26.2594, Review: Cog Sci; Ling Theories; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax: Faber (2012)

Fri May 22 21:29:15 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-2594. Fri May 22 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.2594, Review: Cog Sci; Ling Theories; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax: Faber (2012)

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Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 17:28:01
From: Esther Nunez [esthernuvi at yahoo.es]
Subject: A Cognitive Linguistics View of Terminology and Specialized Language

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-2788.html

EDITOR: Pamela  Faber
TITLE: A Cognitive Linguistics View of Terminology and Specialized Language
SERIES TITLE: Applications of Cognitive Linguistics [ACL] 20
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Esther Nunez, (personal interest - not currently working at a university)

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

The aim of this book is to explore how Cognitive Linguistics can provide a
theoretical framework both for the research on Terminology and specialized
language and for the elaboration of terminological resources. 

As it is pointed out in Section 2.1, Terminology and Linguistics have mostly
ignored each other in the past. Manuals in Terminology are generally
practice-oriented and focus on issues such as database organization, term
entry design, etc. The research on specialized language tends to focus on
scientific discourse and its characteristics.

The authors, however, have a broader view of Terminology and specialized
language. First of all, they see terms (“specialized language units” in this
volume) as linguistics units and therefore susceptible to descriptive
linguistic analysis. By analysing terms from a linguistics perspective,
interesting insights about the semantic and syntactic behaviour of terms can
be reached and that could help to elaborate better terminological resources.
More importantly, the authors see terms as conveyors of conceptual meaning and
vehicles of meaning transmission. From this viewpoint, Terminology has the
conceptual description and structure of specialized knowledge at its core.
This volume looks into how Cognitive Linguistics could provide a
methodological framework to help Terminology address these issues. 

The specific research framework proposed by the authors in this volume is
Frame-based Terminology, a new approach that adapts the basic concepts of
Frame Semantics to specialized language. The concept of frame is regarded as
the core structuring principle of specialized domains. Frame-based Terminology
is the brainchild of Pamela Faber and her team at the University of Granada.

Not forgetting the practical focus of Terminology, the volume also explores
extensively the practical application of the marriage between Cognitive
Linguistics and Terminology. EcoLexicon is the tangible result of such
endeavour. It is an online knowledge base on the Environment that covers six
different languages. The FrameNet Project is the practical application of
Frame Semantics and it serves as model for EcoLexicon. The methodological
principles that have guided the design of EcoLexicon are discussed in Section
3.1.

The main body of the book are Chapters Two, Three and Four, which are preceded
by a short Introduction chapter and followed by the Conclusions chapter.
Chapters Two, Three and Four are divided into large sections, each of them
written by a team of authors. The Introduction and the Conclusions chapters
have been written by Pamela Faber, who is the editor and co-author of most
sections of this volume. Other members of her team complete the list of
authors. 

 Chapter Two, almost 90 pages long, is devoted to “Basic concepts” and is
divided into three sections. Section 2.1 is “Terminology and specialized
language” (by Pamela Faber and Clara Inés López Rodríguez). It traces the
evolution of Terminology theory, from its initial standpoint as a prescriptive
discipline to the current focus on description and the growing interest in
conceptual structure. Section 2.1 ends with a description of the methodology
used to develop Eco-Lexicon.

Section 2.2, “Metaphor and metonymy in specialized language” (by Maribel
Tercedor Sánchez, Clara Inés López Rodríguez, Carlos Márquez Linares and
Pamela Faber), discusses metaphor and metonymy in specialized language, along
with other concepts of Cognitive Linguistics such as Blending. This section
ends with a corpus-based study on the use of metaphor in the field of
environmental science.

Section 2.3, “Specialized language translation” (by Pamela Faber and José
Manuel Ureña Gómez-Moreno) starts with an introduction on the translation
process and the challenges of specialized texts. It ends with an exploration
of what Cognitive Linguistics, a theoretical framework which focuses on
meaning and context, could contribute to translation theory.

Chapter Three is entitled “Terms as specialized knowledge units” and includes
a section on specialized language semantics and a section on specialized
language pragmatics. Section 3.1, “Specialized language semantics” (by Pilar
León Araúz, Pamela Faber and Silvia Montero Martínez), includes a
comprehensive description of the theoretical principles of semantic roles,
conceptual relations and qualia structure which underpin the design of
EcoLexicon. It is well illustrated by many examples and a case study.
EcoLexicon can be accessed at http://ecolexicon.urg.es/en/index.htm

Section 3.2, “Specialized language pragmatics” (by Pamela Faber and Antonio
San Martín Pizarro), provides background information on pragmatics and its
status under Cognitive Linguistics. It also explores the recent take of
Pragmatics on Terminology in an effort to account for terminological
variation. Lastly, this section proposes analysing terminological variation
using notions such as Frame, Context and Construal. 

The title of Chapter Four is self-explanatory: “Contextual information in
specialized knowledge representation: linguistic contexts and images”. Section
4.1, “Contextual selection for term entries” (by Arianne Reimerink, Mercedes
García de Quesada and Silvia Montero Martínez), deals with the first of those
topics: linguistic context. It looks into the criteria for devising meaningful
and knowledge-rich contexts as provided in term entries and analyses the types
of conceptual relations that are more helpful in devising linguistic contexts.

Section 4.2, “Graphical information” (by Juan Antonio Prieto Velasco and
Pamela Faber), analyzes the value of visual representations in terminological
resources. It proposes a grammar to understand the morphological, syntactic,
semantic and pragmatic information in images and a typology of graphical
information based on the criteria of iconicity, abstraction and dynamism.

EVALUATION

This volume achieves its goal of exploring the importance of Cognitive
Linguistics for Terminology. It shows how the principles of Cognitive
Linguistics can be successfully applied to specialized language, paving the
way to a whole new field of research that would benefit both Terminology and
Linguistics.

After reading this volume, it is easy to see how Cognitive Linguistics, and
especially Frame Semantics,  come as such a natural progression for
Terminology. After all, both fields place enormous importance on the
organization and structure of concepts. The idea of developing terminological
resources inspired by the way concepts are organized in the mind is a very
attractive one. It is also easy to see the advantages of resources that
incorporate information on the semantic and syntactic behaviour of the terms
as dictated by their argument structure. Add the extra bonus of having more
than one language and you can see why terminological resources developed
according to this pattern would be extremely useful for translators and other
users of terminological resources. 

That the adaptation of Frame Semantics to Terminology comes naturally after
reading this volume doesn't mean that the practical application of this
framework is an easy task. For me, this is where the true value of the book
lies. The sections on the elaboration of EcoLexicon (Sections 2.1 and 3.1)
provide an insightful reading. EcoLexicon is a complex and well-researched
tool. The fact that it includes information on six languages is more proof of
the hard work that has gone into creating it.

Moreover, as the authors point out, the marriage between Cognitive Linguistics
and Terminology could prove a fruitful one for both parties. Specialized
domains constitute an excellent test ground for Cognitive Linguistic theories.
Metaphors for example are very productive to build models and elaborate
scientific theories (see Section 2.2). Up until now, concepts such as that of
frame have not been applied to specialized discourse. The new approach
developed in this volume opens up a whole new field of research that would
provide feedback and new insights to the field of Cognitive Linguistics.

Terminologists and terminology managers would certainly benefit from the
theoretical approach adopted in this book and the way it was implemented to
produce EcoLexicon. Cognitive linguists would benefit from the insights into
specialized language and the new possibilities opened up by the research in
this field. Chapter Four also deals with innovative ways of applying the
Cognitive Linguistics framework to the design of terminological resources, and
would certainly be of interest to many readers.

Another strong point of the volume is that most sections are illustrated by an
abundance of practical examples, many of them extracted from a corpus of
specialized texts. This contrasts with the classical studies in Cognitive
Linguistics, which aren't usually grounded on usage. 

The structure of the volume is a bit confusing. Sections 2.2. and 2.3 aren't
really well placed under a chapter named “Basic concepts” as they deal with
two independent areas of study: metaphor and metonymy in specialized discourse
and translation. Some of the basic concepts dealt with in Chapter Two have
also been included in other sections, making the reading a bit repetitive,
while some basic concepts are only addressed in a particular section. Section
2.3 on translation doesn't fit well with the rest of the book. The ideas in
that section are worth exploring, but probably after a more detailed studied
has been carried out.

Missing is a discussion of research that could be carried out under the scope
of Frame-based Terminology--a discussion that is generally included in a
Conclusions section. I feel that after successfully bridging the gap between
linguistics and applied disciplines such as terminology, this volume lacks a
discussion on future avenues of research, which is particularly important for
newly developed approaches such as this.

REFERENCES

Croft, William and D. Alan Cruse. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

I am an editor and translator. I work mainly developing teaching resources and
as a legal translator/interpreter. I previously worked teaching Spanish at
undergraduate level. I've got a postgraduate degree in linguistics. From a
professional point of view, I am interested in translation teaching,
interpreting training and terminology and I would like to train as a
computational linguist. From a more personal point of view, I have a keen
interest in bilingualims and minority and regional languages.

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