Everyone knows, or at least senses, that definitions belong to terminology assets. However, generating relevant and correct definitions is a complex and time-consuming task. It requires in-depth knowledge of the domain coupled with highly skilled linguistic expertise, and that usually implies turning to experts for support, validation and feedback. Is it worth it? Let’s take a look together but first let’s go back a bit.
A terminology product is concept-oriented. This means that, unlike the information in a dictionary, everything is structured by concepts, not by words (or rather, lemmas). An example: in a dictionary you will find ‘car’, ‘automobile’ and ‘vehicle’ listed separately with their meanings. On the contrary, in a terminological glossary you will find an entry for a concept (i.e. ‘usually four-wheeled automotive machine designed for passenger transport’) containing ‘car’, ‘automobile’ and ‘vehicle’, along with other information like sources, preferred or forbidden or valid designations, maybe a picture, the definition, maybe grammatical gender and number, and other necessary information, as well as the equivalents in other languages with their respective information. In other words, all information needed to manage a corporate controlled language or language for special purposes (LSP) in the specific company environment.
Based on that, it is easy to understand why definitions are essential in terminology products. If a terminology asset does not have definitions, the risk of misunderstandings is too big and ubiquitous. And such misunderstandings would override all efforts made to create, update and maintain the asset.
Homonyms provide a great opportunity to see that more clearly. For example, in the same terminology asset, you could find another entry for ‘one separate section of a train’, also including the term ‘car’ as a forbidden designation along with ‘coach’ and ‘carriage’.
The definitions give crucial information to keep both entries apart. Furthermore, domain information, i.e. ‘Road transport’ and ‘Railway transport’ would allow to filter out unwanted entries for a specific search or project.
On the other hand, each terminology product requires tailored definitions for the specific asset and context, and they should fulfil the statements of the terminology policy in your company. This is the only way to track data and information and be able to use, manage, update and enhance terminology data properly.
Photo by: James Chan