);
(v) controlled language (Jiménez Hurtado and Seibel 2005; Buendía Castro and
Huertas Barros 2007).
Specialized language Pragmatics is directly related to the situations in
which this type of communication occurs, and to the ways that the text sender
and receiver potentially and effectively deal with them. Such communicative
situations are the focus of the external or sociocultural view of Pragmatics
(see 3.2.2.1), whereas the online construction of text and word meaning by
sender and receiver refers to the internal or cognition-oriented view of Prag-
matics (see 3.2.2.2).
Research in Sociocultural Pragmatics may compare and contrast the com-
municative customs of different communities (Trosberg 1994; Mey 2004); fo-
cus on preferences in discourse organization (Gallardo 2005; Engberg 2010);
or analyze conversational styles (Chatwin 2008). As such, it characterizes the
norms in language communities. In fact, it can even measure speaker profi-
ciency. In a study comparing the use of multi-word units by expert and novice
writers and speakers, Cortes (2004) makes the point that the use of multi-word
units, in the form of collocations and fixed expressions associated with partic-
ular registers and genres, are a marker of competent language use in that par-
ticular register or genre (Greaves and Warren 2010: 221).This is usually done
by analyzing the behavior of a population sample in a series of situations with
identifiable explanatory social variables, and drawing generalizations from the
distribution of frequencies obtained (Escandell Vidal 2004: 2).
In contrast, cognition-oriented Pragmatics explores how the text, which is
the result of the communication act, is molded by the situation itself as well as
the previous knowledge, intentions, expectations, and beliefs of the text sender.
It should be pointed out here that despite its name, cognition-oriented Pragmat-
ics is not directly related to Cognitive Linguistics, which makes no principled
distinction between Semantics and Pragmatics (Fauconnier 1997). According
to this view, meaning, as derived from language use, is a function of the activa-
tion of conceptual knowledge structures as guided by context (Evans 2009b).
Cognition-oriented Pragmatics also targets how the text is finally understood
by the receivers, both at the micro and macrocontextual level. Needless to say,
this type of research is more difficult to carry out scientifically because of its
immense complexity. According to Nuyts (2004), “a scientific analysis of this
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 179
phenomenon [intercultural communication] means, then, firstly, to determine
and characterize these differences between cognitive systems, and secondly, to
determine and characterize what interlocutors actually do to overcome them in
their attempts to communicate, and why these attempts may (to some extent)
succeed or fail”. Examples of pragmatic studies that apply these principles to
language are Gibbs (2006), Chang (2007), and Carston (2002).
3.2.2 Pragmatics
Whatever the perspective used, Pragmatics generally studies communication
events or the intentional acts of speakers at times and places. According to Korta
and Perry (2006), Pragmatics deals with the following types of facts:
Facts about the objective facts of the utterance, including who the speaker
is, when the utterance occurred, and where it took place;
Facts about the speaker’s intentions;
Facts about the beliefs of the speaker and of the text receivers, and the con-
versation that they are engaged in;
Facts about social institutions, such as marriage ceremonies, courtroom pro-
cedures, etc, which affect what a person accomplishes in or by saying what
he does.
In specialized communication, crucial pragmatic dimensions include the beliefs
and expectations of the text sender, the knowledge shared by the text sender and
text receivers, the communicative objectives of the oral or written text stemming
from the interaction of the participants, and the factors that cause receivers to
interpret the text in a certain way. Specialized language pragmatics also focuses
on facts about social and academic institutions, in which events generate spe-
cific types of specialized texts.
An example of such an academic institutional event is a conference in which
research results are presented within a given knowledge field, such as Neuro-
surgery, Coastal Engineering, Nanotechnology, etc. Among the communicative
interactions typical of an academic conference, one can find oral presentations,
posters, round tables, plenary lectures, etc. However, even when these discourse
types all contain and convey basically the same or similar information, an oral
presentation is hardly the same thing as a poster, which is different from a round
table or a plenary lecture.
All of these academic discourse types in turn differ substantially from an
article in a scientific journal, describing the same research results presented at
the conference. The reason for this is that formal communication is constrained,
and determined, at least to a certain extent, by specific events, which require and
180 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
generate a certain text type even when the communication acts take place in the
same setting with essentially the same set of participants. The type of text or
discourse models the information conveyed as well as the language used for
the presentation of the information.
Evans and Green (2006: 221) underline the importance of different types of
context in the modulation of any given instance of a lexical item as it occurs in
a particular usage event. Broad context types mentioned are the following:
Encyclopedic information accessed (within a network of specialized knowl-
edge)
Sentential context (utterance meaning)
Prosodic context (intonation pattern)
Situational context (physical location where the text is emitted)
Interpersonal context (relationship holding between text sender and receiver)
Within specialized language Pragmatics, prosodic context is perhaps less im-
portant than the other four context types. In this sense, the specialized text is a
communicative act that takes place within a given setting, which can be defined
in terms of a set of context-related pragmatic parameters linked to a set of in-
ferential processes. Such texts thus can be said to have depth/vertical extension
as well as width/horizontal extension.
Another focus of specialized language Pragmatics is the nature of specific
specialized domains. Certain knowledge areas evidently influence communica-
tion between groups of participants, and generate the use of one text template
in preference to another. In fact, it has been proposed that expert discourses be
classified in terms of functions, such as reading and writing monographs and
scholarly articles, observations and analyses, giving lessons and lectures, hold-
ing press conferences, or giving interviews. According to Van Dijk (2001):
These categories involve for instance the overall domain of the current com-
municative event (e.g., research, education or health care), the overall action(s)
being accomplished (e.g., investigate, teach, etc.), the current setting (time, loca-
tion, circumstances), the specific actions involved (hold a seminar, give a lecture,
have a research meeting), the participants and their various communicative, so-
cial and professional roles, and their aims, interests, and especially knowledge
and opinions.
Van Dijk’s proposal includes some of the items mentioned by Evans and Green
(2006: 221). The overall domain of the communicative event overlaps to some
extent with encyclopedic knowledge; setting corresponds to situational con-
text; and participants and roles correspond to interpersonal context. However,
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 181
the field-specific actions and activities being performed evidently need to be
considered as well as crucial contextual factors.
A Medical Forensics report, for instance, has characteristics that are unques-
tionably linked to the knowledge field in question. This type of report, which is a
hybrid text between Medicine and Law, includes specific medical terminology.
Nevertheless, it also has the status of a legal document, whose objective is to
officially inform on or certify a given state of affairs, usually connected with a
medical condition, injury, death, etc. Accordingly, a medical forensics autopsy
report can be structured as follows: (i) final diagnosis; (ii) external examina-
tion (iii) internal examination (with subsections referring to parts of the body,
such as the mediastinum, body cavities, lungs, heart, etc.) (iv) microscopic de-
scription; (v) evidence. The subject, whose body has been examined, is always
referred to as aseptically as possible even in high-profile murders with great
emotional potential.
For example, in 1996 an autopsy report was made of JonBenét Ramsey,
a six-year-old beauty queen, who had been sexually abused and strangled in
Boulder, Colorado in 1996. Her murderer was never officially accused (though
her father was the principal suspect). In this very high-profile and emotional
murder case, the coroner referred to the dead child in terms of her body parts or
in the most impersonal terms possible. When he was obliged to refer to her as a
whole, and not as a description of parts, it is in the following way: six-year old
female, the decedent,andthe Caucasian female body. An example of this can
be observed in the following excerpt from the autopsy report:
REMAINDER OF EXTERNAL EXAMINATION: The unembalmed, well developed and
well nourished Caucasian female body measures 47 inches in length and weighs
an estimated 45 pounds. The scalp is covered by long blonde hair which is fixed
in two ponytails, one on top of the head secured by a cloth hair tie and blue elastic
band, and one in the lower back of the head secured by a blue elastic band. No
scalp trauma is identified. The external auditory canals are patent and free of
blood. The eyes are green and the pupils equally dilated […] (J.B. Meyer 1996).
The external examination goes from the whole to the parts, beginning from the
scalp and progressing downwards. The present tense conveys the impression
of immediacy, and the consistent use of the passive voice suggests objectivity
and lack of emotional involvement. As is well-known, the passive voice fore-
grounds the action and backgrounds the agent of the action, who often is not
mentioned at all. Similarly, reporters, lawyers, and government agencies often
use the passive voice to dilute responsibility. In this text, the implicit message is
that the pathologist cannot have an opinion, but must let the observed evidence
speak for itself.
182 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
This type of report differs from a forensic psychiatric evaluation report,
which instead of a physical examination is based on a structured interview
with the patient in order to ascertain and certify his/her mental state. Within
this context, the category of action is extremely important because the docu-
ment itself is the report of the professional activity or activities carried out to
achieve this goal as well as the conclusions reached as the result of these activ-
ities.
The same thing is true for research articles, which describe the actions car-
ried out as part of a study or experiment. For example, the activity of presenting
research results is reflected in the structure of the prototypical scientific article
in specialized domains such as Organic Chemistry, Artificial Intelligence, Elec-
trical Engineering, etc. which generally follow the IMRAD (Introduction, Ma-
terials and Methods, Results, and Discussion) template. IMRAD is the standard
format for research reports in Western culture, and thus, is a clear signal to the
text receiver of text type, purpose, and content. It is also an example of iconic
sequencing. Within each section of the text, there is a series of propositions,
which, depending on the knowledge field, have one type of semantic argument
or another. However, regardless of the specialized field, the basic research ac-
tions and processes are very similar.
For example, in the Materials and Methods section, typical cognitive pro-
cesses are analyze, study, assess, calculate, etc. though exactly what is analyzed,
studied, or calculated is specific to the scientific or technical field in question.
In the Results and Discussion section, characteristic processes are describe, jus-
tify, affirm, produce, etc. This is not surprising since here is where the results
are presented and their possible repercussions explored.
All of these issues must be addressed by a pragmatic theory that specifically
targets specialized language, whose first task would be to try and bring together
the two most common approaches to Pragmatics, namely, Sociocultural (exter-
nal) Pragmatics and Cognition-oriented (internal) Pragmatics.
3.2.2.1 Sociocultural Pragmatics
Broadly speaking, Sociocultural Pragmatics targets how social information en-
ters into and affects communicative behavior. According to Escandell Vidal
(2004: 3), its main task is to identify and characterize the norms that underlie
the use of language by a given social group. In specialized language, this social
group comprises specialized language users within a given field or knowledge
area. This type of Pragmatics is initially based on the work of Austin (1962)
and Searle (1969, 1975), who laid the foundations for exploring contextual con-
straints on communication and social conditions for appropriateness. Sociocul-
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 183
tural Pragmatics generally focuses on politeness studies, research on conversa-
tional styles, rhetoric, discourse genres, and register.
In specialized communication, genre and register are important concepts
even though their definitions often seem to confusingly run together. In real-
ity, they represent different perspectives or points of view. According to Lee
(2001b: 46–47), register is used when a text is viewed as the instantiation of
a conventionalized, functional configuration of language tied to certain broad
societal situations. Relevant examples are the conversational language used to
chat on the Internet or the formal language patterns that characterize research
articles. Genre is used when a text is viewed as a culturally recognized artifact,
a grouping of texts according to some culturally and conventionally recognized
criteria. It is thus possible to talk about the existence of a formal academic reg-
ister (focus: language), and its instantiation in the genres of research articles,
posters, lectures, and conference papers. Following Lee (2001b), we use reg-
ister to refer to lexical-grammatical and semantic discourse patterns associated
with situations, whereas genre is used to refer to the membership of a text in
culturally-recognizable categories, which may invoke more than one register.
As such, genre is a socio-pragmatic phenomenon.
According to Unger (2002: 2), a socio-pragmatic phenomenon is a set of
shared assumptions that governs the communicative behavior of members of
this group. It also relates communicative behavior to the structure of cultural in-
stitutions. Although a definitive inventory and classification of specialized lan-
guage genres and registers does not as yet exist, such genres would doubtlessly
be linked to specialized knowledge activities and text function within the con-
text of a specialized knowledge field.
Göpferich (1995) and Gläser (1995) have established five main functions for
specialized texts: informative (e.g. technical reports and catalogues); juridical-
normative (e.g. EU framework directives, international standards); didactic-
instructive (e.g. instruction manuals and textbooks), popularizing (e.g. popu-
lar science articles); and compilatory (e.g. dictionaries, glossaries). Text genres
are domain-specific and reflect the activities in the specialized field. Registers
would presumably be subdivided primarily according to levels of formality.
These formality levels would be constrained by parameters inherent in the con-
text of specialized communication. Register relates variations of specialized
language use to variations of social context in which this type of interaction
generally occurs.
184 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
3.2.2.2 Cognition-oriented Pragmatics
The objective of Cognition-oriented (internal) Pragmatics is to account for the
cognitive bases of linguistic performance, which encompass the inferential pro-
cesses leading to the final interpretation or the interface relationship between
grammar and pragmatics. The groundwork for this type of approach was first
laid by Grice (1975), Sperber and Wilson (1986), and Levinson (2000), who en-
deavored to establish general principles that govern different aspects of the use
and understanding of language (Escandell Vidal 2004: 348). Cognition-oriented
Pragmatics also studies cultural breakdowns and pragmatic failure (Moeschler
2004).
Cognition-oriented theories of Pragmatics seek to specify and describe the
biological or cognitive foundations underlying communicative behavior, which
means the formulation of principles with predictive power. Generally speaking,
cognitive pragmatics is largely based on the relevance-theoretic approach of
Sperber and Wilson (1986), which envisions pragmatics as a kind of informa-
tion-processing system for interpreting human communicative behavior.
Tendahl and Gibbs (2008) focus on metaphor to compare Cognitive Lin-
guistics and Relevance Theory, and come to the conclusion that they provide
complementary perspectives on metaphor and language communication.
Cognitive linguistics, with its interest in metaphorical thought, studies entrenched
metaphorical mappings, and has done extensive work illustrating the range of
meaning correspondences that arise in the source to target domain mappings
within conceptual metaphors, for instance. Relevance theory, on the other hand,
explores the meanings that arise in specific contexts, and aims to demonstrate
how these cognitive effects are constrained by the principle of optimal relevance.
[...] there is surely a mixture of conceptually entrenched metaphorical knowledge
with immediate contextual information, all of which is once more constrained
by a principle of optimal relevance, which determines the particular meanings
that listeners and readers typically infer during online metaphor or interpretation
(Tendahl and Gibbs 2008: 1839).
Despite the fact that Relevance Theory focuses more on the role of metaphor for
communication, and thus the pragmatics of metaphor and Cognitive Linguistics
focuses more on the role of metaphor in our conceptual system, these authors
believe that both perspectives could be usefully combined within a broader cog-
nitive theory of metaphor use.
However, there are other approaches that could be applied, which are specif-
ically related to knowledge representation. For example, Cognitive Psychology
has proposed four theories of the human conceptual system: semantic mem-
ory, exemplar models, feed-forward connectionist nets, and situated simula-
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 185
tion theory. Barsalou (2003) compares these models on the basis of the follow-
ing dimensions: (i) architecture (modular vs. non-modular); (ii) representation
(amodal vs. modal); (iii) abstraction (decontextualized vs. situated); (iv) stabil-
ity (stable vs. dynamical); (v) organization (taxonomic vs. action-environment
interface). He offers empirical evidence which makes a strong case for the ex-
istence of situated simulations as a powerful interface between cognition and
perception.
In this regard, situated simulation has also become a research focus in Cog-
nitive Linguistics. Indeed, as pointed out by Tendahl and Gibbs (2008: 7), em-
bodied simulation is the key feature of the neural theory of metaphor since
embodied experience plays a primary role in the image-schematic structure of
metaphorical concepts. Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 255) mention recent work
that uses computational techniques from neural modeling to show that meta-
phorical mappings are physical neural maps that bind sensorimotor information
to more abstract ideas as part of the neural ensembles existing in different re-
gions of the brain. As a result, many aspects of metaphorical thought are now
understood as “metaphorical enactments” that occur in real-time as dynamic
brain functions.
Bergen and Chang (2005) have also incorporated this notion into their Em-
bodied Construction Grammar, a formalism for linguistic analysis, based on
a simulation-based model of language understanding. In this model, linguistic
constructions map phonological forms onto conceptual representations, which
in turn, are constrained by the body’s perceptual and motor systems. Under-
standing an utterance involves at least two distinct processes: analysis and sim-
ulation. The analysis of an utterance draws on linguistic knowledge, world
knowledge, and the current communicative context to produce a semantic speci-
fication. The semantic specification provides parameters for a dynamic simula-
tion using active embodied structures. The meaning of the utterance consists
of the simulation and the inferences that it produces. In this simulation-based
approach to language understanding, constructions need only specify simu-
lation parameters, allowing features of the current context and of richer em-
bodied and world knowledge to influence the result of any particular simu-
lation
Barsalou (2003) argues that such simulations underlie a situated, dy-
namic conceptual system, which would be neither fully modular nor fully
amodal. This kind of situated conceptualization is conceived as a package of
situation-specific inferences, which would include four types of information:
(1) contextually-relevant properties of the focal category; (2) information about
the background setting; (3) likely actions that the agent could take to achieve an
associated goal; (4) likely introspective states that the agent might have while
186 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
interacting with the category. All of these are valid candidates for cognitive
parameters in a pragmatics of specialized language communication.
Evidently, the parameters related to contextual properties as well as speaker
goals would also be relevant to Sociocultural Pragmatics. Sociocultural Prag-
matics, however, would evidently study them as manifestations of language
behavior in a population sample, corpus of texts, or recordings of social inter-
actions. Cognition-oriented Pragmatics would analyze them empirically by the
assessment of people’s language behavior, intuitions, recruitment of metaphor,
etc. through questionnaires, problem-solving situations, and psycholinguistic
tests.
3.2.3 Pragmatics and Cognitive Linguistics
One of the problems with Pragmatics has always been its inherent vagueness. It
has often been used as a convenient catch-all for all the messy bits of meaning
that Semantics cannot account for and has often ignored. Cognitive Linguistics
has a very definite position regarding Pragmatics. Cognitive semanticists ar-
gue that semantic knowledge cannot be separated from pragmatic knowledge,
and that these kinds of knowledge constitute a continuum (Evans and Green
2006: 213).
Nonetheless, despite the fact that Cognitive Linguistics does not officially
recognize the existence of a Cognitive Pragmatics, there are candidates to fill
this gap. For example, Bara (2010) sets out a theory of Cognitive Pragmatics
(in line with the cognitive-oriented pragmatic approaches described in 3.2.2.2).
According to Bara (2010:1–3), Cognitive Pragmatics is the study of the mental
states of people engaged in communication as well as of how such mental states
are expressed. He maintains that the process of communicating linguistically
or extralinguistically involves two different ways of processing data, and that
the same input may be analyzed in parallel from these two perspectives. His
theory claims that communication is not only based on the presence of two
people, but also on a shared mental representation that must be constructed of
the communicative event taking place. The participants must also make explicit
their intention to take part in the interaction.
In contrast to cognitive-oriented Pragmatics approaches, Cognitive Linguis-
tics takes an encyclopedic approach to Semantics in which knowledge of word
meaning and knowledge of word use are both regarded as types of semantic
knowledge. Haiman (1980) and Langacker (1987) were both pioneers in argu-
ing in favor of the encyclopedic approach to meaning. This is in line with the
fact that Cognitive Linguistics is usage-based. Langacker (1991a) was the first
to make this point though it must also be said that the founders of Cognitive
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 187
Linguistics (i.e. Langacker, Lakoff, and Talmy) have never been systematic
in grounding their proposals on corpus-based analysis. Usage-based theories
posit that language builds up a conventional inventory of units that a speaker
can use for communication. These units come from hearing and using the lan-
guage, and through use, become entrenched (Barlow and Kemmer 2000). Lan-
guage acquisition thus consists of entrenching, building, and extending con-
cepts through use.
In Cognitive Linguistics, lexical items and linguistic expressions are re-
garded as underspecified, and are considered to be pointers to networks of en-
cyclopedic knowledge. Once the network is accessed, a meaning construction
process takes place that is intimately linked to the way that language is used. In
this sense, Evans and Green (2006: 216) underline the fact that meaning con-
struction cannot be divorced from language use. This signifies that meaning is
fundamentally pragmatic because language in use is situated and thus contex-
tualized.
This is particularly important in specialized language communication in
which the meaning of a text is largely encoded in specialized knowledge units or
terms belonging to the specialized field. An in-depth analysis of the pragmatic
potential of specialized knowledge units, their activation in different types of
specialized texts, and their comprehension by users would presumably provide
us with a description of the specialized communication process. The online in-
terpretation of these units depends on the discourse context, which involves
frame specification, situational context, and construal.
3.2.4 Pragmatics and Terminology
Lexical Pragmatics in general language has not received a great deal of attention
from researchers though interesting studies have been carried out by Bondzio
(1983), Ludwig (1991), and Jiménez Hurtado (2001), related to the codifica-
tion of pragmatic information in dictionary entries. This information generally
pertains to the geographic (e.g. USA, British), diachronic (e.g. old-fashioned,
obsolete), or social usage (e.g. formal, colloquial) of single words. It involves
stating valid usage conditions or the contextual restrictions of a word. This type
of information can also include the usefulness of a certain word for achieving a
goal in some type of interactional context.
Depending on the dictionary, its purpose, and targeted user group, prag-
matic formation may be formulated in the dictionary entry in different ways.
Recently, Collins Cobuild (Version 5), in an effort to enrich pragmatic markers
in their dictionary, extended this type of information even further, and estab-
lished category labels such as approval, disapproval, emphasis, feelings, formu-
188 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
lae, politeness,andvagueness to indicate the speaker’s goal when using a word.
For example, a word is labeled with approval when it is used to show that the
speaker approves of the person or thing that he/she is talking about. A word is
labeled with feelings when the speaker uses it to express his/her feelings about
something or towards someone. The dictionary entries in Figure 51 show that
angelic is used to indicate approval, whereas angel indicates both feelings and
approval. This information is given in the Extra Column.
Figure 51. Dictionary entries in Collins Cobuild (Version 5)
As for Terminology, the codification of pragmatic information in specialized
language units has not been explored until very recently in an effort to account
for terminological variation and its causes (e.g. Bourigault and Slodzian 1999;
Faulstich 1998; Freixa 2006; Seibel 2004a, 2004b, Tercedor Sánchez 2011).
However, such information is rarely included in term entries in terminological
resources.
Much of the work in Cognitive Linguistics has implicitly focused on lexical
pragmatics. As previously mentioned, Cognitive Linguistics does not distin-
guish between Semantics and Pragmatics, and regards word meaning as essen-
tially pragmatic. Lexical Pragmatics is largely based on the premise that the
meaning of words in use is underdetermined by the semantics of the lexical
items involved, and has to be inferred in context (Unger 2005; Blutner 1998).
Thus, the meaning communicated by the use of a word is context-dependent to
a greater or lesser degree. Since words have underspecified meaning represen-
tations, they reach their full-fledged meanings in contexts through considerable
pragmatic inference.
This is especially true of generic concepts such as sensible, which has dif-
ferent meanings, depending on who or what is sensible, and who is the speaker
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 189
is. For example, in a sensible woman,sensible describes a woman perceived as
having common sense or reason. A sensible skirt is a little more complicated
because it does not refer so much to a skirt as to the person wearing the skirt.
This unattractive garment, because of its fabric, durability, or length causes its
wearer to be perceived as practical. Thus, in the same way, as sensible shoes,
the characteristics of the piece of clothing reflect the mental characteristics of
the person wearing it. However, in sensible environmental laws, the perception
of what is sensible depends on the speaker’s belief system. Sensible environ-
mental laws would have a radically different meaning, depending on whether
the speaker was the president of British Petroleum or a member of Greenpeace.
Thus, communicative context is often an extremely important factor in meaning
representation.
Although the tendency in General Terminology Theory was initially to ig-
nore context and contextual variables as well as the terminological variation that
they produce, it soon became apparent that specialized terms are lexical items
that are used in communicative contexts, and that these contexts can affect their
potential meaning. The importance of the communicative nature of terminology
has been underlined by Sager (1990, 1993), Gambier (1993), Wußler (1997) and
Cabré (1999a, 1999b, 2000a). In fact, one of the major objectives of the Com-
municative Theory of Terminology (Cabré 1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b, 2001a,
2001b) is to account for the way in which specialized knowledge units fulfill
a specific function in an act of communication within a specific knowledge,
situational, and cultural context.
It has often been asked why there is so much terminological variation, when
the desired objective of specialized communication is precisely the opposite
(Bowker and Hawkins 2006). In fact, despite assertions to the contrary, spe-
cialized texts abound with examples of terminological variation. Sager (1993)
criticizes the fact that so little research has been carried out on this phenomenon
in specialized language. The reason perhaps lies in the fact that specialists in
the field, who can distinguish between the variants of a term, are usually not in-
terested in this type of work, or are linguistically unprepared for it. On the other
hand, linguists, who wish to take on such a task, often lack sufficient knowl-
edge of the specialized field, and thus are unable to determine regularities that
underlie processes of variation in specialized communication.
Although specialized language initially aspired to the ideal of having one
linguistic designation for each concept with a view to imbuing specialized com-
munication with greater precision, reality has turned out to be quite different.
The same concept has often given rise to many different types of linguistic des-
ignations. A case in point is the concept of HIGH-DOSE CHEMOTHERAPY in the
190 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
Figure 52. Designations for HIGH-DOSE CHEMOTHERAPY
Figure 53. Designations for ABS BRAKE SYSTEM
domain of Medicine (Figure 52) or ABS BRAKE SYSTEM in the domain of car
mechanics (Figure 53).
The many designations for chemotherapy administered in large quantities
and for ABS brake system are two examples of the proliferation of terms refer-
ring to the same concept. Although in the same way as in general language, it is
possible to establish reasons for terminological variation stemming from user-
based parameters of geographic, temporal, or social variation, or from usage-
based parameters of tenor, field, and mode (Gregory and Carroll 1978), these
only offer a partial representation of very complex situation.
Faulstich (1998) underlines the need to analyze terms both synchronically
and diachronically with a view to systematizing terminological structures that
change over time. This would provide a reconstruction of the conceptual struc-
tures of the period of time analyzed. However, terminological variation occurs
for reasons that are often considerably more complex and difficult to explain.
Freixa (2006: 52) classifies causes for terminological variation in the following
categories:
– Dialectal Caused by different origins of the authors
– Functional Caused by different communicative registers
– Discursive Caused by different stylistic and expressive needs of
the authors
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 191
– Interlinguistic Caused by contact between languages
– Cognitive Caused by different conceptualizations and motivations
Along with dialectal variation resulting from geographic, temporal, and social
contexts, she also mentions functional, discursive, interlinguistic, and cognitive
variation. Functional variation basically refers to registers described in terms of
field, tenor, and mode. Discursive causes for variation are linked to style and
include the use of terminological variation in order to avoid repetition, whereas
interlinguistic variation may occur when a language is in close cultural con-
tact to another. This type of contact foments the coexistence of a term and
a loanword, which in Spanish is the case of voleibol (English loanword) and
balonvolea (Spanish term), both of which at one time competed in Spanish as
terms for the sport of volleyball. However, voleibol is now the most frequent
term used. Finally, cognitive reasons may generate terms that represent differ-
ent perspectives or even different ideologies, According to Freixa (2006: 65),
this is reflected in the creation of euphemisms for negative concepts (e.g. staff
downsizing, redeployment of labor, staff slimming, etc. instead of layoff ).
Nevertheless, there are certain types of variation that do not appear to fall
into any of these categories such as morphological variants, orthographic vari-
ants, ellipted variants, abbreviations, graphical variation, variation by permu-
tation, etc. (Bowker and Hawkins 2006: 81). Their use in texts often seems to
be random and not to respond to any pattern or regularity. Without a doubt, a
more in-depth study of the pragmatic dimensions of terms is necessary to detect
possible reasons behind terminological variation.
3.2.4.1 Pragmatic dimensions of terms
The pragmatic dimensions of terms or specialized language units are those
specifically pertaining to the use of utterances in oral or written texts. These
dimensions include frame, situational context, and construal, which should not
be regarded as water-tight compartments. Terms belonging to different levels of
specialization and knowledge fields access different conceptual configurations
or frames, and appear in a given text type, which takes place in a certain setting
or situational context to satisfy different user needs. The text sender configures
his/her discourse with a purpose in mind and construes the information for a tar-
geted group of text receivers. If the text achieves its purpose, user expectations
are fulfilled by the speech act dominating the text.
To a great extent, the success of the specialized communication act is con-
ditioned by the terms selected and the receiver’s ability to make the right in-
ferences and correctly interpret this information. It inevitably depends on the
ability of the sender to correctly judge the knowledge that he/she shares with
192 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
the text receivers as well as and the receivers’ identity and location in time and
space. As a result of these predictions and expectations, the sender chooses the
terms to be used, and configures them to transmit a message in consonance with
his/her interactional goals.
Frame
Within this context, frame refers to the conceptual network that any given term
gives access to (see Chapter 3.1). The information in this network is the source
of the underspecified meaning, which expands and becomes more specific when
the term is activated in a certain context. However, not all knowledge that is
accessible through a term has equal standing. Certain aspects are more central
than others.
According to Langacker (1987), there are four types of encyclopedic knowl-
edge associated with a word: (a) conventional; (b) generic; (c) intrinsic; (d)
characteristic.
Conventional knowledge is the extent to which a particular facet of knowl-
edge is shared within a linguistic community.
Generic knowledge refers to the degree of generality associated with a par-
ticular word.
Intrinsic knowledge refers to the aspect of word meaning that makes no ref-
erence to entities external to the referent.
Characteristic knowledge refers to the aspects of the encyclopedic informa-
tion that are characteristic of or unique to the class of entities that the word
designates.
This classification can also be applied to specialized language. A case in point is
the specialized concept of EROSION, which refers to the displacement of solids
usually by agents such as wind, water, or ice by downward or down-slope move-
ment. In this sense, it is a process that is induced by an agent, and which affects
a specific geographic or inanimate entity. Any process takes place over a pe-
riod of time and can be divided into smaller segments. In this sense, erosion can
happen at a specific season of the year, and may take place in a certain direction.
According to Evans and Green (2006: 217), conventional knowledge is
widely known and shared among members of a speech community. For exam-
ple, conventional knowledge about erosion includes the fact that it moves soil
and rock, and can leave its mark on the earth’s surface, eventually carving out
holes as big as the Grand Canyon. Non-conventional knowledge about erosion
might include the fact that last summer one went to the beach in Malaga and
found that half of the sand had been washed away because of a severe storm the
previous month.
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 195
matic situatedness of the communicative act (Bach 1994; Cappelen and Lepore
2005; Mey 2001).
According to Evans (2008), the notion of context must include, at the very
least, all of the following:
the other words that make up the utterance itself;
the background knowledge shared by the speaker and hearer;
the physical venue and temporal setting of the utterance;
the communicative intention of the speaker as recognized and interpreted by
the hearer in the service of facilitating the interactional goals.
Even though ambiguity is eschewed in scientific texts, and text senders gen-
erally try to be as clear and informative as possible, the text (as a written or
spoken message) cannot explicitly include all of the information that the text
sender wishes to transmit. Evidently, there is a great deal of meaning implicit
in the situational context of the specialized communication event itself. In this
respect, the analysis and subsequent structuring of information as represented
by specialized knowledge units are motivated by a wide range of factors, which
are also part of the process. These include the knowledge level, intentions, and
expectations of the text sender; textual content, form and function; assumed
knowledge level of the text receivers and their ability to make inferences; norms
of stylistic and textual acceptability in the specialized text system, etc..
Texts as contexts
The first component of context mentioned by Evans (2008) is that provided
by “the other words that make up the utterance itself”. This corresponds both
to the encyclopedic information accessed by the term as well as the utterance
context in which it appears. Evidently, terminological context is provided by the
immediately surrounding text, as well as the text as a whole. To a certain extent,
a context reflects the text sender’s intentions as well as his/her predictions of
shared knowledge. Terminological contexts provide a better understanding of
specialized knowledge units, and can be even more informative than meaning
definitions. For example, the definition of the drug, ranitidine, is the following:
(173) Ranitidine: a histamine blocker C13H22N4O3S that is administered in
the form of its hydrochloride to inhibit gastric acid secretion (Merriam-
Webster Online Dictionary).
Since the definition limits itself to the most basic information, the receiver only
acquires a limited knowledge of the properties of the drug, such as its chemical
composition and effect. However, the following excerpt (174) from a research
article situates ranitidine in a more explicative context:
196 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
(174) Ranitidine hydraochloride (Zantac®) is a histamine 2-receptor antago-
nist (H2RA) medication used in peptic ulcer disease therapy, acute stress
ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux and related disorders. This medication is
often used intravenously in the operating room and during recovery in
surgical departments or intensive care units, and orally in medical de-
partments (Oliva et al. 2008).
The reader is provided with information not only about the type of medication,
but also about the diseases that ranitidine treats as well as its form and place
of administration. This is why contextual information is important in any type
of terminological database as a means of supplementing and enhancing defini-
tions, and adjusting them to the user group targeted by the specialized language
resource.
Context as a way to achieving interactional goals
Although the standard text function for scientific and technical texts is the infor-
mative function, this is certainly not the only one. In a specialized text, priorities
are often centered on not only transmitting, but often on justifying or arguing
for the validity of the technical and scientific information within the text. The
language used should implicitly assert and guarantee the reliability of the infor-
mation in the text. In other words, the text format and content should establish
a context of complicity, which is geared to gaining the receivers’ confidence
and trust.
One way of establishing such a context and conveying the impression of reli-
ability and trustworthiness is the precise use of terminology at the right level of
specificity so as to convey the message in a clear, direct way. This is an implicit
statement that the author of the text is an expert on the subject and is transmitting
relevant information. When done well, this strategy can be extremely success-
ful because it implicitly transmits the message that the text sender knows what
he/she is talking about, as is obviously the case in the following introduction to
a research report:
(175) Many climate studies have examined trends in quantities such as tem-
perature, precipitation, and carbon dioxide (CO2) based on time series
of data collected over the last 50 to 100 years (e.g., Cayan et al., 1998;
Peterson and Vose, 1997; Keeling and Whorf, 1998). These studies fre-
quently include time-series plots showing, for example, increases since
the middle of the twentieth century. In some cases, these figures include
trend lines or smoothed curves to highlight the nature of a particular
trend.
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 197
The statistical strength or weakness of any such trend is usually de-
tailed in the paper. However, it is not uncommon for a graph of an es-
pecially newsworthy trend to be reproduced in the media. […] While
trends published in scientific articles have undergone review for scien-
tific and statistical robustness, it is easy for the untrained eye to see ap-
parent trends in other similar, relatively short time series that may not be
real. The aim of this paper is to examine the apparent trend in a simulated
annual climatic time series using random numbers (Comrie 2008).
Example (175), irrespective of its conceptual content, is an example of the in-
troduction of a well-written scientific research report. The author makes a basic
assertion, which is backed up by previous studies. He succinctly presents a prob-
lem of the existence of both real and apparent trends in climate data. At the end
of the paragraph, he states the aim of his paper, which is to carry out a study in
which random numbers will be used instead of actual data to see whether any
trends appear.
The clear and coherent structure of his text, which goes from a general asser-
tion to specific examples, and uses preferentially strong verbs instead of the pas-
sive voice makes the information clear even to a non-scientist. This perception
is reinforced by coherent series of terms activating the knowledge fields relevant
to the study. For example, temperature,precipitation,andcarbon dioxide from
the field of Meteorology combine with time-series plots,trend lines,smoothed
curves,androbustness from the field of Statistics to help the receiver situate the
knowledge accessed by the terms and create a context for its convergence.
However, in poor scientific writing, such a strategy is often overdone. Long
sentences combined with confusing jargon cause a breakdown in communica-
tion and produce precisely the opposite effect. This is what occurs in the fol-
lowing text on the electrical breakdown of nitrogen:
(176) The goal of the work was to confirm the nature of electrical breakdown
of nitrogen in uniform fields at high pressures and electrode gaps which
approach those obtained in engineering practice, prior to the determina-
tion of the processes which set the criterion for breakdown in the above-
mentioned gas in uniform and non-uniform fields of engineering signif-
icance (Example taken from Alley 1996: 86).
Although in (176) the information is all there and there are no grammatical
errors, by the time text receivers arrive at the second which, they are cogni-
tively exhausted. Even expert engineering knowledge cannot remedy the situ-
ation when the linguistic context and excessive syntactic subordination make
the meaning of the text so difficult to understand.
198 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
However, for the text to achieve all of its communicative objectives, co-
herent semantic and syntactic structures are just one of the ingredients. The
information must also be packaged in an acceptable (and attractive) format. In
this sense, the text can also be regarded as a visual object. When successfully
processed by the text receiver, the salient features of the text-object should cor-
respond to and resemble those of a similar text profile stored in the receiver’s
long-term memory. In fact, this is an extremely powerful inference-making
mechanism, which transfers all of the properties of the stored text profile to
the text-object being perceived. Often, this type of resemblance is responsible
in itself for the success of the communication act since it automatically fosters
the text receiver’s belief in the authority of the message source and the veracity
of its contents. This leap of faith on the part of the receiver can even take place
when the communicative goal of the sender is deception, and the message is
totally false.
For example, this is a common strategy used in phishing e-mails written by
people, whose primary interactional goal is to deceive readers into surrendering
their bank account information by making them believe that the message was
emitted by a prestigious source. An example of such an e-mail is the following:
Dear valued customer of TrustedBank,
We have received notice that you have recently attempted to withdraw the
following amount from your checking account while in another country, $135.27.
If this information is not correct, someone unknown may have access to your
account. As a safety measure, please visit our website via the link below to
verify your personal information
http://www.trustedbank.com/general/custverifyinfo.asp
Once you have done this, our fraud department will work to resolve this
discrepancy. We are happy you have chosen us to do business with.
Thank you,
TrustedBank
Member FDAC©2012 TrustedBank Inc.
Figure 54. Example of a phishing e-mail
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 199
Receivers are lulled into a trusting mode because the elements in the text
lead them to believe that the text source is a prestigious financial institution.
This belief is inspired by text format, symbols (a logo), a website address, a
precise numerical figure, and linguistic elements and structure, responding to
an appropriate interactional frame for this type of formal communication.
An even more eloquent example of how language, textual form, and termi-
nology can lend authority and credibility to utter nonsense is the famous spoof
scientific paper, “The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline”,
written by Isaac Asimov in 1948. Example (177) is an excerpt from the text.
(177) The correlation of the structure of organic molecules with their various
properties, physical and chemical, as in recent years afforded much in-
sight into the mechanism of organic reactions […]. The solubilities of
organic compounds in various solvents has become of particular inter-
est in this connection through the recent discovery of the endochronic
nature of thiotimoline (Asimov 1972: 111).
The article, which describes experiments on thiotimoline, a fictitious chemical
compound, has the format as well as the syntactic and semantic characteristics
of a serious research article. It even includes charts, graphs, tables, and citations
of fake articles in nonexistent journals. The results presented in the tables verify
the patently false hypothesis that thiotimoline is so soluble that it dissolves in
water 1.12 seconds before it even comes in contact with water.
(178) Feinschreiber and Hravlek in their studies on the problem have con-
tended that with increasing hydrophilism, the time of solution ap-
proaches zero. That this analysis is not entirely correct was shown when
it was discovered that the compound thiotimoline will dissolve in wa-
ter – in the proportions of 1 gm,/ml. – in minus 1.12 seconds. That is, it
will dissolve before the water is added (Asimov 1972: 111).
Evidently, if the absurd assertion, which is formulated quite directly in (178),
had been made outside the context of an extremely specialized scientific paper,
and had not been backed up by the impressive display of (false) experimental
results, it would have been questioned. However, despite the fact that the text
was published in a journal titled Astounding Science Fiction, the article was
so convincing that a great many readers were persuaded of the veracity of the
information. In fact, after the article was published, the New York City library
was bombarded with inquiries from people, who wished to have access to the
(nonexistent) journals cited in the article. Asimov’s text is a perfect example of
a scientific article in every way except for the fact that the information contained
in it is absurd. It is also an example of how a suitable linguistic and textual con-
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 201
For example, specialized oncology texts (written for doctors) on chemother-
apy treatments for lung cancer may name combinations of drugs (etoposide, cis-
platin, carboplatin, cyclophosphamide, etc.). The same information formulated
for patients remains at the level of the superordinate term (drug) since it is the
most basic level (see Table 23).
As shown in Table 24, the text for doctors frequently uses very specialized
anatomical terms without any sort of explicative context (e.g. hemithorax, me-
diastinum, supraclavicular lymph nodes), whereas the text for patients even
defines basic terms such as lymph node.
Each term can be said to contain the pragmatic feature of its membership
in a particular domain, and refers either implicitly or explicitly to other related
terms, as well as to the whole structural configuration of the domain. Both texts
represent alternate construals of the same information. In specialized language,
construal or speaker perspective often reflects the knowledge shared by the par-
ticipants in the act of communication. This signifies that texts can be transmitted
in two very different ways depending on the presupposed knowledge of the text
receivers.
Another way that construal can be understood is through the use of special-
ized language as a way of conveying ideology. This can be seen in the text
Table 24. Lung cancer texts for doctors and patients
SPECIALIZED MEDICAL TEXT
[INFORMATION FOR DOCTORS]
NON-SPECIALIZED MEDICAL TEXT
[INFORMATION FOR PATIENTS]
Limited stage
Cancer is found only in one lung and in nearby
lymph nodes. (Lymph nodes are small, bean-
shaped structures that are found throughout the
body. They produce and store infection-fighting
cells.)
Limited stage small cell lung cancer means tumor
confined to the hemithorax of origin, the media-
stinum, and the supraclavicular nodes, which is
encompassable within a ''tolerable'' radiotherapy port.
202 Pamela Faber, Antonio San Martín Pizarro
in (179), which is a description of an alternative type of cancer therapy within
the context of Ayurveda or Indian medical science.
(179) The Ayurvedic Approach to Healing
The physical level
Ayurveda approaches the patient on several levels of causes, including
the physical, emotional and spiritual. The most superficial level is ap-
proaching the symptom, which is the tumor itself. […]
The practitioner must also decide if the patient requires tonification or
purification therapy. Strong patients with ama require purification ther-
apies […] Purification therapies reduce ama along with excess dosha.
By cleansing the srotas and the subtle nadis of the body, prana can flow
freely and support the healing process.
Purification is a reducing therapy, reducing the dhatus of the body as
well as the doshas. Since this weakens the body, it should only be per-
formed in patients who are strong enough. Purification therapy can be
similarly viewed as cytotoxic, meaning it destroys cells. When applied
properly, cellular destruction is directed primarily toward the cancerous
cells.
[http://www.ayurvedacollege.com/articles/drhalpern/clinical/cancer/3]
As shown in (179), the terms used in the text (ama, dosha, prana, etc.) encode
specialized knowledge as well as the author’s ideology regarding healing the
human body. The medical text, which describes how to treat and alleviate ma-
lignant tumors, is evidently construed for those who believe in natural medical
treatments, and who are familiar with the knowledge represented in the text.
The Hindu terms without any definition stand in evident contrast to cytotoxic,a
more conventional medical term, which does appear in the text with an expla-
nation even though it is more transparent than the others.
In (179), the use of Ayurvedic terminology in the form of loanwords gives
the text message an almost religious dimension. Besides conveying the princi-
ples of Vedic knowledge inherent in the terms, it also is a signal of the ideo-
logical content of the text, which has the quality of an incantation and seems
to convey the implicit promise of healing. The following segment of the text in
which English terms are substituted for the Hindu loanwords does not produce
quite the same effect:
(180) The practitioner must also decide if the patient requires tonification
or purification therapy. Strong patients with toxins require purification
therapies […] Purification therapies reduce the toxins along with excess
of disease-causing agents in the body. By cleansing the body chan-
3.2. Specialized language pragmatics 203
nels and the subtle pulses of the body, life force/cosmic energy can
flow freely and support the healing process.
The text excerpt in (180) does not include any terms with a clear ideological
content, and thus can be said to have a somewhat different construal.
3.2.5 Summary
This chapter has offered a description of Sociocultural and Cognition-oriented
Pragmatics, and has explained how both perspectives can be applied to spe-
cialized language within the context of Cognitive Linguistics. The reasons for
terminological variation, either in the case of individual terminological units or
entire utterances, can be found in the analysis of situational parameters, such as
frame, context, and construal.
Since terminological units are specialized language representations, the con-
cept of frame is especially relevant as the conceptual network accessed by a
term. Such core knowledge can be analyzed in terms of the four types of en-
cyclopedic knowledge specified by Langacker (1987), and is the source of the
underspecified meaning of a term, which acquires its full dimensions within a
specific context.
Context is a product of language use, and is useful in Terminology as a
way of representing the meaning of specialized knowledge units. In this sense,
contexts can be either knowledge-rich or knowledge-poor, depending on the
information contained. However, contexts are also a means of achieving inter-
actional goals. This applies to both the language and the structure of the text.
The text sender’s use of terminology as well as his/her choice of text format
can be a statement in themselves, and stand as a guarantee of the reliability and
veracity of a text. Construal is related to the speaker’s perspective, and is re-
flected in the way a text sender formulates his/her message for one group of
receivers or another. Specialized texts can be construed in a variety of different
ways for receivers with different levels of technical or scientific knowledge. A
specialized text and the terms in it may also reflect the ideological stance of the
text sender.
Thesis
This dissertation explores the complex notion of equivalence in the translation of terminology in the field of biodynamic osteopathy. The working languages of this project include English as a source language, and French, Italian, Latvian and Russian as target languages. The example of biodynamic osteopathy has been selected in an attempt to respond to an urgent need in terminology assessment and systematization in this field of manual medicine, especially when it comes to interlingual exchange. Our research aims to provide a framework for the study of equivalence applicable to terminology in the field of biodynamic osteopathy, taking into consideration its specific attributes and qualities. This analysis is directed at producing a database of biodynamic osteopathic terminology in five languages, where special attention is paid to meaning construction for the concepts of the field and the choice between various modes of denomination. The first chapter of this work examines the main theories of terminology, its social, communicative and syntactic aspects, as well as the notion of concepts. The second chapter is dedicated to the methodology of terminological work and related issues. The third chapter looks at difficulties in terminological work, such as synonymy and polysemy that are also present within the framework of our object of research. The fourth chapter provides an overview of the theoretical aspects of equivalence in Translation Studies, in particular in the context of terminology, in order to later propose a framework for the measure of equivalence itself: the notion of resonance is applied to terms in various languages, and the units of the corpus undergo qualitative and quantitative analysis with the results being amply described. The results of the study may be especially helpful to translators working in the field of the given discipline. Furthermore, our research may prove to be useful for the practitioners of biodynamics, especially students of the discipline who often find themselves in a situation where little information is given about concepts and corresponding terms, which turn into rather vague notions and potentially lead to misinterpretation. We equally hope to make a contribution to the study of equivalence on the theoretical level by providing a model of its assessment.
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Full-text available
Terminology work involves the collection, analysis and distribution of terms. This is essential for a wide range of activities, such as technical writing and communication, knowledge acquisition, specialized translation, knowledge resource development and information retrieval. However, these activities cannot be performed randomly, but should be based on a systematic set of theoretical principles that reflect the cognitive and linguistic nature of terms as access points to larger knowledge configurations. “Frame-Based Terminology” (FBT) is a cognitive approach to terminology that is based on frame-like representations in the form of conceptual templates underlying the knowledge encoded in specialized texts (Faber 2011, 21; 2012; Faber et al. 2007, 42). FBT frames can be regarded as situated knowledge structures and are linguistically reflected in the lexical relations codified in terminographic definitions. These frames are the context in which FBT specifies the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic behaviour of specialised language units. They are based on the following set of micro-theories: (1) a semantic micro-theory; (2) a syntactic micro-theory and (3) a pragmatic micro-theory. Each micro-theory is related to the information encoded in term entries, the relations between specialised knowledge units and the concepts that they designate. Keywords: Terminology theory; Cognitive semantics; Concept modelling; Frames
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