Systemy pojęć w terminologii i słowniku

Abstract

Niniejsza monografia wpisuje się w obszerny nurt rozważań dotyczących relacji pomiędzy terminologią (rozumianą jako zbiór terminów) a słownikiem terminologicznym. W szczególny zaś sposób w obszarze zainteresowania mieści się zagadnienie możliwości oraz ograniczeń związanych z reprezentacją systemów pojęć w słowniku terminologii przedmiotowej. Rozważaniom teoretycznym towarzyszą przykłady, które w przeważającym stopniu odnoszą się do terminologii chemicznej i jej reprezentacji w słownikach specjalistycznych.

A foundational premise of many approaches to terminology is the idea that the terms used within a domain are not independent of one another. Quite the contrary; it is often assumed that terms – through the concepts that they refer to – enter into a wide range of relations with one another, thus yielding networks that exhibit a certain degree of cohesion. It is only natural, therefore, to analyse such structures and to view terms not only as isolated entities but also as elements of a bigger whole. Drawing on insights from terminology, linguistics, and lexicography, the present book brings into focus the idea of a concept system and explores it from two related perspectives. The terminological perspective serves as a starting point for the entire volume and seeks to answer questions about the nature of concept systems, the role they play in structuring terminology, as well as methods for analysing them. The complementary lexicographical perspective, meanwhile, focuses on how various aspects of concept systems can be captured in dictionaries. It considers the theoretical and practical aspects of representing concept systems in dictionaries and suggests ways of improving such representation. Chapter one is devoted to terminological matters. It opens with a discussion of a number of basic terms used in terminology, namely terminology, term, and concept. These are often used in texts on terminology with slightly different meanings, thus requiring clarification. Crucially, the chapter introduces the term concept system and provides a general framework for analysing concept systems, one that encompasses three parameters: a quantitative one, a conceptual one, and a relational one. Shifting the focus to lexicographical issues, chapter two looks at dictionaries as models of knowledge. Starting with a discussion of the word model, it goes on to argue that many of the properties displayed by dictionaries can be accounted for by their nature as models. Finally, the chapter considers the limitations of how knowledge is represented in dictionaries. Chapter three looks at the interplay between concepts systems and the structure of dictionaries. It focuses on two major structural components of dictionaries, namely their macrostructure and microstructure, and provides a critical account of the role these can play in capturing various aspects of concept systems. Chapter four describes a method for analysing the concept system, one that uses terminological dictionaries as an example. It also showcases how the proposed method can be applied to the analysis of an existing dictionary of chemical terminology so that a partial description can be obtained of the concept system underlying it. The approach adopted here relies heavily on the phenomenon of conceptual derivation, which allows terms to be viewed as exhibiting various levels of complexity, with more complex terms being derived from simpler ones. The chapter also showcases how conceptual derivation can be used to convert an alphabetically-arranged terminological dictionary into a systematic dictionary, that is to say one in which the order of entries is determined by their place in the corresponding concept system. While the importance of concept systems for terminology has been widely recognised, the book shows that they continue to provide fertile ground for further investigation. In particular, the idea of conceptual derivation shows promise when it comes to revealing the properties of concept systems, something that many existing approaches to terminology seem to overlook. As regards the representation of concept systems in dictionaries, capturing the intricate relations between concepts in dictionaries still remains a task for the future.