Terminology and Language Planning: An Alternative Framework of Practice and Discourse (Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice)

290 Pages·2000·2.86 MB·English

by  Bassey Edem Antia

TERMINOLOGY AND LANGUAGE PLANNING
TERMINOLOGY AND LEXICOGRAPHY
RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice aims to provide
in-depth studies and background information pertaining to Lexicography and
Terminology. General works will include philosophical, historical, theoretical,
computational and cognitive approaches. Other works will focus on structures for
purpose- and domain-specific compilation (LSP), dictionary design, and training.
The series will include monographs, state-of-the-art volumes and course books in
the English language.
Series Editors
Helmi Sonneveld
Sue Ellen Wright
Consulting Editor
Juan C. Sager
Volume 2
Bassey Edem Antia
Terminology and Language Planning
An alternative framework of practice and discourse
TERMINOLOGY AND
LANGUAGE PLANNING
AN ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORK
OF PRACTICE AND DISCOURSE
BASSEY EDEM ANTIA
University of Maiduguri
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri-
8 can National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Antia, Bassey Edem
Terminology and language planning : an alternative framework of practice and discourse /
Bassey Edem Antia.
p. cm. -- (Terminology and lexicography research and practice, ISSN 1388-8455 ; v. 2)
A slight revision of v. 1 of the author’s thesis (doctoral)--University of Bielefeld, Germany.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Terms and phrases. 2. Language planning. 3. Knowledge representation (Information
theory) I. Title. II. Series.
P305 .A58 2000
306.44'9--dc21 99-086614
ISBN 90 272 2325 4 (Eur.) / 1 55619 771 3 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© 2000 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia, PA 19118 • USA
ToEdemHoganAntia

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Globalisation, Language Planning and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
About this book: Specific motivations and contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
C 1
TerminologyinLanguagePlanningTheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Models of Language Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Terminology in Language Planning Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.1 Whoplansterminology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.2 Modellingrationalesforsuccessinterminology . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.3 Whereiswhatdoneonterminology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
C 2
TerminologyDiscourseandPracticeinAfrica
Issues,PlayersandArenas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Motivation, Players and Arenas: Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.1 Somalia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.2 Tanzania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.3 Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.4 Ethiopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1.5 FrancophoneAfrica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2 Combating cynicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3 Terminology Planning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.1 Focusoftheplanningeffort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.2 Integrationoftheterminologyplanningeffortwithinother
processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
viii TABLEOFCONTENTS
2.3.3 Theplenaryandcommitteesessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.3.4 Collaborators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.4 Critical Metadiscourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.4.1 Linguisticstrategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.4.2 Terminologicalsystemapproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.4.3 Sociologicalapproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.4.4 Communicationapproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4.5 Knowledgeapproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.5 Sociological validations of terminology resources: A critique . . . . . . 46
C 3
EvaluationofaTerminologyResource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1 Translation experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.1.1 Experimentaltext,Pre-analysis&Researchquestions . . . . . . . 51
3.1.2 Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.1.3 Conclusiontotranslationexperiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.2 Knowledge experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.2.1 Theoreticalframework:Text,mediationandknowledge . . . . . . 65
3.2.2 Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.2.3 Conclusiontoknowledgeexperiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.3 Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.3.1 Adequacyoftermmotivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.3.2 Inter(target)languagevariation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.3.3 Selectionpolicyandcoverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.4 Consolidated summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
C 4
ConceptTheoryinTerminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.1 Parameters for a concept theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.2 Relationship of the concept to its symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3 Relationship of concept to object (an object theory in terminology) . . . . 86
4.3.1 Epistemologicalpositionsforanobjecttheoryinterminology . . 89
4.3.2 Typesofobjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.4 Creation of specialised concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.5 Typology of concept characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.6 Knowledge and terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.6.1 Conceptrelations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.6.2 Conceptsystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
TABLEOFCONTENTS ix
4.7 Concept system and semantic field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.8 Critical perspectives on concept theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.8.1 Ahumanisticcritique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.8.2 Aprototypicalistcritique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.9 Implications of concept theory in terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.9.1 Designation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.9.2 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.9.3 Conceptionofdomain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.9.4 Knowledgetransfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
C 5
CollocationsandCommunication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.1 LGP views on word combinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.1.1 Communicationperspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.1.2 Knowledgeperspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.2 LSP views on collocations and other word combinations . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.2.1 Communicationperspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.2.2 Knowledgeperspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.3 Theoretical accounts in perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.3.1 LGPtheoriesofwordcombinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.3.2 AnLSPtheoryofwordcombinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.4 Appraisal, and an eclectic framework for LSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.4.1 Variouslyconditionedtermenvironments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.4.2 Problemsoftermdelimitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.4.3 Rethinkingthetrivialisationofgrammaticalcollocations . . . . . 134
5.5 Sources of collocates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.5.1 Introspectionandreference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.5.2 Conceptmodellingandsystematicelicitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
C 6
TerminographyandKnowledgeRepresentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.1 Notional representation in lexicography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.1.1 Motivationsandtheoreticalpremisesofnon-alphabetical
representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.1.2 Aplanofclassification:Roget’sThesaurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.2 Non-alphabetical representation in document classification . . . . . . . . . . . 144
6.2.1 Motivationforinformationretrievalthesauri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6.2.2 Structureofinformationretrievalthesauri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6.3 A (systematic) thesaurus model for terminography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150