The Pragmatics of Multiword Terms

This book explores the pragmatics of specialized language with a focus on multiword terms, complex phrases characterized by sequences of nouns or adjectives whose meaning is clarified in the unspecified but implicit links between them, with implications for their use and translation. The volume adopts an innovative approach rooted in Frame-Based Terminology which allows for the analysis of multiword - compound terms in specialized language, such as horizontal-axis wind turbine - term formation from an integrated semantic and pragmatic perspective. The book features data from a corpus on wind power in English, Spanish, and French comprising such specialized texts as research articles, books, reports, and PhD theses to consider term extraction and the identification of terminological correspondences. Cabezas-García highlights the ways in which pragmatic analysis is an integral part of understanding multiword terms, due to the necessary inference of information implicit within them, with applications for future research on pragmatics and specialized language more broadly. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in pragmatics, semantics, corpus linguistics, and terminology.

Melania Cabezas-García is Junior Professor in the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Granada, Spain.

Contents List of Figures List of Tables Foreword Acknowledgements 1. The Pragmatics of Multiword Terms: An Introduction 1.1. Relevance of a Pragmatic Approach to Multiword Terms 1.2. Aims and Description of this Study 1.3. Outline of Chapters 1.4. Who is this book for? 2. Pragmatics and Terminology 2.1 Specialized communication through the lens of Pragmatics 2.1.1 Communicative situation and participants 2.1.2 What is said and what is meant 2.1.3 Given and new information 2.1.4 Inference and interpretation 2.1.5 Intentions 2.1.6 Salience 2.1.7 Speech acts and adequacy 2.1.8 Context 2.2. Frame-Based Terminology 2.2.1 Theoretical foundations 2.2.2 EcoLexicon and by-products 2.3. Summary 3. Meaning access in multiword terms 3.1. Formation 3.2. Reference assignment 3.3. Internal relation decoding 3.4. Semantic role labeling 3.5. Pragmatic enrichment 3.6. Microcontexts and the inference of new multiword terms 3.7. Summary 4. Multiword term equivalence 4.1. Intralinguistic multiword term equivalence 4.1.1. Intralinguistic equivalence in Terminology 4.1.2. Types of intralinguistic equivalence 4.1.3. Pragmatic factors determining intralinguistic adequacy 4.2. Interlinguistic multiword term equivalence 4.2.1. Pragmatic factors determining interlinguistic adequacy 4.2.2. Research on multiword-term translation 4.2.3. Method to identify multiword term translations 4.3. The equivalence module of EcoLexicon 4.4. Summary 5. Multiword term representation 5.1. Trends 5.2. The multiword term module of EcoLexicon 5.2.1. Internal template 5.2.2. User interface 5.2.2.1 MWT formation view 5.2.2.2 Equivalents view 5.2.2.3 Morphosyntactic combinations view 5.2.2.4 Semantic combinations view 5.2.2.5 Summary view 5.2.3 Benefits of the multiword term module of EcoLexicon 5.3. Summary 6. Conclusions References Index