Terminological Principles Research Articles

Picturing short-period diachronic phenomena in specialised corpora

This article presents a first description and a proposal for the classification of the evolution phenomena involved in short-term diachrony in the field of space. It is based on the principles of Textual Terminology and relies on a tool-based analysis of two diachronic corpora. The linguistic methodology is briefly described but the emphasis is on the list of evolution phenomena revealed through our analysis. These results present an original description of knowledge evolution: 17 types of evolution are listed, revealing the heterogeneity and richness of terminology dynamics and offering a descriptive basis to start new subsequent research that would complete this typology

Standards-Based Content Resources: A Prerequisite for Content Inte-gration and Content Interoperability

The purpose of this article is to show how standards-based approaches for content standardization, content management, content related services and tools as well as the respective certification systems not only guarantee relia­ble content integration and content interoperability, but also are of particular benefit to people with special needs in eAccessibility/eInclusion. The method was to document MoU/MG/05 N0221 "Semantic Interoperability and the need for a coherent policy for a framework of distributed, possibly federated repositories for all kinds of content items on a world-wide scale", which was adopted in 2005, was a first step towards the formulation of global interope­rability requirements for structured content. These requirements -based on advanced terminological principles- were taken up in EU-projects such as IN-SAFETY (INfrastructure and SAFETY) and OASIS (Open Architecture for Accessible Services Integration and Standardization). The results found were: Content integration and content interoperability are key concepts in connection with the emergence of state-of-the-art distributed and federated databases/repositories of structured content. Given the fact that linguistic content items are increasingly combined with or embedded in non-linguistic content items (and vice versa), a systemic and generic approach to data mo­deling and content management has become the order of the day. Fulfilling the requirements of capability for multilinguality and multimodality, based on open standards makes software and database design fit for eAccessibili­ty/eInclusion from the outset. It also makes structured content capable for global content integration and content interoperability, because it enhances its potential for being re-used and re-purposed in totally different eApplica­tions. Such content as well as the methods, tools and services applied can be subject to new kinds of certification schemes which also should be based on standards. Taking everything into account content must be totally reliable in some applications, e.g. in eAccessibility/ eInclusion. New methods and tools for certification, verification and validation are largely facilitated by standards-based data-models and standardized content, which will have an impact on future ICT-related standards in general. While thus increasing the reliability of data, risk of all sorts and liability will be reduced.
 Received: 20-03-10 / Accepted: 20-04-10
 How to reference this article:
 Galinski, C. (2010). Standards-based Content Resources: A Prerequisite for Content Integration and Content Interoperability. Íkala, 15(2), pp.143-157.

Primary adrenocortical sarcomatoid carcinoma: case report and review of literature

Adrenocortical carcinoma (AC) mixed with a sarcoma or sarcoma-like component is exceptional, and only six cases have been detailed in the literature, three including osteo-, chondro-, or rhabdomyosarcoma components, and three others only showing a malignant spindle cell component. These histological subtypes, respectively called adrenal carcinosarcomas and sarcomatoid AC, represent poorly differentiated and extremely aggressive forms of carcinoma, with locoregional recurrence and metastases rapidly arising from the sarcomatous or sarcomatoid component, and death occurring in a few months. We report a case of AC in a 31-year-old man presenting as a nonfunctional tumor, with a histological biphasic pattern combining few areas of differentiated AC and extensive areas of sarcomatoid spindle cell proliferation. The patient died 3 months of locoregional and distant recurrences after surgery despite apparently total tumor resection and VP16-cisplatinum chemotherapy. This case underlines the necessity to identify and isolate these carcinoma's subtypes with worse prognosis and the difficulties to distinguish them from metastatic carcinomas and retroperitoneal sarcomas, in relation to the particular adrenal cortex immunoprofile. According to the World Health Organization principles of terminology, we suggest these tumors be collectively classified as "adrenal sarcomatoid carcinomas," a designation that tends to unify all carcinomas with "pleomorphic, sarcomatoid, or sarcomatous elements."

Realia of modern science terminology development

Modern computer science terminology as the terminology of any science in general is influenced by both extralinguistic and linguistic factors. Due to the rapid development of science and technology, to the abundance of information and to other phenomena associated with recent information technologies and regarded as extralinguistic factors the terms become more and more international. However, linguistic factors, i.e., the possibilities of the native language, the harmony between the criteria of the standard language and principles of terminology, etc. determining the development of terminology of various branches of science, should remain the priority of term building in computer science. Being the words of the common language terms should get standardized by means of variants and synonyms.

Equivocal Economic Terms or Terminology Revisited

This paper on a category of oddly flexible terms found in social sciences such as economics that seem to call into question the fundamental principles of well-defined terminology. The first part is devoted to particularly deceptive terms either because their meaning varies over time, although they appear unchanged, or because the relation between the signifiant and the signifié is stretched beyond recognition. The second part examines various linguistic or rhetorical techniques such as neologisms, euphemisms, metaphors, oxymorons and reductions that lead to the blurring of notions and meanings. Finally, the causes that allow such loose terminology to arise are investigated. The need to record and identify the evolution of these fuzzy terms is all the more pressing as foreign students of English as well as translators have to be guided around the pitfalls and be given a chance to improve their mastery of all the aspects of a given terminology.

Equivocal Economic Terms or Terminology Revisited

Cette étude vise à mettre en évidence l'existence d'un type de terminologie floue dans des sciences non dures comme les sciences économiques. Dans un premier temps, l'accent est mis sur des termes particulièrement difficiles à cerner puisque le signifiéévolue au gré des circonstances alors que le signifiant reste inchangé ou qu'il y a inadéquation entre signifié et signifiant. Ensuite, divers procédés linguistiques tels que la néologie, l'euphémisme, la métaphore, l'oxymoron, la réduction sont identifiés comme autant d'entraves possibles à la clarté requise en terminologie. Enfin, l'analyse se concentre sur les causes permettant d'expliquer l'existence de ces termes élastiques qui doivent néanmoins être pris en compte pour aider étudiants étrangers et traducteurs à déjouer les pièges tendus et à mieux maîtriser la langue spécialisée.

Problems of Mining Terminology in India

In 1961 the Government of India appointed a Standing Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology to formulate principles for evolution of terminology and preparation of standard textbooks in Hindi and other Indian Languages. The Commission published several glossaries of Engineering terminology, but none of mining engineering. From 1943 to 1954, Professor Raghu Vira, the noted Indian linguist, also published quite a few special dictionaries, and for the first time collected and compiled some mining terms in his Comprehensive English-Hindi Dictionary (1981). Though these indicate a first positive move toward collecting, processing and disseminating specialised vocabularies, their authors' principles and methods of developing terminologies vary. For want of a standard terminology of mining in Hindi and a lack of understanding of terminological concepts and their interrelationships, no textbook of mining could be written in or translated into Indian languages. It is also realised that translation of mining literature should be done by mining engineer translators who understand the systems of concepts, systems of terms and principles of translation. For a wider dissemination of scientific knowledge and technical skills, development of terminologies in Indian languages on internationally accepted sound terminological principles is necessary, even though presently subject specialists communicate in English. With the present government formulating programmes to use on a large scale the new communication technology in our school system, teaching of terminology within the framework of ESP syllabus at undergraduate level is also suggested.

Résumé d'une lecture terminologique de Translation and Meaning

This paper addresses the analysis of texts on translation theory from a terminological point of view. It focuses on those translational items, which require a greater input of terminological theory, by examining the terminological principles applied to translation practice. This survey covers the papers delivered at the symposium Meaning and Translation, Part 2, held in Poland in 1990, the proceedings of which were published in 1992. On the basis of these texts, it is concluded that, generally speaking, specialists in translation studies do not sufficiently consider terminology as a discipline which can enrich their conceptual framework. However, a number of contributions to the symposium show that translational knowledge can benefit from the use of terminologically based perception modes.

General Purpose Semantics: Hyponymy and Generic Relationships

The paper examines the concept of semantic subordination in terminology and lexical semantics. Although the two traditions differ in their view of language, their inventories of semantic relations are very similar. It is shown that the defining characteristics of the generic relationships from the principles of terminology correspond to most of the salient features of contrast sets. It is argued that the onomasiological dictionaries constitute a valuable collection of data on the semantic relationships in the general language. Examples are given fromDansk Begrebsordbog. It is claimed that the registration of contrast sets is one step towards an operational definition of word sense.

Principles of classification and terminology in the sphere of linear and angular measurements

Principles of classification and terminology in the sphere of linear and angular measurements

Is English as a Medium of Instruction Problem for Undergraduate Medical Students?

Introduction: The students of a country like Bangladesh, where language of medical education is completely English, suffer from a lot of problems in grasping English and also Latin and Greek terms used in English.Objective: This study was aimed to estimate the extents and to identify the nature of the problems faced by the undergraduate students in different aspects of English used in Anatomy.Methods: The study was conducted on 191 third year medical students, who had just passed the Anatomy portion of their undergraduate course from two renowned government medical colleges and one private medical college of Bangladesh. A written assessment test of students' performance was designed using two sets of questions as the instrument of the test. Each student was graded, according to the percentage frequency of correct responses, as having Grade IV difficulty (up to 20%), Grade III difficulty (20.01% to 40%), Grade II difficulty (40.01% to 60%), Grade I difficulty (60.01% to 80%) and Grade 0 with 'no difficulty' (above 80.01%). Comments were also collected from the students regarding their problems with English used in Anatomy.Results: An average of only about 48.2% responses on 'English used in Anatomy' was correct, ranging from about 20 to 70%. An arbitrary grading of difficulty level showed that 75% of the students were suffering from Grade II to Grade III difficulties. Performance of the students showed that the undergraduate medical students of Bangladesh were facing varying but noticeable amounts of difficulty with most of the areas of 'English used in Anatomy'.Conclusion: Organized, regular ways of dealing with these problems should be devised taking into consideration the specific aspects showing weakness and based on principles of terminology and English rather than on individual terms or words. Key words: English used in Anatomy; difficulty; undergraduate medical student DOI: 10.3329/jafmc.v6i2.7272JAFMC Bangladesh. Vol 6, No 2 (December) 2010 pp.32-36

Stratigraphic Classification of Coals and Coal-Bearing Sediments

Coal beds are normal lithologic components of numerous Stratigraphic sequences of sedimentary rock and therefore should be amenable to the same basic principles of lithostratigraphic classification and terminology as other common sedimentary-rock types. However, because of the distinctive lithologic character of coal and its commercial value, the individual bed of coal is particularly important and serves to point up the role of bed as a formal lithostratigraphic unit. Sequences of several distinct but associated coal beds may constitute the basis for unification of strata into larger formally named coal-bearing lithostratigraphic units of the rank of member, formation, or group. The general principles of lithostratigraphic classification and terminology are reviewed with particular reference to coals and coal-bearing strata, and hypothetical situations are diagrammatically illustrated to show the application of these principles.

The Liver in Relation to Normal and Malignant Growth: A Review

In his presidential address delivered before the British Association on “Some Chemical Aspects of Life” Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins has lately drawn attention to the significance of chemical structure in cellular activity and has illustrated his theme by descriptions of the specific functions exerted in metabolism by such substances as acetylcholine, thyroxine, adrenalin, insulin and the sex hormones. Of special interest is his mention of the related conception that kindred substances—hormones or vitamins according to their origin—may exert similar specific functions in the promotion of organismal and tissue growth. Authenticated examples of this type of influence are afforded by the action of the vitamin-like substances required for growth promotion in the case of certain micro-organisms (Knight and Fildes, 1933); the stimulation of plant growth by the production of specific auxines, and the influence on body growth exerted in a general and specialised manner respectively by vitamins A and D. It is obvious that this subject is of the utmost importance to all students of the physiology of growth and that the elucidation of such mechanisms is the rational path to their effective control in the case of the normal and the malignant cell alike. It must be pointed out, however, that throughout the literature pertaining to these subjects there exist certain serious misconceptions and ambiguities with regard to nomenclature. These have been the subject of a timely warning in a recent annotation in the columns of the Lancet (2:1226, 1932), from which source one may with profit summarise certain principles of terminology and definition. The first essential observation is that growth in the biological sense presupposes cell division; it follows that a growth-stimulating factor in the true sense must owe its title to its promotive effects on cell multiplication. In addition, these effects must be produced on cell multiplication as a whole, and hot be restricted merely to a single cell lineage or system, unless this restriction is clearly stated. A growth-promoting principle should therefore augment cell division, both normal and malignant. Conversely—and here one may quote the note in question— “an anti-growth principle should inhibit cell division, and if it had this action it might reasonably be expected to inhibit the cell division of a malignant neoplasm. But if this anti-growth factor inhibited cell division, it should have this effect on the active cell divisions going on in normal tissues such as the testis, the epithelium of the intestinal mucous membranes, the spleen and lymphoid tissues, where new lymphocytes are formed, and the skin, to mention only a few of the tissues in which growth— i.e. , the formation of new cells—actively proceeds even in an adult organism. A growth-inhibiting factor should therefore produce lymphopenia, sterility, and lesions in the skin and in the intestinal mucous membranes.”