Olga Usinskiene. A Framework of Concepts in the Migration Domain and Their Expression in English and Lithuanian (Migracijos srities sąvokų sistema ir raiška anglų ir lietuvių kalbose): daktaro disertacija, Vilnius: MRU, 2024, 320 p.

Terminologija / Terminology 2025, No. 32, p. 1–6 Contents link ISSN 2669-2198 (electronic / online) Copyright © 2025 Sigita Rackevičienė. all rights reserved. Published by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. // Published by the Lithuanian Language Institute. This article is open access, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction of the content in any medium, provided that the author and source are acknowledged. Gauta: / Received: 2025-03-27. Priimta: / Accepted: 2025-04-03. 1 Olga Usinskiene. A FRAMEWORK OF CONCEPTS IN THE MIGRATION DOMAIN AND THEIR EXPRESSION IN ENGLISH AND LITHUANIAN (MIGRATION SRITIES CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM AND EXPRESSION IN ENGLISH AND LITHUANIAN LANGUAGES): doctoral dissertation, Vilnius: Mykolas Romeris University, 2024, 320 p. SIGITA RACKEVIČIENĖ Mykola Romeris University El. e-mail: [email protected]u ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5794-0296 https://doi.org/10.35321/term32-12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On September 6, 2024, Olga Ušinskienė defended her doctoral dissertation A Framework of Concepts in the Migration Domain and their Expression in English and Lithuanian at Mykolas Romeris University (hereinafter – MRU) (supervisor Prof. Dr. Sigita Rackevičienė). 2 In her dissertation, O. Ušinskienė, based on the data of bilingual English and Lithuanian textbooks created for this study, modeled the system of concepts in the field of migration and compared the linguistic means of expression used to form their names. Thus, the dissertation is devoted to the analysis of two dimensions of the migration field: the conceptual dimension analysis, which aimed to create conceptual models based on the relationships of concepts and reveal the main processes of this field, and the linguistic dimension analysis, which aimed to identify the means of linguistic expression used to name the concepts of this field. Two bilingual textbooks were created for the purposes of the study, consisting of international and national documents on migration issues: a parallel textbook (about 1.5 million words) and a comparative textbook (about 2.2 million words). 388 English and 376 Lithuanian terms were selected from the textbooks. In the dissertation, the names of concepts include noun phrases functioning as terms, term combinations and proper names relevant to the field of migration. In addition, in order to understand the content of the concepts as well as possible, additional data were selected: for each concept, informational contexts were selected from textbooks, and definitions from specialized dictionaries and term bases. Created texts and their metadata are stored on the MRU SharePoint website (link to the website is provided in the first appendix of the dissertation), and all collected and systematized terminological data are presented in the second appendix of the dissertation, which is 136 p. The introduction of the dissertation defines the most important parameters of the research and the scientific novelty, value and practical application of the results of the dissertation. The author notes that the dissertation is significant in several aspects: 1) the conducted terminological research contributes to the field of text-based terminological research of English and Lithuanian languages, supplementing it with another specialized field – migration; 2) modeling of conceptual systems based on conceptual relationships, carried out for the first time on the basis of bilingual English and Lithuanian data in the field of migration, is significant for the research of the conceptual dimension of specialized fields; 3) the analysis of the formation of concept names based on the principles of cognitive linguistics is important for comparative studies of the linguistic dimension of terminology; 4) the general research methodology, based on the combination of knowledge-based and lexical-based approaches, contributes new methodological insights and perspectives to the development of terminological work in Lithuanian language. The first part of the dissertation presents general theoretical aspects of the research. The main assumptions of terminology science are presented, which are discussed in fundamental terminology works and ISO standards dedicated to terminology issues. Two main approaches of the dissertation research are described in detail – the knowledge analysis based (onomasological) approach and the lexical analysis based (semathological) approach. The principles of these approaches and the most important terminology schools developing these approaches in their works are discussed. At the end of the first part, it is explained how these two approaches are applied in the dissertation research and which aspects of them are most important in analyzing the conceptual and linguistic dimensions of migration terminology. 3 The second part of the dissertation presents parallel and comparative texts in the field of migration, their creation and terminological data extraction processes. Firstly, the advantages and disadvantages of parallel and comparative textbooks are discussed and the reasons why both types of textbooks are needed for a thorough terminological study are explained. The steps of textbook creation and textbook composition are presented in detail. The texts consist of documents of international and national organizations. First, a detailed analysis of international organizations and their documents was carried out and the documents needed for the study were selected. They consist of documents of intergovernmental organisations (United Nations, Council of Europe and European Union and their subsidiary organisations) with and without legal force (conventions, primary and secondary legislation, recommendation documents, reports, etc.). Then, the national legislation of the Republic of Lithuania and the United Kingdom was analyzed. The parallel text consists of documents that were available in the original language and in the translation language (mainly documents of international organisations), while the comparative text consists of documents that were available only in the original language (mainly national documents). The dissertation presents metadata categories of collected documents and text processing and transfer to Sketch Engine software. The principles of terminological data extraction and equivalents determination are then described. The Sketch Engine software tools are presented, which are used to collect the necessary English language data for the research: the names of the concepts and the informative contexts necessary to determine the content and connections of the concepts. The procedures for determining Lithuanian equivalents in parallel and comparative texts and the Sketch Engine tools used for them are discussed. The third part of the dissertation is devoted to the conceptual dimension of migration: theoretical and methodological principles of analysis and modeling of the system of migration concepts and detailed presentation of each model that makes up the system. The first chapter of the third part introduces the principles of conceptual analysis. The importance of definitions for conceptual relationships studies is discussed, different classifications of conceptual relationships are described, focusing on ISO standards and typologies of conceptual relationships presented by researcher Anita Nuoponnen. The categories of concepts defined by Juan C. Sager and the group of researchers of the University of Granada, LexiCon, are also discussed. The following categories of concepts are presented: activity and state (ACT), living objects (ANE) and inanimate objects and their characteristics (INANE). The second chapter of the third part describes the modeled conceptual framework of migration – its overall structure and each model separately. The modeled migration framework consists of three models: 1) The causal chain of migration, connecting migration-causing and migration-induced processes; 2) A model of migration taxonomy consisting of three sub-parts for three types of migration: labour migration, family migration and humanitarian migration; 4 3) The Migration Procedure Model, also composed of three parts for each type of migration procedure: labour migration procedure, family migration procedure and humanitarian migration procedure. Each model is presented in detail: it is explained what conceptual relationships enabled the model to be created and how different types of relationships combine into a common whole; describes which categories of concepts and specific concepts have been assigned to each model, what phenomena in the real world they reflect and what English and Lithuanian words and phrases are used to name these concepts. Each model and its parts are also presented in structured pictures, thus highlighting the types of conceptual relationships and systemic similarities and differences of models. The fourth part of the dissertation is devoted to the linguistic dimension of migration: theoretical and methodological principles of analysis and analysis of linguistic means of expression used to form the names of migration concepts in English and Lithuanian. The first chapter of the fourth part presents the principles of cognitive work analysis and the principles of the analysis of lexical and syntactic means used to form concept names. The methodological basis of each level of analysis is visualized by a scheme representing the relationship between the concept and the concept names in English and Lithuanian, thus emphasizing that the analysis aims to clarify what linguistic means are used in English and Lithuanian to express the same conceptual content. The second chapter of the fourth part presents the results of empirical analysis. 1) whether there are noticeable differences in linguistic expression between concepts belonging to different conceptual models and between concepts belonging to different categories of concepts (ACT, ANE, INANE); 2) what are the differences in linguistic expression between the names of concepts in English and Lithuanian languages. This multi-layered nature of the analysis also determines the structure of the subsections: they analyse the data for each model and, where relevant, each category separately, and at the end summarise the results. When providing illustrative examples of data, the English and Lithuanian equivalents are always paired to express the same concept. The following aspects are analyzed: 1) cases of synonymy: bilingual pairs of concept names are divided according to the number of synonyms in each language (2:1; 1:2; 2:2, etc.) and according to the types of synonyms (lexical, constructive, syntactic and morphological); 2) number of meaning elements: names of concepts are divided into monolexic and polylexic; 3) lexical meanings of the significant elements: in each category of concepts, the lexical meanings of the main element and modifiers of the concept names are determined and grouped according to semantic fields; 4) types of modification of polylexic concept names: in each category of concepts, the concept names are divided according to the position of the modifiers in relation to the main focus, i.e. 5 according to whether the modification is prepositional, postpositional or mutual (pre and postpositional); 5) Syntactic structure of polylexic concept names: the names of the concepts of each type of modification are divided according to their syntactic structure, represented by the sequences of tags of the language parts of the modifiers. Each aspect was also analyzed quantitatively – a detailed quantitative analysis of data was carried out, revealing the trends in the formation of concept names both in individual conceptual models and between models. The conclusions present the most important results of each part of the dissertation and discuss what new knowledge they provide about the investigated subject. The author notes that the combination of knowledge analysis and lexical analysis based methods gave the possibility to evaluate concept names not only as structural units of the conceptual system, but also as natural language units in the environment of their natural use. The compilation and data mining works show that two types of textbooks are necessary for the study of terminological data in the field of migration – parallel and comparative. They enable to collect a much more detailed sample of terminological data in the field of migration, a larger amount of informational contexts, to determine more English and Lithuanian language equivalents. The analysis of the conceptual dimension of migration revealed that the concepts of migration can be divided into three main conceptual models based on the following conceptual relationships: ontological (cause-effect, part-total, process-result, subject-activity-object) and logical (relative and species concepts). All three models form a common framework of concepts in the field of migration, reflecting the conceptualization of phenomena in this field in international and national documents. The analysis of the linguistic dimension of migration revealed what means of linguistic expression are used to express the names of different conceptual models and different categories of concepts in English and Lithuanian. The analysis showed that synonymy is most common in the 2nd and 3rd models, and the most common type of synonyms in both languages are lexical synonyms (e.g. permanent migration, illegal entry, irregular entry). The study confirmed the trend of polylexic terms established by researchers in other subject areas. In the research material of the dissertation, polylexic units comprise 92% of all names of migration concepts in both English and Lithuanian languages. The analysis of the lexical structure revealed that most of the concept names are composite – their meaning can be understood based on the meanings of individual elements. In each model, names are constructed from elements belonging to different semantic fields. The main focus usually denotes a certain activity or state, an inanimate or living object, and the modifiers specify the characteristics of the concept denoted by the main focus in various aspects, e.g., the concept names asylum for an applicant – asylum for an applicant are composed according to the following principle: MAIN FOCUS ‘form of protection’ + MODIFIER ‘migration participant’. 6 The analysis of the syntactic structure revealed that both prepositional and postpositional modification are used in the 1st and 3rd models, but for the 2nd model, which includes the taxonomy of migration types, postpositional modification is not characteristic at all, e.g., labour migration. In most cases, the types of modification in English and Lithuanian coincide, but in a significant number of cases the English names of postpositional modification correspond to Lithuanian names of prepositional modification, e.g., children of refugees. Summarizing the findings, the author states that they “can provide valuable information to scholars engaged in conceptual systems modeling, comparative terminology analysis and translation research” (p. 314). The author also notes that the parallel and comparative texts produced during the study “can be reused in linguistic research in the field of migration” (ibid.). Olga Ušinskienė’s dissertation A Framework of Concepts in the Migration Domain and their Expression in English and Lithuanian makes a significant contribution to Lithuanian terminology work, supplementing it with a comprehensive terminological study of another specialized field – migration, significant for its collected data, their analysis and methodological insights. As the author of the dissertation notes, the results of the research have also practical value. The system of concepts in the field of migration can be used by specialists in this field, organizing and transmitting knowledge about migration processes, as well as by representatives of society who want to acquire this knowledge. The results of linguistic analysis can provide valuable information for term creators and translators. Both dimensions can be useful for term management specialists and technology developers working in the fields of knowledge engineering and automated data mining. The bilingual survey data can also be used to create a migration-related terminology database that would be useful to migrants, migration authorities, legislators and translators, and students studying migration law and policy.