Lexicography and Terminology Studies

СЕРГЕЙ ГРИНЕВ-ГРИНЕВИЧ

Moscow Humanitarian Pedagogical Institute

University of Białystok

The considerable increase in linguists’ interest in lexicography and terminology studies in recent years makes it possible to examine current trends in their development and interaction. This interaction has become so extensive that, in the mid-1980s, the area of overlap between lexicography and terminology studies took shape as an independent discipline—terminological lexicography, scientific and technical lexicography, or terminography. The subject matter of terminography is the development of a methodology and specific techniques for compiling dictionaries of specialized vocabulary. Its most important tasks are to develop principles for classifying terminological dictionaries, determine scientifically grounded principles for selecting specialized vocabulary for particular types of terminological dictionaries, and establish uniform principles for the most effective description (definition, translation, attribution, etc.) and presentation of terminological vocabulary in specialized dictionaries (Grinev 1995).

It is well known that lexicography is closely connected with lexicology: it draws extensively on the results of lexicological research and, in turn, provides material for formulating and solving lexicological problems. An equally close relationship exists between terminography and terminology studies—the study of specialized lexical units of language. Many problems investigated by terminology scholars arose in the practice of compiling terminological dictionaries, and their solutions affect dictionary-compilation methods. At the same time, the study of any area of specialized vocabulary is invariably connected with terminography. Some of the problems—selection, differentiation

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of particular types, and determination of the meanings of specialized lexical units—are studied in both terminography and terminology studies.

There are three approaches to defining the place of terminography in the system of modern sciences: as a branch of lexicography (Gerd 1986, Grinev 1986), as a branch of terminology studies (Gaida 1990, Grinev 1993, Leichik 2006), and as an independent science (Grinev 1995); however, these approaches do not affect its content.

Having emerged as a branch of lexicography, terminography has always gravitated toward terminology studies, since such problems as establishing synonymy, homonymy, and polysemy among terms, defining term meanings, and finding foreign-language equivalents for them have traditionally been addressed within terminology studies. Therefore, many terminology scholars consider terminology studies to be the theoretical foundation of terminography or even regard terminography as a branch of terminology studies. In recent years, however, a set of problems specific to terminography has taken shape, making it possible to view it as an independent field of knowledge at the intersection of lexicography and terminology studies.

The prerequisites for the formation of terminography theory were:

– the emergence of the concept of a lexicographic parameter in the course of research related to the development of dictionary typology;

– the need to synthesize the experience gained from work on compiling different types of terminological dictionaries (monolingual explanatory, bilingual translation, information, etc.);

– the treatment of the terminological dictionary as a distinctive genre of scientific prose and, finally,

– the automation of terminographic work and problems related to the creation of automated dictionaries and terminological databases.

Accordingly, the main directions in the development of contemporary terminography theory are:

– the creation of a reliable classification and typology of specialized dictionaries,

– inventorying terminographic parameters,

– analyzing the influence of a dictionary’s methodological orientation and its individual parameters on the quality and specific features of its implementation,

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– studying the compositional features of a dictionary of specialized vocabulary,

– studying methods for selecting and organizing terminological information within a dictionary, as well as methods for the machine representation of lexicographic and terminological data.

An overview of the fields of terminological activity shows that a dictionary is one of the principal means by which specialized vocabulary is represented and exists.

One of the principal areas of terminological work is the inventorying of terminology, that is, the collection and description of all the terms in a particular field of knowledge or one of its subfields. This may be an independent undertaking, the result of which is a descriptive terminological dictionary—an etymological, historical, dialectal, or frequency terminological dictionary, a dictionary of neologistic terms, and so on. However, inventorying is often a preliminary condition and stage in the work of systematizing terminology, in which case its result is a word list—a collection of terms organized according to a particular criterion, for example, alphabetically or thematically. Where deviations from an unambiguous understanding of a term are inadmissible (in manufacturing, trade, etc.), systematization results in a terminological standard, which is mandatory for specialists. If excessively rigid norms could impede the development of scientific thought, systematization results in a collection of recommended terms. Terminological standards and collections of recommended terms are types of explanatory terminological dictionaries. Bilingual terminological dictionaries are compiled for cross-linguistic comparison and systematization of terminologies. Dictionaries of term elements are compiled to improve terminologies and create new terms.

Terminological dictionaries are also used in such terminological activities as terminological editing (assessing whether terms are used correctly and replacing unsuitable terms with recommended and standardized forms), information and terminological services, and terminological training

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(preparing specialists and teaching them foreign specialized vocabulary), for which terminological teaching dictionaries are used. Information terminological dictionaries (thesauri, classification systems, etc.) play a central role in the linguistic support of computerized information, management, and design systems, as well as intelligent systems.

Thus, dictionaries of specialized vocabulary are either the outcome or the instrument of virtually all the principal types of terminological activity. Consequently, the role of specialized dictionaries is continually growing, their areas of application are expanding, and their number is increasing. In the 1980s, more than two thousand terminological standards were created in the USSR, and more than 25 thousand regulatory documents containing over 200 thousand terms were in use (Volkova, Safonkina 1988); over 400 information descriptor dictionaries, several hundred rubrics and classification systems, and a large number of terminological teaching dictionaries were developed (Grinev 1988). At present, 792 terminological standards are used in Russia, along with 22,368 standards for products, technological processes, and services that contain a “Terms and Definitions” section, and 1,122 standards for products that include terminological appendices.

When considering current issues in the creation and use of various types of dictionaries of specialized vocabulary, it is necessary first of all to note the emergence, alongside traditional areas, of a number of new fields of work.

Issues of quality in dictionaries and methods for assessing and improving quality are primarily associated with applying a systems approach wherever possible. In compiling a dictionary, most of the work is carried out at the semantic level: in explanatory dictionaries, this means defining terms; in bilingual dictionaries, selecting foreign-language equivalents; in teaching dictionaries, both; and in information dictionaries, establishing the semantic environment of a term. In all these cases, the systemic nature of specialized vocabulary must be taken into account. The problem of how systemicity manifests itself in specialized vocabulary, particularly terminological lexis, is one of the most complex problems in terminology studies and terminography. This is primarily due to the multifaceted and complex nature of systemicity in this area of vocabulary.

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It becomes necessary to speak of three levels of systemness observed in the field of specialized vocabulary:

– loose lexical systemness, which terms possess as lexical units of a language;

– loose specialized systemness, which terms possess as units of a language’s specialized vocabulary that reflect systemic relations among concepts in a specialized field of knowledge; and, finally,

– strict systematization proper, which is characteristic of certain terminologies that have undergone systematization and ordering.

Under these conditions, the systems approach assumes particular importance in terminography. At present, preliminary systematization of terms is mandatory when compiling both informative and normative explanatory dictionaries. At the same time, omitting it when preparing such dictionaries as translation, learner’s, and non-normative explanatory dictionaries leads to a substantial decline in their quality (inaccurate definitions, errors in selecting foreign-language equivalents, incomplete coverage of vocabulary, an orientation toward mechanical memorization, which reduces the effectiveness of foreign-language vocabulary acquisition, etc.). It should also be noted that systematizing terms does not increase but rather reduces the labor involved in preparing a dictionary.

At the stage of vocabulary selection and preparation of the word list, systematization makes it possible to determine the extent to which individual thematic strata of specialized vocabulary are covered and represented, to establish clear boundaries for the dictionary by excluding incidental terms that do not belong to its subject area, and to identify possible synonyms and lexical gaps—that is, to ensure the dictionary’s completeness.

For example, when the second edition of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Medical Terms was compiled (the first edition appeared in 1982–84), the word list, organized into 60 thematic areas, was systematized. This revealed a large number of omitted terms (up to 10,000) and the incorrect thematic classification of many terms (in some areas, terms belonging to other subject areas accounted for as much as 15–20% of the vocabulary). In some cases, doublets were found that had been presented in the first edition as separate entries with virtually identical definitions (for example, gas traps and gas-cleaning plants, biocontrol and biological control

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biological, epithelioma and epithelial tumor). These shortcomings arose despite a decade of work by a large team preparing the dictionary, as a result of the adopted alphabetical principle for compiling thematic word lists; systematization made it possible to uncover them without great effort. Thus, systematization substantially facilitates the selection of specialized vocabulary, reduces the influence of subjective factors in making choices, and enables self-monitoring in the work.

At the stage of compiling the dictionary’s main index, systematizing terms and the concepts they represent greatly facilitates the formulation and refinement of definitions—that is, scientific definitions of terms—because it clearly presents both the nearest broader terms and the subordinate terms. Comparison with the latter makes it possible to identify the necessary distinguishing features that should be included in a definition. This principle is also useful in general lexicography: “In order to avoid inconsistency in a dictionary, the lexicographer should work not with an alphabetical list of words but with particular lexical groupings of words within individual parts of speech. Only in this way can unity in distinguishing meanings, uniformity of definitions, consistent methods of presenting phraseological units and examples, and consistency and uniformity of stylistic characterizations be achieved... In the process of editing dictionary entries, the systematic organization of the material itself, the very selection and juxtaposition of words, will serve as a guarantee of uniform and consistent decisions and of the elimination of errors, omissions, and inconsistencies” (Shvedova 1981).

Systematizing terms also makes it possible to select, from among synonyms, the term with the most successful form as the main term, or at least to make this choice fully consciously; without such systematization, explanatory dictionaries often contain synonymous terms presented in separate entries with no connection between them.

In translation dictionaries, presenting the compared terminologies in different languages in a systematized form makes it possible to select more suitable, less occasional equivalents, narrow the range of translation equivalents, and make them more reliable. When translating foreign-language explanatory dictionaries, as is often practiced in the preparation-

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…from translated dictionaries, all the errors and subjective notions of the authors of foreign-language dictionaries are also borrowed, which reduces the reliability of a translation dictionary.

Systematicity in a translation dictionary should be achieved already at the stage of compiling the word list, in order to cover all the necessary terms of the source field and avoid the influence of the terminology system of the target language. Naturally, the system of terms is established most reliably when the definitions of terms are also compared; it would therefore be extremely useful to compile two kinds of dictionaries on the same subject at once—a translation dictionary and an explanatory dictionary—which would make it possible to improve their quality (in particular, systematicity and the differentiation of meanings of terms in the translation dictionary) and make them compatible and consistent.

It should be added that systematizing the terms that make up a dictionary’s corpus greatly facilitates the establishment of cross-references. In addition, systematization makes it possible to create large-volume dictionaries by assigning individual thematic sections to several authors according to their specialization and qualifications, which also facilitates dictionary preparation and helps improve its quality.

Systematization is especially important when defining and interpreting the meanings of terms in specialized dictionaries, where it helps not only to avoid the most common errors (found on practically every page of modern dictionaries), but also to save effort by simplifying the selection of the defining features of each term, as well as the choice of foreign-language equivalents for terms.

Recently, the range of applications of dictionaries has expanded. Alongside the growing interest in contemporary linguistics, since the 1990s, in questions of human culture and the development of cognition, new possibilities for using historical dictionaries have emerged. The development of historical terminology studies as an independent scientific discipline has made it possible to use them as a basis for studying the emergence and development of terminologies and, thereby, the emergence and development of specialized knowledge. It has become possible to use dictionaries of synonyms to collect lexical material and determine

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the boundaries of semantic fields. A special methodology was developed and tested, making it possible to identify the most typical strengths and weaknesses of modern dictionaries of synonyms. Analysis of the processes by which semantic fields take shape and develop, from general vocabulary through prototerminologies to modern terminologies, makes it possible to reconstruct the formation of human concepts, knowledge, and contemporary mentality.

A comparison of contemporary synonym dictionaries in different languages revealed significant differences in their preparation. While most English dictionaries, despite all their shortcomings, provide relatively comprehensive information about the lexical resources of the English language, even the best Polish dictionaries suffer from incompleteness and inconsistency in the presentation of information.¹ The lowest quality can be observed in Russian dictionaries; for example, the entry monarch in the Dictionary of Synonyms of the Russian Language by Z. E. Aleksandrova (Moscow, Russkii yazyk, 2003) contains, in addition to the synonym sovereign, descriptive phrases the highest person, a crowned person, His Majesty, and obsolete, no longer used words crown-bearer, purple-robed ruler, and God’s anointed, but it does not include the words king, tsar, emperor, which should be included here; in fact, they are absent from the dictionary altogether. Many familiar words are missing, while numerous slang and obsolete words are included, creating a distorted impression of Russian as a language poor in comparison with English.

As terminology studies develop, views change regarding the relationship between general and specialized vocabulary. It is seen merely as a functional approach, in keeping with G. O. Vinokur’s well-known formula: “Terms are not special words, but words serving a special function.” Numerous studies of the features of terminology formation have made it possible to identify an initial period in which terminologies separate from general vocabulary in the form of prototerminologies. Accordingly, ordinary historical dictionaries can be used to investigate and reconstruct the development not only of terminologies, but also of human conceptions at the national and general levels.

The meanings of many Old English words are also extremely broad: the word wit meant understanding; meaning; consciousness; wit; reason; the word tūn had the meanings enclosed place; estate; village;

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town (cf. Russian garden and town); the word wiht – creation; creature; person; thing; piece. Originally, the word apple (apple) also meant any fruit, a fact reflected in the vocabulary of several languages: German Apfelsine (orange—literally, Chinese apple), Italian pomo d'oro (tomato—literally, golden apple), French pommes de terre (potato—literally, earth apples). This is explained by the fact that the apple was the first fruit discovered by humans, and subsequently every fruit or vegetable was perceived as an apple, with distinctions between them and the search for new names coming later. Such facts can be used to determine the sequence in which humans discovered and adopted different objects and activities when no other evidence is available.

All researchers have noted the excessive breadth of meaning of many words in ancient languages. In anthropolinguistics, this phenomenon is called semantic syncretism.

For a preliminary study of this phenomenon in Old English, we used the dictionary included in the appendix to A Reader in the History of the English Language (Ivanova 1973).

One notable feature of Old English words proved to be the diversity of meanings comprising their semantic structure, for example:

ambyr – coming from; same or equal; beautiful, favorable;

beodan – to ask, invite, command, announce, offer, give;

bliþ – joyful, cheerful, gentle, kind, pleasant, calm;

brucan – to use, enjoy, eat, hire;

ceap – livestock; sale, transaction, business, market;

spēd – speed, success, good fortune, means, property.

In many cases, the meaning of an Anglo-Saxon word encompasses many modern concepts, for example:

ārædan – to consult, care for, determine, interpret, guess;

cynn – kind, type, race, family, nation;

cræft – power, strength, art, skill, profession, knowledge, cunning, vessel;

ellen – strength, energy, courage;

feoh – livestock, money, value, fee, reward, property;

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lār – teaching, instruction, doctrine, science, principle;

rūn – whisper, mystery, secret, letter.

Another interesting feature of the meanings of ancient words is the combination of components that are poorly compatible from a modern perspective. For example, the word

feolah has the following meanings – to split, thrust in, stick, reach, come, pass through;

dreorig – bloody, distressed, sorrowful, cruel, wounded;

pēd – success, good fortune, wealth, power, speed;

cofa – cave, chamber, storehouse;

duguð – maturity, multitude, glory, power, advantage, prosperity.

It is often impossible to differentiate these meanings even in context, and it is possible that what is meant here is a broad meaning that unites concepts which are distinct to the modern reader into an indivisible whole.

Sometimes the meaning of an ancient word includes directly opposite components. For example, the word dreogan meant “to work, do, suffer, rejoice”; dwellan – “to lead away” and “to remain”; gretan – “to meet” and “to see off”.

Today, in view of linguistics’ interest in the linguistic aspects of human psychology and culture, a dictionary can be regarded as a means of lexical expression of a linguistic worldview. This feature of dictionaries is readily apparent in the most ancient dictionaries, when writing was not phonetic and dictionaries were organized thematically (examples include Sumer, Egypt, and China).

In the study of normative dictionaries, attention should be paid to the problem of defining the range of tolerance (establishing permissible limits) for formal variations, and to the problem of reliable solutions that do not allow paronymy. The use of professional, regional dialect and metadialect dictionaries to distinguish divergent concepts remains poorly studied.

In the field of explanatory terminological dictionaries, the need has arisen to develop a methodology for their evaluation and quality assessment.

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As regards educational dictionaries and the problems involved in creating them, the systematic principle of arranging material in them is extremely useful, although it is still applied here insufficiently consistently. Classifying words into thematic groups not only facilitates the rational grouping of words similar in meaning, but also reveals internal links between the structure of the model to which a given word belongs and its lexical content. The thematic arrangement of vocabulary enables learners to study specific sections of the dictionary as they progress through the material, and gives them the opportunity to select the lexical means needed to formulate an utterance on a particular topic. There is evidence that in the last century thematic dictionaries were also used as textbooks for the corresponding specialty (Opitz 1983).

This method of organizing vocabulary corresponds to the age-related characteristics of learners (logically motivated memorization), makes it possible to divide vocabulary into topics that can be linked to the topics of relevant specialized courses and, finally, makes it possible to demonstrate clearly the semantic and word-formation links between terms. To facilitate the search for terms not only by content but also by formal features, an alphabetical index can be provided as a supplementary tool.

The problem of improving the quality of translation dictionaries and their use in comparative studies of languages may be addressed through the application of the reverse method. The accuracy of translating foreign-language terms largely determines translation quality, and thus much depends on the quality of translation dictionaries. If a translation dictionary provided only one equivalent for each foreign-language term, the translator’s task would be considerably simplified, and at the same time a major step would have been taken in the development of industrial machine-translation systems. However, a study of modern translation dictionaries shows that the problem of establishing strict correspondences between terms in different languages is still far from being solved. The equivalence of term translations in dictionaries can be determined using the reverse method we have developed.

Data from sufficiently comprehensive translation dictionaries make it possible to identify the distinctive features of national terminologies, although apparently not

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to their full extent. It may be assumed that a series of successive back-translations makes it possible to form an understanding of the semantics of even an unfamiliar language from the composition and direction of translation correspondences, although this assumption requires experimental verification. Further study of the distinctive features in the development of the semantics of translation correspondences in successive back-translations of terms will help establish formal criteria for semantic deviations in the translation of terms, as well as refine the boundaries between polysemy and homonymy and distinguish full synonyms from partial ones, and synonymy from hyponymy. According to our preliminary data, two complete cycles are sufficient to identify non-equivalent variants of term translation. Identifying and eliminating inaccurate and redundant translation variants will undoubtedly help improve the quality of terminological translation dictionaries and create more favorable conditions for implementing high-quality machine-translation systems.

Data on the distinctive features of national lexical systems will make it possible to begin investigating the paths and causes of divergence between national systems of conceptualization (compare the words позор, урод, черствый in Slavic languages); they may also make it possible to identify certain tendencies manifested in the divergent development of national systems of thought and extrapolate them into the future, as well as to determine what is common and what is specific in the development of human knowledge-representation systems—something important for the study of scientific cognition and the development of artificial-intelligence systems.

ЛИТЕРАТУРА

Волкова И. Н., Сафонкина С. А. 1988: Автоматизированные методы подготовки словарей и указателей стандартизованных терминов. – Научно-техническая терминология. Вып. 8, 1–9.

Герд А. С. 1986: Основы научно-технической лексикографии, Ленинград.

Гринев С. В. 1986: Введение в терминологическую лексикографию (учебное пособие), МГУ, Москва.

Гринев С. В. 1988: Основные направления развития терминологического обучения в СССР. – Научно-техническая терминология. Вып. 7, 4–8.

Гринев С. В. 1993: Введение в терминоведение, МГУ, Москва.

Гринев С. В. 1995: Введение в терминографию, Москва.

Лейчик В. М. 2006: Терминоведение: предмет, методы, структура. Изд. 2-е, испр. и доп., Москва.

Шведова Н. Ю. 1981: Однотомный толковый словарь (специфика жанра и некоторые перспективы дальнейшей работы). – Русский язык. Проблемы художественной речи. Лексикология и лексикография, Москва, 166–179.

Gaida S. 1990: Wprowadzenie do teorii terminu, Opole.

Opitz K. 1983: Special Purpose Lexicography: Dictionaries for Technical Use. – Lexicography: Principles and Practice, – London, 163–180.

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LEKSIKOGRAFIJA IR TERMINOLOGIJOS MOKSLAS

Straipsnyje aptariamos naujos neseniai leksikografijos ir terminologijos sandūroje susiformavusios mokslinės disciplinos – terminografijos – tyrinėjimo kryptys. Žodynas yra pagrindinė specialiosios leksikos pateikimo ir gyvavimo priemonė, terminų žodynų kūrimas ir tobulinimas – tai įvairios terminologinės veiklos rezultatas. Pabrėžiama sisteminio požiūrio nauda sudarant įvairių tipų žodynus. Supažindinama su istorinių ir sinonimų žodynų naudojimu atliekant terminologinius ir žmonių mąstysenos evoliucijos tyrimus. Siūlomas reversinis verčiamųjų žodynų kokybės įvertinimo metodas.

LEXICOGRAPHY AND TERMINOLOGY SCIENCE

New trends in investigating common ground of lexicography and terminology science where a new scientific discipline – terminography was formed lately are discussed. Dictionary serves as the main means of presentation and existence of special vocabulary, various types of terminological work resulting in elaborating terminological dictionaries. Benefits of systemic approach to compiling various types of dictionaries are presented. New applications of historic dictionaries and dictionaries of synonyms in terminological research and investigation of evolution of human mentality are introduced. Using the reversibility method in appraising quality of translation dictionaries is suggested.

Gauta 2008-11-23

Сергей Гринев-Гриневич Университет г. Белостока Waska 4, m. 20, Bialystok, 15-481, Poland E-mail: [email protected]

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