The seven pillars of terminology

The seven pillars of terminology HERIBERT PICHT 1. INTRODUCTION Proceeding from the assumption that one of the superordinate aims of terminology is systematic knowledge transfer, we shall find the first three pillars represented by the words ‘systematic’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘transfer’. This can be illustrated in the following way: Fig. 1 Systematic Knowledge | Transfer Object and concept | Representational forms for objects and concepts (cognitive function) | (communicational function) concept ordering Although these three pillars are of vital importance and are considered the bearing elements of any terminological endeavour, be it theoretical or applied, a fourth pillar, ‘terminological working methods’ is still lacking and needs to be added. An important part of the transfer of terminology is: recording and proliferation, neither of which is covered by Figure 1; consequently, we need to provide a fifth pillar — terminography. The sixth pillar — indispensable for the proliferation of knowledge about terminology — is dedicated to education and training in terminology. However, the “edifice” of terminology would be incomplete if we were to disregard the vast sector of development and applications of terminology in the broad context of professional communication. This seventh pillar comprises a series of apparently heterogeneous activities and other issues; 8 Heribert Picht | The seven pillars of terminology nevertheless, all together they play an important role in, or even render possible, professional communication and knowledge transfer. In the following, we shall try to go more deeply into the content of the seven pillars. 2. OBJECT AND CONCEPT Right from the beginning of scientific research into terminology, objects and especially concepts were central for the terminological approach which is widely reflected in the terminological literature and not least in the basic terminological standards at national and international level. Wiister (1959/60 (2001: 22) has defined the object in the following way: Alles, worauf sich so das Denken eines Menschen richtet oder richten kann, heifšt im philosophischen Sprachgebrauch “GegenstandTM Auch Sachverhalte sind Gegenstinde in diesem Sinne. ISO 1087-1:2000 reads: Object: anything perceivable or conceivable. Note: Objects may be material (e.g. an engine. a sheet of paper, a diamond). immaterial (c.g. conversion ratio, a project plan) or imagined (e.g. a unicorn). More detailed information is available in ISO 704:2000: For the purposes of this International Standard. an object is defined as anything perceived or conceived. Some objects, concrete objects such as a machine. a diamond, or a river, shall be considered material; other objects shall be considered immaterial or abstract. such as each manifestation of financial planning, gravity, flow ability, or a conversion ratio: still others shall be considered purely imagined, for example. a unicorn, a philosopher's stone or a literary character. In the course of producing a terminology, philosophical discussions on whether an object actually exists in reality are beyond the scope of this International Standard and shall be avoided. Objects are assumed to exist and attention shall be focused on how one deal with objects for the purpose of communication. A more extended view of the object is presented among others by Budin (1994: 203-208) and Picht (2003: 154-159; 2008: 91-97) where it is argued Terminologija | 2009 | 16 9 that the object should be considered a unit of knowledge. Especially in certain subject fields such as history and archaeology, objects constitute a considerable number of units of knowledge and as such they are of interest to terminology. Concerning the concept, academic discussion has been much more intensive. Three approaches can be singled out: The concept as a * unit of thought (an inappropriate translation of the German ‘Denkeinheit’, because the process of thinking is not rendered in the English translation); unit of knowledge; * unit of cognition. The following definitions of the concept as a unit of thought — among others — have been offered: Wiister (1979: 7): Thus the concept is an element in a thinking process. Der Begrift ist so ein Denkelement. ISO 1087:1990: A unit of thought constituted through abstraction on the basis of properties common to a set of objects. It has been argued that the concept as a unit in a thinking process necessarily has to be individually coloured and therefore cannot really be a universal reflection of the accepted opinion of a professional community (see Dahlberg 1985 and Picht 2004). The following definition of the concept as a unit of thinking is offered: A concept is constituted by the individual ideas and knowledge of the thinker; the constituting chunks of knowledge and ideas have not necessarily been submitted to intersubjective proof and may be erroneous; its life cycle depends on the cognitive changes taking place in the mind of the thinker. The concept as a unit of knowledge has been introduced by Dahlberg (1985: 140). She claims: 10 Heribert Picht | The seven pillars of terminology The concept is a unit of knowledge which comprises in a linguistic form the provable, necessary predications about a given object. Begriff ist eine Wissenseinheit, die {iberprifbaren, notwendigen Aussagen tiber einen ausgewihlten Gegenstand in einer sprachlichen Form zusammenfasst. The latest version of ISO 1087-1:2000 reads: Concept: unit of knowledge created by a unique combination of characteristics. According to our view, this ISO-definition is rather knowledge-sparse and covers only a part of the information pertinent to the concept to be defined. Therefore, we offer the following definition: A concept is constituted by all characteristics (chunks of knowledge) inter-subjectively recognised and agreed upon by a professional community at a certain point in time; it has a life cycle determined by cognition dynamics. In addition to the above definitions the concept can be viewed as a unit of cognition. While the concept as a unit of knowledge is more or less stable during its life cycle and the unit of thinking varies according to the thinker and his knowledge at a given point in time, the concept as a unit of cognition is relevant at the moment of conceptual changes as a result of the development of our knowledge. Therefore we propose the following definition: Concept as a unit of cognition: unit of knowledge, the life cycle of which has finished and therefore will be subject to the modifications of a certain number of characteristics in accordance with cognition dynamics; the result will be a new and independent unit of knowledge. It is evident that only the concept as a unit of knowledge can be the object of storage in a terminological data bank. 3. WAYS OF REPRESENTING OBJECTS AND CONCEPTS Apart from material objects which can represent themselves by their material appearance, all other types of objects and all concepts need a sign as communicative means of communication. The ISO standard 10871:2000 defines ‘designation’ as follows: Terminologija | 2009 | 16 11 Representation of a concept by a sign which denotes it. Note: In terminology work three types of designations are distinguished: symbols, appellations (names) and terms. This definition is not wrong, but too restrictive and contains in addition a contradiction. Firstly, not only concepts are represented by a sign. Secondly, the list of designations in the note is by no means complete and in addition, contains ‘appellations (names) which normally denote objects. Representational forms for objects and concepts are shown in Figure 2. Fig. 2 Semiotic representation Verbal representation Non-verbal representation a > 7 “> Object Concept Object Concept name term graphical rep. graphical rep. description symbol - photo oi different kind formula - portrait symbol paraphrase - drawing formula terminological symbol notation phrase notation detinition explanation In addition, non-verbal representations include signs perceived by sound, smell and taste, e.g. a warning signal when closing the doors of a train, a substance added to gas in order to make it perceivable and methylated spirits, respectively. For further details see Laurén, Myking, Picht (2008: 1091). It is obvious that the term by far is the most frequent verbal concept representation. However, there are cases, e.g. in architecture, anatomy and several technical disciplines, where a drawing is the predominant way of 12 Heribert Picht | The seven pillars of terminology representation. A drawing may even be compulsory, for instance when applying for a building permit. Definitions and explanations are indispensible when the content (the intension) of a concept has to be communicated, clarified or even fixed, e.g. in a standard or strictly controlled language as for instance the communication in air traffic. Descriptions should be used only for objects. Since persons and events are objects, too, it seems odd to define a person such as Einstein or an event such as the sinking of the Titanic. They can be described and these descriptions will very often contain indications of time and space, which are absent from a definition. Equally important are terminological phrases (de ‘Fachwendung’), e.g. ‘to draw a bill’. These constructions are concept representations, too, because the concept may be represented in this way in one language and by a normal term in another; in addition, it can be defined. It is characteristic that the verb cannot be replaced without changing the concept denoted. In addition. when translating these phrases, it cannot be done word-by-word, e.g. English: 'to die intestate’ — German: ‘ohne Hinterlassung eines Testaments sterben’. These constructions may be characterised as terms sui generis and treated as such in a term bank. Symbols and formulae can appear in verbal and non-verbal representations depending on whether they are used in an oral or written text, e.g. the sign “%" has to be pronounced in a speech or interpretation and a formula such as NaCl can have both representations in an oral text. Notations can be used for both objects, e.g. in the catalogue of a museum, and for concepts in a classification, e.g. the UDC. 4. SYSTEMATISATION AND KNOWLEDGE ORDERING The first two pillars provided cognitive and communicational material at concept and object level. It may be compared with atomised knowledge without manifest relations between the entities. In order to reach a higher level of conceptually coherent knowledge, a systematisation or ordering is paramount. Very early in the historical development of terminology as a field of knowledge, the necessity of ordering concepts was recognised. Schlomann had already elaborated systematically ordered dictionaries in technical subject fields at the beginning of the last century. Wiister, in several works, Terminologija | 2009 | 16 13 established a coherent theoretical framework for conceptual ordering. Concept systematisation is today an indispensable part of terminological science and terminology work. The basis of any conceptual ordering is the relations which may exist between concepts. Relations may be logical or ontological. The first is based on the similarity of concepts; all subordinate concepts of a superordinate concept contain/inherit the entire intension of the superordinate concept: the specification is added by at least one more characteristic. The subdivision at a certain level is determined by the chosen criteria of subdivision. A system of concepts established on the basis of logical relations only is usually ‘closed-ended’, meaning that a subdivision ends when no more subordinate concepts are known at a certain point in time. Ontological relations are of a very different nature. They reflect — in contrast to the logical relations which are based on abstraction — relations perceived in the surrounding, the thought or imagined world. The most frequent relations are: partitive relation (with a strong local bias), sequential relation (with strong time elements), causal relation, transmission relation, genetic relation, interdependence relation and others. Some types of relations are dominant in some subject fields and rarely found in others. The nature of the ontological relations becomes obvious when comparing different ontological relations, e.g. in a transmission relation. elements of sequential relation can be found (the legal steps of the purchase of an estate); the genetic relation often contains causal elements (consider the sequence ‘egg — chicken — hen’), etc. It is characteristic of ontological relations that they do not follow the criteria of subdivisions in the logical sense. They have to be established pragmatically in accordance with the aim of structuring, e.g. a concept system ordered according to the partitive relation is theoretically open-ended, because (theoretically) a subdivision of material objects only stops with the parts of an atom. In order to make a structure more flexible, i.e. combine various relevant aspects in one conceptual system, the system may contain a combination of relations, a so-called mixed system. In this case, the change from one relation to another has to be marked, e.g. by the notation. (Example: 1.2-3 — 2 refers to a subordinate concept of 1 and 3 is a part of 2). ISO 1087-1:2000 defines concept system: Set of concepts structured according to the relations among them. 14 Heribert Picht | The seven pillars of terminology ISO 704:2000 Terminology work - Principles and methods as well as Arntz/ Picht/Mayer (2009) provide more and more detailed information about concept systems. A less well-defined way of ordering is by ontology. Various definitions have previously been offered. Some authors consider ontology equal to a concept system, while others include many other aspects of knowledge ordering. Since this field still needs more research and clarification for terminological application, we shall only offer two definitions presented at the Workshop on Terminology, Concept Modelling and Ontology in Vaasa, 2006 (EAFT-NordTerm): Ontology: the philosophical discipline » Study of what there (possibly) is * Study of the nature and structure of reality + Domain of entities + (Categories and relations + Characterizing properties Ontology: a theoretical or computational artefact * “an explicit and formal specification of a conceptualization” (Gruber) * A specific artefact expressing the intended meaning of a vocabulary in terms of the nature and structure of the entities it refers to. 5. TERMINOLOGICAL WORK ISO 1087-1:2000 defines terminological work as follows: Work concerned with the systematic collection, description, processing and presentation of concepts and their designations. This definition gives a first idea of the different tasks; however, it cannot serve as a guideline for the working process proper. Before giving an outline of the general phases of the working process, we have to clarify the concepts semasiological and onomasiological approach. In the first case the term is the centre of consideration, whereas the onomasiological approach focuses on the concept. It has been said that terminology uses an onomasiological working method. That is not quite in accordance with reality, since both methods are employed, depending on the working phase. Terminologija | 2009 | 1¢ 15 A rough sketch of the different phases could be: Election of the subject field or part of it Collection and evaluation of the documentation material Extraction of term candidates from texts and other pertinent information (semasiological step, because the representational form of a concept is the only indication of the existence of a concept in a context) Preliminary systematisation as a hypothetical system of concepts Terminological analysis of the concepts, including the verification of the preliminary system of concepts, its completeness and the correct place of the concept within the system (onomasiological step) Analysis and elaboration of the representational forms (semasiological step): claritication of synonymy grammatical information for each term register of the term regional use of the term other pertinent information, e.g. selection of illustration Formulation of definitions in conformity with the concept system. The system of definitions has to reflect the concept system (onomasiological step) Recording of the terminological data. This step forms the point of intersection with terminography. The above working process reflects descriptive terminology work. Any prescriptive intervention, e.g. standardisation of a terminology, must be based on descriptive terminology work, where the conceptual and representational reality is stated. The data obtained constitute the point of departure for any harmonising or standardising activity. The range and degree of intervention (here only shown as an example of graduation) can be illustrated by the model in Figure 3. In addition, some sociolinguistic factors are indicated in the centre of the model. 16 Heribert Picht | The seven pillars of terminology