What is semantics syntax and pragmatics?

Date: 11-Jan-2014
From: Esther Nunez
Subject: A Cognitive Linguistics View of Terminology and Specialized Language

Book announced at

EDITOR: Pamela Faber
TITLE: A Cognitive Linguistics View of Terminology and Specialized Language
SERIES TITLE: Applications of Cognitive Linguistics [ACL] 20
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Esther Nunez, (personal interest - not currently working at a university)

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

The aim of this book is to explore how Cognitive Linguistics can provide a theoretical framework both for the research on Terminology and specialized language and for the elaboration of terminological resources.

As it is pointed out in Section 2.1, Terminology and Linguistics have mostly ignored each other in the past. Manuals in Terminology are generally practice-oriented and focus on issues such as database organization, term entry design, etc. The research on specialized language tends to focus on scientific discourse and its characteristics.

The authors, however, have a broader view of Terminology and specialized language. First of all, they see terms (“specialized language units” in this volume) as linguistics units and therefore susceptible to descriptive linguistic analysis. By analysing terms from a linguistics perspective, interesting insights about the semantic and syntactic behaviour of terms can be reached and that could help to elaborate better terminological resources. More importantly, the authors see terms as conveyors of conceptual meaning and vehicles of meaning transmission. From this viewpoint, Terminology has the conceptual description and structure of specialized knowledge at its core. This volume looks into how Cognitive Linguistics could provide a methodological framework to help Terminology address these issues.

The specific research framework proposed by the authors in this volume is Frame-based Terminology, a new approach that adapts the basic concepts of Frame Semantics to specialized language. The concept of frame is regarded as the core structuring principle of specialized domains. Frame-based Terminology is the brainchild of Pamela Faber and her team at the University of Granada.

Not forgetting the practical focus of Terminology, the volume also explores extensively the practical application of the marriage between Cognitive Linguistics and Terminology. EcoLexicon is the tangible result of such endeavour. It is an online knowledge base on the Environment that covers six different languages. The FrameNet Project is the practical application of Frame Semantics and it serves as model for EcoLexicon. The methodological principles that have guided the design of EcoLexicon...