Articles in English

 

Creation of Terminology Database for EU Law Terminology

Maja Lončar

A common language is a necessary prerequisite for effective communication. Considering the fact that most specialised knowledge has been documented and published on natural languages, proper terminology is a necessary prerequisite for the effective transfer of knowledge. Roche (2012) writes that “terminology as a scientific discipline is crucial if we consider that its primary aim is to understand the world, describe the objects that populate it and find the right words to talk about them”. As such, terminology plays a major role in ensuring legal certainty. There is no doubt that terminology databases are the best places to store detailed descriptions of legal terminology.

Establishing a solid foundation for data modelling

Bodil Nistrup Madsen & Hanne Erdman Thomsen

Concept clarification is vital for the successful development of IT systems and yet this stage is often neglected. Developing a terminological ontology as a basis for the development of a data model gives a solid foundation for the data modelling phases. This paper shows how we at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) integrate terminological concept modelling as a first step in data modelling. First, we introduce terminological concept modelling with terminological ontologies, i.e. concept systems enriched with characteristics modelled as feature specifications. This enables a formal account of the inheritance of characteristics and allows us to introduce a number of principles and constraints which render terminological concept modelling more coherent than earlier approaches.

Automatic acquisition and quality assurance of data for a Danish terminology and knowledge bank (the DanTermBank)

The DanTermBank project team

In Denmark, we have online dictionaries where you can look up words and phrases of modern and older Danish language – but only non-technical language. There is thus a need for a public Danish national term bank for technical terms – a terminology and knowledge base. This is what the DanTermBank project is aiming at. The first stage is to build the foundation for such a term bank. Currently we are building the tools that can automatically harvest, organize and display technical terms in any subject matter you can think of.

Term planning for Irish – and other languages

Úna Bhreathnach

Term planning is the way in which terms develop or are developed, are made available and are put into use in a language community. When, in 2005, I became editorial manager of a new project to develop a National Terminology Database for Irish, Focal.ie1 (www.focal.ie), I developed a practical interest in the way terminology work is planned (or, often, just allowed to develop) for a language. The importance of addressing all aspects of terminology planning – and not just the provision of lists of terms, in the hope that they will be accepted and used – became especially clear to me. It cannot be assumed that, without strategic thought and planning, terminology will be developed and accepted into use in a way which is beneficial and which contributes strategically to the development of a language.

Students' attitudes towards the use of English in the context of Norwegian higher education

Trude Bukve

The internationalization of higher education in Norway has led to students having to adapt to an increasing use of English both in textbooks and the actual teaching. Previous research indicates that learning effects and memory decrease significantly when learning is done in a language other than one’s mother tongue. Guldbrandsen et al. (2002) proved in their research that medical doctors from Scandinavia scored significantly better in memory tasks when presented with scientific papers in their own language than when reading the same articles in English. Also, Hertzberg (1996) proves that students’ learning effect is better when they use Norwegian textbooks.

Terminology work 'the Finnish way' – visitor's impressions

Marta Małachowicz

My interest in terminology developed while I was a student at the Department of Applied Linguistics at Warsaw University, Poland. After discovering that there are places called national terminology centres in the Nordic Countries, I wished to visit such a centre one day to get acquainted with its activities, projects and certain aspects of in-house work. My wish came true last year when I had the possibility to visit the Swedish Centre for Terminology (TNC) in Stockholm. This visit broadened my perspective on terminology work in many aspects, especially in practical dimension. I considered it a very valuable experience and wanted to continue discovering the principles of practical terminology work in the Nordic Countries, this time in Finland – the country that has a different language situation than Sweden because it has two official languages.

Finding financial terminology in Norwegian newspapers

Marita Kristiansen

The article presents a study of anglicisms evident in Norwegian newspapers that can be related to the recent financial crisis of 2007-2010. Examples of such anglicisms are credit crunch, subprime, hedge funds, collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) and derivative. The aim has been to see whether new Norwegian terminology is formed in addition to these anglicisms in a domain which is highly coloured by English. Also, it has been an aim to see whether corpus-based analyses of newspapers may be a fruitful method for finding terminology and other terminological data.