Corpus data

The following bilingual examples have been collected from a variety of texts of the terminological literature. They have been parsed in order to ascertain that some of the (paradigmatically)

possible terms are actually in use. Furthermore, it should be ascertained that the terms – when they appear – do make reference to the subject matter in question. This survey revealed that the German termTerminologiewissenschaft – which would be the back-translation ofterminology science – also features in a few of the examples. This might be seen as a function of half-life of

terms and texts7_.

7_{This is an interesting consideration because it goesagainstthe view that terms become obsolete and disappear}

after a while: “The establishment of collection of terms should take into account the life cycle of individual terms: their coinage (‘birth’), description (‘growth’), currency (‘maturity’) and obsolesence [sic!] (‘death’)”, Ahmad, 1996b. An alternative view would be that the life-cyclerecommences at the point ofsecondary term formation. This can also be seen as argument for the incommensurability of social and linguistic realities assumed by some terminologists (Arntz, 1993).

2.3.4.1 Selection of corpus examples

The examples themselves have been sampled at random. Specimens that containdefining context

(“a defining context contains descriptors in sufficient quantity and quality to convey a very clear image of the concept covered by the term”, Dubuc and Lauriston, 1997, p. 83) have been given preference. German samples have also been translated, whereby special indeterminacies have been highlighted. Examples are presented in chronological order. The synchronic slice they

represent covers a diameter of about 21 years, judging by the date of publication, not of writing.

2.3.4.1.1 Terminologielehre

(2.1) “Der Unterschied zwischen der Allgemeinen Terminologielehre und der Wissenschaft von der Gemeinsprache entspringen aus der verschiedenen Grundeinstellung zum

Sprachzustand und zur Sprachentwicklung” [Translation: The difference that exists between the general theory of terminology and the science of general language linguistics can be explained from their different basic attitudes towards the (present) state and development of (a) language.] Wüster (1985, p. 1)

(2.2) “Terminologielehre analysiert die Entwicklung von Terminologien (Fachwortschätze) und stellt die Grundlagen für ihre systematische Weiterentwicklung zur Verfügung”

[Translation: The theory of terminology analyzes the development of terminologies (specialized vocabularies) and provides the foundations for their systematic (planned) development.] Schmitz (1998, p. 78)

2.3.4.1.2 Terminologiewissenschaft

(2.3) “Eine Diskussion, die die Entwicklung Terminologiewissenschaft von Beginn an begleitet hat, betrifft die immer wieder postulierte und beschriebene Existenz verschiedener “Schulen der Terminologie”.” [Translation: A discussion of the existence of different schools of terminology, repeatedly claimed (by some authors), and their description has accompanied the development of terminology science from its inception.] Oeser and Picht

(1999, p. 2178)

(2.4) “Die Allgemeine Terminologielehre, deren Kern die terminologische Grundsatzlehre bildet, ist ein wichtiger Zweig der Terminologiewissenschaft und ein Fundament der Wissenslehre und Wissenstechnik.” [Translation: The General Theory of Terminology, whose core is the *Lehre (doctrine/teaching/theory?) of terminological foundations, is an important branch of terminology science and (one of the) the foundation of both the *Lehre (the doctrine/ study? of ) knowledge/ epistemology(?) and (the practice of ) (terminological) knowledge engineering.] Felber (2001, p. 2)

2.3.4.1.3 Theory of terminology

(2.5) “Wüster (1898–1977) an engineer with a strong interest in information science, one-time active Esperantist, and fierce proponent of unambiguous professional communication, developed a theory of terminology on the basis of his terminographic experience in compiling The Machine Tool. An interlingual Dictionary of Basic Concepts (Wüster

1968), a systematically arranged French and English dictionary of standardised terms (with a German supplement) intended as a model for future technical dictionaries.” Cabré (2003, p. 165)

2.3.4.1.4 Terminology science

(2.6) “The term terminology science will be used here to refer to terminology science, a field of study of terms and concepts, rather than to collection of term [sic!] in a specialized field.” Nuopponen (1996)

(2.7) “A significant portion of research projects in terminology science should be aimed at the practical activities of knowledge presentation [sic!] and processing.” Shelov and Leitchik (2006, p. 18)

2.3.4.2 Representation and interpretation of corpus samples

Besides proving that the formations suggested by theparadigmatic analysis have actual currency,

this list of partly translated usage examples will also provide the reader with a further under- standing of the (logical and encyclopedic) properties of the field and us with the grounding for some of the assumptions introduced later on. On the basis of the samples, it is also possible to prepare a diagram orparadigmatic “componential analysis” in the traditional sense:

Figure 2.1:Theory of terminology, terminology science, Terminologielehre and Terminologiewis- senschaft from an empirical perspective.

We have employed the encyclopedic and logical properties that occurred in the respective fragments or example sentences for the preparation of this figure. What is especially interesting here is the bifurcation of understandings over time; Example 2.1 and Example 2.2 only re-state the well-known methodological preferences of theGeneral Theory of Terminologyand its essential

applied research interest, which is equated with the field label terminology (i.e. terminology

research) – the first, undetermined term member. By contrast, Example 2.3 states that there are differing conceptions of the theory of terminology (“schools”), which would make the GTT

a practice-oriented “body of teachings” as in the transliterated definition’s senses ofLehre, (2a)

to name by the German term Terminologiewissenschaft (lit. terminology science). Presumably,

they intended to denote a larger field of study which could be construed as analogous to the

science of linguistics (lit. “Wissenschaft von der Gemeinsprache”) that the GTT (and the

other schools as well?) partially opposes in its tenets , as it can be read in Example 2.1.

In the diagram, we have represented this visually by placingTerminologiewissenschaft(a back-

translation?) above Terminologielehre. We also indicated the supposed directionality – from

GermanTerminologielehre to Englishterminology science to German Terminologiewissenschaft

– as this is suggested by the apparent development over time.

Example 2.5 tells us that Theory of Terminology refers to theGTT as a practical heuristic –

the sense suggested by the transliterated definition’s description of Lehre, (3a) – with an addition of a connotation of received practice reminiscent of sense (1). This portrayal however proceeds in a qualified fashion (“a theory of terminology”) that doesn’t allow its identification with the

entire field. This is generally consistent with Example 2.6, where the (Swedish-speaking) author says that (English) terminology science should be taken to denote the field of study – as in our

definition of the nucleusterminology, senses (4) and (5) – to distinguish it from the phenomenon

ofterminology, as described in our definition of terminology, sense (1).

In the figure, this is represented by the bi-directional dashed arrow connecting the two English terms on a coordinate level.

In terms of extensional properties ascribed to the pairTerminologiewissenschaft / terminology science, Example 2.4 tells us that Terminologiewissenschaft should be taken as the superordi-

nate field comprisingterminological knowledge engineering ( Wissenstechnik ) – a practice whose

designation the author of the sentence has coined and which is well-known and established in the English discourse of terminology research (compare the TKE series of conferences; Budin, 2006) – and something termedWissenslehre,which, in the particular context, is likely to indicate

something akin to aterminological theory of knowledge 8 (Felber, 2001, Ch. 4).

This is represented using top-down dashed arrows connecting the indicated subfields totermi- nology science.

Further indications of extensional properties are brought out in Example 2.7, where the author (a speaker of Russian) suggests that “knowledge [re]presentation” and “processing” should be

taken to constitute fields of inquiry forterminology science. This is easily brought to align with

Example 2.4, which however suggest a similar point of view from a “bottom up” (or inductive) perspective. This observation is represented accordingly, with dashed arrows pointing upwards

from terminology science toknowledge representation and information processing.