Terminologija / Terminology

Editorial Board and Table of Contents

Albina Auksoriūtė — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 10:13:35 +0200

Seven Good Reasons for a Better Account of Fine-grained Polysemy in Terminological Resources

Marie-Claude L’Homme — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0300

A quick look at terminological resources can give the wrong impression that polysemy is something that occurs only occasionally in specialized domains. These kinds of resources seldom account for the different meanings a linguistic unit or expression can carry in the same domain and, even when they do, the distinction between closely related meanings is not explained in ways that would allow unfamiliar users to grasp them correctly. This can be explained partly by the fact that polysemy is considered to be reduced or non-existent in specialized subject fields. It can also be explained by the theoretical assumption still relayed in some textbooks that the “ideal” term is typically monosemic. However, multiple meanings do co-exist in given specialized domains and corpora and many reasons would justify a more adequate treatment of polysemy in resources. We examine seven reasons in this article: subject field boundaries are not enough; imprecise definitions; general language dictionaries are not enough; different meanings affect combinatorics; lexical relations are linked to distinct meanings; different government patterns; different equivalence relations.

Terminology and Microlearning: Contrasting Their Respective Methods and Content

Blanca Stella Giraldo Pérez, Christian Galinski — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 20:35:42 +0300

In the field of terminology, a distinction is made between terminological science and its methods on the one hand and terminology (or terminologies) in the sense of terminological data on the other. Concerning microlearning you can make a similar distinction between Microlearning as a subject field with its methods and microlearning objects in the sense of information objects for teaching and learning. The two fields are stemming from totally different roots. Their practical results, viz. terminological entries and microlearning objects (microLO) – especially if they represent scientific or technical concepts – have much in common when comparing their metadata. Different communicative roles distinguish terminological entries – which are concept-based by default – from concept-based microlearning objects (CBmicroLO).

From a microcontent perspective, Blanca Stella Giraldo Pérez (2022) proposes a generic approach to achieve comprehensive content interoperability between terminological entries and CBmicroLOs, which both are different kinds of concept-based microcontent entries (CBmicroCE), though with different communicative roles. Under this perspective, they have much in common and could largely benefit from improved content interoperability. The generic approach proposed may also apply to other kinds of CBmicroCEs, especially in Linked Open Data (LOD) environments. In this connection, the application of the FAIR Guiding Principles (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of structured content) is essential. To achieve this aim, the authors propose standardization activities to arrive at a harmonized methodology for all kinds of CBmicroCEs – including the harmonization of the metadata (especially the core metadata) involved.

The History and Recent Trends of Terminology in Hungary in the 21st Century

Ágota Fóris — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 20:54:47 +0300

The purpose of this article is to provide a review of the history and recent trends of terminology that impacted the evolution of terminology in Hungary in the 21st century. The last two decades brought effective changes in higher education, vocational training, scientific qualification, and publication in Hungary. All these changes provided an opportunity for better understanding, development, and teaching of terminology theory and terminology management, as well as strengthening international relations and starting a dialogue about Hungarian terminology policies.

The paper first presents the significant changes in Hungarian terminology in the last two decades from the perspective of language rights and then focuses on the most important scientific publications in the field of terminology. The paper also highlights and presents in more detail the domains in which significant terminological work has been carried out in the previous two decades: Hungarian terms of law and public administration, EU-specific terms, medical terms, and terminology and nomenclature of natural sciences.the community.

Terminology Work, Terminology Management, Terminography – Potato, Patato or Not Exactly?

Igor Kudashev — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 21:10:18 +0300

This paper focuses on the definitions of three broad concepts of Terminology which are sometimes considered identical, sometimes partly overlapping, and sometimes different – terminology work, terminology management, and terminography. I use the latest editions of ISO standards on terminology work, terminology policies, and terminology products, as well as the two biggest manuals on terminology and terminology management as my research material. The methodology includes textual analysis, concept analysis, and semantic analysis. The referential part is followed by an analytical section, after which a set of principles is established for redefining the concepts, and tentative proposals are made on how they may be redefined.

Conceptual Equivalence in Multilingual EU Terminology – Challenges and Possible Solutions

Orsolya Hedvig Kardos — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 21:28:16 +0300

This article examines the implications of concept orientation for translation-oriented multilingual terminology work in the European Union context. Terms and concepts in EU texts can be divided into three groups based on their universality or specificity to a particular conceptual system: universal, EU-specific, and country-specific. These terms often appear together in EU texts, and translators must be aware of their nature to find the best equivalent in the target language. The paper outlines strategies for translators dealing with different types of terms. It also discusses the challenges of translating universal terms with country-specific dimensions. It highlights how a lack of equivalence information and confusion between universal and country-specific terms can compromise terminology entries. Due to the diversity of legal systems in the 27 Member States, the lack of an equivalent term in the target language requires translators to choose between inexact or partial equivalents. It is therefore crucial to indicate in a terminological database the absence of conceptually equivalent terms in the target language. To assist translators, IATE, the EU’s concept-oriented terminology database, provides information on the origin of terms and the degree of equivalence between concepts expressed by specific terms in different languages. However, this information is not always systematic. It can often only be obtained after thoroughly examining several data fields. It is argued that systematically indicating the EU-, or country-specific origin of the concept represented by the database entry, together with the introduction of a new optional transfer comment field to clarify the degree of equivalence between terms, as seen in other multilingual termbases, would greatly benefit translators by providing a clearer understanding of equivalence relationships and helping them to make informed choices when selecting target language terms.

Peculiarities in the Structure of Definitions of Specific Terms of Geography

Aušra Rimkutė-Ganusauskienė — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 21:40:35 +0300

The process of defining a concept within in any field is a sophisticated and systematic endeavor that requires expertise in the subject matter. The result of this process is the definition of term. Each term carries unique definition. It helps to link a concept to the term that represents it. The article analyses the definitions of 648 specific terms founded in Aiškinamasis geografijos terminų žodynas issued in 2021 (Explanatory Dictionary of Geographical Terms, 2021), shortly overviewing the definitions‘ requirements and identifying definitions‘ models of specific terms. The most common model of definition of specific terms is such model, when at the beginning of definition is told logical dominant and after comma the essential attributes of definition are indicated. This logical dominant is defined as a general term in the dictionary. The other four models of definition of specific terms are less productive, some of them can be readily transformed into the most common model of definition.

Translators’ Resource Dominance and the Success of Finding the Target Terms in Human Translation and Post-editing of Machine Translation

Eszter Sermann, Márta Lesznyák — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 21:58:04 +0300

This study presents the first results of process-oriented research on the types of online translation resources used by first- and second-year translation trainees when translating and post-editing a legal text from English into Hungarian. Based on the screen recordings of the students’ workflow, the possible relations between resource dominance (termino-lexicographic or text-based), time on task and the success of finding the correct target terms were analysed. Our results indicate that students generally prefer termino-lexicographic sources to text-based sources. Interestingly, in most cases, the success of finding the correct target terms showed no significant correlations either with time on task or with resource dominance. The only exception was the post-editor group, where there was a significant correlation between the frequency of using text-based sources and the success of finding correct terms. In addition, evidence was found that post-editors worked more efficiently than from-scratch human translators in terms of time and search effort. The paper ends with possible explanations of the findings and suggestions for translator training.

MOVEMENTS and DIRECTIONS, CONSTRUCTIONS and FORCES: Prevalent Metaphorical Source Domains in Hungarian Legal Texts

Réka Sólyom — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:11:28 +0300

By employing a functional cognitive frame, this paper focuses on the semantics of metaphorical technical terms in the Hungarian legal language. Although the importance of unambiguous terms in such language use is often emphasised, conceptual metaphors foster understanding of technical texts. The present research concentrates on three types of frequently occurring metaphors in the Hungarian technical texts of quality management and Hungarian laws. These metaphors and metaphorical expressions contain the source domains MOVEMENTS and DIRECTIONS, CONSTRUCTIONS and FORCES. The analysis characterises these prototypical metaphors and their functions in legal texts, employing examples from the Hungarian texts of two important laws, namely the Fundamental Law of Hungary, and Act C of 2012 the Criminal Code of Hungary.

The Importance of Business Terminology in Specialised Translations

Maria-Crina Herțeg — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0300

This paper presents an analysis of the importance of business terminology in specialised translations with a focus on two different scenarios that were identified based on the corpora that were analysed, namely business contracts and business journalese, which require different approaches, instruments and strategies. The aspects that are analysed in this paper include the translation of collocations, the translation of figurative language and the translation of polysemous lexical units. The paper highlights the importance of empowering business translators by ensuring that they have the terminological research competence that will enable them to avoid and resolve ambiguities, to identify terminological equivalences and to enhance the quality of their translations.

Mythonymic Terms in Lithuania’s First Psychiatry Textbook from the Inter-war Era

Palmira Zemlevičiūtė — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:45:32 +0300

The article structurally dissects the psychiatry terms made with the names of mythological creatures that appear in the 1935 Įvadas į psichiatriją (Introduction to Psychiatry) by Juozas Blažys, the famous Lithuanian psychiatrist – the first psychiatry textbook to be published in Lithuania in the period between the two world wars. Nearly all terms are derived from the classical (Greek and Latin) languages or are readily borrowed from them through intermediary languages and adapted to the system of the Lithuanian language. While writing the textbook, Blažys relied on printed work by his colleagues and most probably adopted the terms from those sources. Mythonyms of Greek and Latin origin that appear in the structure of psychiatry terms are archaic universalities with unequivocal meaning across all languages; as a result, the psychiatry terms that derive from them travel from one language to the next, constituting an important part of the international eponymic terminology of psychiatry.

Most of the terms featured in the textbook are mythonyms made by way of absolute (direct, affixal, and composite) and, on very few occasions, partial appellativisation. The most common are composite appellatives (such as kleptomanija (kleptomania)) that include a component grounded on a post-positional mythonym. Among affixal appellatives, suffixal appellatives with the productive suffix -izmas (such as morfinizmas (morphinism)) have prevalence, while prefixal appellatives (such as amnezija (amnesia)) are uncommon.

Christian Galinski at 80: A Pillar of Terminology Studies and Global Communication

Klaus-Dirk Schmitz — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 23:00:35 +0300

Challenges in Using Lithuanian Equivalents of “Sustainable Development” in Social Sciences

Romualdas Ginevičius — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 23:07:33 +0300

In memoriam Stasys Keinys

Palmira Zemlevičiūtė — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 23:16:49 +0300