Termontography: Ontology Building and the Sociocognitive Approach to Terminology Description

We start from a brief discussion of three shifts which have affected the discipline of terminology over the last decade: the shift towards computational terminology management, the linguistic shift in the theory of terminology and more recently the ontology shift. We briefly introduce the method of termontography, one of the results of the collaboration between terminologists from CVC Brussels and ontology engineers within the framework of the European project FF POIROT (IST 2001-38248). The discipline of terminology is widening its scope towards knowledge representation and knowledge management. On the one hand reflection is needed on how the discipline of terminology can contribute to new challenges like the(multilingual) semantic web. On the other hand we need to ask how terminology management can benefit from new developments in IT and NL processing, and more specifically how terminology management can use ontologies. 0 Introduction After having given a brief overview of three shifts in perspective which had an impact on the discipline of terminology (1), we discuss the newly developed method of termontography in its capacity to give support to multilingual ontology engineering(2). We finally formulate some reflections on the future of the discipline of terminology (3). 1 Shifts within the discipline of terminology Over the last decade the theory of terminology and the practice of terminography have been subjected to a number of changes. In the first place the electronic revolution has affected terminology management and the working methods of terminographers (Bouringault, D & C. Jacquemin & M-C. L’Homme 2001). In the second place the principles of what is now called ‘traditional terminology’ (Sager 1990, Cabré 1999 & 2000, Temmerman 2000) have been seriously questioned. Terminology has benefited from insights in cognitive and computational linguistics. This resulted in a number of principles and methodologies which allow for flexibility and a diversification in approach depending on the user’s requirements for each specific terminology project. The third shift relates to the parallel working methods and mutual interests of ontology engineers and terminologists 1.1 Shift 1 computational terminology management Electronic corpora have strongly affected the working methods of terminologists (1.1.1), whereas terminology management software (1.1.2) has brought more rigour and uniformity in both terminological record structures and contents.