title | : | Special Language : From Humans Thinking to Thinking Machines
author | : | LaurÃ©n, Christer.
publisher | : | Multilingual Matters
isbn10 | asin | : | 1853590347
print isbn13 | : | 9781853590344
ebook isbn13 | : | 9780585199443
language | : | English
subject |  | Sublanguage--Congresses.
publication date | : | 1989
lcc | : | P120.S9S64 1989eb
ddc | : | 410
subject | : | Sublanguage--Congresses.

Page i

Special Language From Humans Thinking to Thinking Machines

Page ii

Multilingual Matters

Afrikaner Dissidents
JOHA LOUW-POTGIETER

Aspects of Bilingualism in Wales
COLIN BAKER

Bilingualism and the Individual
A. HOLMEN, E. HANSEN, J. GIMBEL and J. JØRGENSEN (eds.)

Bilingualism in Society and School
J. JøRGENSEN, E. HANSEN, A. HOLMEN and J. GIMBEL (eds.)

Code-Mixing and Code Choice
JOHN GIBBONS

Communication and Cross-cultural Adaption
YOUNG YUN KIM

Communication and Simulation
D. CROOKALL and D. SAUNDERS (eds).

Conversation: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
D. ROGER and P. BULL (eds.)

Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Education
MICHAEL BYRAM

Current Trends in European Second Language Acquisition
HANS W. DECHERT (ed.)

Dialect and Education: Some European Perspectives
J. CHESHIRE, V. EDWARDS, H. MUNSTERMANN, B. WELTENS

English in Wales: Diversity, Conflict and Change
NIKOLAS COUPLAND (ed.)

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C. LAURÉN and M. NORDMAN

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Key Issues in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education
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Language and Ethnic Identity
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Language and Ethnicity in Minority Sociolinguistic Perspective
JOSHUA FISHMAN

Language in Geographic Context
COLIN WILLIAMS (ed.)

Methods in Dialectology
ALAN R. THOMAS (ed.)

Modelling and Assessing Second Language Acquisition
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Neurotic and Psychotic Language Behaviour
R. WODAK and P. Van De CRAEN (eds.)

Papers from the Fifth Nordic Conference on Billingualism
J. GIMBEL, E. HANSEN, A. HOLMEN and J. JøRGENSEN (eds.)

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LENORE ARNBERG

The Role of the First Language in Second Language Learning
HÅKAN RINGBOM

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Special Language From Humans Thinking to Thinking Machines

Edited by
Christer Laurén and Marianne Nordman

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD
Clevedon Philadelphia

Page iv

Disclaimer:
This book contains characters with diacritics. When the characters can be represented using the ISO 8859-1 character set (http://www.w3.org/TR/images/latin1.gif), netLibrary will represent them as they appear in the original text, and most computers will be able to show the full characters correctly. In order to keep the text searchable and readable on most computers, characters with diacritics that are not part of the ISO 8859-1 list will be represented without their diacritical marks.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Special Language.
Papers presented at the 6th European Symposium on LSP
at the University of Vaasa, Aug. 3rd-7th, 1987.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Sublanguage Congresses.
I Laurén, Christer. II. Nordman, Marianne.
III. European Symposium on Language for Special Purposes
(6th: 1987: University of Vaasa)
P120.S9S64198841088-31439

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Special language: from humans thinking to thinking machines.
1. Occupations. Jargon. Linguistic aspects
I. Laurén, Christer II. Nordman, Marianne
418

ISBN 1-85359-034-7

ISBN 1-85359-033-9 Pbk

Multilingual Matters Ltd,
Bank House, 8a Hill Road,&242 Cherry Street,
Clevedon, Avon BS21 7HHPhiladelphia, PA 19106-1906,
EnglandUSA

Copyright © 1989 Christer Laurén, Marianne Nordman and the authors of individual chapters

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by WBC Print, Bristol.

Page v

CONTENTS

Introduction

viii

Part I
THEORY OF LSP RESEARCH

1
Special Purpose Language as a Complex System: The Case of Linguistics

Robert de Beaugrande

3

2
Die Obsession des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses und die Entfremdung des Subjekts

Theo Bungarten

30

3
The Question-Theoretical Approach in Hermeneutics and LSP-Research

Martin Kusch and Hartmut Schröder

53

4
An Outline of the Value of Genre Analysis in LSP Work

Tony Dudley-Evans

72

5
Historizität der Fachsprachen am Beispiel der deutschen Bergbausprache

Ilpo Tapani Piirainen

80

6
Fachsprachliche Phraseologie

Heribert Picht

89

7
Onymic Units in LSP Vocabularies and Their Implications for Translation Theory, Terminography and LSP Onomastics

Rosemarie Gläser

110

8
Die Fachsprachlehre im Rahmen der estnischen Theorie der Schriftsprache

Henn Saari

119

9
Language Status Planning in Québec

Jacques Maurais

138

Part II
TECHNOLECT STUDIES

10
Communicative Function and Grammatical Variations in Medical English Scholarly Papers: A Genre Analysis Study

Françoise Salager-Meyer, Gérard Defives, Cathy Jensen and Maria de Filipis

151

11
Discourse Analysis in Occupational Settings: "Technical Meetings"

Friedrich Lenz

161

Page vi

12
Hedging as a Translation Problem in Scientific Texts

Raija Markkanen and Hartmut Schröder

171

13
Scientific Discourse against the Background of Standard Language

Zenon Grabarczyk

180

14
The Message and the Medium: Exploring Their Relationship in Oral Medical Presentations

Paz Buenaventura Naylor

190

15
Zur kontrastiven Analyse von medizinischen Fachtexten. Eine diachrone Studie

Sabine Ylönen, Dagmar Neuendorff and Gottfried Effe

203

16
Translation and Author's Editing of Biomedical Communications Written by Finnish Authors

Sheryl Hinkkanen

225

17
Theme as an Aid to Text Processing

Bruce Carter

234

18
LSP Texts in a Diachronic Perspective

Britt-Louise Gunnarsson

243

19
The Bergen English for Science and Technology (BEST) Corpus: A Pilot Study

Magnar Brekke

253

20
Complex Noun Phrases as a Problem of Terminological Practice

Johan Myking

265

21
Synonymy in the Language of Business and Economics

Vladimir Irgl

275

22
Language of the Law and Legal Language

Dennis Kurzon

283

23
Vergleichende Analyse deutschsprachiger Abstracts in wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften

Hans-R. Fluck

291

Part III
DIDACTIC ASPECTS

24
The Production and Comprehension of Scientific Texts

Manfred Gerbert

309

25
What Percentage of Text-Lexis is Essential for Comprehension?

Batia Laufer

316

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26
EFL Reading Difficulties Revealed by Translation and Discourse Analysis: Narrative vs. Expository Texts

Marsha Bensoussan

324

27
Can Gaps Measure Comprehension? Modifications of Cloze as Texts of Reading

Anna Mauranen

337

28
L1 and L2 Syntactic Structuring in ESP Writing: Reading Aspects and an Error Analysis

Judith Strother and Jan Ulijn

347

29
The Influence of Syntactic Contrastivity on L2-L1 Translation

Rik Smits

362

30
Creating Courseware for Teaching LSP on a Multimedia Training System

Janet Atlan

374

31
The Trojan Horse, or the Terminological Ambush: A Pragmatic Demonstration of the Importance of the Correct Handling of LSP Elements in LGP Translation

Jennifer Draskau

384

Part IV.
COMPUTERS AND LSP

32
Machine Translation and a Typology of Texts

Juan C. Sager

397

33
Knowledge-based Integrated Terminology System (KITES)

Patricia Thomas and Anne Judge

411

34
Terminology within a Machine Translation Project (EUROTRA)

Henrik Selsøe Sørensen

420

35
Empty Categories in Documentary Based Thesaurus Constructions

øivin Andersen

432

36
Propuesta para un Analisis Automatico del Contenido en Documentacion de EST

Félix de Moya, José Manuel Muñoz y Pedro Hîpola

448

37
The Use of Concordances in Vocabulary Acquisition

Lut Baten, Anne-Marie Cornu and L.V. Engels

452

38
A Terminological Data Bank as a Management Tool

Christian Galinski and Wolfgang Nedobity

468

39
LSP and Computer Application: New Fields of Activity for LSP-Research and Development

Walther v. Hahn

479

Page ix

INTRODUCTION

"Special language: thoughts expressed" was the motto of the 6th European Symposium on LSP arranged at the University of Vaasa in Finland, August 3rd-7th, 1987.

The motto was chosen to stress the importance of a content-based approach to special language texts. It was also chosen as a counter-balance to the emphasis usually put on the didactic aspects.

The relation between advanced thinking and its expression must, even as such, be of special interest to linguists quite apart from the question of practical applications. To those concerned with the didactic aspects the emphasis we suggest should also be the starting point, since you cannot properly understand the expression of a system of thought if you ignore the system itself. As the most advanced human thinking is expressed by special language there are exciting possibilities for research in which philosophical, semantic, semiotic, text-linguistic, pragmatic and other approaches are utilized.

There are many different traditions of LSP research. For the Prague school of the early 30s and earlier, special language was a legitimate and important field for language planning considerations. The functional stylistics of Prague and later also of research in the Soviet Union and in the German Democratic Republic have during many decades been the dominating framework, within which basic theory has been developed also in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Wirtschaftslinguistik of German language departments in Central Europe before and between the world wars and the theory of terminology developed in the 30s by the Austrian engineer E. Wüster and his Russian colleague D.S. Lotte were research traditions with an emphasis on the relations between thinking and expression and the relations between language and society.

During the last few decades, in Great Britain and the U.S.A., much effort has gone into developing the didactics of special language, this being a natural consequence of the well-established and successful traditions of language

Page x

didactics in these countries. The impetus for the development of these traditions was the great need of language skills during and after the war.

A relatively new trend in LSP research is the Quebecois tradition in which the context of research and applications is the situation of the French language in North-America. The perspective is that of language planning, and at the same time there are links to the European traditions of terminology.

In the Soviet Union terminology work is part of standardization and, hence, regarded as an indispensable part of efficient planning of society. This work is in its theoretical foundations close to the Central European traditions. This is also the case with other LSP research in the Soviet Union, which has strong roots in the functional stylistics of Prague.

It is, however, astonishing how absolute the borders between different research traditions have been, and how the borders persist. Nevertheless internationalism should be recognized as equally necessary for successful work in LSP research as elsewhere. Every opportunity of bringing together and combining these traditions should be seized. The present volume is an attempt to intensify the contacts between different research traditions. The papers included represent the latest state of LSP research.

Compared with earlier publications from the European symposia on LSP this volume represents a considerable shift of emphasis, away from didactics the discipline which used to dominate is still an important field, but one among others. The use of computers in LSP teaching opens up new possibilities which we are made aware of in articles on this theme. But from the point of view of LSP research many of the contributions illustrate how varied are the new objects of research that the computer has brought with it.

Interest in terminology has been steady. Articles in this volume report on new breakthroughs in the application of terminology, in phraseology as well as in knowledge engineering.

More attention than hitherto is focused on translation theory which may be a result of the fact that we now have access to

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advanced insights in special language.

In theoretically oriented articles LSP research is contrasted with linguistics in general, with social and philosophical aspects as well as with diachronic ones. These will help us determine the current position of LSP research.

Thus, our selection of papers given at the 6th European Symposium on LSP charts new trends and gives profiles to modern LSP research.

VASSA/VASA, JUNE 1988
CHRISTER LAUREN
MARIANNE NORDMAN

Page 1

I. THEORY OF LSP RESEARCH

Page 3

1
Special Purpose Language as a Complex System: The Case of Linguistics

Robert de Beaugrande
University of Florida
University of California

Abstract

Modern sciences undergoing profound transitions are showing signs of crisis in their scientific language. For this reason, comprehensive research on special purpose language and terminology is urgently required to clarify the status of scientific description, including that produced by the science of language. This requirement revises the usual priorities requiring that theories of special purpose language be derived from the theories of general purpose language established in conventional linguistics.

Both special and general purpose language can be productively viewed as complex systems characterized by certain classes of properties, operations, and structures. Some implications from thermodynamics, quantum theory, and molecular biology will be raised in order to propose a new look at linguistic theory and its scientific foundations, and to indicate the central role of special purpose language in this enterprise.

1. Linguistics as a Special Purpose Language

1.1 Every science develops a special purpose language for its major conceptions; and becoming a participant in the science requires learning that language. This state of affairs also holds for linguistics, yet with a peculiar complication. Only in linguistics is language itself also the object of inquiry. So linguistics cycles around inside language while moving between its object and the description of that object. Ideally, this movement would be achieved through carefully controlled procedures of translating between general purpose language (LGP) and special purpose language (LSP) (metalanguage).

However, the movement has typically been carried out in so

Page 4

many unregulated ways that the correspondence is profoundly uncertain. On the one hand, the linguist never knows enough never knowing the entire language or the entire range of discourses practised in the language. On the other hand, the linguist always knows too much always being a skilled observer, understander, and interpreter of language, as well as pursuing theoretical interests and specialized training unlike that of the language community in general. We thus need to confront the questions: in whose name does the linguist speak about the language, and to what extent does a description produced by linguistics represent the language knowledge of the specialist or the non-specialist?

1.2 To describe the relation between linguistics (LI) and the totality of language use (LA), at least five possible scenarios can be envisioned, as shown in Fig. 1:

Figure 1.
Five relations between linguistics (LI) and language (LA)

Page 5

Language use includes linguistics (Fig. 1a). The activity of ''doing linguistics" is just one more instance of language use, not different in kind from other forms.

Linguistics includes language use (Fig. 1b). The activity of "doing linguistics" has language use as one domain within its larger, more abstract study of the general formal, combinatorial and organizational properties of languages.

Linguistics is separate from language use (Fig. 1c). The activity of "doing linguistics" is an independent one from that of performing language use, perhaps in the way that "doing chemistry" is separate from the process of iron rusting.

Linguistics disturbs language use (Fig. 1d) ¹. The activity of "doing linguistics" suspends the processes of language use in order to scrutinize, generalize, objectify, formalize, and so on, perhaps in the way that "doing biology" entails starving, injuring, or killing living organisms.

Linguistics and language use overlap, but neither contains the other (Fig. 1e). The two activities share some properties, but neither can be fully subsumed by the other. Linguistics studies other aspects of language besides those apparent in language use; and never gets the entirety of language use into its scope of vision.

1.3 The state of linguistics so far does not allow us to decide which of these five scenarios is the most adequate. Each may have a certain valence in particular contexts. But I submit that a thorough clarification of the relation between linguistics and language use is urgently needed. The paradigmatic force of linguistics as an enterprise and a science depends crucially on its ability to situate itself and its methods more explicitly and perspicuosly with respect to its phenomenon of inquiry.

1.4 In particular, the task of the linguist is always in danger of being misunderstood as a demand to exhaust all the issues language raises, whether or not the ordinary language user addresses or resolves them. The linguist gets forced into the impossible position of trying to formalize and adjudicate every possibility allowable within the general language system. The ordinary language user, in contrast, freely leaves many issues aside that are not relevant to the current communicative purpose. Thus, linguistics has become entrained in a momentous theoretical "overkill" that makes the activity of everyday communication appear unimaginably complex and problematic. This impasse too must be solved by regulating the relation between linguistics and language use.

Page 6

2. General Purpose Language and Special Purpose Language

2.1 Traditionally, linguistic theory has proceeded on the assumption that a given language such as English or Danish should be described in the most general terms. Indeed, the goal of linguistics has often been stated as the formulation of a theory so abstract as to cover all existing languages (e.g. Saussure, 1916; Sapir, 1921) or even all conceivable languages (Hjelmslev, 1943). This approach naturally predisposes linguistic research to seek the most abstract unities and units, and to disregard differences among discourse domains as incidental or disruptive.

2.2 For this reason, conventional linguistic theory has not been suited for providing explicit and well-developed means to define the status of special purpose language (LSP). Still, we can inquire what implicit means might be inferred and whether they can contribute to a useable theory. In the process, as we shall see, the problematics of LSP shed some light on significant dilemmas in the definition and description of general purpose language (LGP) (cf. Beaugrande, 1987d).

2.3 One approach might be regard a given LSP as a language or domain in its own right. We might obtain a taxonomy of varieties like "scientific English" (Porter, 1976), "engineering English" (Varantola, 1984), "legal English" (Hiltunen, 1984), and so on. However, an LSP does not meet the requirements for a language in the usual sense. Although we should rightfully regard an LSP as "a complete set of linguistic phenomena" (Hoffmann, 1979, p. 16), no LSP is composed exclusively of its own resources. Instead, every LSP overlaps heavily with at least one LGP and is free to use any parts of the latter without express justification. One could not, for example, state the "rules'' which determine what parts of the grammar or lexicon of English may or may not appear in "scientific English"; even such old stylistic restrictions as those forbidding "sentence fragments" or "slang" have been relaxed in recent years, especially within the discourse of computer technology. Hence, we have more a continuum than a division between LSP and LGP (Varantola, 1986).

2.4 In addition, a taxonomy would soon show that no clear borders exist between different LSPs in any sense comparable to those between, say, English and Danish. LSPs tend to share much of their resources not merely with LGPs, but also with each other. Even LSPs based on different LGPs often have common cognate resources. LSP thus tends to be more "international", or indeed "universal", than does LGP (Wüster,

Page 7

1970; Ulijn, 1979; Draskau, 1983; Varantola, 1986; Hoffmann, 1987), the more so when English terms are widely borrowed.

2.5 Another approach might be to define LSP in terms of "style" or "register" (cf. Gläser, 1979; Draskau, 1983; Gerbert, 1985). However, stylistic factors may not suffice to demarcate a given LSP, let alone all domains of LSP (cf. Corbluth, 1975; Porter, 1976; Hoffmann, 1987). Some traits, such as a high frequency of passives and impersonal constructions, are characteristic, though not obligatory, at least for English LSPs; but many other traits are freely selected by individual speakers or writers.

2.6 Or again, we might view the LSP as "artificial" and the LGP as "natural" (cf. Galinski and Nedobity, 1986; Hoffmann, 1987). However, the term "natural language'' is poorly defined in linguistics except by contrast to formal languages, none of which constitutes a full LSP. As Saussure (1916) already stressed, language is not a "natural" phenomenon like the production of noises and cries. Moreover, we know too little about the origin of language and the causes which can change it, to decide what sort of intervention might count as "artificial". Even where the change of language is treated in great detail, theorists are very wary of attributing causes (e.g. Saussure, 1916; Sapir, 1921; Bloomfield, 1933).

2.7 Yet another approach, one which has gained much currency in recent times, is to emphasize not the language so much as the purpose whence the currency of the term "special purpose language" rather than merely "special language". The needs of language users and the conditions of use must be emphasized (e.g. Gläser, 1979, 1985; Sager et al., 1980; Weise, 1982; Hoffmann, 1987). Typically, the LSP appears in a specific social framework among a limited group of users who have voluntarily learned it (Picht and Draskau, 1985). Though obviously advantageous for fieldwork, this approach does not mesh well with general linguistic theory, where language is seldom defined in terms of its purpose. More often, purpose is either taken for granted (Bloomfield, 1933) or expressly excluded (Chomsky, 1965). This trend is to be expected when linguists propose to develop theories independently of sociology or psychology (e.g. Hjelmslev, 1943). Even the work on "speech acts" and "conversational maxims" addresses only a limited set of far more abstract purposes than those most relevant for terminology (cf. Weise, 1984, p. 9).

2.8 For the reasons reviewed above, it is far from clear how the standard concepts of linguistic theory could be adequate for defining LSP. We can select a special-purpose domain and

Page 8

run through its linguistic resources in terms of some familiar scheme like phonology, morphology, lexicon, and the like (Praninskas, 1968). But surely the decisive aspect of LSP is its communicative potential, and the latter can be described only in a roundabout and incomplete fashion within such schemes.

2.9 The purpose-centered approach would be simpler if the acquisition and use of LSP were explicitly regulated. But usually, trainees are not given special language instruction when entering a specialized domain. Instead, they are expected to spontaneously absorb a specialized vocabulary, along with some standard rhetorical gestures, during the practical introduction to the domain. In some domains, this tactic is handled quite haphazardly, leaving the trainee to infer the meaning of terms from contexts, many of which may not be helpful or representative. At intermediate and advanced levels, trainees are under pressure to use the LSP as a sign of qualification in the domain, and asking experts for explanations of terms may be regarded as embarrassing the more so as experts are not always skilled in translating specialized terms into everyday language.

2.10 A further problem is that purposes can be quite variable. Only a few seem to apply to LSP at large. The purpose of knowledge transfer is certainly prominent (Picht, 1986); but the opposite purpose may also be at stake, namely to hinder outsiders from getting access to specialized knowledge (cf. Sager et al., 1980; Beaugrande, 1984a). "Plain language" legislation reveals the realization of how this tactic can be deployed to the detriment of citizens and consumers, for instance, by using overspecialized language in contracts. I once had to deliver an opinion on the interpretability of this passage from an insurance policy:

(1) "Residence employee" means an employee of an insured person while performing duties arising out of and in the course of employment in connection with the maintenance or use of the residence premises, including similar duties elsewhere, not in connection with the business of an insured person.

How can a person be an "employee" on the "premises", and yet "elsewhere, not in connection with the business''?

2.11 In sum, it appears that the status and stability of a specialized domain affect that of its LSP in multifarious and peculiar ways. To clarify this aspect, we will need dynamic models of communicative processes, not just the static descriptions of language structure propounded by general linguistic theory. Eventually, those descriptions may be

Page 9

restated in terms of such models, provided that "linguistic description" can itself be analyzed as a special communicative domain (Beaugrande, 1984b, 1987a, b). But at present, we should not be unduly constrained by trying to derive our models entirely from established linguistics. On the contrary, LSP research is to some degree properly antecedent to LGP research, namely in exploring the procedures for creating and using metalanguage.

3. Special and General Systems

3.1 Various ways might be found for relating linguistics to language, but some are less promising than others. Set theory, for instance, is unenlightening because in human cognition, set membership is seldom a simple or uniform relation in many domains of language, even for seemingly straightforward sets like animal names (Collins and Quillian, 1972; Rips, Shoben and Smith, 1973; Rosch, 1973). Yet in most applications of set theory, the motives and methods whereby people form sets are ignored, taken for granted, or oversimplified. To say that linguistics is a subset of language is incomplete until we explain in which sense this set-inclusion holds; and set theory offers no precise tools for that task. Nor does it help much to say that linguistics is a superset containing the names of the sets of language, e.g., its phonemes, morphemes, sentences, etc., because, as we will see later, the status of these sets also depends on who discovers them and why. Furthermore, linguistics is partially a self-referential set, although this factor has not been properly accounted for yet; and self-referential sets are highly perplexing entities, as Hofstadter (1980) has demonstrated.

3.2 My proposal would rather be that we seek a suffiently broad and dynamic concept of "system" to include the various domains we wish to relate and situate. In this manner, we may comprehend the relation between systematic attempts to describe or explain language system itself. That relation would be essentially one between a specific and a general system, each intended for characteristic purposes.

3.3 We can accordingly begin by inquiring into the basic properties of systems. When a system is viewed in its "current state", two major perspectives are crucial. The first can be called' "regress", the set of relations between the current state and the conditions which it traversed or which brought it about. The second can be called "progress", the set of relations between the current state and the conditions it will enter or engender. For either of the two perspectives, the

Page 10

relations may be temporal, spatial, causal, or evolutionary, and may concern transitions between part and whole, specific and general, simple and complex, determinate and indeterminate, implicit and explicit, and so on. At some point, regress and progress are "terminated", since every system or every observer of a system has limited resources. We thus obtain the basic model shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 2.
Model of a simple system

The most influential mode of "termination" is "objectification", i.e., constituting an "object" out of an aggregate of experiences, impressions, or sensations, and treating the result as a stable point of reference.

3.4 This model can represent both the internal operations of the system and external knowledge about it. A system may also have one or more levels of self-knowledge that is fed back into its functions, making it "self-referential" as well as "world-referential". We therefore need to focus on the fundamental problem of perspectivism, that is, the projection from separable levels of knowledge about the "same" entity or system.

3.5 Systems can be classified according to their degrees of complexity (Yates and Beaugrande, 1987). The measure of complexity I would consider most essential in the operation of a system is control. This concept is typically construed as the capacity to intervene in the world such that the relation between the current state and some set of other states is neither pure chance nor pure necessity, but affected in some way(s) specified by the system. More abstractly, "control" is a

Page 11

process for managing the ratio between determinacy and indeterminacy (Beaugrande, 1987a). To put it in the most general terms, control is a hypothesis of limited indeterminacy. When it controls something, the system makes it less indeterminate, or at least proceeds as if it does so. Success does not actually prove that control was exerted, since the same outcome might conceivably have happened anyway. Hence, control remains a hypothesis which can be strengthened, though not verified in any absolute sense, and which vitally depends upon the perspective (or level) wherein it is postulated.

3.6 In the "complex system", control is not uniform, but distributed (Beaugrande, 1987a). Such a system is organized into (a) "levels" where the system strongly seeks to maintain control over itself or its "world", and (b) levels where it does not, or does so only weakly. This division is a crucial mode of perspectivism that can radically affect how something is perceived and treated on any given level. A control level is more prone to "objectify" things and to impose stability, identity, and causality, because these aspects favor the maintenance of control. A control level is also disposed to endow the world with "dimensionality'', i.e., with dimensions suspectible to measurement and alteration, such as time and space, or force and mass (Yates and Beaugrande, 1987). These provisions support the goal of control to limit indeterminacy.

3.7 A system gains complexity when it evolves through its own dynamics into more complex states by integrating more materials, i.e., by imposing an operational framework for them. Here we can adopt an evolutionary perspective: instead of trying to define or describe the complex system as is, we could investigate how a system can become integratively complex, or more complex. This approach may be more tractable in cases where, as in natural language, the current degree of complexity is so advanced as to constitute a powerful obstacle to research.

3.8 Evolution can be modeled as a process of shifting control among levels, i.e., of redistributing determinacy and indeterminacy. The system's resources are economized by directing energy away from the level(s) transposed from more determinate over to less determinate status. The "control" level is the most deterministic one, and the one most dependent on stability, identity, and causality. In consequence, a control shift is likely to require a "renormalizing" of dimensions such as time and space.

3.9 The relation between a special and a general system is not the same as that between a simple and a complex one. Both

Page 12

the special and the general can be complex, as is indeed the case with the LSP of linguistics and the LGP it describes. However, the distribution of control is likely to be distinctive. The more special the system, the more focused its control levels are likely to be the more precisely it "knows" what it wants to control. Consequently, the special system will typically appear more determinate or deterministic, though, as we shall see, fluctuations still occur at regular intervals.

4. Science as a Complementary Control Structure

4.1 The philosophy of science draws a now-familiar distinction between "models on theory", which both satisfy a theory and specify it under given conditions; and "models of data" arising from observations and measurements made on forms or processes (cf. Yates, 1987). The intersection of the two model-types might be described not in the terms of set-theory proposed by Suppes (1969), but in terms of a structure of complementarity wherein each side "controls" the other by limiting its indeterminacy. On the one hand, the theory "controls" its evidence or data by assigning the latter some set of constraints, among which "dimensionality'' is the best-known kind. On the other hand, the evidence or data "control" the theory by manifesting more bounded determinism in any given case than the theory strictly requires. In a well-functioning "normal science", this total complementarity chiefly demarcates a falling curve of indeterminacy over time, despite occasional fluctuations. In a "scientific crisis", however, the curve is predominantly a rising one: models of both kinds proliferate, yet theories and data insistently remain open to multiple and irreconcilable interpretations.

4.2 The special purpose language developed by the science is intended to assist control by codifying relevant definitions, descriptions, classifications, explanations, and so on. Ideally, that language supports the integration of complexity by designating the focal points of the organizational framework wherein theories and data are seen to complement each other. But as materials accrue, the terms of the LSP may be extended and expanded without due consideration of potential indeterminacies. Eventually, the terms begin to drift toward "disintegrative" complexity, i.e., to designate fuzzy classes of diverse, even incompatible entities.

4.3 A case in point would be the conception of "stimulus and response" in behaviorist psychology. These terms originally

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designated two events directly contiguous in time and space, the first "eliciting" the second under rigorously constrained conditions. The data was obtained from the "conditioning" of dogs, cats, or rats subjected to material impingements such as starvation, confinement, lesion, electroshock, and so on. In such cases, the animal was strongly motivated or indeed forced to select from a limited set of immediate "responses", and the selected one was ''reinforced" by the relaxation or removal of the impingement. The results were presented to the general public as proof that "conditioning" can effectively "control" behavior.

4.4 This theory and its LSP were soon generalized to other life forms, including humans, without adequately acknowledging the vastly greater complexity of the human life-system. An interesting case for our discussion of metalanguage was the designation of language as "verbal behavior" (Skinner, 1957). The human being was claimed to produce speech as a "response" to a "stimulus" delivered either from the environment or from another person's utterance. This extension implied a marked departure from the context in which the terms had originally been defined very precisely. Few utterances are "elicited" under conditions comparable to the reaction of an animal subjected to a material impingement. Skinner (1957, p. 438ff) thus had to classify phenomena like "thinking", "rationalization", or "verbal fantasy" as processes whereby people are "automatically reinforcing themselves". Chomsky (1959, p. 37f) objected: "we see that a person can be reinforced even though he emits no response at all, and that the reinforcing `stimulus' need not impinge upon the `reinforced' person or need not even exist (it is sufficient that it be imagined or hoped for)". For such theorizing, Chomsky (1959, p. 54, my italics) concluded: "if we take Skinner's terms in their literal meaning, the description covers almost no aspect of verbal behavior".

4.5 No doubt this "behaviorist" approach to language reflected a desire to rely on the most observable substrate of available data, namely straightforward sequences like "pass the salt"-action-"thank you" (a favorite example of Skinner's). However, most instances of language use are more complex and indeterminate than this. Hence, the relation between the terms "stimulus", "response", "reinforcement", etc., and the entities they were supposed to designate became acutely indeterminate when applied to language.

4.6 We see here general trade-off in science, above all in the human sciences: an unduly forceful attempt to make a model highly determinate requires that its relation to its domain become correspondingly indeterminate. We might say that the

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indeterminacy "squeezed out" of the model "moves over" into the relation between the model and its domain (Fig. 3).

Figure 3.
Drift of indeterminacy

We might recall here Einstein's memorable dictum (cited in Rosen, 1978, p. 195): "In so far as the propositions of mathematics are certain they do not refer to reality, and in so far as they refer to reality they are not certain". The epistemological import of quantum theory and thermo-dynamics is very similar, suggesting indeed that indeterminacy is in some sense conservational: it can be redistributed but not eliminated (Beaugrande, 1987b, c).

4.7 We must therefore discard the popular idea that science is a continual and cumulative progress toward greater knowledge and control. A more accurate picture is that science moves through rhytms wherein control is expanded and retracted, raised and lowered, and periodically redistributed. Any terminology (LSP) or model eventually outlives its usefulness, being after all proposed for a partial set of data and incorporating presuppositions that necessarily background some factors which can later turn out to be important. Thus, a "normal science" can "progress" only so far until it encounters a block; then, the science needs to "regress" back behind its accustomed terms and models, put them in question, and gauge their indeterminacy. Only then can the block to progress be overcome. Figure 4 illustrates this transaction.

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Figure 4.
Progress through regress

4.8 Linguistics is an especially complex science because of its peculiar, perhaps unique distribution of control. In one perspective, linguistics is a science in which theories and data complementarily control each other. In another, linguistics has its own special purpose language for controlling what it describes. In another, the object of investigation is a general purpose language for controlling the human situation. The very act of understanding is itself a control process that limits the indeterminacy of what is being understood. Hence, linguistics is a curiously recursive enterprise of trying to understand understanding and to control control. The problem is then: how much of the complexity and indeterminacy of the object domain can be admitted into models without incurring the danger of disintegration?

4.9 Linguistics has long vacillated between models on theory and models of data. In general, "structural" linguistics gathered unprecedented quantities of data, but was rather sparse in its theories, whereas "generative" linguistics created many models on theory, but was quite noncommittal about obtaining data. The antagonistic, polemical interaction between these two approaches forestalled a comprehensive synthesis that could have integrated the two model types and shown their deeper continuities (Bugarski, 1983). At best, the LSPs of two approaches translated certain concepts over from each other in an informal or unacknowledged way, so that the

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degree of consistency and correspondence was not clarified.

4.10 It is not unfair to say that linguistics is currently engaged in a "scientific crisis" as defined above (4.1). Models and LSPs are continually proliferating, and the modes they offer for interpreting data are inconsistent or even irreconcilable. Integration is less common than fragmentation, with each specialized model controlling its data by strongly isolating them. The terminologies of various LSPs are fuzzy and disunified, even in regard to the most basic conceptions. An analysis of the evolution of linguistics into a complex special purpose system may help to appreciate how this state has come about, and how it might be resolved (Beaugrande, in preparation). We turn to this matter in section 5.

5. Linguistics as a Complex Special Purpose Language

5.1 Saussure (1916) postulated that language is a system in which "everything holds everything else in place" (my translation of "dans la langue tout se tient", which seems more consonant with Saussurian thought than "everything holds itself in place"). This postulate appealed strongly to the scientific ambition for maximum order and was widely accepted. As a corollary, each language system has been typically believed to be fully determinate, and the same expectation is imposed on each linguistic model. Since Saussure's "synchronic'' perpective disregards how a language system can have evolved into its present complex state, linguistics assumes that each element holds its present place in the system by the features whereby it differs from all other comparable elements (Weinrich, 1976, p. 63; 1982, p. 30) ².

5.2 Although language spontaneously occurs only in settings that help determine what is said and understood, post-Saussurian linguistics envisions an abstract system removed from time, space, and cause. The attempt to describe language by abstracting away from its dimensionality and causality should delineate a reduction of control as defined above (3.6ff). Many problems arose from the dilemma of how to control (delimit) the more complex domains of language without expressly abandoning the Saussurian abstraction. This dilemma was attenuated only to the extent that linguists already controlled the data simply by understanding the language, because understanding is itself a control process (4.8). The more complex the data, the more crucial this unacknowledged step in the investigation became.

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5.3 Phonology succeeded in designing an elegant, parsimonious formal system for the sounds of any language. The system comprised a well-ordered repertory of minimal sound-units ("phonemes"), each of them precisely identified by its "distinctive features". These "features" were defined in terms of articulatory events and locations: "labial", ''dental", "glottal", "voiced", "fricative", etc. for consonants, "high", "low", "front", "back", etc. for vowels, and so on. Although a "phoneme" was required to be capable of differentiating meanings (Trubetzkoy, 1939), the "phonemic system" owed its determinacy to the more readily objectifiable activity of articulation. When the same conception of "system" was generalized over to other domains of language, this basis disappeared.

5.4 In "morphology", the "morpheme" derived its determinacy from the stems and affixes of words. The simple and straigthforward criteria of phonology yielded to a more diffuse aggregation of data, much of which had to be extracted through sophisticated grammatical and etymological analysis. Being able to recognize which sound-units can distinguish different meanings is an ability we can reasonably attribute to ordinary speakers of English; but being able to differentiate word-parts is more likely a skill of specialists (Beaugrande, 1987a). The concept of "distinctiveness" is also less straightforward for morphemes than for phonemes, especially in a language like Modern English, where the grammatical markers of nouns and verbs have been greatly simplified. An ordinary speaker might see "nothing at all" where the linguist detects a "zero morpheme". Moreover, the concept of "synchronic" becomes problematic, because the productivity of morphemes varies over time. For all these reasons, the line between an unanalyzed morpheme and a morpheme-complex remains fuzzy ³. Accordingly, the analyst's understanding of the data becomes more decisive for "holding everything in place" (cf. 5.1) than was the case in phonology, and the LSP of morphology is less determinate.

5.5 The subsequent development of linguistics intensified these trends. The established LSP was applied to new domains without properly confronting the rising indeterminacies involved in such extensions. Determinacy was believed to be "in" the data itself, even though the dominant models had abstracted out the very dimensionality (contextuality) that makes the data determinate in spontaneous occurrences of language. This contradiction became steadily more acute as linguistics undertook to describe more complex domains. When "semes" or "sememes" were postulated as the basic units of meaning, and "semantic features" as distinguishers, no determinate frame was available, since the real contexts that

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determinate meanings had been abstracted away. Even a dictionary or "lexicon" offers only expressions and discursive definitions rather than the semes themselves; and a lexicon can be put to various uses.

5.6 In this situation, the "generative" approach could be viewed as an innovative conception for managing complexity. Since "syntax" posed the task of enumerating a very large set of elaborate relations, proponents of the "generative'' approach argued that linguistics should design a small set of basic structures and a set of productive "rules" to "transform" those structures into an open set of more complex ones. In this way, the available data for syntax, namely the set of all grammatical phrases and sentences of a language, were to be radically controlled by referring them all back to a quite limited set of basic ones.

5.7 As if in agreement with the trade-off shown in Fig. 3 (4.6), this radical attempt to impose determinacy left the status of these structures and rules disquietingly indeterminate with respect to actual language use. On the one hand, generativists claimed to be describing the "competence" of a "speaker-hearer" of the language, if not indeed of all languages (hence the concern for "universals"). On the other hand, an ordinary speaker could hardly have stated or even recognized the kind of structures and rules envisioned by such theories. The common solution was to postulate "underlying" structures and rules "internalized" by the whole language community, or perhaps "innate" ones; and to downplay the importance of empirical tests. Chomsky (1965, p. 15, p. 19f) averred that "the description of speech habits" and the discovery of "patterns in a corpus of observed speech" would merely "preclude the development of a theory". In this way, models on theory received a disproportionate emphasis without adequate control being exerted by models of data.

5.8 As a consequence of such "uncontrolled" theorizing, the process of translating between an LGP like English and the LSP of a generative grammar became so specialized and idiosyncratic that only a subset of linguists were able to perform it, and even they did so in a bewildering variety of ways. Whereas the terminology of "structural" linguistics had been rather sparing and uniform, that of "generative" linguistics was luxuriant and diffuse: "sister-adjunction", "pied-piping", "left dislocation", "super equi-NP deletion", and much more. If structuralist terminology had been simple and integrative, generativist terminology was complex and disintegrative. This trend became more pronounced as the generative approach splintered into numerous variants.

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5.9 While the study of syntax was proceeding this way, "the domain of semantics", as Bellert (1970, p. 25f) remarks, remained "forbidden to linguists until very recently". Lakoff (1971, p. 267) described the situation by juxtaposing two questions:

(i) What are the regularities that govern which linear sequences of words and morphemes of a language are permissable and which are not?

(ii) What are the regularities by which the surface forms of utterances are paired with their meanings?

Early transformational grammar. . . made the assumption that (i) could be answered without also answering (ii)... This assumption defined a field which might well be called "autonomous syntax", since it assumed that grammatical regularities could be completely characterized without recourse to meaning.

Lakoff (1971, p. 268) proposed instead "generative semantics" as a "field defined by the claim that (i) cannot be answered in full without simultaneously answering (ii), at least in part". This cautious formulation ("in full", ''in part") did not rule out the possibility of "autonomous syntax" in some areas of language, while admitting the pressure linguistics felt to incorporate meaning. Some years later, however, Kuno (1975, p. 276) conceded that the general outlook had hardly changed:

Among generative grammarians, there is a widely held view that linguistics phenomena are primarily controlled by precisely formulatable syntactic conditions... nonsyntactic factors that cannot be precisely formulated are of little value.

5.10 The central problem was whether meaning could in fact be described with concepts originally designed for other purposes. The concepts of phonology had previously been extended to morphology without appreciating the loss of determinacy; now, the concepts of syntax were to be extended to semantics, and again the analyst was obliged to control the data through an unacknowledged process of understanding. Traditional syntactic categories like "noun phrase" and "verb phrase" had to be given a semantic interpretation, even though modern linguistics (e.g. Bloomfield, 1933) had scolded school grammars for defining terms by reference to indeterminate meanings. Now, something rather similar happened under the pressure to make syntax a basis for semantics, as in statements like: "a proper name in the nominative case" is "in general the best candidate for logical

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subject" (Bellert, 1970, p. 11).

5.11 The situation was complicated by the already mentioned shift away from models of data toward models of theory (4.9; 5.7). Phonology and morphology were so heavily data-driven that theoretical problems or indeterminacies were controlled by a constant stock of conducive examples. Syntax took a different turn when certain linguists decided that "under" the large number actual word sequences people produce and receive lies a "deeper" level for the small number of basic structures. "The problem of how deep structures should be represented still remains open, even for those linguists who are known as adherents of a transformational generative grammar" (Bellert, 1970, p. 9).

5.12 For a time it was assumed that the "transformations" postulated for conversions between simpler structures and more complex ones did not affect the meaning of a sentence (Katz and Postal, 1964). This postulate in effect equated natural language with the formal languages of mathematics, whose express purpose is to preserve truth-values under transformation. The advantage was plain: as long as meaning remains constant, the grammar has no urgent need to deal with it. However, many examples of utterances where this preservation does not hold for English were soon adduced, such as the active-passive pair "many men read few books" versus "few books are read by many men" (Lakoff, 1971, p. 238). Accordingly, linguists undertook to design a set of rules to cover at least (or only) those aspects of meaning that do not remain constant during syntactic transformation.

5.13 Though originally proposed as a syntactic entity, "deep structure" seemed a natural home for semantics. Lees (1970, p. 185) sought "evidence for the view that the deepest syntactic structure of expressions is itself a more or less direct picture of their semantic descriptions". In what Chomsky (1971, p. 185) called the "`standard theory'", ⁴ "deep structures contain all lexical items, each with its complement of grammatical features", and "determine semantic representation under the rules of semantic interpretation". Lakoff (1971, p. 269) concluded that "Chomsky had therefore adopted" "one of the most fundamental innovations" of "generative semantics": "the claim that semantic representations and syntactic phrase-markers are formal objects of the same kind". Stockwell (1977, p. 32) proposed a "semantic representation" that would "single out those aspects of the total meaning which are carried by the syntactic structure of sentences". All these ideas served the intent to extend syntactic theories to cover semantics, instead of designing new theories for that domain.

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5.14 The term "sentence" underwent a considerable extension. For structuralists, the "sentence" was well-determined: an independent syntactic unit with at least one noun (or noun phrase) and its finite verb (or verb phrase). The discourse of generativists, on the other hand, are replete with alternative uses of the term, e.g. (my italics):

These sentences . . . have the same truth conditions... However, they seem different in meaning in that one makes an assertion about the sonata, and the other about the violin. (Chomsky, 1971, p. 209)

The sentences of <42> have as focus `study' (or `in his study') and express the presupposition that John writes poetry somewhere. (Chomsky, 1971, p. 200)

The following two lists both contain predicates which take sentences as their subjects. (Kiparsky and Kiparsky, 1970, p. 142)

In each of these passages, the term "sentence" has evidently been extended beyond its structural definition. Strictly speaking, a noun phrase and a verb phrase cannot be said to "have truth conditions", "make an assertion'', "have a focus", or "express a presupposition"; only speakers or meanings can do such things. Nor can a predicate "take a sentence as its subject", though it can take an independent clause.

5.15 Such usages and many more could be added to the ones just listed reveal how the central term "sentence" has acquired an indeterminate range of designations applying it as a unit of meaning or agency. One might argue that "sentences" constitute the only objects through which meanings can be conveyed; therefore, meaning is only cognizable through sentences. But real utterances are often not formatted as sentences in the structural sense, and to claim that sentences "underlie" all of these is psychologically implausible in view of available evidence. Surely an identity relation between meaning and sentence cannot be a presupposition, but a problem for discussion. Whereas some linguists assert that "the meaning of a sentence cannot be separated from its linguistic embodiment" (Kay, 1970, p. 114), others, such as proponents of "generative semantics", demand that "semantic representations" be "provided in some language-independent way" (Lakoff, 1971, p. 232). Moreover, a given meaning can be expressed with more than one sentence, and "no principle is readily available for choosing one of a set of paraphrases and claiming that it is the meaning of the others" (Kay, 1970, p. 114).

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5.16 Linguists widely believe that a "semantic representation" should be more determinate than the language example to which it corresponds. Consider McCawley's (1968, p. 164) version of a sentence and its "semantic representation":

(2) John and Harry love their respective wives.

(2a) x "e (x₁, x₂) [x loves x's wife]

(2a) clarifies the distribution of agents and objects, but leaves unchanged the really indeterminate central term: the "meaning" of "love" has been debated for millennia, proving only that no other word could designate the same range of content. In such cases, the "representation" is indeterminate precisely to the degree that it is independent of language, because the procedures for translating into or out of it are no longer controlled by the linguists' naturally acquired language skills.

5.17 I cannot resist the impression that the general discomfort among linguists about semantics reflects the realization that in this domain, linguistics will no longer be able to maintain the same mode or degree of control over its data as was feasible in other domains. Meanwhile, the history of research in semantics reveals a constant effort to limit the indeterminacy of the data down to the proportions attained by other domains. Determinacy was attained in phonology by referring to articulation, and in morphology by isolating word-parts. In syntax, linguists took it for granted that "surface structure is fully determined by base rules and transformational rules" (Chomsky, 1971, p. 214), such that the borderline between possible and impossible strings should be just as determinate in natural languages as it is in formal languages. In the same spirit, semantics hoped that by "tackling some of the classical problems of philosophy", we might discover "real constraints on `possible messages'" (McCawley, 1971, p. 219).

5.18 Yet of all the subsystems of language, meaning is both quantitatively and qualitatively the most complex and indeterminate. The system is quite open, and new or specialized meanings can be produced so readily and rapidly that the notion of "synchronic" seems doubtful. Semantics is the hardest to view as a system in which "everything holds everything else in place" (cf. 5.1, 4). At most, we can find a few seemingly determinate "logical" relations such as consistency, non-contradiction, presupposition, entailment, truth conditions, and so on, which are rather specialized in comparison to the elaboration of meanings in everyday contexts; and certain "semantic fields" wherein meanings can

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be grouped around a concept (Weinrich, 1976). The dictionary or "lexicon" purports to represent a consensus which is, in no small measure, its own ambition and effect; but each new edition shows that meanings have changed anyway.

5.19 Evidently, the distinction between the abstract system and use of the system ("langue" versus "parole", "competence" versus "performance") is far more precarious and damaging for semantics than for any other domain of language. Hence, semantics is the domain in which the problems of establishing an LSP for describing or representing the object of inquiry are the most acute. Such an LSP cannot be expected to fix the boundary between "possible and impossible messages'' or "meanings". But it can help linguists to appreciate the natural indeterminacy of potential meanings that enable ordinary language users to create such an endless variety of reasonably determinate actual meanings.

6. A Case Study

6.1 An intriguing attempt to deal with the problems of LSP in linguistics has been presented in Harald Weinrich's (1982) Textgrammatik der französischen Sprache ("Text Grammar of the French Language"). Realizing the tremendous indeterminacy enshrouding the "sentence", Weinrich takes the highly exceptional step of excluding the term from his grammar. The "test" is granted the status of the fundamental unit of discourse, such that the linguist returns directly to the source from which all knowledge of language is originally derived.

6.2 Weinrich also clears some space by making no significant use of the concept of "transformation", though it is, in an unconventional sense, implied in the correspondence between a unit or relation and a "hypothetical imperative" (that the hearer do this or that) as "the basic form of both grammatical and lexical description" (1982, p. 25). "In principle, meanings have the character of instructions" that "the speaker gives the hearer in the language game" ⁵; "the hearer is to be brought (not forced) to act in a certain way in the given situation" (1982, p. 29). "Grammar deals mainly with instructions intended to provide the hearer with an orientation in understanding the text"; they thereby "control the communication and are meta-communicative". "Overall, grammar is a system of meta-communicative rules for the meaningful use of texts".

6.3 To foreground this principle, Weinrich postulates a set of

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"semantic features", for which thirty-two pairwise oppositions are stated as instructions, in fact, as imperatives; these features are deployed in constructing all syntactic concepts used in the grammar (1982, p. 25ff, p. 863-870). This design places the features within an adequately determinate context serving a declared special purpose. We are thus constantly reminded that linguistics is a self-referential discourse, and that relations between linguistics units function as indicators of how concepts are related this too a factor we can best appreciate by examining real texts (cf. Beaugrande, 1980).

6.4 The concept of "syntax" is fundamentally reinterpreted to designate all the connections language can offer. The wealth of specifications that are typically suppressed by representing a sentence as a block of constituents, a derivational tree, or a logical predication, can now be preserved. For example, the function of an adverb is not merely to depend on a verb, but to convey indications about "assertion" ("agreement" vs. ''objection"), "position" ("sender" vs. "receiver"), "tempus" ("discussing" vs. "narrating"), ⁶ "sequence" ("earlier" vs. "later"), "estimation" ("many" vs. "few"), "comparison" ("raising" vs. "lowering"), and so on (1982, p. 436, 438, 449, 473, 452, 457).

6.5 This approach can readily be applied to what Weinrich designates "the syntax of conversation" a concept rather foreign to conventional linguistics, where conversation was usually discounted as a phemonenon of "parole" or "performance", despite its being "the basic form of communication" (1982, p. 679). Conversation supplies a significant mode of control upon how sounds, words, or phrases get organized. Consequently, Weinrich works through his sample texts to a greater degree of determinacy than isolated words or sentences could support.

6.6 We have here a remarkable, and nowadays rare, workbench performance of a single linguist undertaking a sustained effort, over some twelve years, of inferring structural principles out of their exemplifications and specifications in texts. We can watch him forming a special purpose language whose terms are controlled by the set of contexts he assembles and the ways he goes to work. His repertory of "semantic features" explicitly acknowledges and determines the conceptual apparatus for describing entities which may appear either as units or as relations. The resulting description does not stipulate all the aspects of those entities, since, as I said, real language data always tends to manifest a more bounded determinism than any theory can strictly require (4.1). But the description does incorporate many aspects which pertain to the system level not the

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context-free system of "langue" or "competence", but the interactive system of textuality.

6.7 For me, the most interesting accomplishment of Weinrich's "text grammar" is to show linguistics in the very act of resituating itself in respect to its domain of inquiry. "Grammar" is presented as a special purpose discourse seeking multiple lines of access to general purpose discourse, including some lines not previously studied letting in some contextual factors and their dimensional and causal determinacy. The result is to even out a crucial set of interrelated balances: between general and special, between constant and variable, between reduction and complication, between abstraction and concretization, between formalization and contextualization, and so on. Though we might dispute some of the terms and categories, we should not underestimate the importance of striving for this balance throughout such a comprehensive description of a language, especially after a whole generation of grammars had heavily weighted the balance toward first of each pair just enumerated. This balancing might be the context in which we can fittingly construe the quotation from Rivarol that opens the Weinrich's volume: "grammar being the art of relieving the difficulties of a language, the lever must not be heavier than the load it lifts".

Notes

1. Weinrich (1976, p. 100f) was among the few to explicitly label a linguistic discussion (Katz and Fodor, 1963) as one type of a "disturbance of communication" "artificially produced by the linguist" "through the highly problematical procedure of taking a brief, non-committal sample sentence as a starting point for a linguistic analysis". Weinrich wonders if there may be a "disturbance in the basic theory'' here.

2. If interpreted in a radical and dynamic way, this postulate might imply an endless cross-referral and deferral between any sign and the sign(s) it differs from an idea foregrounded by deconstruction (Beaugrande, In press).

3. The recourse of separating off the "lexemes" and reserving the term "morpheme" only for grammatically distinctive word parts (Weinrich, 1982, p. 32) reduces the problems of morphology by sacrificing generality, and makes the border of the domain still fuzzier.

4. Chomsky (1971, p. 184f) applies the term "`standard theory'" "merely for convenience of discussion and with no intention of implying that it has some unique

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conceptual or empirical status" to "the theory outlined in Chomsky (1965)"; "the deep structures, in this theory", "determine semantic interpretation". Lakoff (1971, p. 268f), however, claims that "the standard theory is a considerable innovation over the Aspects theory" in treating semantic and syntactic structures as ''formal objects of the same kind".

5. "Language game" follows Wittgenstein (1967, p. 17): "the entirety of the language and the activities with which it is interwoven". Weinrich (1976, p. 37) owns that "it cannot be clearly recognized from Wittgenstein's aphoristic remarks exactly how we are to conceive of a language game".

6. Weinrich (1964) made a large-scale attempt to establish these two kinds of "tempus". The "discussing" kind includes the traditional tenses of present, perfect, and future, while the "narrating" kind includes the imperfect, the past perfect, and the conditional. This work, being among the first to unite innovative textual categories with conventional grammatical ones, was not received as thoughtfully as it merited.

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(1987c) Quantum aspects of artistic perception. Paper at the Hungarian-American Conference on the Perception of Social Interaction in Literature. August 1987. Budapest.

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2
Die Obsessionen Des Wissenschaftlichen Diskurses Und Die Entfremdung Des Subjekts

Theo Bungarten
Universität Hamburg

Ich möchte meine Ausführungen mit einem Auszug aus einem historischen Dokument beginnen. Viele von Ihnen werden dies hier als deplaziert betrachten und in Frage stellen, warum ich dieses Dokument mit Formen des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses in Beziehung setze oder vergleiche:

"Die Überholung der Wagen bei der Gruppe D und C ist beendet. Während die Wagen der ersten Serie auch bei nicht allzu schlechter Wetterlage eingesetzt werden können, liegen die Wagen der zweiten Serie (Saurer) bei Regenwetter vollkommen fest. Wenn es z.B. nur eine halbe Stunde geregnet hat, kann der Wagen nicht eingesetzt werden, weil er glatt wegrutscht. Benutzbar ist er nur bei ganz trockenem Wetter. Es tritt nun die Frage auf, ob man den Wagen nur am Orte der Exekution im Stand benutzen kann. Erstens muß der Wagen an diesen Ort gebracht werden, was nur bei guter Wetterlage möglich ist. Der Ort der Exekution befindet sich aber meistens 10-15 km abseits der Verkehrswege und ist durch seine Lage schon schwer zugänglich, bei feuchtem oder nassen Wetter überhaupt nicht." ¹

Wenn ich diesen Text lese, noch ohne seinen sprachlichen Kontext und seinen Handlungszusammenhang zu kennen, wenn ich feststelle, daß über das Wetter und seine Wirkungen auf die Funktionsfähigkeit von Wagen gesprochen wird, fällt mir spätestens beim Wort "Exekution" das Gedicht "An die Nachgebornen" von Bertolt Brecht ein, wo er anklagend fragt: "Was sind das für Zeiten, wo /Ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein Verbrechen ist.", und sich selbst die Antwort gibt: ''Weil es ein Schweigen über so viele Untaten einschließt!" Auch die Umkehrung gilt für diesen historischen Text, der neben Alltagssprache einige wenige fachsprachliche Merkmale enthält: Wenn die Massenmörder und ihre Komplizen in einer geheimen Reichssache über das Wetter korrespondieren, schließt es ein Schweigen, ein klammheimliches Wissen über die Vergasung von Menschen ein.

Wie ist es möglich, daß Dinge mitgeteilt werden, die sprachlich

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in einer gewissen Weise gerade vermieden werden? Wir wissen aufgrund der verschiedenen pragmatischen Theorien, und damit stützen wir uns auf die Ergebnisse der linguistischen Pragmatik und Kommunikationstheorie, daß der Handlungszusammenhang, der sprachliche und außersprachliche Kontext Informationen liefern kann, die sprachlich nicht oder nicht explizit formuliert werden. Und was die Brechtsche Außerung betrifft, so eilt uns Grice mit seinen Konversationsmaximen zu Hilfe, um zu erklären, warum ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein Verbrechen sein kann.

Aber mit den Griceschen Konversationsmaximen und mit anderen pragmatischen Theorien ist noch nicht geklärt, warum auf diese Weise kommuniziert wird. Handelt es sich vielleicht um gewisse zwanghafte Ausdrucksformen in bestimmten Situationen und Handlungsbereichen, um "Obsessionen", von denen der Sprecher überwältigt wird?

"Die Obsessionen", so lesen wir im Wörterbuch der Psychologie,

"erscheinen wie dominierende Ideen im psychischen Leben, obwohl sie der Patient absurd findet. Es gibt Ideen und auch Triebe, welche diesen Zwangscharakter aufweisen. In manchen Fällen erscheinen die Obsessionen isoliert, in anderen wieder sind sie Manifestationen anderer Krankheiten ( -> Depressionen, -> Schizophrenie)." ²

Oder wir lesen im Klinischen Wörterbuch bei Pschyrembel:

"Obsessionen (obsessio): Zwangsvorstellungen, Vorstellungen od. Gedanken, die unter d. Gefühl des Zwanges in d. Bewußtsein eintreten, sich durch Willensanstrengungen nicht verscheuchen lassen u. desh. den Ablauf der Vorstellungen durchkreuzen, obwohl sie vom Kranken als inhaltlich falsch u. als krankhaft entstanden anerkannt werden. Das Erlebnis dieses Zwanges ist stets mit Angst verbunden. . ."³

Wir sträuben uns zurecht, nationalsozialistische Verbrecher als Patienten, als Kranke anzuerkennen, die zur Verheimlichung ihrer Verbrechen in der Sprache von Obsessionen besetzt seien, auch wenn es nicht an wissenschaftlichen Versuchen gefehlt hat, einzelne Nationalsozialisten als schizophren zu beschreiben. Auch wenn der Dokumententext kein geeignetes Beispiel für obsessives Sprachverhalten im klinisch-psychologischen Sinne ist, so macht er uns doch auf dieses sprachliche Phänomen aufmerksam.

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Ich möchte die Frage nach Obsessionen im Sprachverhalten oder, besser, nach zwanghaften, ritualisierten Kommunikationsweisen hier grundsätzlich stellen, und zwar in soziologischer, sozialpsychologischer und individual-psychologischer Hinsicht, bevor ich mich dann auf den wissenschaftlichen Diskurs konzentriere. Die Frage nach sprachlichen Zwängen rückt auch das Problem der sprachlichen Norm in den Blick, und noch fundamentaler die philosophische und anthropologische Frage: Wie frei ist der Sprecher in seinem Sprachverhalten. Ich meine damit nicht den Konflikt zwischen solipsistischer Privatsprache und notwendigem gemeinsamen Kode, ich stelle diese Frage in erkenntnistheoretischer, ideologiekritischer und politischer Hinsicht.

Eine Antwort darauf findet Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, der im letzten Jahr verstorbene marxistische Linguist und Philosoph. Nach Rossi-Landi, der die Marxschen politökonomischen Kategorien auf die Sprache und die Kommunikation überträgt, kommuniziert der Sprecher in der bisherigen, selbstverschuldeten sozialen Entwicklung seiner Spezies in sprachlicher Unfreiheit: da die herrschende Klasse das `Sprachkapital' in ihr `Privateigentum' überführt hat, den sprachlichen Kode beherrscht, die Kodifikationsmodalitäten und Entschlüsselungsmodalitäten steuert und die Informations- und Kommunikationskanäle kontrolliert, kann der `sprachliche Arbeiter' (der Alltagssprecher) seine `kommunikative Arbeit' wie an einer großen Sprachmaschine nur unfrei und im Sinne der Herrschenden verrichten, wobei die Herrschenden wie in der kapitalistischen Produktion nur am Profit interessiert sind ⁴. Der sprachliche Arbeiter konsumiert nur auf dem `kommunikativen Markt', anstatt selbstbestimmt und initiativ an ihm teilzunehmen⁵. Der Alltagssprecher ist also nur Spielball des ihm von der herrschenden Klasse aufoktroyierten Kodes.

"Herrschend ist diejenige Klasse, die die Kontrolle über Emission und Zirkulation der konstitutiven verbalen und nichtverbalen Nachrichten einer gegebenen Gemeinschaft innehat. Die herrschende Klasse steigert die Redundanz derjenigen Nachrichten, die ihre Position als herrschende Klasse bekräftigen, während sie die Kodifizierung und Zirkulation derjenigen Nachrichten, die ihre Position schwächen könnten, mit Lärm überfällt und, falls es ihr nötig erscheint, regelrecht durchkreuzt. . . Entweder ist der Sender die herrschende Klasse selber, die erzwingt, daß gewisse Zeichensysteme anstelle gewisser anderer akzeptiert werden, oder es handelt sich um beherrschte Sender, denen angesichts der Gewalt der herrschenden Klasse nichts anderes übrig bleibt, als die herrschenden

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Kodes zu benutzen oder zu schweigen." (Rossi-Landi, 1976 [1972], S. 122)

Immer wieder hebt Rossi-Landi den obsessiven, zwanghaften Charakter der Sprachverwendung hervor:

"Der sprachliche Arbeiter, als einer, der zwanghafte und überpersönliche Modelle repetiert, findet sich in einer Lage, in der er nicht weiß, was er tut, wenn er spricht, nicht weiß, warum und wie er spricht, in der er sprachlichen Produktionsprozessen angehört, die ihn von Anfang an konditionieren, die ihn zwingen, die Welt in einer bestimmten Weise zu sehen und die ihm eine eigenständige oder auch nur einfach andersartige Arbeit erschweren." (Rossi-Landi, 1974 [1968], S. 101)

Hier wie anderswo führt Rossi-Landi die fundamentale Frage nach Freiheit und Bindung in der Sprache, das sattsam bekannte und eigentlich verworfene Prinzip der sprachlichen Relativität im marxistischen Sinne auf die kapitalistische Entwicklung der Gesellschaften zurück ⁶.

Er ersetzt das sich auf die Natur der Einzelsprachen berufende sprachliche Relativitätsprinzip, das er als solches ablehnt, durch ein gesellschaftlich bedingtes und auferlegtes sprachliches Relativitätsprinzip. Erstmalig spricht Rossi-Landi, indem er den Marxschen Begriff der "Entfremdung" auf Sprache und Kommunikation überträgt, von einer "alienazione linguistica", einer `sprachlichen Entfremdung', die in unseren Gesellschaftsformen sowohl für die herrschende Klasse wie auch für den sprachlichen Arbeiter zutreffe und sprachlicher Ausfluß der generellen, umfassenden Entfremdung des Menschen sei.

Neben dem traditionellen soziologischen, Marxschen Entfremdungsbegriff ist auch der psychologische Entfremdungsbegriff auf die Sprache übertragen worden wie er bereits bei Marx im Konzept der Selbstentfremdung (siehe "falsches Bewußtsein" bei Marx) angelegt ist und u.a. von Erich Fromm definiert wird:

"Mit Entfremdung ist eine Erlebnisweise gemeint, bei der sich der Mensch selbst als einen Fremden empfindet. Er ist, so könnte man sagen, sich selbst entfremdet. Er erlebt sich nicht selber als den Mittelpunkt seiner Welt, als den Urheber seiner Taten vielmehr sind seine Handlungen und ihre Folgen seine Herren geworden, denen er gehorsam ist, die er anbetet. Die entfremdete Person ist außer Fühlung mit sich selbst und ebenso mit allen andern Menschen. Sie erlebt sich und andre, wie man Dinge

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erlebt, mit den Sinnen und mit dem Verstand, aber zugleich ohne eine fruchtbare Beziehung zu sich selber oder zur Umwelt." (Israel, 1972 [1970], S. 194)

In die gleiche Gedankenrichtung, wenn auch nicht in Form expliziter Entfremdungsbegriffe, weisen der `eindimensionale Mensch' Herbert Marcuses und die Defizite an `kommunikativem Handeln', die Jürgen Habermas beklagt.

In seiner psychoanalytischen Theorie des unerfüllbaren `Begehrens', Momente der Freudschen Triebtheorie und von Saussures Zeichenbegriff fortführend, wendet nun Jacques Lacan den psychologischen Entfremdungsbegriff auf die Sprache und das kommunikative Verhältnis des Menschen zu seinen Mitmenschen an: Die `Wahrheit des Sprechenden', sein ihm unbewußtes, eigentliches Subjekt äußert sich nicht in den Bedeutungen, in den Signifikaten seiner Äußerungen, sondern in den Signifikanten, die mit seinem ungestillten Begehren besetzt sind und von seinem Bewußtsein nicht kontrolliert werden können. Gerade in der Differenz und in der Bruchstelle zwischen Signifikant und Signifikat läßt sich nach Lacan das `wahre Subjekt' überraschen. Die Differenz und der Bruch kommen dadurch zustande, daß das Subjekt sich im bewußten Teil seines Diskurses, also in den Signifikaten, nicht preisgeben will. Deshalb kommuniziert es gewöhnlich in der "parole vide", im leeren Sprechen, dem `Gerede', oder durch `Sprachlosigkeit', durch die "absence de la parole", die sich manifestiert in den

"Stereotypien eines Diskurses, in dem das Subjekt sozusagen mehr gesprochen wird als daß es selbst spricht" (Lacan, 1966, S. 159)

"In einem zunehmenden Besitzverlust seiner selbst (...) erkennt (das Subjekt) letztlich, daß sein Selbst immer nur sein imaginäres Geschöpf gewesen ist und daß dieses Geschöpf ihm jede Sicherheit nimmt. Denn in der Anstrengung, die das Subjekt unternimmt, um sein Geschöpf für einen anderen wieder zu erschaffen, findet es die fundamentale Entfremdung wieder, die das Subjekt dieses Geschöpf als ein anderes hat erschaffen lassen und die dieses Geschöpf nur dazu bestimmt hat, daß es ihm durch einen anderen geraubt wird." (Lacan, 1966, S. 125; Übers. von mir).

Lacan spricht in diesem Zusammenhang, und damit sind wir wieder im Kontext der Obsession, von der "Ausbildung eines einzigartigen Wahns, der sei er nun fabelhaft, phantastisch oder kosmologisch, deutend, fordernd oder idealistisch das Subjekt in einer Sprache ohne Dialektik objektiviert." (Lacan, 1973, S. 121)

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Hier gerät uns, neben z.B. der Sprache der Psychoanalyse ⁷, der Werbung, der Politik, auch der Diskurs der Wissenschaft in das Blickfeld. Und tatsächlich sieht Lacan in der Wissenschaft und ihren Kommunikationsformen eine für unsere Zeit markante Form der Entfremdung des Subjekts, da Wissenschaft und Wissenschaftssprache für das wissenschaftliche Subjekt ein von der Gesellschaft angebotener Ausweg aus seiner `Sinnlosigkeit' zu sein scheine, daß sie den Wissenschaftler tatsächlich aber, ohne daß dieser sich dessen bewußt werde, noch tiefer in die Entfremdung führe:

"Die Kommunikation kann sich für das Subjekt gültig entwickeln und einrichten im gemeinsamen Werk der Wissenschaft und in den Anwendungsformen, die sie in der weltumspannenden Zivilisation befiehlt. Diese Kommunikation wird im Innern der phantastischen, durch diese Wissenschaft geschaffenen Objektivation wirkungsvoll sein und ihm erlauben, seine Subjektivität zu vergessen. Das Subjekt wird in seiner täglichen Arbeit effektiv am gemeinsamen Werk mitarbeiten und seine Freizeit mit allen Vergnügungen einer überschäumenden Kultur ausfüllen, die, vom Kriminalroman bis zur Memoirenliteratur, von pädagogischen Vorträgen bis zur Orthopädie von Gruppenbeziehungen, ihm Gelegenheit gibt, sein Dasein und seinen Tod zu vergessen und in einer falschen Kommunikation zugleich den besonderen Sinn seines Lebens zu verleugnen." (Lacan, 1966, S. 161f.; Übers. von mir)

Diese Kritik Lacans zielt auf die Substanz der Wissenschaft und ihrer Diskursformen. Aber ist sie auch gerechtfertigt? Entfremdet sich der Wissenschaftler in seiner Arbeit und in seiner Sprache von sich selbst? Unterliegt er obsessiven, zwanghaften Sprach- und Kommunikationsformen, die es ihm ermöglichen, die existenzielle Frage nach dem Sinn seines Lebens, nach der `Wahrheit seines Subjekts' zu stellen und eine Antwort darauf zu finden?

Ich will versuchen, einige Markierungen auf dem Weg zu einer Antwort auf diese Fragen zu setzen, indem ich versuchen werde, den wissenschaftlichen Handlungsbereich und den wissenschaftlichen Diskurs zu charakterisieren. "Diskurs" verstehe ich im Sinne J. Habermas', der neben dem `kommunikativen Handeln' in der situationsbestimmten Alltagskommunikation den kontextunabhängigen, themenbezogenen Diskurs unterscheidet, der Inhalte problematisiert und Verständigung sucht (vgl. Habermas, 1971, S. 115 und S. 121)⁸.

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Handlungstheoretisch läßt sich die Wissenschaft die sicher problematische Abstraktion von den divergierenden Einzelwissenschaften sei hier einmal vorgenommen als eigener Handlungsbereich verstehen, der sich in charakteristischer Weise von anderen Handlungsbereichen wie etwa Alltagswelt, Politik, Sport, Freizeit, Religion, Technik unterscheidet. Ich möchte Wissenschaftssprache, wie ich dies früher schon getan habe (Bungarten, 1981, S. 27-28), als einen Handlungsbereich verstehen, der methodisch-theoretisch ausgebildete Personen umfaßt, spezifische Untersuchungsinteressen und soziale Bedürfnisse dieser Personen, objektivierbare Sachverhalte als Untersuchungs-objekte, theoretische und praktische Fragestellungen, das Interesse, diese Fragestellungen vor allem theoretisch und generalisierend zu lösen, empirische Daten, überliefertes Wissen in Form von wissenschaftlichen Theorien, intellektuelle und materielle Instrumente zur Lösung der Fragestellungen (fachliche Begabung, theoretische Methoden/Methodologien, praktische Hilfsmittel wie Bücher, Bibliotheken, Untersuchungsapparaturen, Schreibgeräte), Erkenntnisse in Form von Hypothesen und Mittel zur Überprüfung dieser und neuer Erkenntnisse (spezifische Methodologien, Experimentanordnungen, empirische Tests); und schließlich umfaßt dieser Handlungsbereich auch den wissenschaftlichen Diskurs (oder die Wissenschaftssprache im umfassenden Sinne verstanden).

Wissenschaft wird in den Leitsätzen und Richtlinien der heutigen Gesellschaftspolitik als Schlüssel für den Fortschritt der Gesellschaft betrachtet. Auch wenn eine Verantwortung der Wissenschaft und der Wissenschaftler für ihre Ergebnisse und deren Verwertung gefordert wird, ist die wissenschaftliche Arbeit innerhalb des wissenschaflichen Handlungsbereiches eine differenzierte, stark spezialisierte, teilweise esoterische Aktivität von Spezialisten für Spezialisten. Dies nicht zuletzt deshalb, weil die Forschungsobjekte und -methoden eine langwierige und spezialisierte Ausbildung, intellektuelle Fähigkeiten, spezielles Wissen und Problemlösungsvorgehen erfordern, wodurch der Wissenschaftler sich sowohl pragmatisch wie auch soziologisch von anderen Mitgliedern des Gemeinwesens unterscheidet und auch isoliert ⁹.

Eine gesellschaftliche Isolierung ist teilweise darin gegründet, daß der Wissenschaftler seine Arbeit als "Kopfarbeit" und deren theoretische Ergebnisse nicht mehr unmittelbar sinnlich und anschaulich in seine alltägliche Lebenswelt vermitteln kann, wodurch besondere Legitimationsprobleme entstehen und woraus sich spezifische Formen der Rechtfertigung gegenüber der Gesellschaft herausgebildet haben

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(Publikationsverhalten, Institutionalisierung und Bürokratisierung der Wissenschaft, Appetenzverhalten gegenüber Politik und Öffentlichkeit; siehe dazu Rip, 1986).

Die Arbeit des Wissenschaftlers ist gekennzeichnet durch

Abstraktion vom Einzelnen der Erfahrungswelt

methodisch-theoretisches Vorgehen

formale Rationalität und Objektivität

das Bewußtsein von der zeitbedingten Relativität seiner Erkenntnisse

das Bewußtsein einer ethisch-moralisch wertfreien Arbeit

oder

das Bewußtsein der Ambivalenz seiner Ergebnisse im Hinblick auf ihre praktische Anwendung (einschließlich der Mißbrauchsmöglichkeit) und daraus folgend eine gesellschaftliche Verantwortlichkeit für seine Forschungsergebnisse

ein gesellschaftliches Prestige, das sich auf alle Konstituenten des wissenschaftlichen Handlungsbereichs erstreckt.

Im Rahmen dieser wissenschaftstheoretischen, sozialen und personalen Normen, Erwartungshaltungen und Werteinstellungen arbeitet der Wissenschaftler nicht nur privatim, sondern auch in wissenschaftlichen Institutionen, wie Forschungseinrichtungen, Firmenlabors, Universitäten. Er übernimmt damit eine spezifische Rolle im gesamten Rollenhaushalt der Gesellschaft, die sich durch die wissenschaftstheoretischen und sozialen Normen konstituert.

Wird der Druck der Verhaltensnormen und -erwartungen für den Rollenträger so stark, daß er sich völlig mit seiner Rolle identifiziert, so fehlt ihm wie Hans Peter Dreitzel (1968) in seiner rollentheoretischen Analyse beschreibt die notwendige Rollendistanz, es fehlen notwendige Ich-Leistungen im Rollenspiel; zwanghafter Ritualismus und normenkonformes Verhalten sind die Folge. Die soziale Rolle kann damit nicht mehr, so Dreitzel weiter, die Funktion erfüllen, individuelle Bedürfnisse und gesellschaftliche oder soziale Anforderungen miteinander in Einklang zu bringen. "Das Individuum kann sich nicht mehr gesellschaftlich `verwirklichen'" (Dreitzel, 1968, S. 340). Dreitzel spricht hier im sozialpsychologischen Sinne von Selbstentfremdung, die, wenn der Rollenträger keine Kompensation in einer anderen Rolle findet, zu einer Identitätsdiffusion oder zu einem Identitätsverlust des Rollenträges führt (S. 341). Gerade in der Unterdrückung der Ich-Leistungen im Rollenspiel, in der fehlenden Rollendistanz, zeigt sich die normative Macht

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entsprechender Institutionen, Organisationen und gesellschaftlicher Gruppierungen.

Auch der Wissenschaftler ist in Gefahr, völlig in seiner ihm von der Gesellschaft zugewiesenen Rolle aufzugehen. Seine Leistungen werden in der Wissenschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik unserer modern kapitalistischen und sozialistischen Industriegesellschaften marktwirtschaftlich nachgefragt, bewertet und verwertet ¹⁰. Wissenschaft und ihre Ergebnisse drohen nicht nur in den Natur- und Technikwissenschaften, sondern auch in den kritischen Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, wie Psychologie, Soziologie, Philologie und Philosophie, zur Ware zu werden und der Wissenschaftler selbst zum reinen Produktionsfaktor¹¹. Damit drohen sie sich ihrer individual- und sozialethisch zu fordernden gesellschaftskritischen Funktion und Verantwortung zu entledigen. Die Prinzipien, die Wertvorstellungen, die Moral der ausschließlich marktwirtschaftlichen Orientierung, gepaart mit dem Rationalitätsprinzip im Sinne Max Webers, drohen übermächtig zu werden und auch die Wissenschaft zu vereinnahmen: Die wissenschaftliche Arbeit verdinglicht wie Georg Lukacs sagen würde, weil sie sich verselbständigt und im Kontext der gesellschaftlich herrschenden Wertvorstellungen dem subjektiven Willen des Wissenschaftlers entzieht (vgl. auch den Begriff des `Warenfetischismus' bei Marx). Es darf die Frage gestellt werden: Ist nicht die Forderung nach verantwortlichem Handeln des Wissenschaftlers ein verräterisches Indiz für seine Entfremdung, Verdinglichung und marktwirtschaftliche Vereinnahmung durch die Ideologie einer exzessiven Marktwirtschaft?

Wenn in der Wissenschaft und für den Wissenschaftler tatsächlich Entfremdung und Selbstentfremdung nicht nur als Randerscheinung, sondern als durchgängiges Strukturprinzip zu diagnostizieren ist, müßte sich diese Entfremdung auch im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs nachweisen lassen. Also die Frage: Ist der Wissenschaftler, wenn man die Auffassung Rossi-Landis auf sein kommunikatives Verhalten, seine `sprachliche Arbeit', überträgt, sprachlich entfremdet? Und ist er, im Sinne Lacans, von seinem `Instrument' Wissenschaftssprache besessen, von kommunikativen Zwängen besetzt, die ihn daran hindern, seine Entfremdung von der Gesellschaft, von seinen Kollegen, von seiner Arbeit und seinem Arbeitsergebnis, von sich selbst zu erkennen?

Um dies zu prüfen, möchte ich einige Beispiele von Wissenschaftssprache betrachten, wobei ich `Wissenschaftssprache' enger als `wissenschaftlicher Diskurs' und aus einem systemlinguistischen Blickwinkel heraus als die

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Sprachkompetenz und die Performanzerscheinungen verstehe, die im wissenschaftlichen Handlungsbereich die Kommunikation gewährleisten (Bungarten, 1981, S. 31-32). Ich habe die Beispiele vor allem aus den naturwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen ausgewählt, und zwar solche, die die typischen Merkmale von Wissenschaftssprache besonders deutlich zeigen. Die Beispielsätze können in keiner Weise repräsentativ für ihr Fach sein; sie sind aber durchaus exemplarisch für ihr Fach ¹². Denn trotz gewisser individualstilistischer Variationsmöglichkeiten wissenschaftlicher Sprechweise in jedem Fach, die in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften größer ist als in den Natur- und Technikwissenschaften, sind die gewählten empirischen Beispiele funktionierende Kommunikationsakte, die schriftlichen deutschsprachigen Kommunikationssituationen entnommen sind, welche im jeweiligen Fach akzeptiert sind und als nicht unüblich verstanden werden.

Daß typische Merkmale wissenschaftlicher Sprache in den Geisteswissenschaften, und dies trotz einer stark individualistisch geprägten Sprache, ebenso wie in den Naturwissenschaften festzustellen sind, soll zunächst ein Textbeispiel von Martin Heidegger deutlich machen:

(1) "Das für das In-der-Welt-sein konstitutive Begegnenlassen des innerweltlich Seienden ist ein `Raum-geben'. Dieses `Raum-geben', das wir auch Einräumen nennen, ist das Freigeben des Zuhandenen auf seine Räumlichkeit. Dieses Einräumen ermöglicht als entdeckende Vorgabe einer möglichen bewandtnisbestimmten Platzganzheit die jeweilige faktische Orientierung. Das Dasein kann als umsichtiges Besorgen der Welt nur deshalb um-, weg- und `einräumen', weil zu seinem In-der-Welt-sein das Einräumen als Existenzial verstanden gehört. Aber weder steht die je vorgängig entdeckte Gegend, noch überhaupt die jeweilige Räumlichkeit ausdrücklich im Blick. Sie ist an sich in der Unauffälligkeit des Zuhandenen, in dessen Besorgen die Umsicht aufgeht, für diese zugegen. Mit dem In-der-Welt-sein ist der Raum zunächst in dieser Räumlichkeit entdeckt. Auf dem Boden der so entdeckten Räumlichkeit wird der Raum selbst für das Erkennen zugänglich." (Heidegger, 1967 [1927], S. 111.)

Wir finden hier das für wissenschafliche Sprache charakteristische Merkmal der Wiederholung von Lexemen, das dem literarischen Stilprinzip der Variation (variatio delectat) aus der Rhetorik widerspricht. Am häufigsten treten in der Textpassage Lexeme auf, die `Räumlichkeit' bezeichnen:

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`Raum-geben' (2x), Einräumen/`einräumen' (4x), Räumlichkeit (4x), Raum (2x), umräumen, wegräumen; zudem werden Lexeme aus dem Wortfeld `Raum' verwendet, wie Platzganzheit, Orientierung, Gegend. Wiederholt werden auch In-der-Welt-sein (3x), des Zuhandenen (2x), Besorgen (2x), entdeckende/entdeckte/entdeckt/entdeckten, umsichtiges/Umsicht, ist (4x), ermöglicht/möglichen, dieser/dieses (4x), innerweltlich/Welt/In-der-Welt-sein (5x). Es ist erstaunlich, bei genauerem Hinsehen festzustellen, wieviele Lexeme sich in dieser kurzen Textpassage von 8 relativ kurzen Sätzen wiederholen oder auch nur inhaltlich wiederaufgenommen werden ¹³. Auch wenn Heidegger, was typisch für seine Sprache ist, fast ausschließlich Wörter der Alltagssprache (d.h. Signifikanten aus der Alltagssprache) verwendet und deren Bedeutungen wie auch Konnotationen für seine philosophische Theorie ausschöpft, so formuliert er doch in charakteristischer Weise wissenschaftlich.

Charakteristisch für wissenschaftliche Schriftsprache finden sich, sprechakttheoretisch gesehen, ausschließlich Sprechakte des Behauptens und Feststellens sowie des Definierens, repräsentiert durch das häufige Lexem ist und entsprechende Existenzpräsuppositionen. So finden wir einen `Definitionsakt' in Form einer Nominaldefinition: ''Dieses `Raum-geben', das wir auch Einräumen nennen, . . .". Die Sprechakte des Behauptens und Konstatierens wie auch die Nominaldefinition haben zur Folge, daß die auch in der Alltagssprache gebräuchlichen Wörter terminologisiert bzw. in ein wissenschaftliches (hier philosophisches) Begriffsfeld und Begriffssystem gebracht werden, indem den Signifikanten von der Alltagssprache abweichende, philosophische Bedeutungen gegeben werden.

Dieser Funktion des Textes entsprechen auf der syntaktischen Ebene die lexikalischen Wiederholungen, die eine eindeutige und klare Thema-Rhema-Strukturierung im Sinne der Definitions-, Behauptungs- und Feststellungseindeutigkeit aufweisen. Auch dies wiederum, wie auch der Gebrauch von Nominalisierungen und Nominalkomposita, ein charakteristisches Merkmal für Wissenschaftssprache.

(2) "Von Pathak wurde 1975 ein Energieverlust-Modell vorgestellt [6], welches es gestattet, den differentiellen Energieverlust eines hinreichend schnellen Teilchens aus wellenmechanisch berechneten Elektronendichten und den Bindungsenergien der Kristallatome unter expliziter Berücksichtigung der Schalenstruktur der Kristallatome zu berechnen." (Phys 2, S. 310)

(3) "Die Monte-Carlo-Rechnungen zur Bestimmung des

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Energieverlustes (DE/Dx)y, den die a -Teilchen erfahren, die unter dem Winkel y gegen den Kristall eingeschossen werden, wurden bereits früher unter Verwendung des Thomas-Fermi-Potentials in Molierescher Näherung vorgenommen und die thermische Bewegung der Gitteratome näherungsweise berücksichtigt [5]." (Phys 2, S. 309)

(4) "Die Fig. 2 zeigt den Vergleich zwischen der experimentell ermittelten Änderung der Lage des Schwerpunktes des Energiespektrums nicht kanalisiert a -Teilchen bei Einschuß gegen die (111)-Ebene von Silizium unter Zugrundelegung der Modellvorstellung C (Kurve C) und zusätzlicher Verwendung abgeflachter Potentiale in den effektiven Schichtdicken d= 0,40 Å (Kurve C₁) und d= 0,48 Å (Kurve C₂)." (Phys 2, S. 312)

Formuliert Heidegger noch aktivisch im Pluralis Majestatis ("Dieses `Raum-geben', das wir auch Einräumen nennen, ..."), so zeigen die Beispiele von physikalischen Texten (2) und (4) den häufigen Passivgebrauch: "Von Pathak wurde... vorgestellt"; "..., die... eingeschossen werden"; "Die Monte-Carlo-Rechnungen... wurden... vorgenommen und die thermische Bewegung... berücksichtigt". Wir stellen eine starke syntaktisch-semantische Kondensation und Expansion der Einzelsätze fest wie auch bestimmter Satzglieder. In (2) ist das von "es gestattet'' abhängige Akkusativobjekt ("es gestattet" + Akk.-Obj.) durch eine Infinitivkonstruktion mit "zu" stark expandiert: "... es gestattet, den differentiellen Energieverlust... zu berechnen". Wie die sprachsystematisch mögliche Formulierung (2') zeigt:

(2') Das 1975 von Pathak vorgestellte Energieverlust-Modell [6] gestattet die Berechnung des differentiellen Energie- verlustes eines hinreichend schnellen Teilchens aus wellenmechanisch berechneten Elektronendichten und den Bindungsenergien der Kristallatome unter expliziter Berücksichtigung der Schalenstruktur der Kristallatome.

gibt es aber auch hier noch Möglichkeiten der Aussagevariation, wobei mit (2) sicherlich eine syntaktisch stärker gegliederte und damit akzeptablere, verständlichere Formulierung gewählt wurde. Gerade die Verwendung weniger markanter syntaktischer Gliederungssignale, wie die Relativsätze in (3) (... des Energieverlustes..., den die a Teilchen erfahren, die unter dem Winkel y gegen den Kristall eingeschossen werden, ..."), gewährleistet einerseits, daß die semantischen Relationen dort, wo es notwendig ist, genau bezeichnet werden, sichert andererseits die Akzeptabilität des Satzes (im Sinne Chomskys) und ermöglicht weitererseits, daß

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die übrigen Satzglieder durch Nominalisierungen, erweiterte Attribute, Verdopplungen expandiert werden können.

In (3) finden sich in dem expandierten und kondensierten Satz gleich zwei auch für wissenschaftliche Sprache charakteristische Funktionsverbgefüge: `einen Energieverlust erfahren' statt `Energie verlieren' und `die Monte-Carlo-Rechnungen vornehmen' statt `nach Monte-Carlo-(Art) rechnen'. Das letztere Funktionsverbgefüge läßt erkennen, welche objektivierende Funktion diese Konstruktion in der Wissenschaftssprache erfüllen kann: Indem die aktive Handlung des Rechnens in den Hintergrund rückt, können die spezifische Art und Weise der Rechenoperation und die qualitativen Anforderungen an sie in einem (Namens-) Terminus als statische Größe erfaßt und definiert werden und damit objektiviert werden. Aber auch das ganze Funktionsverbgefüge `die Monte-Carlo-Rechnungen vornehmen' kann terminologisiert und damit als Handlungseinheit definiert und standardisiert werden. Prinzipiell sind auch andere Satzkonstruktionen terminologisierbar. Wie ein Vergleich zwischen (3) und (5) zeigt

(5) "Im Modell D wurde zur Berechnung des Energieverlustes (DE/Dx) y, den ein a -Teilchen erfährt, welches unter einem Winkel y eingeschossen wird, das Potential nach Quéré [9] ... verwendet" (Phys 2, S. 310)

werden in naturwissenschaftlichen Texten nicht nur einzelne Termini wiederholt, sondern die Wiederholung kann sich auch auf die syntaktischen Strukturen und ihre lexikalische Auffüllung erstrecken ¹⁴.

(4) ist ein in naturwissenschaftlicher Schriftsprache durchaus geläufiges Beispiel für die extreme Expansion (und inhaltliche Kondensation) eines einfachen dreigliedrigen Satzmusters. Hier ist die Akkusativobjektsposition des Musters "Subjekt Verb Akkusativobjekt" durch folgende Wortarten repräsentiert, für deren genaue syntaktisch-semantische Inbeziehungsetzung wohl das entsprechende physikalische Grundlagenwissen notwendig ist, und die ich daher hier nur in ihrer linearen Abfolge wiedergebe:

Position des Akkusativobjekts:

`Die Figur 2 zeigt' [Akk.obj.]:

Art - N - Präp - Art - Adv - Partizip. attrib. - N - Art - N - Art - Nominalkompositum (NK) - Art - NK - Partikel - Partizip.

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attrb. - NK - Präp - N - Präp - Art - NK - Präp - N - Präp - N - Art - NK - NK - Konj - Adj - N - Partizip. attrib. - N - Präp - Art - Adj - NK - NK - Konj - NK - NK

Die zahlreichen Lexeme in der Position des Akkusativobjekts gruppieren sich in verschiedene Syntagmen, deren syntaktisch-semantische Abhängigkeiten mehrere unterschiedliche semantische Netze mit unterschiedlichen Interpretationen ergeben: Sind etwa die Präpositionalphrasen "bei Einschuß gegen ..." und "unter Zugrundelegung der ..." syntaktisch abhängig von "nicht kanalisierter a -Teilchen'' oder doch konstitutive Satzglieder des Matrixsatzes "Die Fig. 2 zeigt den Vergleich ... bei Einschuß ... unter Zugrundelegung ..."? Darin liegt eine Schwierigkeit der semantischen Interpretation nominalisierter Sprache, der die expliziten morphosyntaktischen Indikatoren verbaler Sprache fehlen und die daher notwendig des Fachwissens des fachkompetenten Sprechers bedarf.

Aber wo wird dieser fachkompetente Sprecher, an den sich der Autor nicht nur aufgrund der Wissenschaftsnorm, sondern notwendig schon durch seine Entscheidung für sprachliche Kommunikation wendet, sprachlich explizit benannt oder angesprochen? Es erscheinen zwar Personennamen, diese jedoch in der Form terminologisierter Begrifflichkeiten. Der anvisierte und notwendig existente Kommunikationspartner des wissenschaftlichen Autors wird weder persönlich angesprochen, noch ist er als Typus explizit sprachlich existent. Auch der Autor selbst erscheint sprachlich wenn überhaupt in den untersuchten naturwissenschaftlichen Texten im Pluralis Majestatis, im gruppenbezeichnenden oder lesereinbeziehenden "wir". Im Beispielsatz (4) wie auch in (6)

(6) "Diese Verdrillung der CH₂-Protonen um die C⁻C-Achse zeigt, daß der Arsolan-Ring nicht eben, sondern in einer "Briefumschlag"-Konformation vorliegt." (Chem 2, S. 68)

zeigt nicht der Wissenschaftler in seiner Fig. 2 den Vergleich ..., noch zeigt er durch sein Argument der Verdrillung der CH₂-Protonen ..., daß ...; sondern die Fig. 2 bzw. die Verdrillung selbst zeigen ... Hier wird das eigentlich handelnde wissenschaftliche Subjekt eliminiert, und an die syntaktische Position, die es auch als grammatikalisches Subjekt im Satz einnehmen könnte, wird `die Fig. 2' bzw. `diese Verdrillung' geschoben. Diese Form des "Subjektschubs", in der ein

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Sachverhalt an die Stelle des menschlichen Urhebers als grammatikalisches Subjekt des Satzes erscheint, bezeichnet P. von Polenz als satzsemantische "Deagentivierung" (Polenz, 1981). Kommunikations-psychologisch sieht Polenz darin die Gefahr, daß nicht mehr der Mensch als Träger und Initiator von Handlungen wahrgenommen wird, sondern von Menschen verursachte Ereignisse als selbsttätig, schicksalhaft, unverrückbar und unbeeinflußbar ablaufen. Tritt der Sprecher als Akteur zurück, schiebt sich psychologisch die Aktion bzw. der Sachverhalt selbst in den Vordergrund. So auch in dem folgenden technischen Textbeispiel, in dem ebenfalls `gezeigt wird, daß' und in dem nur das unpersönliche "man" ein Hinweis auf einen menschlichen Akteur ist:

(7) "Es wird gezeigt, daß die optimale Dämpfung eines Dämpfers, dessen Dämpferflüssigkeit eine Flüssigkeit zweiter Ordnung ist, erheblich abweichen kann von der Dämpfung, die man unter Zugrundelegung einer Newtonschen Flüssigkeit berechnet." (Tech 1, S. 12)

(7) ist auch wiederum ein Beispiel dafür, wie extrem das Prinzip der lexikalischen Wiederholung zugunsten der Eindeutigkeit der Aussage angewandt werden kann.

Im Textbeispiel (8) scheint sich sprachlich die Behandlung der Patienten durch das medizinische Personal widerzuspiegeln, die von Patienten und Öffentlichkeit beklagt wird:

(8) "Von 19 Patienten, die vor Therapie TDA-negativ waren, entwickelte sich bei acht ein Rezidiv, bei neun eine Remission, wiederum ohne TDA-Nachweis (zwei mit positivem Suppressionstest, fünf weitere mit positivem TRH-Test und zwei mit lediglich normalen peripheren Hormonwerten). Jedoch kam es bei Neuauftreten von schilddrüsenstimulierenden Antikörpern in je einem Fall zu einem Rezidiv und einer Remission." (Med 1, S. 40)

Da es auch in dieser medizinwissenschaftlichen Aussage nicht um die Einzelschicksale der Patienten, sondern um deren Krankheitsbilder und deren Behandlung geht, sind die Patienten in diesem Kontext nur als statistische Größen und als Träger dieser Krankheitsbilder von Interesse. Ist dies nun eine Herabwürdigung der menschlichen Einzelschicksale der Patienten oder eine sinnvolle, sachlich notwendige Beschränkung und Konzentration auf die Sachverhalte `Krankheitsbilder'? Wenn aber letzteres zugestanden ist, besteht dann nicht doch die Gefahr, daß der Patient dem Mediziner durch solcherart sprachliche Behandlung bewußtseinmäßig entfremdet, daß er durch diesen verdinglicht wird?

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Auch in Beispielsätzen der Mathematik ist das wissenschaftliche Subjekt eliminiert:

(9) "Sei V ein 4-dimensionaler Vektorraum über dem kommutativen Körper K, dessen Charakteristik von 2 verschieden vorausgesetzt sei ... Dann bildet P ..." (Math 3, S. 132)

(10) "Ist G eine additive abelsche Gruppe, so sei GM = G X * die Gruppe aller Funktionen auf der Menge M der Mächtigkeit X mit den Werten in G und der punktweise definierten Addition, die sogenannte kartesische Potenz von G." (Math 1, S. 15)

Linguistisch betrachtet, kann man in den Konjunktivformen "sei" zumindest noch eine implizite Ansprache des Kommunikationspartners erkennen, der bestimmte mathematische Gegebenheiten annehmen oder gelten lassen möge. Aber selbst die Faktizität dieser mathematischen Sachverhalte ist in Frage gestellt, da in hypothetischen Bedingungsgefügen operiert wird, in Möglichkeiten, deren faktischer Vollzug (durch die Rechenoperation) nachrangig zu sein scheint.

Diese hier vorgeführten Beispiele wissenschaftlicher Sprache mögen genügen. Es zeigen sich in ihnen die Normen des wissenschaftlichen Handlungsbereichs auch im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs, wie das Bestreben nach Explizitheit und Kontextunabhängigkeit, nach Objektivierung und Intersubjektivität in der Form des Nominalstils als einem `Stil' des begrifflichen Denkens im Gegensatz zum Verbalstil als dem Stil des Erlebens. Ein durchgängiges Merkmal ist die sog. `Deagentivierung' und der syntaktisch kompensierende Subjektschub, wodurch das wissenschaftliche Subjekt auch sprachlich zurücktritt oder ganz eliminiert wird. Wir finden spezifische Termini und Terminologisierungen, komplexe Nominalphrasen, erweiterte Attribute, häufigen Passivgebrauch, bestimmte Infinitiv- und Partizipialkonstruktionen, bestimmte Modalverben, Funktionsverbgefüge, artikellose Nomina und Ausklammerungen, spezifische Konditionalgefüge, indirekte Sprechakte (Panther, 1981) und Argumentationsformen (Sökeland, 1981), Formeln, Tabellen, Zeichnungen und Graphiken. Gehen wir auf die Textebene des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses, finden wir weitere Charakteristika hinsichtlich des Textaufbaus, der Textsorten, der Textgliederung, der Thema-Rhema-Struktur usw.

Sind diese Kommunikationsformen bereits entfremdet, verdinglicht? Sind sie sprachlicher und kommunikativer

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Ausfluß und Ausdruck der Entfremdung des Wissenschaftlers vom Prozeß seiner wissenschaftlichen Arbeit und von deren Produkt (dem wissenschaftlichen Ergebnis), der Entfremdung von seinen Kollegen innerhalb der Wissenschaftlergemeinschaft und schließlich der Entfremdung von sich selbst, durchaus im Sinne Lacans? Ist andererseits die immense Zunahme wissenschaftlicher Publikationen nicht ein Nachweis dafür, daß eine intensive, nichtentfremdete Kommunikation stattfindet, oder handelt es sich gerade dabei um das "leere Sprechen", um das "Gerede" im Sinne Lacans?

Es ist nicht von der Hand zu weisen, daß die normativen und institutionellen Strukturen des wissenschaftlichen Handlungsbereichs wie auch des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses sich teilweise verselbständigt, verdinglicht haben und sich der Einflußnahme und Steuerung des Wissenschaftlers wie auch der Wissenschaftlergemeinschaft entziehen. Joseph Gusfield hat deutlich gemacht, daß der wissenschaftliche Diskurs des Abstrahierens und rationalen Argumentierens nicht nur innerhalb der Wissenschaft, sondern auch in anderen gesellschaftlichen Institutionen und bürokratischen Organisationen verwendet wird, um die Unleugbarkeit von Tatsachenbehauptungen einzuklagen und um den Menschen vom rationalen und geplanten Charakter der Organisation zu überzeugen, obwohl die eigentlichen Motive für Entscheidungen in Organisationen in zielgerichteten menschlichen Interessen zu suchen sind ¹⁵. Demnach müßten auch in diesen Kommunikationsbereichen sprachliche Entfremdungsformen festzustellen sein.

Immer wieder wird auch die Zerstörung der Sinnlichkeit und Anschaulichkeit in der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation beklagt (siehe u.a. Weber, 1980, S. 223ff.), ihre Entfernung von Galileis "Sprache der Natur". Den modernen rationalistischen und objektivierenden Naturwissenschaftsund Techniksprachen fehlt das Moment der "Verheißung", der "Offenbarung", der mögliche Entwurf der Zukunft, wie W. Kutschmann (1986) sagt. Wir können nicht von der Hand weisen, daß der "Rationalismus" oder, negativ formuliert, der ''Szientismus" weite Bereiche unseres gesellschaftlichen Lebens bestimmt und bis in das Private vordringt (so auch J. Habermas). Papst Johannes Paul II. fragte während seines Besuches 1987 im Ruhrgebiet: "Hat der Mensch noch Vorrang in der Welt der Maschinen und der modernen Kommunikation, in der Welt des Handels und der Werbung, in der Welt der Politik und Kultur? Wem dienen in Wahrheit die Anstrengungen von menschlichem Fortschritt und Forschung?"¹⁶

Die heutigen Fachsprachen der wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen

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sind sicher durch die Geschichte des jeweiligen Faches bedingt. Der wissenschaftliche Diskurs ist damit aber auch das Ergebnis fachlicher wie sozialer Bedürfnisse der Wissenschaftler. Sprache als notwendige Symbolisierung, Objektivierung und Repräsentation der Erfahrungswelt ist notwendig eine positiv verstandene Entäußerung und Entfremdung des Menschen im Sinne Hegels, eine Entfremdung, wie wir sie auch in der Kunst und Literatur finden. Der Bruch zwischen Sprache und Erfahrungs- oder Lebenswelt wird zwar auch in der Wissenschaft immer wieder empfunden (vgl. Adrados, 1986), als `symbolische Form' (Ernst Cassirer) ist der wissenschaftliche Diskurs jedoch die historisch entstandene, einzig mögliche und geeignete Form der Gewinnung, Konstituierung, Repräsentierung und Kommunizierung wissenschaftlicher Realität ¹⁷. Dies soll uns jedoch nicht blind machen vor der Gefahr, daß sich die wissenschaftlichen Diskursformen, indem wir sie benutzen, `unter der Hand' verselbständigen können und daß die immer wieder notwendige Rückkopplung zur Erfahrungswelt und den kommunikativen Bedürfnissen der sozialen Gemeinschaft verloren gehen kann.

Die mythische Einheit des Menschen mit der Natur, sein selbsttätiges, alleinbestimmtes und alleinverantwortliches Handeln, mit dem Bewußtsein und der Erfahrung, daß er allein sein Leben bestimmt und ihm einen Sinn gibt, ist für den Menschen, wenn es dies je gegeben hat, unwiederbringlich dahin. Der Mensch ist schon immer ein soziales Wesen, und kein Einzelgänger, und damit ist er notwendig sozialen Normen der Gemeinschaft verpflichtet. Nicht erst in der modernen oder postmodernen Zeit hat der Mensch vielfältige Bedürfnisse entwickelt, die nur durch eine Differenzierung und Verteilung von Aufgaben und Tätigkeiten befriedigt werden können. Diese Aufgaben- und Arbeitsteilung hat notwendig eine Spezialisierung des Einzelnen und damit einen Verlust an Autonomie und Autarkie für ihn zur Folge. In diesem Lebens- und Funktionszusammenhang hat auch die Wissenschaft und haben auch die Wissenschaftler spezielle Aufgaben in unserer Gesellschaft übernommen und sich dazu einen geeigneten Diskurs geschaffen, der ihn nicht notwendig entfremden muß. Kann der heutige Mensch nicht auch in seinem speziellen, durchaus beschränkten Arbeitsbereich und in seiner Spezialsprache seine Identität finden, indem er sich seiner sozialen Rolle innerhalb der Gemeinschaft (im Sinne der Rollentheorie) bewußt ist, indem er Distanz gegenüber seiner Rolle hat, indem er aber auch das Bewußtsein hat, daß er als Spezialist mit seiner notwendigen Fachsprache zur Aufgabenerfüllung und zur Kommunikation innerhalb seiner Spezialistengemeinschaft beiträgt und damit seine wie auch die Bedürfnisse der Gemeinschaft befriedigen kann?

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Anmerkungen

1. Geheime Reichssache des SS-Untersturmführers Dr. Becker aus Kiew vom 16. Mai 1942 an den SS-Obersturmbannführer Rauff in Berlin (s. Poliakov und Wulf, 1955, S. 140).

2. J. López Ibor in: Arnold, u.a., 1971, S. 674

3. Pschyrembel, 1964, S. 620. Vgl. auch Dorsch, u.a., 1982, S. 455: "Obsession lat. obsidere etwas belagern, besetzen, Zwang, Zwangsgedanke und -handlung".

4. Siehe dazu die verschiedenen Arbeiten von Rossi-Landi (Lit.ver.)

5. "Avremmo infine una produzione linguistica "capitalistica": un capitalismo linguistico corrispondente alla produzione capitalistica rivolta al profitto, con le sue crisi e depressionii. In una produzione linguistica per il profitto, questo sarebbe limitato a chi possiede le fonti e i mezzi della communicazione cioè il controlle dei codici e dei canali; mentre il lavoratore linguistico, cioè il comune parlante, continuerebbe a produrre per il consume." (Rossi-Landi, 1970, S. 96)

6. Dennoch bleibt Rossi-Landi in diesem Punkt letztlich nicht konsequent, da er, im Sinne des Entäußerungs-Konzeptes bei Hegel wie auch des Gedankens einer notwendigen sprachlichen Relativität bei Sapir und Whorf, gelegentlich auch den anthropologisch notwendigen Charakter dieser `sprachlichen Entfremdung' in der Menschheitsgeschichte seit Urbeginn anerkennt (vgl. Rossi-Landi, 1973, S. 207 und S. 209-210).

7. Lacan sieht durchaus auch sein eigenes Metier, die Psychoanalyse, als mögliche Gefahr für eine Entfremdung des Klienten: "... Und eben das macht unsere Verantwortung so furchtbar, wenn wir ihm mit den mythischen Manipulationen unserer Lehre eine zusätzliche Gelegenheit bieten, sich in der auseinandergefalteten Trinität von ego, superego und id zu entfremden" (Lacan, 1973, S. 123-124).

8. Der wissenschaftliche Diskurs ist für Habermas ein Diskurs par exellence.

9. Nach der Auffassung von Allardt (Israel, 1972 [1970], S. 282) sind Personengruppen wie die Wissenschaftler, Techniker und andere Spezialisten zwar isoliert von der Gesellschaft, sie sind aber eher selbstzufrieden und nichtenfremdet. Seit Marx ist aber das Kriterium der Selbstzufriedenheit nicht konstitutiv für Nichtentfremdung, da der Arbeiter (wie auch der Kapitalbesitzer) sich in einem `falschen Bewußtsein' wiegen kann, obwohl er entfremdet ist.

Ähnlich argumentiert Blauner, 1964, S. 29.

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10. Hier wie auch an anderen Stellen greife ich Gedanken aus meinem Beitrag "`Sprachliche Entfremdung' in der Wissenschaft" (Bungarten, 1986) auf.

11. Siehe dazu auch Rodin, 1986.

12. Die Beispielsätze sind überwiegend aus anerkannten deutschsprachigen wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften entnommen (siehe dazu den Anhang).

13. Die Satzlänge liegt hier deutlich unter dem statistischen Mittel von rund 22 Wörtern pro Satz, das Benes, 1981, S. 189, in seinem Korpus wissenschaftssprachlicher Texte für die Gesellschaftswissenschaften errechnet hat.

14. Noch eine weitere syntaktische Variation zu (3) findet sich im Text: "Den Energieverlust (DE/Dx) y, den ein unter dem Winkel y eingeschossenes a -Teilchen beim Durchfließen des Si-Kristalls erfährt, ..." (Phys 2, S. 311)

15. Gusfield, J. (1986). Max Weber hat die Bürokratie als "formal rationalste Form der Herrschaftsausübung" beschrieben (Israel, 1972, S. 135).

16. Zitiert nach DIE ZEIT, Nr. 20, 8. 5. 87.

17. Bungarten, 1981, S. 33-38.

Literatur

1. Quellen

Heidegger, M. 1967 (1927) Sein und Zeit. 11. Aufl. T übingen.

Chem 2:

Adler, O. und Kober, F. (Fachbereich 8, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt) (1977) H-NMR-spektroskopische Analyse von 2-Chlor-1, 3, 2-dioxarsolan. Monatshefte für Chemie, 108, 65-68. Wien, New York: Springer.

Math 1:

Dugas, M. und Göbel, R. (Fachbereich Mathematik, Universität Essen) (1979) Die Struktur kartesischer Produkte ganzer Zahlen modulo kartesische Produkte ganzer Zahlen. Mathematische Zeitschrift, 168, 15-21. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.

Math 3:

Mäurer, H. (Darmstadt) (1978/79) Involutorische Automorphismen von Laguerre-Ebenen mit genau zwei Fixpunkten. Monatshefte für Mathematik, 86, 131-142. Wien, New York: Springer.

Med 1:

Finke, R., Kotulla, P., Wenzel, B., Bogner, U., Meinhold, H. und Schleusener, H. (Schilddrüsenarbeitsgruppe der Endokrinologischen und Nuklearmedizinischen Abteilung im Klinikum Steglitz der FU Berlin) (1981) Klinische Bedeutung der Bestimmung von schilddrüsenstimulierenden Antikörpern.

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Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, 106, 38-42. Stuttgart, New York: Georg Thieme.

Phys 2:

Dopheide, D., Rosendahl, E.W. und Mönkediek, J. (II. Physikalisches Institut der Universität Göttingen) (1980) Energieverlust- und Vielfachstreuberechnungen nicht kanalisierter a -Teilchen in Si-Kristallen. Zeitschrift für Physik. A. Atoms und Nuclei, 294, 309-312. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.

Tech 1:

Spurk, J.H. (TH Darmstadt) (1979) Der Torsionschwingungsdämpfer in einer Flüssigkeit zweiter Ordnung. Ingenieur-Archiv., 48, 121-127. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer.

2. Sekundärliteratur

Adrados, F.R. (1986) Scientific Language: Instrument and Obstacle. Examples from the Field of Linguistics. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft, Aspekte der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation und des Wissenstransfers in der heutigen Zeit, 13-21. Hamburg.

Arnold, W., Eysenck, J. und Meili, R. (Hrsg.) (1971) Lexikon der Psychologie. 2 Bde. Freiburg, Basel, Wien.

Benes, E. (1981) Die formale Struktur der wissenschaftlichen Fachsprachen in syntaktischer Hinsicht. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache. Beiträge zur Methodologie, theoretisch Fundierung und Deskription, 185-212. München.

Blauner, R. (1964) Alienation and Freedom. Chicago, London.

Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) (1981) Wissenschaftssprache. Beiträge zur Methodologie, theoretisch Fundierung und Deskription. München.

(1981) Wissenschaft, Sprache und Gesellschaft. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache. Beiträge zur Methodologie, theoretisch Fundierung und Deskription, 14-53. München.

(Hrsg.) (1986) Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft, Aspekte der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation und des Wissenstransfers in der heutigen Zeit. Hamburg.

(1986) `Sprachliche Entfremdung' in der Wissenschaft. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft, Aspekte der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation und des Wissenstransfers in der heutigen Zeit, 22-43. Hamburg.

Cassirer, E. (1964) Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Erster Teil. Die Sprache. 4. Aufl. Darmstadt.

Dorsch, F., Bergius, R., Ries, H. u.a. (Hrsg.) (1982) Psychologisches Wörterbuch. 10., neubearb. Aufl. Bern,

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Stuttgart, Wien.

Dreitzel, H.P. (1968) Die gesellschaftlichen Leiden und das Leiden an der Gesellschaft. Vorstudien zu einer Pathologie des Rollenverhaltens. Stuttgart.

Gusfield, J.R. (1986) Science as a Form of Bureaucratic Discourse: Rhetoric and Style in Formal Organizations. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft. Aspekte der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation und des Wissentransfers in der heutigen Zeit, 272-291. Hamburg.

Habermas, J. 1969 (1968) Technik und Wissenschaft als `Ideologie', 48-103. Im gleichamigen Band. 3. Aufl. Frankfurt am Main.

(1970) Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main.

(1971) Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie der kommunikativen Kompetenz. Habermas, J. und Luhmann, N. Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie Was leistet die Systemforschung?, 101-141. ("Theorie-Diskussion"). Frankfurt am Main.

Israel, J. (1970) Fremmedgørelse. Kopenhagen. Deutsch: (1972) Der Begriff der Entfremdung. Makrosoziologische Untersuchung von Marx bis zur Soziologie der Gegenwart. Reinbek bei Hamburg.

Kutschmann, W. (1986) Von der Natursprache zur Warensprache. Die Sprache der Naturwissenschaften zwischen Objektivität und sinnlicher Verlockung. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft. Aspekte der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation und des Wissentransfers in der heutigen Zeit, S. 94-112. Hamburg.

Lacan, J. (1966) Ecrits I. Paris.

(1973) Schriften I. Ausgewählt und hrsg. v. Haas, N. Olten u. Freiburg i. Br.

Panther, K.-U. (1981) Einige typische indirekte sprachliche Handlungen im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache. Beiträge zur Methodologie, theoretisch Fundierung und Deskription, 231-260. München.

Polenz, P. von (1981) Über die Jargonisierung von Wissenschaftssprache und wider die Deagentivierung. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache. Beiträge zur Methodologie, theoretisch Fundierung und Deskription, 85-110. München.

Poliakov, L. und Wulf, J. (1955) Das Dritte Reich und die Juden. Dokumente und Aufsätze. Berlin-Grunewald.

Pschyrembel, W. (1964) Klinisches Wörterbuch mit klinischen Syndromen. 154.-184. Aufl. Berlin.

Rodin, D. (1986) Kommunikationsgrenzen in der Entwicklung der Wissenschaft. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.)

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Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft. Aspekte der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation und des Wissentransfers in der heutigen Zeit, 149-162. Hamburg.

Rossi-Landi, F. (1968) Il linguaggio come lavoro e come mercato. Milano. Deutsch: (1974) Sprache als Arbeit und als Markt. 2. Aufl. München.

(1970) Problemi dell' alienazione linguistica. Linguaggi nella società e nella tecnica, S. 83-112. Milano.

(1972) Semiotica e ideologia. Milano. Deutsch: (1976) Semiotik, Ästhetik und Ideologie. 13 Beiträge. Aus dem Italienischen von Burkhart Kroeber. München, Wien.

(1973) Dialektik und Entfremdung in der Sprache. Zwei Beiträge. Frankfurt am Main.

Sökeland, W. (1981) Erklärungen und Argumentationen in wissenschaftlicher Kommunikation. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache. Beiträge zur Methodologie, theoretisch Fundierung und Deskription, 261-293. München.

Weber, H. (1980) Studentensprache. Über den Zusammenhang von Sprache und Leben. Weinheim u. Basel.

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3
The Question-theoretical Approach In Hermeneutics And LSP-research ¹

Martin Kusch and Hartmut Schröder
Academy of Finland and University of Jyväskylä

1. Introduction

Since the sixties logicians have been studying different ways to represent logical properties of questions and question-answer sequences². The full importance of this work has been appreciated by a larger audience of scientists from various fields since the early eighties when the logic of questions was put to use in attempts to study linguistic phenomena as well as argumentation in terms of (idealized) dialogue games and in new approaches to epistemology and the philosophy of science³. Even though a logical, rigorous use of question-theoretical conceptualizations is thus a rather recent development, it must be remembered that the notion of the question loomed large in many different contexts within the philosophical tradition, such as, e.g. Aristotle's categories and their medieval interpretations, Aristotle's dialogue games⁴ as well as the hermeneutics of Collingwood and Gadamer⁵. Attention for these historical links can serve to pave the way for further applications of the question-theoretical approach to fields that within the modern debate have not yet (sufficiently) become connected to it.

In this paper we shall take up one such historical challenge to the question-theoretical approach, namely the conceptualization of the process of interpretation. It is here that Collingwood and Gadamer largely relying on the notions of "question", "answer", ''presupposition", and "dialogue" provide us with many fruitful insights that are still worth investigating. Yet we shall not remain within the tight boundaries of a specialists' dialogue between different philosophical schools. Rather we shall relate our discussion to textlinguistics in general and LSP-research in particular. This seems to be a natural step for several reasons: First, cooperation between textlinguistics and hermeneutics has recently been suggested by several authors, without however, giving prominence to the question-theoretical vantage point. Second, this new endeavour has not yet reached LSP-research in a way that would have left a lasting mark on its notions of

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meaning and interpretation. Third, since LSP-research is in this paper mostly the study of scientific texts, it is to be expected that the question-theoretical approach would already at this stage be able to provide several important new insights; after all, the study of argumentation as well as the dynamics of science are among the most prominent areas within that approach.

2. What is Hermeneutics? ⁶

Since our paper tries to relate the hermeneutical tradition to linguistics, we shall start off by providing a brief characterization of hermeneutics.

Philosophical traditions like hermeneutics or phenomenology cannot be defined by giving a definite list of those theses that all of its classics jointly subscribe to, or else by listing characteristics that can be found on either a methodological or substantial level in all of their works. Any attempt to do so is quickly faced with the following dilemma: If the listed theses or characteristics are rather general and unspecific, they fit more or less a large number of schools and traditions. But as the list becomes more specific, it does not even apply to all classics within the tradition in question. E.g. if we define hermeneutics as a theory of understanding, it remains unclear how this feature delimits hermeneutics from phenomenology, analytical philosophy or linguistics. Yet to define hermeneutics by calling it a theory that conceptualizes understanding qua a human being's way of existing in the world, would give us something of an approximation of the early Heidegger's and Gadamer's hermeneutics, but would hardly fit Schleiermacher, von Wright and Habermas.

This Gordian knot can be opened either with a sword, i.e. by abstaining from any attempt to give a definition, or which is more laboursome by relying on that broader sense of defining that is suggested e.g. by Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblence": The members of a family are bound together not necessarily by one single characteristics, rather family members A and B may share common feature X, whereas B and C share another feature Y. Putting this simple idea to work me might try to define hermeneutics by listing features that on the one hand do not have to appear in each and every one of the hermeneutical philosophers from the ancient Greeks to Habermas and that on the other hand can be found outside of the hermeneutical tradition as well.

Let us mention a few of these features:

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(1) Hermeneutics was traditionally tied to the interpretation of texts. Traditionally hermeneutics provided rules for the correct interpretation of either holy text or of important legal codes.

(2) Hermeneutics already in medieval times has been more than just a collection of rules., however. Hermeneutics also seeks for a justification of one set of rules over another, and this kind of endeavour forces philosophers, theologians, and jurists into investigations concerning language, interpretation, and the human ability to understand.

(3) In modern hermeneutics say the hermeneutics since Schleiermacher these `metaquestions' have become increasingly important. They have even dominated hermeneutics to such an extent that the original context of text interpretation has been left far behind.

(4) This has led to interesting theories concerning the importance of texts and language for human beings in general. Especially H.-G. Gadamer has developed a highly influential conception of hermeneutics as the study of the interrelations of history, tradition, and text.

(5) Two more recent developments have to be mentioned: On the one hand, hermeneutics has gained importance within analytical philosophy, in so far as it is taken to provide modern philosophy with a humanistic conception of science.

(6) On the other hand, the abstract character of modern hermeneutics and its lack of interest in concrete problems of interpretation, has led to the development of "text hermeneutics" or "material hermeneutics", schools within literary criticism that try to re-establish contact with text interpretation itself.

3. Collingwood's "Logic of Question and Answer"

Let us start from a brief summary of Collingwood's informal "logic of question and answer" in order to introduce some basic tenets of the question-theoretical approach.

Collingwood elaborates on the notion of the question in his books An Autobiography (1939) ⁷ and An Essay on Metaphysics (1940)⁸. In both works his starting point is the same: "Every statement that anybody ever makes is made in answer to a question."⁹ Collingwood does not want to claim, of course, that things were actually such; what he wants to say rather is, first, that this way of putting things provides a useful perspective on interpretation, second, that within this

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perspective the question logically preceeds the answer, and third, that scientific, methodological thought should proceed by abiding to this order.

A first interesting insight that Collingwood connects to his starting point is that propositions as such cannot contradict each other. E.g. "snow is white" and "snow is not white" contradict each other if and only if they are intended or taken as answers to the same question ¹⁰.

Moreover, Collingwood opposes the habit of speaking of the truth and falsify of singular sentences or propositions. Truth for him is an attribute neither of singular sentences nor of sets of coherent sentences; rather it is an attribute of a complex consisting of questions and answers. In this whole, questions and answers must be connected in that answers are "right" with respect to their respective question whereas new questions must "arise" from answers provided to earlier questions: "What is ordinarily meant when a proposition is called `true', I thought, was this: (a) the proposition belongs to a question-and-answer complex which as a whole is `true' in the proper sense of the word; (b) within this complex it is an answer to a sensible or intelligent question, not a silly one, or in my terminology it `arises'; (c) the proposition is the `right' answer to that question."¹¹

Collingwood distinguishes more precisely between question, answer, and presupposition. Presupposition is that claim or answer that makes a question "arise", i.e. that provokes or stimulates a question. Every question has one single direct presupposition, "from which it directly and immediately `arises'", but additionally it can have an abundance of indirect ones, too. Whereas questions have to be "arising", and answers ''right", presuppositions have to be "logically efficient", i.e. they have to stimulate the questioning process¹².

Famous is Collingwood's distinction between "relative" and "absolute" presuppositions¹³: relative presuppositions are themselves answers to earlier questions whereas absolute presuppositions are ultimate starting points and as such not preceeded by any question. This notion of absolute presuppositions has a strong relativistic touch in Collingwood, for he denies that absolute presuppositions could ever be verified. Different absolute presuppositions cannot be derived from each other for then they would be presuppositions of each other thus their interrelation can only be characterized as "consupponibility". No fact can ever serve as a measure of their evaluation for they are the very yardstick of all evaluation.

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Most important for our concerns is the fact that Collingwood applies his "logic of question and answer" to questions of text interpretation and especially to the interpretation of philosophical texts. His basic credo is the following: "... never think you understand any statement made by a philosopher until you have decided, with the utmost possible accuracy, what the question is to which he means it for an answer..." ¹⁴

Collingwood conceeds that it is often extremely difficult to arrive at this initial question. In general, authors write for their contemporaries who do not need explanations concerning the question to be answered since it is their own question, too. Furthermore, in the course of time a question can be forgotten, especially if an author has provided a `right' answer to it; for then the chain of questions and answers can continue with a newly arising question.

A second idea that Collingwood connects with his methodological rule of thumb is that in the history of philosophy there are no eternal questions and answers. Thus he opposes, e.g. a conception according to which Plato's State and Hobbes's Leviathan are each in turn an answer to the same question concerning the ideal state. The "sameness" in these two works lies not in their being instantiations of the same universal but rather in their belonging to the same historical process.

Collingwood wants to go even further than this. He denies that it makes sense to distinguish a "historical question", e.g. "What was Aristotle's conception of virtue?" from the "philosophical question" ''Was it true?" Of truth and falsity one may speak only with respect to the question that the author has posed himself, and this question can be identified only in the text: "For one and the same passage states his (the author's) solution and serves as evidence of what the problem was. The fact that we can identify his problem is proof that he has solved it; for we only know what the problem was by arguing back from the solution."¹⁵

3. On Presuppositions

There are (at least) three elements in Collingwood's thought on meaning and interpretation that are worth singling out and developing further.

First of all, the conception of sentences and texts as answers to questions contains a deep insight that modern approaches to pragmatics have only recently started to appreciate fully:

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this is the idea that sentences and texts cannot be analyzed in terms of isolated units but only within a larger context of earlier and anticipated/planned later "moves". The tendency to oversee this simple fact a tendency almost principally codified in the speech act theory is neatly won over once Collingwood's basic premiss that motivates all question-theoretical approaches is properly appreciated.

Secondly, Collingwood's notion of presupposition seems to us to be worthy of the text linguist's and the LSP-researcher's interest. For in the latter domains it is often hard to avoid the suspicion that the notion of presupposition works as a "waste paper basket" concept to use a term once coined by Yehuda Bar-Hillel in a different context. On the one hand, presuppositions of questions have been analyzed rigorously by logicians ¹⁶, but unfortunately the tools of logic only extend as far as a syntactical criterion here. Thus, e.g. the presupposition of any yes-no question, say

(1) Are you coming?

is taken to be the tautology

(2) You are coming or you are not coming.

Despite the merits of this analysis for other purposes, the notion of presupposition used here is too limited for the purposes of text linguistics and LSP-research. But this undeniable fact should not be thought to justify the inflationary and unqualified use of the term for just anything that either enables or hinders the attempt to understand a text. One way to come to grips with this notion that seems promising to us, is to relate it back to its original question-theoretical context and to study the different ways answers come to constrain new questions, and the ways the different knowledge states and knowledge changes involved in constraining as well as arising new questions interact. The least one must distinguish, we feel, are to use Collingwood's vocabulary direct and indirect presuppositions on the one hand, and relative and absolute presuppositions on the other hand. Direct presuppositions would be the knowledge without which the question asked cannot in principal be understood, i.e. direct presuppositions would be constitutive of the meaning of a question in the same way in which again the question is constitutive of the answer. Indirect presuppositions would lack this analytical relation. Furthermore the distinction between relative and absolute presuppositions is relevant in that intercultural text research is always at least partially in the snares of relativism. The discussion that has surrounded Collingwood's distinction could

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provide interesting material against which claims to unsurmountable differences between world views could and should be checked, independently on which side of the dispute one will in the end come down.

Thirdly, Collingwood meets with some modern tendencies in text linguistics and LSP-research in that he takes the one and only meaning of the text to be the author's meaning. In text linguistics this stand is presupposed where the notions of "theme", "central element of the content" "cernel information" (Kallmeyer) ¹⁷, "textintention'' (Agricola)¹⁸, and "text-basic sentence" (Beisbart et al.)¹⁹ loom large. Some of the suggestions developed in text linguistics to grasp this assumed objective meaning are surprisingly close to some methods introduced into hermeneutical theory much earlier. For example Schleiermacher's tripartite distinction between "main ideas", "auxiliar ideas" and "means of presentation"²⁰ finds it modern parallel in Rossipal's notions of "target-" and "auxiliar information"²¹. Rossipal goes beyond Schleiermacher in that he uses a method of cancellation (originally proposed by Isenberg21a) to determine the central core: Only that information belongs to the target information that one cannot leave out without destroying the core meaning of the text. Collingwood's stress on the author's question is echoed in LSP-research e.g. by Huckin and Olsen who claim that the "main purpose" of the scientific text can best be found by asking its writer: "the most useful specialist informant one can find for an LSP text is the actual author of that text"²².

4. Objective Meaning?

This reliance upon the author, and the assumption of one single objective meaning has not been without its critics, in textlinguistics as well as hermeneutics. In the former discipline, e.g. Schwirtz has attacked the idea of an "essential content of a scientific text" arguing that the very meaning of "essential" refutes the ideal of objectivity appealed to: "Already the semantical content of the concept of `essential' calls for a point of reference: `Essential for what?' How `the essential content...' is to be understood is thus in any concrete case, i.e. in any process of reading a relative affair."²³ To mention a further example one can also draw attention to the hermeneutically informed work by Paepke who echoing Gadamer's ideas stresses that "the meaning of the text always transcends the author": "What the text says does not just supply the reader/translator with information that he did not have before, rather the reader/translator lets himself being led by what is said and creates what is meant"²⁴.

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It seems to us furthermore that Collingwood's idea of objective meaning can be undermined by the very question-theoretical terms that he used to introduce it. This line of criticism can perhaps be developed best by pushing further some tenets of Gadamer's hermeneutics.

Gadamer abides to the central thesis of the question-theoretical approach, according to which the meaning of a sentence or text lies in his "answerhood" vis-à-vis a question: "... the meaning of a sentence is relative with respect to the question that it answers, i.e. the sentence necessarily transcends what it says." ²⁵ But unlike Collingwood, Gadamer does not only speak of the initial question of the author and of our question to the text, but furthermore and with special stress of the question(s) the text puts to the reader/interpreter. With this remark Gadamer does not (only) allude to the specific openness of every text, an openness that calls for productive "filling" in the process of reading; in recent Rezeptionsästhetik this dimension has been conceptualized by Iser with the category of "appeal" (Appell) rather than with the category of the question. Gadamer's point is more general, however: "The fact that a text that is handed down by tradition becomes an object of interpretation already implies, that the text poses a question to the interpreter. ... To understand a text means to understand this question.''²⁶

Gadamer's point can be interpreted in our context as implying that scientific texts are usually read in the context of a scientific community. In such a "research tradition" (Laudan)²⁷, texts are read because of their importance concerning certain research problems, because of their status as a classic or because they endanger the basic pillars of one's own theorizing. In other words, certain texts put questions to the members of research traditions in that the scientist is expected to answer their challenge. To answer this challenge, however, does not mean to find some abstract objective meaning and communicate it to other researchers, but rather to engage oneself in a dialogue with the position of the text vis-à-vis the subject matter at hand. With this idea Gadamer also goes beyond Collingwood: the ideal of directing oneself only towards the initial question is vain, since the attempt to understand the initial question is itself an answer to the challenge posed by the text to question own our truths and prejudices: "The reconstruction of that question the text is taken to answer is itself situated in a questioning by way of which we search for an answer to the question the tradition poses to us. Therefore the reconstructed question can never be again in its original horizon."²⁸

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Gadamer's argument in this passage is worth elaborating upon: Let us call the reconstruction that aims for the initial question of the author "historical". Again a question that we would want to pose to the text (from our systematical point of view), i.e. a question answers to the text's (questioning) challenge shall be definitive of a "rational" reconstruction ²⁹. The difference between Gadamer and Collingwood would thus be over the question, whether there can be a historical without a rational reconstruction. It seems undeniable to us, that question-theoretical terms show that the truth lies with Gadamer's stand, namely that pure historical reconstruction is an impossibility. For if it is true that the meaning of a sentence lies in its answerhood with respect to a question, and if the meaning of a question lies in its relation to its presuppositions, then it follows that the original meaning can never be recovered. Even in case the initial question could be recovered in its literal form, it still would have as the reconstructed question in the interpretation situation a quite different set of presuppositions than what it originally had. And if we take presuppositions of a question as constitutive of its meaning then we have to accept that the original question can never be asked again.

One of the several upshots of this argument is that the stress upon the interpreter's question rather than on the author's neatly coincides with a recent turn in text linguistics where foremost Janos Petöfi has stressed that to understand textuality and text interpretation we have to look at the interpreter's doing ratehr than at the text as an verbal object³⁰. Meaning and textuality are both properties that are assigned to a verbal or written object by an interpreter. It seems worthwhile to point out that Petöfi's approach is here even more "hermeneutical" than that of some self-proclaimed mediators between hermeneutics and text linguistics: e.g. Klein and Nassen call for a cooperation of the two fields claiming that while hermeneutics aims for the meaning and interpretation of texts, textlinguistics studies the textuality as such³¹. In the light of Petöfi's and the question-theoretical position this assumed distinction between textuality and meaning can hardly be upheld.

5. Explanation, Text, and Interest

The search for the one and only meaning of a text shows some similarities with that long-standing prejudice of the philosophy of science according to which there exists one universal model of scientific explanation. This parallel seems worth going into here, especially since on our view

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LSP-research should not divorce itself from the philosophy and sociology of science. The price to be paid for such an negligence would be a fundamental lack of appreciation for the content of scientific texts as well as for the contexts in which they are produced.

In order to develop the parallel referred to, it seems best to start from the recent work of the Finnish philosopher Matti Sintonen. Sintonen's theory of the pragmatics of scientific explanation ³² takes serious the fact that every explanation is an answer to a question. The appreciation of this truth demands that the questioner, her field of research, her interests etc. are reckoned with. This reckoning frees the philosopher of science from the illusion that there is to be found the one and only valid model of explanation. For if the questions and their background differ radically, then so must the answers, i.e. the explanations. If at all there remains anything that can be mentioned as a common denominator of all explanations, then there only remains the fact that explanations remove a state of surprise in the questioner and that some elements of the question-answer relation can be formalized into a "thin logic"³³. Different questioners in the scientific realm can be classified e.g. by their field. Each field is characterized by a specific perspective, and even in case two scientists from different fields were to ask the literally "same" question say, why did it happen? they are still awaiting rather different explanations as answers. As Sintonen stresses, "There is no right or wrong about having these points of view: (e.g.) the lawyer's interests are constitutive of the discipline and cannot be overlooked without destroying the subject matter, so to speak.''³⁴ "We can find inquirers belonging to different fields disagreeing not so much over what individuals there are or what properties they have but over what aspects are relevant for their respective concerns."³⁵

By now it is probably already clear in which directions Sintonen's results are of importance to LSP-research. First of all, if we cannot say about actions and natural events that there is only one valid model of explanation for them, and if we have to say about these that every explanation is relative with respect to that question it is supposed to answer, then we cannot see any reason why we should not have to say the very same thing about text-interpretation, too. Every reading of a text is a "situated" reading governed by notions and background of a specific science and paradigm, and any attempt to identify "behind" these different readings an abstract "general" meaning is as vain as the assumption of one ideal model of explanation behind all factual explanations. Secondly, if LSP-research wants to be relevant for an

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understanding of the role of texts in the scientific community, LSP-research has to take its starting point from the fact that there indeed exist different sciences and paradigms with sometimes radically different conceptions of what constitutes a correct reading, meaning and textuality. The ideal of objective meaning is here likely to obscure this rather obvious fact. Thirdly, the parallel between explanation and interpretation also aptly points to the fact that the giving up of objective-author-meaning as the starting point for LSP-research does by no means lead into total relativism. On the opposite, the important point is that since the reading/interpretation of scientific texts is always situated in a scientific community that is essentially constituted by shared questions, answers, and presuppositions, there always already is established a network of relevant questions and points of view. It is this common background that makes for agreement among researchers of the same field over what constitutes relevant questions and answers vis-à-vis texts.

6. Progress in Interpretation

Even though different interpretations are thus relative with respect to different questions, this does not in the least rule out the possibility of progress in interpretation. This too can be explicated in question-theoretical terms.

As a starting point we can use a rather simple model that Rescher uses to grasp the dynamic aspect of research ³⁶. Research starts from a certain amount of knowledge, K. Each K again defines a set of questions, Q(K), that arise on the bases of K without that K itself could provide answers to them. Once these answers have been found by going beyond K, they have to be integrated into K. This process of integration leads to new body of knowledge K' that again gives rise to new question Q'(K') that cannot be answered on the basis of K'.

Rescher's model is extremely abstract and as such not really helpful. It can be made more interesting, however, by combining it with ideas that Jaakko Hintikka has developed in his work on knowledge-systems, dialogues, and questions³⁷.

We shall use Hintikka's different notions of knowledge here without first repeating his own definitions. Rather we shall straightforwardly and freely modify them so that they apply to the process of interpretation.

That area of knowledge on the basis of which the interpreter/reader starts her interpretation can be called

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"active knowledge". That area of knowledge that she has only "passively", i.e. knowledge of which she is not directly aware in the process of her work, i.e. knowledge that she has in her memory or different knowledge systems, will be called ''tacit knowledge". Parts of this knowledge can become part of the active knowledge via a process of questions and answers. Since not all tacit knowledge is even excessible in any circumstance it is useful to speak of one subset of it as "potential knowledge", i.e. that area of knowledge that the interpreter can obtain via questions she puts to the knowledge systems. "Range of awareness" we shall call the dimension of the text the interpreter can obtain through her questions. Finally we speak of "virtual knowledge" as that area of knowledge that the interpreter can obtain without that she introduces any new entities into the inference that is carried out to prove her initial hypothesis concerning the text meaning. The premisses in this inference consist of her initial information within the active knowledge as well as those answers the interpreter obtains by posing questions to her text and her knowledge systems. Within text interpretation the virtual knowledge is enlarged when the interpreter introduces a new element into the context of the text say some motive or neurosis that as such a theoretical entity does not appear in the text itself, yet that provides the key to its interpretation.

The interpretation starts from the point where the interpreter has some active knowledge on the text, perhaps also on its author, knowledge on the conceptual framework of the interpretation and a vague anticipation as to the result of the interpretation. This vague Vorverständnis can be taken as a general question to the text and, at the same time, as the thesis the interpreter aims at infering from the information she obtains on the content of the text in question. To this large and broad question there is no direct answer, rather the large question has to be broken down into a questioning strategy consisting of numerous small questions. This strategy is determined by the active and potential knowledge of the interpreter. An interesting concrete example of this determination is e.g. the rhetorical series of medieval accessus-questions (approaching questions) ³⁸, questions that were used as a canonical starting point of text interpretation. The seven questions belonging to this series, "quis, quid, ubi, quibus, cur, quomodo, quando", are determined by Cicero's theory of proof and its elements: persons, factum, causa, locus, tempus, modus, facultas.

The partial questions that are put to the text arise on the basis of the active knowledge but they cannot be answered solely on its basis. This is where the text comes in.

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Now our approach would not be very interesting if the whole process ended here, i.e. ended with direct answers to the interpreter's questions. But fortunately for us, the case of text interpretation is more complex. The usual experience in interpretation is rather that the answers obtained include contradictory elements or that some answers remain totally unanswered. In this case the interpreter does not succeed in proving her hypothesis by way of deduction and questioning. The modification of the initial hypothesis can be described by saying that the interpreter searches through her "tacit knowledge" for that kind of additional information, on the basis of which the contradiction in the answers provided by the text can be explained away as mere appearance, or on the basis of which missing text-answers can be obtained. By proceeding in this way, the interpreter changes her active knowledge, however, and in turn her range of awareness, her main question, and her questioning strategy. The result is a more adequate hypothesis, that the interpreter tries to prove in a new round of interrogation and deduction. The following graph sums up this process:

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No doubt, the model suggested here is still rather simple. But what speaks on its behalf nevertheless is that it is framed with concepts that are central in that general theory of argumentation that Jaakko Hintikka has developed during the eighties. If the bridge between hermeneutics and analytical philosophy suggested here holds we can in attempts to conceptualize text interpretation almost directly the elements and insights already belonging to that general theory.

7. Cultural Distance, Rationality, and Interpretation

In conclusion we shall take up and refute a line of reasoning that proclaims to show that the hermeneutical tradition that we have tried to develop further by relating it to analytical philosophy on the hand, and LSP-research on the other hand is unable to deal with the most difficult problem of interpretation: namely interpretation across cultural borders. Proponents of this view, e.g. Krusche, Michel, and Scheiffele, argue that the hermeneutical tradition has concerned itself only with temporal distance between text and interpreter but never with cultural distance ³⁹.

Here we shall not collect quotations from Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer to refute these modern critics. Rather we shall try to show how the hermeneutical question-theoretical approach provides an important conceptualization of the perhaps most central factor and precondition of the possibility of understanding across cultures.

The key to any answer to the question "how is understanding across cultures possible?" lies with what in the modern analytical discussion is usually referred to as "the principle of charity", a principle that under different titles appears in almost all classics of hermeneutics. Suffice it here to clarify its basic idea in the wording of the analytical philosopher Donald Davidson who must be credited with having stressed its importance more than any other philosopher⁴⁰.

The starting point of Davidson's still rather sketchy theory is the interrelation of beliefs, desires and utterance: Speakers hold sentences true in situations partly due to what they mean by an utterance of that sentence and partly due to what they believe (or desire). From the standpoint of the interpreter this interrelation means that the interpretation of an utterance essentially includes the attribution of beliefs and desires to the speaker or writer.

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Davidson claims that this attribution of beliefs and desires is constrained by the inevitable anticipation that the speaker shares our (the interpreter's) standards of rationality to at least a considerable degree. In order to understand at all we must attribute to the speaker/writer a pattern of belief and desires that makes her utterance true or rational in the given situation. This charity, Davidson stresses, is not something we can either adopt or leave aside, rather it is something that is forced upon us if we want to understand at all.

Put the other way around, the attribution of "massive error" or massive difference to a speaker/writer, or more general: an agent, is impossible, since it leaves nothing to be wrong/different about: "Global confusion, like universal mistake, is unthinkable, not because imagination boggles, but because too much confusion leaves nothing to be confused about and massive error erodes the background of true belief against which alone failure can be construed." ⁴¹

Davidson backs up his idea mostly in terms of "interpretation from scratch", i.e. "radical interpretation": If we are dealing with a speaker whose language and whose beliefs (and desires) are unknown to us note that this would be the most extreme case of cultural distance then the only way to construct both a meaning theory and a pattern of beliefs is to keep beliefs constant, i.e. rational in our sense, and start constructing the speaker's meanings from this assumed common platform of rationality.

Davidson's initially perhaps surprising idea can be made more plausible once it is reformulated in question-theoretical terms. As we saw earlier it is the central idea of both Collingwood and Gadamer that to understand/interpret a text is to construct some or the question that the text can be taken to answer. The way charity is forced upon the interpreter can then be put in the following way: one and the same item, namely the text, is the answer and the key to what the question could have been; thus our ability to identify the speaker's/writer's question is strong proof that the very question has been answered rationally.

The way the interpreter's rationality enters into the picture here comes out more clearly once we take a look at the problem of "answerhood", a problem that has been dealt with by Hintikka. A simple case can serve to clarify the central point: Imagine that I ask a friend, "Who is the best known figure by the name of Juhani in Finnish literature?" Possible answers might be something like, "the central figure of Aleksis Kivi's main work", ''the central figure of the novel `Seven Brother'", "the eldest of the Jukola brothers" etc. When

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is my friend's answer a complete answer? As Hintikka puts it, "The solution is easy. Whatever the response is, say `d', this response is a conclusive answer if and only if the questioner can truly say... `I know who d is'." ⁴²

The upshot of this rather obvious point is that one cannot define the nature and degree of answerhood of an utterance without taking into account the knowledge and rationality of the questioner.

Now in the case of the interpretation it is always the interpreter who is constructing a question whether the text is of our or a strange culture. Thus the knowledge that determines the degree of answerhood is not that of the speaker or writer, but the knowledge of the interpreter. The interpreter's standards of rationality are attributed to the speaker/writer in that the interpreter's conception of what constitutes a rational answer to a given question is attributed to the speaker/writer.

Along the same line we can also reconstruct the impossibility of attributing "global confusions", "universal mistakes", and in our case fundamental difference: If we want to say at all that the given answer is mistaken or irrational with respect to the question we attribute, then we are forced to assume at least some minimal link between question and answer. At least we must assume that the text is intended to be an answer to the given question. Otherwise we would be unable to say that the given answer is an irrational answer to this question. Even a totally misplaced answer must still be an answer. Perhaps one could even go further by saying that the attribution of global confusion e.g. to another culture should be couched in question-theoretical terms as attributing the inability to even pose questions. Since rationality and irrationality are on our suggestion relative to questions, it thus becomes an analytical truth that nobody can ever turn out totally confused, and totally different.

The relevance of all this for our context is this: if the principle of charity lies at the very heart of all interpretation then an understanding and an interpretation across cultural borders differs only in degree but not in principle from understanding and interpretation within the same culture. Now hermeneutics in its modern transcendental (Gadamerian) version is largely an attempt to clarify the implications and preconditions of the principle of charity. Thus hermeneutics can be divorced from the recent project of conceptualizing cross-cultural interpretation only by those scientists that regard the principle of charity and the theory of the involvement of rationality in interpretation that comes under this title as

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either false or negligable. It is hard to see how anyone would be willing and able to hold such a position.

Notes

1. This paper is a short version of our article "Meaning in social science: The question-theoretical approach in hermeneutics, LSP-research and translation theory", which will be published in a reader on meaning, edited by Janos S. Petöfi (forthcoming).

2. See e.g. Harrah, D. (1961) A Logic of Questions and Answers. Philosophy of Science. Vol. 28, 40-46; Belnap Jr., N.D. (1963) An Analysis of Questions: Preliminary Report. Santa Monica: System Development Corporation; Agvist, L. (1965) A New Approach to the Logical Theory of Interrogatives. Uppsala: Filosofiska Föreningen; Hamblin, C.L. (1973) Questions in Montague English. Foundations of Language. Vol. 10, 41-53; Hintikka, J. (1976) The Semantics of Questions and the Questions of Semantics. Acta Philosophica Fennica. Vol. 28, no. 4. Amsterdam.

3. See e.g. Hamblin, C.L. (1971) Mathematical models of dialogue. Theoria. Vol. 37, 130-155; Hintikka, J. (1979) The Logic of information-seeking dialogues: A model. Erkenntnis. Vol. 38, 355-368; Manor, R. (1981) Dialogues and the logics of questions and of answers. Linguistische Berichte. Vol. 73, 1-28; Barth, E. and Krabbe, E.C.W. (1982) From axiom to dialogue. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter; Rescher, N. (1982) Empirical Inquiry. London: The Athlone Press; Carlson, L. (1983) Dialogue-games. Dordrecht: Reidel; Harrah, D. (1984) Message theory and the semantics of dialogue. Vaina, L. and Hintikka, J. (eds) Cognitive constraints on communication, 267-276. Dordrecht: Reidel; Sintonen, M. (1984) The Pragmatics of Scientific Explanation. Acta Philosophica Fennica. Vol. 37. Helsinki; Walton, D. (1987) Informal Fallacies. Towards a Theory of Argument Criticisms. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

4. See Kakkuri-Knuuttila, M.-L. (1987) Aristotelian Games of Dialectic. Kusch, M. and Schröder, H. (eds) Text Interpretation Argumentation. Hamburg: Buske.

5. Collingwood, R.G. (1978) An Autobiography (1938). Oxford: Oxford University Press; Collingwood, R.G. (1948) An Essay in Metaphysics (1940). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975) Wahrheit und Methode (1960). Tübingen: Mohr. Close to this tradition are also Kuhlmann, W. (1975) Reflexion und kommunikative Erfahrung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, and Meyer, M. (1983) Meaning and Reading. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

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6. This section is based on Kusch, M. (1986) Ymmärtämisen haaste (The Challenge of Understanding). Oulu: Pohjoinen.

7. See note 4 above.

8. See note 4 above.

9. An Essay in Metaphysics, p. 23.

10. An Autobiography, p. 33.

11. Ibid., p. 38.

12. An Essay. . ., p. 27.

13. Ibid., p. 29.

14. An Autobiography, p. 78.

15. Ibid., p. 70.

16. See the studies by Hintikka mentioned in note 1 and 2 above.

17. See Kallmeyer, W. et al. (1986) Lektürekolleg zur Textlinguistik. Bd. 1: Einführung, Athenäum, Königstein/Ts. 4. Auflage.

18. See Agricola, E. (1979) Textstruktur-Textanalyse-Informationskern. Leipzig.

19. See Beisbart, O. et al. (1976) Textlinguistik und ihre Didaktik. Donauwörth.

20. Schleiermacher, Fr. (1977) Hermeneutik und Kritik. Hrsg. von M. Frank. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

21. See Rossipal, H. (1978) Pragmatische Motivationsstruktur in Fachtexten. Mentrup, W. (ed) Fachsprachen und Gemeinsprache, 155-208. Düsseldorf.

21a. See Isenberg, H. (1976) Einige Grundbegriffe für eine linguistische Texttheorie. Danes, F. and Viehweger, D. (eds) Probleme der Textgrammatik, 47-145. Berlin.

22. See Huckin, T. and Olsen, L. (1984) On the use of informants in LSP discourse analysis. Pugh, A.K. and Ulijn, J.M. (eds) Reading for Professional Purposes. Studies and Practices in Native and Foreign Languages. London.

23. See Schwirtz, K. (1980) Ermittlung des wesentlichen Inhalts eines Fachtextes. Fremdsprachenunterricht. Heft 4, 170-177.

24. See Paepcke, F. (1986) Im Übersetzen leben Übersetzen und Textvergleich. Herausgegeben von Klaus Berger und Hans-Michael Speier. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.

25. Gadamer, op. cit., p. 352.

26. See e.g. Iser, W. (1975) Die Appellstruktur der Texte. Warning, R. (ed) Rezeptionsästhetik, 228-252. München: Fink; Gadamer, op. cit., p. 351.

27. Laudan, L. (1977) Progress and Its Problems. Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth. London: Routledge and Kegan.

28. Gadamer, op. cit., p. 10.

29. See Rorty, R. (1984) The historiography of philosophy. Rorty, R., Schneewind, J.B. and Skinner, Q. (eds) Philosophy in History. Essays in the Historiography of Philosophy, 49-. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

30. See e.g. Petöfi, J.S. (1987) Explicative Text Interpretation

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Interpretive Knowledge. Kusch, M. and Schröder, H. (eds) Text Interpretation Argumentation. Hamburg: Buske.

31. See Klein, W. and Nassen, U. (1979) Textlinguistik und Texthermeneutik. Nassen, U. (ed) Texthermeneutik Aktualität, Geschiche, Kritik, 23-36. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh.

32. See his study mentioned in note 2.

33. Sintonen, M. (1984) Review of W. Stegmüller, Erklärung Begründung Kausalität. Grazer philosophische Studien. Vol. 22, 179-, here p. 190. 2. edition. Part One. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.

34. The Pragmatics. . ., p. 98.

35. Review. . ., p. 189.

36. Rescher, op. cit., p. 168.

37. Hintikka, J. Knowledge Representation and the Interrogative Model of Inquiry. Unpublished article.

38. We follow here Brinkmann, H. (1980) Mittelalterliche Hermeneutik. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Darmstadt.

39. See Krusche, D. (1985) Literatur und Fremde Zur Hermeneutik kulturräumlicher Distanz. München. Iudicium; Michel, W. (1985) Zur Geltungs- und Anwendungsreichweite interdisziplinärer Forschung in der kulturellen Zusammenarbeit Hermeneutik Sozialpsychologie Medienwissenschaft und Literaturwissenschaft; Scheifele, E. (1985) Affinität und Abhebung. Zum Problem der Voraussetzungen interkulturellen Verstehens. Wierlacher, A. (ed) Das Fremde und das Eigene Prolegomena zu einer interkulturellen Germanistik, 94-110 and 29-46. München. Iudicium.

40. See the papers collected in Davidson, D. (1980) Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press, and in Davidson, D. (1984) Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

41. Mental Events, in Davidson, Essays. . ., p. 207-, here p. 221.

42. Hintikka, J. (1985) Legal Reasoning and Legal Systems. Bulygin, E., Gardies, J.-L. and Niiniluoto, I. (eds) Man, Law and Modern Forms of Life, 209-. Dordrecht: Reidel. Here p. 212. For a more extensice treatment see Hintikka's The Semantics of Questions. . . (note 1).

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4
An Outline of the Value of Genre Analysis in LSP Work

Tony Dudley-Evans
University of Birmingham

The study of genre, usually in relation to register, has long been a part of linguistics, especially in the work of Halliday and the systemicists. It was not, however, until the work of Swales (1981) on article introductions that genre analysis became an important part of ESP work. This paper begins by stating the justification for the approach and then goes on to describe some of the work of ESP practitioners that comes under the heading of genre analysis.

ESP needs a system of analysis that will do three things:

(i) group together certain texts that have important similarities in terms of rhetorical purpose, form and audience

(ii) show how these texts are distinct from other texts; how they differ between themselves and how they differ from other text types

(iii) provide information about the rhetorical structure and linguistic form of different types of text that is of pedagogic value

Many systems of linguistic analysis aim to establish certain characteristic features of texts that are common to a wide range of texts. In other words, they look for similarities rather than differences between texts. Berry (1981) puts it very clearly:

`I assume the aims of (discourse) analysis are two-fold to describe text in such a way as to be able to say something worthwhile about the individual text and group of texts; and to work towards a theory of discourse.'

The work of Winter and Hoey is a good example of what is meant here. Hoey (1983), building on earlier work by Winter (1974) suggests a number of discourse patterns found in written text. These are Problem-Solution patterns, Matching patterns, including Repetition, Contrast and Compability, and finally General-Particular patterns. This work, although a

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great importance in the area of linguistics, is only of limited value in ESP work. I would not wish to deny that an understanding of and an ability to produce these patterns are important to students on an ESP course, but, if we are to teach the writing of certain very specific texts, such as the academic article, the Masters or PhD thesis, the laboratory report, the business letter or telex, or a business or technical report we need a system of analysis that shows how each type of text differs from other types.

An excellent example of this type of analysis is Swales' work on article introductions (1981) in which he looked at 48 introductions drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines. He suggests that there is a structure for these introductions in which a series of `moves' occur in a predictable order. This is shown below:

The Four Moves

Move One:

Establishing the Field by

A Showing Centrality of the topic
or
B Stating Current Knowledge of the Topic
or
C Ascribing Key Characteristics

Move Two:

Summarising Previous Research

Move Three:

Preparing for Present Research by

A Indicating a Gap
or
B Question Raising
or
C Extending a Finding

Move Four:

Introducing Present Research by

A Stating the Purpose
or
B Describing Present Research

Much of the recent work on academic articles has concentrated on the discussion of results section and on investigating whether a similar pattern of moves to that found by Swales in introductions can be identified. McKinlay (1983) and Adam Smith (1986) investigated discussion

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sections in articles in medical journals, Peng (1987) looked at discussion sections in Chemical Engineering papers and Dudley-Evans (1986) studied the discussion sections in MSc theses in the area of Plant Biology. Each person found that there is a move structure in the discussion of results section and that these moves are organised in a cyclical pattern. The characteristic cycle found by all these researchers is a `statement of result' plus a comment or series of comments on that result. This pattern will be repeated many times throughout the discussion section. Each researcher has used slightly different terms to label the different types or comment but a compromise list is set out below. It may also be found in Hopkins and Dudley-Evans (forthcoming).

1. Background Information, in which the writers present background information about the aim, method theory, results of other researchers considered to be necessary for the reader to understand the cycle of statement of result plus comment. This move is optional.

2. Statement of Result

3. (Un)expected Outcome, in which the writers comment on whether the result is expected or not.

4. Reference to Previous Research (Comparison), in which the writers compare their results with those reported in the literature.

5. Explanation of a Surprising or Unsatisfactory Result, in which the writers suggest reasons for a surprising result or one different from those in the literature.

6. Deduction, in which the writers make a claim about the generalisability of a particular result.

7. Hypothesis, in which the writers make a more general claim arising from their experimental results.

8. Reference to Previous Research (Support), in which the writers quote previous work to support a deduction or hypothesis.

9. Recommendation, in which the writers make suggestions for future work.

10. Justification, in which the writers justify the need for the future work recommended.

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One interesting suggestion for a more general framework for the discussion of results section has been put forward by Huckin (1987). He argues that writers in their discussion section will normally begin by stating the most important results, and by making a series of statements showing how the results relate to the research questions or issues raised in the introduction. This is followed by a comparison of the present results with related results and claims made in previous research. The writer will conclude with a number of statements about the implications of the study, and possible future developments. He suggests that, as in the introduction, there are four moves, and that these moves are analagous to those in the Introduction but are in reverse order.

Introduction

Discussion

4. Introducing Present Research

1. Statement of Major Results

3. Preparing for Present Research typically by indicating a gap in previous research.

2. Redescription of Gap, explanation of how results fill it.

2. Summarising Previous Research

3. Selective Literature Review, comparing present results with earlier ones.

1. Establishing the Field frequently by emphasising statement of the importance of the topic.

4. Implications for Larger Issues (i e. possible importance for future).

More research needs to be done to establish how generalisable Huckin's model is, but it is clearly consistent with the moves outlined earlier in this paper. It may well provide a higher order framework in which the analyst can understand the overall pattern of moves within the various statement of results plus comment cycles.

We have emphasised that genre analysis aims to establish the essential differences between different types of text. In showing the patterns of moves in the introduction and discussion of results sections in academic articles, one is making statements about one genre, which are true only of that genre. If one takes a very different genre, like the business telex, a quite different approach will be required. Interestingly, however, researchers working on spoken texts in the area of business have found that the moves Swales

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suggested for introductions of academic articles can be adapted and re-interpreted to capture something of the overall pattern of those texts. Anderson (1987) working with some business negotiation data found a four move pattern:

1. Product Establishment, in which the negotiators establish which products are of mutual interest.

2. Parameter Establishment, in which the negotiators talk around possible prices, quantities, and delivery times and test how far the other is able to move on these.

3. Bargaining, in which price, quantity and delivery times are fixed.

4. Confirmation, in which the two parties agree to exchange letters or telexes, confirming what has been agreed.

Ross (1987) working with a recorded excerpt from a company board meeting found a five move pattern:

1. Introducing the Field (Invariably the Chairman) by referring members of the group to a topic agreed on previously (agenda) and, optionally, nominating the speaker

2. Reporting to the Meeting

by

(i) describing work recently carried out
or
(ii) explaining current situation

3. Discussion of Matters Arising out of the Report

4. Decision

Moves 3 and 4 may be repeated and may then be followed by

5. Discussion of Future Work

by

(i) apportioning responsibility
and/or
(ii) detailing implementation

Cycles of Phases 3, 4, 5 are possible.

Both Anderson and Ross were working with a limited amount of data and clearly more research is needed to establish how generally the patterns they found apply to other negotiation or board meeting data. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that they found a four or five move pattern repeated

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cyclically throughout their data.

I should now like to consider exactly what we mean by `genre'. Thus far in this paper we have mainly talked about four genres, the academic article, the thesis, the business negotiation, and the company board meeting. Each of these is easily recognised as a type of activity that regularly occurs in society and which has certain regularities of rhetorical purpose and form. The very fact that we do recognise these or other activities such as the conference paper, the doctor-patient interview, the book review, the lecture or seminar as a recurring type of activity is in itself significant. Society recognises these texts or activities as being to a large extent conventionalised. In fact the terms used by those who operate in an genre or a number of genres may be the most useful and sensible way into the classification of genres, a very difficult aspect of genre analysis. Take, for example, the academic article. We would all recognise different types of article, the full academic article, the short type of academic article often referred to as Research Notes or Short Notes, the letter to a journal, which, I am told, is now the outlet for most new research findings which need to be published quickly, the review or survey article. Are each of these separate genres or are they sub-genres of one main genre, the article? Similarly are committee meetings, board meetings, interview panels separate genres or sub-genres of a single genre, `meeting'? One runs into all kinds of problems. If one decides to classify each type of academic article as a sub-genre, is the letter to a journal a sub-genre of the academic article or of the letter or of both? The only solution is to take seriously the terms used by those who write, edit or read articles. If they talk about the survey article, research notes, the letter to a journal etc., as separate entities, this in itself must be important, and I would now prefer to refer to each of these as a separate genre.

But how about a term like `feminist literature'? This is clearly a label that has a recognisable meaning and that would set up certain expectations in one reading or hearing the term. I would not, however, regard feminist literature as a genre. Feminist literature is not a conventionalised form with recognisable rhetorical practice. It is not a type of discourse that regularly recurs in certain types of situations. As Miller (1984, p. 152) puts it `From day to day, comparable situations occur, prompting comparable responses. These responses become a tradition, which tend to function as a constraint in any new response in the form. Thus inaugurals, eulogies, courtroom speeches and the like have conventional forms because they arise in situations with similar structures and elements and because rhetors respond in similar ways, having

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learned from precedent what is appropriate and what effects their actions are likely to have on other people'.

This leads into the final point I wish to make about genre. Analysis of genres has to be based on rhetorical function. It is only within the context of rhetorical function that regularities of content and form begin to have pedagogical value. Those who operate in genres have to learn the conventions of those genres. Where genre analysis is used in ESP work, one is merely extending and making more explicit for one's students the process of learning to operate in a genre.

This paper has attempted to show something of the principles of genre analysis, and how its methods differ from other kinds of linguistic analysis. It has also tried to show how it may be of great value in ESP teaching. Genre analysis is, I believe, an important tool in the increasing professionalisation of ESP work.

References

Adams Smith, D. (1986) Aspects of Register Variation in Seven Popular Science Journals and the Research Papers from which they were derived. Unpublished MA Project Report, University of Birmingham.

Anderson, I. (1987) The Language of Collaborative Negotiation: A Genre and Discourse Analysis. Unpublished MA Project Report, University of Birmingham.

Berry, M. (1981) Systemic Linguistics and Discourse Analysis: A Multi-Layered Approach to Exchange Structure. Coulthard and Montgomery (eds) Studies in Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Dudley-Evans, A. (1986) Genre Analysis: An Investigation of the Introduction and Discussion Sections of MSc Theses. Coulthard, M. (ed) Talking about Text. Discourse Analysis Monograph No 13. English Language Research. University of Birmingham.

(ed) (1987) Genre Analysis and ESP. ELR Journal (new series), Vol 1. University of Birmingham.

Hoey, M (1983) On the Surface of Discourse. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Hopkins, A. and Dudley-Evans, A. (forthcoming) A Genre Based Investigation of the Discussion Sections in Articles and Dissertations.

Huckin, T. (1987) Surprise Value in Scientific Discourse. mimeo.

McKinlay, J. (1983) An Analysis of the Discussion Section of Medical Journal Articles. Unpublished MA Project Report.

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University of Birmingham.

Miller, C. (1984) Genre as Social Action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70, 151-167.

Peng, J.F. (1987) Organisational Features in Chemical Engineering Research Articles. Dudley-Evans, A. (ed) Genre Analysis and ESP. ELR Journal, Vol 1. University of Birmingham.

Ross, C. (1987) A Board Meeting: An Investigation of its Genre and Discourse Features. Unpublished MA Project Report. University of Birmingham.

Swales, J. (1981) Aspects of Article Introductions. ESP Research Reports, No 1. Aston University.

Winter, E. (1974) Replacement as a Function of Repetition: A Study of Some of its Principal Features in the Clause Relations of Contemporary English. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of London.

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5
Historizität Der Fachsprachen Am Beispiel Der Deutschen Bergbausprache

Ilpo Tapani Piirainen
Universität Münster

1. Der Begriff HistorizitÄt

Fachsprachen werden häufig als Erscheinungen des heutigen Technologiezeitalters angesehen. Innovationen und neue Techniken sowie Forschungsergebnisse der verschiedenen Wissenschaftsgebiete führen dazu, daß angesichts neuer Entitätensysteme fachsprachliche Befriffssysteme und Terminologien entwickelt und oft über Fach- und Sprachgrenzen hinaus in der internationalen fachlichen Kommunikation angewandt werden. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird anhand der deutschen Bergbausprache gezeigt, daß die historische Dimension der Fachsprachen einen wesentlichen Gesichtspunkt der Forschung darstellt und trotz des historischen Aspektes durchaus aktuell ist.

Für die historische Untersuchung der Fachsprachen gilt das gleiche Prinzip, das in der Linguistik seit F. de Saussure bekannt ist: es muß zwischen Synchronie und Diachronie unterschieden werden. Für die Fachsprachenforschung bedeutet dies: für eine Fachsprache müssen mehrere synchronische Abschnitte gemacht werden, bevor man zu einer diachronen Darstellung kommt ¹. Da die Fachsprachen jeweils in einem sozio-kulturellen Kontext zu beurteilen sind, genügen für deren Untersuchung die herkömmlichen Epochenbestimmungen z.B. innerhalb der Germanistik nicht. So spricht man in der Germanistik für die Zeit 1350-1650 von der Periode des Frühneuhochdeutschen; das Weltbild des Mittelalters ist sowohl in wissenschaftlich-teoretischer als auch in technischer Sicht eine andere als das der beginnenden Neuzeit, als der deutsche Sprachraum durch die Reformation eine geistige Neuorientierung erfuhr, die Städte mit ihren überregionalen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen ein Gegengewicht zu dem ländlich orientierten Adel bildeten und viele ganz neue Industrien (z.B. Tuchmacherei, Bergbau) entwickelten².

In der Germanistik bildet die historische Erforschung der Fachsprachen kein Novum; unter den Bezeichnungen ''Fachprosa" und "Fachliteratur" hat man ältere Texte gelegentlich unter fachsprachlichem Aspekt untersucht. Die

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Ergebnisse dieser Arbeiten entsprechen jedoch nur selten dem sprachwissenschaftlichen Begriff der Diachronie: statt der Beschreibung der Entwicklung der Begriffe und Terminologien über mehrere Jahrhunderte liegen nur einzelne synchrone Abschnitte vor. So gelten z.B. der Wortschatz der Fischerei und der Wortschatz der Seefahrt als Beispiele für die ältesten fachsprachlichen Zeugnisse aus dem norddeutschen (niederdeutschen) Raum, der Wortschatz des Turnierwesens und der Wortschatz der Jagd als Terminologien aus dem süddeutschen (hochdeutschen) Raum. Ohne den Wert dieser älteren Arbeiten in Zweifel zu ziehen, ist eine derartige punktuelle Darstellung unter dem diachronen Gesichtspunkt nur bedingt historisch ³.

Im Deutschen gibt es jedoch Fachsprachen, die sowohl von der Theoriebildung als auch von dem sozio-kulturellen Kontext her seit mehreren Jahrhunderten verfolgt werden können. Als Beispiele können Medizin, Theologie und Bergbau genannt werden. Die medizinische Fachsprache ist seit dem Spätmittelalter nicht nur in theoretischen Abhandlungen, sondern auch in vielen populären Darstellungen überliefert; an allen bedeutenden medizinischen Fakultäten gibt es heute ein Institut für die Geschichte der Medizin. Ähnlich sieht es mit der Theologie aus: sowohl an der katholischen als auch an der evangelischen Seite werden die theologischen Schriften vom Mittelalter bis heute auch sprachlich untersucht. Für das theologische Schrifttum ist es charakteristisch, daß neben den kirchlich autorisierten Schriften die für die Laien bestimmte Erbauungsliteratur über Jahrhunderte hinaus die theologischen Begriffe mitbestimmt hat. Über die deutsche Bergbausprache liegen viele einzelne Zeugnisse aus dem Hochmittelalter vor, aus dem Spätmittelalter stammen schon zahlreiche Bergordnungen, von der beginnenden Neuzeit bis heute ist die Bergbausprache nicht nur in Rechtstexten und fachlichen Darstellungen, sondern in Bergmannssagen, Bergmannsliedern und Dichtungen unterschiedlicher Prägung überliefert⁴.

2. Bergbausprache Des SpÄtmittelalters

Der Bergbau ist in Europa seit dem Beginn unserer Zeitrechnung bekannt. Die Römer errichteten Erzbergwerke überall dort, wo sie Territorien eroberten; so ist z.B. durch Tacitus überliefert, daß im Gebiet von Banska Stiavnica/Schemnitz in der heutigen Slowakei in der CSSR Silber gewonnen wurde. Aus dieser Stadt stammt eines der ältesten deutschsprachigen Berggesetze, überliefert in mehreren Handschriften seit dem 15. Jahrhundert⁵. Der älteste

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deutschsprachige Beleg über den Bergbau stammt jedoch aus dem 9. Jahrhundert und wird von Otfried von Weißenburg in der folgenden Form geschrieben:

Zi nuzze grebit man ouh thar er inti kupfar,
ioh bi thia meina isine steina:
Ouh tharazua fuagi silabar ginuagi ⁶.

Aus dem 14. Jahrhundert ist die 512 Verse umfassende Erzählung "Das Märe vom Feldbauer" erhalten; Feldbauer ist eine alte Bezeihnung für den Bergmann. Diese Bergbaudichtung ist in zwei Handschriften überliefert, die aus Sachsen im Gebiet der heutigen DDR und aus Böhmen im Gebiet der heutigen CSSR stammen⁷.

Die wichtigsten Zeugnisse über den spätmittelalterischen Bergbau Mitteleuropas finden sich jedoch in den Bergrechten. Das älteste überlieferte Berggesetz ist die Tridentinische Bergordnung aus dem 13. Jahrhundert, die für den alpenländischen Raum eine große Bedeutung hatte. Für die Entwicklung der Berggesetzgebung wurde jedoch das Bergrecht von Jihlava/Iglau in Mähren/Morava im Gebiet der heutigen CSSR maßgeblich. Es verbreitete sich einerseits in Richtung Süden in die Slowakei im damaligen Niederungarn, wo es einen starken Einfluß auf das Bergrecht von Banska Stiavnica/Schemnitz ausübte, andererseits in Richtung Norden nach Sachsen, wo es die Bergrechte von Freiberg und Annaberg mitprägte. Die bergrechtlichen Bestimmungen dieser sächsischen Bergbauorte sind in die spätere preußische Berggesetzgebung eingefloßen. So kann von der heutigen Berggesetzgebung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland gesagt werden, daß viele, z.B. für den Bergbau im Ruhrgebiet geltende Bestimmungen auf das spätmittelalterliche Bergrecht von Jihlava/Iglau in Mähren/Morava zurückgehen⁸.

3. Bergbausprache Der Neuzeit

Die Blütezeit des mitteleuropäischen Bergbaus war im 16. Jahrhundert; dies spiegelt sich deutlich in zahlreichen erhaltenen Bergbautexten jenes Jahrhunderts wider. Die Bergordnungen liefern fachsprachliche Termini, die von den differenzierten rechtlichen Bestimmungen, technischen Innovationen sowie von den gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen in Bergbauorten zeugen. Rechtlich standen zwei Grundprinzipien im Bergbau einander gegenüber: im Rechtskreis der Bergordnung von Jihlava/Iglau galt die Bergbaufreiheit jedermann, der ein Erzvorkommen fand, hatte das Recht zum Schürfen und Gewinnen. So heißt es im

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Bergrecht von Jihlava/Iglau nach einer Handschrift von Banska Stiavnica/Schemnitz:

Ein annder Recht ist d(a)z yemanndt hutten pawet,
vff aines hinaigen, das perckhwerch vfleit, Er sey
Geistlich oder Weltlich d(a)z ist pergkhwerchs
Freyhait, das Er kainen zinß dauon nem(en) sol ⁹.

Im Gegensatz zu diesem Prinzip der Bergbaufreiheit galt im alpenländischen Raum das sog. Bergregal; danach besaß der Staat alle Rechte an der Erzgewinnung und konnte diese gegen Abgaben an einzelne Gewerken, Bergbauunternehmer weiterverleihen.

Die Bergrechte liefern aber auch zahlreiche Termini für die Deutung von Arbeitsvorgängen und technischen Einrichtungen. So sind in der Bergwerksordnung von Kremnica/Kremnitz im Gebiet der heutigen Slowakei die Wörter Haspel und Göpel belegt. Während Haspel "Gewinde" noch auf die ältere Technik hinweist, wie das Gestein durch Schächte mit Menschkraft an die Erdoberfläche geföderdert wurde, beweist Göpel, daß diese schwere Arbeit mithilfe von Pferden durchgeführt werden konnte. Das Wort Schacht, das auch noch heute in vielen Zusammensetzungen (z.B. Wetterschacht für die Belüftung von Gruben) überliefert ist, wird in diesem Text auch durch Synonyme ersetzt (Lichtschacht, Lichtloch für die Belüftung)¹⁰. Wie aufschlußreich die alten Bergordnungen für die Fachsprachenforschung und Lexikographie sind, beweisen die Bergordnungen von Kremnica/Kremnitz und Banska Stiavnica/Schemnitz: das Bergrecht von Kremnica/Kremnitz weist 8 Termini und das Stadt- und Bergrecht von Banska Stiavnica/Schemnitz 9 Termini auf, die bisher in keiner anderen Quelle und in keinem Wörterbuch des Deutschen belegt sind¹¹.

Im 16. Jahrhundert entsteht eine vielseitige Montanliteratur im deutschsprachigen Raum. Um 1500 erschien das "Bergbüchlein" des Freiberger Arztes Rülein von Calw, in dem etwa 200 Fachtermini der Bergbausprache enthalten sind. In der dritten Auflage aus dem Jahre 1518 werden zu diesem noch weitere 83 Fachwörter hinzugefügt, von denen viele bis heute erhalten sind, z.B. Durchschlag, Fahrt, Flöz, Hauer, Hangendes, Liegendes. Ein fachsprachliches interessantes Werk ist auch "De re metallici libri XII" von Georg Agricola. Auch Agricola war vom Beruf Arzt, der sich aber in das Montanwesen seiner Zeit eingearbeitet hatte und in der Lage war, bergbauliche Termini auch in Abbildungen zu illustrieren. So zeigt u.a. eine Abbildung, daß unter dem Terminus Trog ein längliches Gefäß zu verstehen ist, in dem

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die Bergleute das von ihnen gehauene Gestein sammelten und förderten. Diese Illustrierung führte zu einer gewissen Tradition; so existiert aus dem Jahre 1556 das sog. Schwazer Bergbuch, eine mehrfarbig illustrierte Prachthandschrift, in der der Bergbau des Ortes Schwaz im Gebiet des heutigen Österreich in Wort und Bild dargestellt wird ¹².

Im 16. Jahrhundert entstehen auch Bergmannssagen, in denen christliche und abergläubische Motive über das ganze deutschsprachige Gebiet, und zwar über mehrere Jahrhunderte hinaus bis zum heutigen Ruhrbergbau bearbeitet werden. Zu den beliebtesten Sagenstoffen gehört der Berggeist, der Bergknappe, der je nach Entstehungsgebiet und Entstehungszeit der Sage mal vor den Gefahren warnt, mal den Bösen bestraft oder auch die Habgierde zum Unglück werden läßt. Da sich die Sagen gänzlich in der Arbeitswelt des Bergmanns abspielen, werden dadurch viele fachsprachliche Elemente überliefert¹³. Im Gegensatz zu diesem oft abergläubischen Vorstellungen wird seitens der protestantischen Kirche bergmännische Erbauungsliteratur angeboten. Am Anfang dieser Tradition steht im 16. Jahrhundert das Werk "Sarepta oder die Bergpostille" des Luther-Schülers und späteren Joachimstaler Pfarrers Johannes Mathesius. Noch im 19. Jahrhundert lebt diese Gattung fort, u.a. durch das Erbauungsbüchlein "Der christliche Berg- und Hüttenmann" des Hamelner Pfarrers J. Schläger¹⁴.

Für die Überlieferung des bergmännischen Wortschatzes ist jedoch das Bergmannslied von besonderer Bedeutung. Das Bergmannslied des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts wurde als "Bergreihen" bezeichnet und zuerst durch wandernde Bergsänger und -musikanten verbreitet; allmählich wurden die Bergmannslieder jedoch Gemeingut der Bergleute, gesungen bei der Arbeit und in der Freizeit. Die tiefe Gottesverbundenheit der Bergleute, die Naturgewalten im Bergbau, die Gefahren, aber auch eine gewisse Glorifizierung der bergmännischen Arbeit, die Sehnsucht des Bergmanns nach dem Tageslicht und das Familienleben des Bergmanns sind häufige Themen der Bergmannslieder. Es sind aus den unterschiedlichen Bergbauregionen über 1.000 deutschsprachige Bergmannslieder mit etwa 6.000 Varianten bekannt¹⁵. Die sprachliche Erforschung dieses gewaltigen Textmaterials streckt erst in ihren Anfängen; H. Wolf hat hauptsächlich Metaphern aus Bergmannsliedern untersucht. Wie das bergmännische Werkzeug Schlägel und Eisen in einem Bergmannslied beschrieben wird, zeigt ein Beispiel aus dem 19 Jahrhundert:

Mußt mir auch ein Fäustel geben,

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Ein recht spitzes Eisen auch,
Da soll's helle Funken geben
Aus des Felsens hartem Bauch ¹⁶.

Im 17.-19. Jahrhundert verbreiteten sich die Bergmannslieder und Bergmannssagen auch in die neuen Bergbaureviere. Gleichzeitig interessiert sich aber auch die Forschung für die Bergbausprache. Es entstehen Sammlungen von Berggesetzen, vor allem "Corpus iuris metallici recentissimi et antiquioris" von T. Wagner. In diesem Werk sind die wichtigsten deutschsprachigen Bergordnungen erhalten eine erstaunliche Leistung angesichts der Tatsache, daß die Texte nur durch mühsame Archivreisen gesammelt werden konnten ¹⁷.

In das 18. und 19. Jahrhundert fällt auch der bisherige Schwerpunkt in der lexikographischen Erfassung der bergmännischen Fachsprache. Im Jahre 1778 erschien in Chemnitz (heute: Karl-Marx-Stadt) ein "Bergmännisches Wörterbuch" eines anonymen Verfassers, ein unentbehrliches Hilfsmittel für die Untersuchung älterer Montantexte. C.F. Richter versucht im Jahre 1805, auch die damaligen technischen Entwicklungen des Bergbaus zu erfassen. Die umfangreichste Sammlung aller fachsprachlichen Ausdrücke im Bergbau ist bis heute "Deutsches Bergwörterbuch" von H. Veith, das 1871 in Breslau (heute: Wroclaw) erschienen ist. Danach sind in diesem Jahrhundert nur "Illustriertes Handlexikon des Bergwerks" von K. Selbach (1907) und "Das kleine Bergbaulexikon" von W. Bischoff u.a. (1977) erschienen; das letzgenannte Werk erläutert vor allem die neuen technischen Termini des heutigen Ruhrbergbaus¹⁸. Ein modernes Lexikon, das sowohl die älteren Quellen als auch die neuen technischen Einrichtungen erfaßt, ist ein dringendes Desideratum der Erforschung der deutschen Bergbausprache.

Seit Jahrhunderten ist der Bergbau ein internationales Arbeitsgebiet. Sowohl Befölkerungsstatistiken als auch wortgeographische Untersuchungen zeigen, daß die deutschen Bergleute seit dem Spätmittelalter von einem Bergbauort zum anderen wanderten; die heutige Krise des Kohlebergbaus im Ruhrgebiet zwingt auch jetzt Bergleute zu einer Mobilität. Deutsche Bergmannstermini im Polnischen, Tschechischen, Slowakischen, Russischen und Serbokroatischen weisen darauf hin, daß Deutsche in Bergbauregionen Osteuropas oft tätig waren¹⁹. Der Schwede Swen Rinmann veröffentlichte 1808 in Leipzig ein Bergbaulexikon, das er aufgrund des Bergbaus und der Bergwerke in Schweden zusammengestellt hatte²⁰. Schließlich sorgte die Verschüttung und das Wiederfinden des Bergmanns Matts Israelsson in Falun in Schweden, die 1720 in den Kopenhagener Zeitschriften "Nye Tidener om Laerde

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Sager" und "Extrait des Nouvelles" erstmalig angezeigt wurden, für insgesamt 29 literarische Bearbeitungen dieses Stoffes bis zu den 60er Jahren dieses Jahrhunderts ²¹. Zu dieser Zeit entsteht aber auch eine neue, sozialkritische Bergmannsdichtung, die ihre Wurzeln in der älteren Montanliteratur hat²².

4. Zusammenfassung

In diesem Beitrag wurde die Historizität der Fachsprachen anhand der Überlieferung über mehrere Jahrhunderte hinaus gezeigt. Das Beispiel Bergbausprache läßt erkennen, daß eine diachrone Untersuchung der Fachsprachen nur unter Berücksichtigung unterschiedlicher Textsorten und Quellen möglich ist. Die Vielfalt der Texte der Montanliteratur und die unterschiedlichen Erscheinungsformen der Sprache in der mündlichen Kommunikation der Bergleute weisen aber darauf hin, daß für die fachsprachliche Analyse nicht nur die terminologische Erfassung, sondern auch das Heranziehen des sozio-kulturellen Kontextes und der pragmatischen Beziehungen der Quellen notwendig sind.

Anschrift des Verfassers:

Prof. Dr. Ilpo Tapani Piirainen

Dumte 32

D-4430 Steinfurt-Borghorst

Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Anmerkungen

1. Sommerfelt, A. (1962) Diachronic and Synchronic Aspects of Language. The Hague; Lehmann, W.P. (1969) Einführung in die historische Linguistik. Heidelberg.

2. Piirainen, I.T. (1984-1985) Die Diagliederung des Frühneuhochdeutschen. Besch, W., Reichmann, O., Sonderegger, S. (Hrsg.) Sprachgeschichte. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. Band 1-2. Band 2, 1368-1379. Berlin, New York; Piirainen, I.T. (1980) Frühneuhochdeutsche Bibliographie. Literatur zur Sprache des 4.-17. Jahrhunderts. Tübingen.

3. G. Eis (1971) Mittelhochdeutsche Literatur: Fachprosa. Schmitt, L.E. (Hrsg.) Kurzer Grundrib der Germanischen Philologie bis 1500. Band 1-2. Band 2, 528-572. Berlin.

4. Koch, M. (1963) Geschichte und Entwicklung des

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bergmännischen Schrifttums. Goslar.

5. Piirainen, I.T. (1986) Das Stadt- und Bergrecht von Banska Stiavnica/Schemnitz. Untersuchungen zum Frühneuhochdeutschen in der Slowakei, 13-17. Oulu.

6. von Weißenburg, O. (1972) Evangelienharmonie, 11. Graz.

7. Heinz, W. (1913) Das Bergmannslied, 17. Greifswald.

8. Willecke, R. (1977) Die deutsche Berggesetzgebung von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 37-42. Essen.

9. Piirainen, I.T. (1980) Das Iglauer Bergrecht nach einer Handschrift aus Schemnitz. Untersuchungen zum Frühneuhochdeutschen in der Slowakei, 37. Heidelberg.

10. Piirainen, I.T. (1983) Das Stadt- und Bergrecht von Kremnica/Kremnitz. Untersuchungen zum Frühneuhochdeutschen in der Slowakei, 130-131, 149. Heidelberg.

11. Piirainen, I.T. (1983) a.a.O., 172-173; Piirainen, I.T. (1986) a.a.O., 328-329; vgl. auch Paul, R. (1987) Vorstudien für ein Wörterbuch zur Bergmannssprache in den sieben niederungarischen Bergstädten während der frühneuhochdeutschen Sprachperiode. Tübingen.

12. Agricola, G. (1961) De re metallica libri XII. Vom Bergund Hüttenwesen. Düsseldorf.

13. Heilfurt, G. (1967) Bergbau und Bergmann in der deutschsprachigen Sagenüberlieferung Mitteleuropas. Band 1: Quellen. Marburg.

14. Diese beiden Bände befinden sich in der Bergbau-Bücherei in D-43. Essen.

15. Heilfurt, G. (1954) Das Bergmannslied. Wesen-Leben-Funktion. Kassel Basel.

16. Heilfurt, G. (1954) a.a.O., 524

17. Wagner, T. (1791) Corpus iuris metallici recentissimi et antiquioris. Sammlung der neuesten und älteren Berggesetze. Leipzig.

18. Bergmännisches Wörterbuch (1778) Chemnitz; Bischoff, W., Bramann, H., Dürrer, F., Moebius, P.-G., Quadfasel, H. und Schlüter, W. (1977) Das kleine Bergbaulexikon. 2. Auflage. Essen; Dannenberg, J. und Frantz, W.A. (1882) Bergmännisches Wörterbuch. Verzeichnis und Erklärung der vorkommenden technischen Ausdrücke. Leipzig; Gätzschmann, M.F. (1881) Sammlung bergmännischer Ausdrücke. 2. Auflage. Freiburg; Richter, C.F. (1805) Neuestes Berg- und Hüttenlexikon, oder alphabetische Erklärung aller bei dem Berg- und Hüttenwesen vorkommenden Arbeiten, Werkzeugen und Kunstwörtern. Band 1-2. Leipzig; Rinmann, S. (1808) Swen Rinmann's allgemeines Bergwerkslexikon. Theil 1-2. Leipzig; Selbach, K. (1907) Illustriertes Handlexikon des Bergwerks. Leipzig; Veith, H. (1871) Deutsches Bergwörterbuch. Breslau; Wenckenbach, F. (1864) Bergmännisches Wörterbuch. Wiesbaden.

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19. Wypych, J. (1977) Deutsche Lehnwörter in der polnischen Bergbausprache. Marburg.

20. Vgl. Anmerkung 18.

21. Piirainen, I.T. und Greb, U. (im Druck) Die Geschichte des Bergmanns von Falun und ihre Bearbeitung im 18.-20. Jahrhundert. Der Anschnitt. Zeitschrift für Kunst und Kultur im Bergbau; der Verfasser hat die dänischen Quellen über die Geschichte des Bergmanns von Falun im Juli 1987 in der Universitätsbibliothek und in der Königlichen Bibliothek in Kopenhagen anhand der alten Originaldrucke untersuchen können. Für die sehr persönliche fachliche Hilfe bei diesen Forschungen gilt den Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeitern dieser beiden Bibliotheken ein herzlicher Dank.

22. Köpping, W. (1983) Arbeiterliteratur, Erwachsenenbildung, Gewerkschaftspolitik. Oberhausen; Köpping, W. (Hrsg.) (1982) 100 Jahre Bergarbeiterdichtung. Oberhausen; Köpping, W. (Hrsg.) (1974) Schwarze Solidarität. 85 Jahre kämpferische Bergarbeiterdichtung. Oberhausen.

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6
Fachsprachliche Phraseologie

Heribert Picht
Handelshøjskolen i København

0. Einleitung

Phraseologie ist eine linguistische Disziplin, die in den letzten 15-20 Jahren die Aufmerksamkeit nicht weniger Sprachforscher auf sich gezogen hat. In der russischen Linguistik hat die Phraseologieforschung schon eine beachtliche Tradition. Wenn neue Forschungsgebiete sich etablieren und dynamisch entwickeln, bleibt es nicht aus, daß individuelle Auffassungen und unterschiedliche Entwicklungen es erschweren, sich einen schnellen Gesamtüberblick über das bisher Erreichte zu verschaffen.

Es ist nicht meine Absicht, hier die einzelnen Richtungen der Phraseologieforschung zu würdigen; es kommt mir vielmehr darauf an, ihren Gegenstand und Umfang zu umreißen, um danach die fachsprachliche Phraseologie ihr gegenüberzustellen.

1. Gegenstand Und Bereich Der Phraseologieforschung

Im deutschsprachigen Raum hat der Begriff der Phraseologie relativ feste Umrisse angenommen. A.L. Kjaer (1986, S. 6) definiert Phraseologie als "die Gesamtheit der festen Wortverbindungen einer Sprache (d.h. Syntagmen, die aus mindestens zwei nicht zusammengeschriebenen Wörtern bestehen), die eine semantische Einheit bilden und deren Verbindung im Sprachsystem verankert ist, und die daher nicht durch die Anwendung morphosyntaktischer und semantischer Regeln für die Verbindbarkeit von Wörtern zustande kommen" (Übersetzung des Verfassers).

Die zitierte Definition muß jedoch isofern als Kompromiß angesehen werden, als sie die Elemente vereint, die in allen oder den meisten individuellen Definitionen auftreten.

Hinsichtlich des Gegenstandbereichs werden die Abweichungen in den Auffassungen deutlicher, da man über

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die obere strukturelle Grenze und über die Semantik der Phraseologismen nicht einig ist. Es ist daher berechtigt von einem engeren und einem weiteren Phraseologiebegriff zu sprechen.

Betrachtet man die Phraseologie im Spiegel der sehr ausführlichen und kritisch kommentierten Bibliographie von K. Daniels, die in den Jahren 1976-85 in 5 Folgen in ''Muttersprache" erschienen ist und die Literatur der letzten ca. 20 Jahre abdeckt, so zeigt sich, daß auch Sprichwörter, Redensarten, Zitate, geflügelte Worte und besondere Einzelwörter Gegenstand der phraseologischen Forschung sind, Elemente also, die von einer Reihe von Phraseologieforschern als nicht zum Gegenstande gehörig klassifiziert werden.

Wenn in der germanistischen und russischen Phraseologieforschung auch die strukturalistischen Ansätze vorherrschen und manchmal als die Phraseologieforschung dargestellt werden, so zeigt Daniels Bibliographie ganz deutlich, daß auch sehr interessante psycholinguistische und pragmalinguistische Ansätze vorhanden sind, die bei der Festlegung von Gegenstand und Bereich der Phraseologieforschung einbezogen werden sollten.

Analysiert man die bisherigen Untersuchungen hinsichtlich des Kommunikationsbereichs, der das Analysematerial geliefert hat, so stellt man fest, daß es überwiegend, ja fast ausschließlich, aus der Gemeinsprache stammt. Aus den oben angeführten Blickwinkeln sind fachsprachliche phraseologische Studien nur sporadisch durchgeführt worden, auch muß "fachsprachlich" hier im weitesten Sinne verstanden werden, (z.B. Faber, 1984; Draskau, 1986).

Diese Feststellung sollte aber nicht zu der Annahme verleiten, daß die Phraseologie auf dem fachsprachlichen Gebiet völliges Neuland ist. Bereits 1966 hat A. Warner in seiner Arbeit "Internationale Angleichung fachsprachlicher Wendungen der Elektrotechnik" und vor ihm E. Wüster (1931) und A. Schlomann (1928) zu fachsprachlich-phraseologischen Problemen Stellung genommen. Allerdings wird "Phraseologie" hier anders verstanden, wie aus dem folgenden Zitat, in dem wiederum andere Autoren angeführt werden, hervorgeht:

"Die Fachsprache beschränkt sich nun aber keineswegs auf die sogenannten "Fachausdrücke", die man aus Wörterbüchern entnehmen kann, eine Meinung, die weit verbreitet ist" (Müller, 1960, S. 180) mit anderen Worten: `Vorsicht, die Sprache besteht nicht nur aus Ausdrücken wie Substantiv + Adjektiv, Verbum + Substantiv, aus

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Phraseologie, Idiomatik usw.' (Haensch, 1960, S. 92). Für Fachwörterbücher ist daraus zu folgern, `daß neben den Substantiven die Verben und Wendungen noch stärker berücksichtigt werden, neben "Ausfall", "Ausfallen" etwa das Verb "ausfallen" in: "mein Motor ist ausgefallen'', "eine Zündkerze fällt aus" (Friedrich, 1958, S. 190)'". (Warner, 1966, S. 9).

A. Schlomann, Ingenieur und eine der markantesten Gestalten der fachsprachlichen Lexikographie in der ersten 30 Jahren dieses Jahrhunderts, schreibt 1928 im Vorwort zum Wörterbuch "Elektrotechnik und Elektrochemie" (1928, IX):

"diese Auflage ist um viele Phrasen bereichert worden. Die Phraseologie ist in der neuzeitlichen Philologie der wesentlichste Bestandteil der Lehrverfahren. Für die Technik ist die Phraseologie der Schlüssel zum Verstanden werden; sie in das Wörterbuch aufzunehmen und zu erforschen, habe ich mir innerhalb der durch die vorhandenen Mittel, den Umfang und die Zeit gesteckten Grenzen angelegen sein lassen. Ich werde bei allen meinen künftigen Wörterbucharbeiten dies Ziel nicht aus dem Auge verlieren. Für Phrasen gibt es nur in seltenen Fällen normenartige Übersetzungen; die Phrase bildet sich, so sehr sie gleichwertiger Bestandteil mit dem Fachausdruck ist, im freien Gebrauch der Sprache und erhält Bestand durch Gewöhnung. Die in diesem Wörterbuch enthaltenen Übersetzungen der Phrase der einen Sprache in die Phrase der anderen Sprache stellt demnach nicht eine einzige, wohl aber den Versuch der besten Lösung dar."

Aus diesen Zitaten und den in den angesprochenen Arbeiten angeführten Beispielen geht hervor, daß Phraseologie im fachsprachlichen Bereich eher als die Verknüpfbarkeit von fachsprachlichen Elementen zu fachlich korrekten Äußerungen verstanden wird. Damit liegt die fachsprachlich-phraseologishe Richtung der Valenz- und Kollokations-forschung weit näher als der anfangs skizzierten Phraseologiforschung, der das Verknüpfbarkeitselement weitgehend fehlt.

Auffallend sind auch einige markante Züge, die die Terminologie- und die fachsprachlichen Phraseologieforschung gemeinsam haben, nämlich:

daß Vertreter der Fachgebiete aus der Notwendigkeit heraus, eine bessere Verständigung zu sichern, den Anstoß zu terminologischen und fachsprachlichphraseologischen Untersuchungen gaben und erste Lösungsmodelle erprobten (sowohl Schlomann wie Wüster

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und auch Warner waren bzw. sind Ingenieure),

daß das normative Elemet direkt oder indirekt stets vertreten war, wie auch deutlich aus Warners Ausführungen herauszulesen ist,

daß die Fachsprachendidaktik und die Fachübersetzung als Kommunikationsmittler seit jeher zu den größten Nutzergruppen der Terminologie und fachsprachlichen Phraseologie gehört haben.

Nach diesen letzten eher retrospektiven, aber wie ich glaube keineswegs uninteressanten Feststellungen zur fachsprachlichen Phraseologie will ich mich der neueren Entwicklung zuwenden, wobei die Unterscheidung zwischen neuerer und älterer Entwicklung nicht als Trennungslinie verstanden werden sollte.

2. Fachsprachliche Phraseologie

2. 1 Definitionen

Nach den einleitend skizzierten Ansätzen und dem unterschiedlichen Selbstverständnis der phraseologischen Forschungsrichtungen erscheint es mir der deutlichen Abgrenzung halber notwendig, zunächst die im folgenden Teil verwendete Terminologie zu klären. "Fachsprachliche Phraseologie" ist eine fachsprachliche Disziplin, die einerseits die syntaktischen Bindungen fachsprachlicher Ausdrucksmittel, ihre Synonymie und Äquivalenz und andererseits die begrifflichen Beziehungen sowie deren Veränderungen jener fachsprachlichen Elemente untersucht, die zu einer fachlich gültigen und sprachlich korrekten Aussage zusammengefügt werden können.

"Fachsprachlichen Wendung" oder kurz "Fachwendung" die Benennungen wurden von Warner übernommen ist der Ergebnis der syntaktischen Verbindung von mindestens zwei fachsprachlichen Elementen zu einer Äußerung fachlichen Inhaltes, deren innere Kohärenz auf der begrifflichen Verknüpfbarkeit beruht.

2.2 Anstösse Zur Fachsprachlichen Phraseologieforschung

Abgesehen von den schon erwähnten Impulsen seitens der Sachgebiete und der fachsprachlichen Lexikografie, die zwar die Probleme erkannte, aber doch nur selten daraus die erforderlichen Konsequenzen zog, sind es heute vor allem die Fachsprachendidaktik und die fachsprachliche

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Übersetzerausbildung, die fachsprachlich-phraseologische Problemstellungen erneut aufgegriffen haben.

Bei der fachlichen Textproduktion muß immer wieder festgestellt werde, daß der Verfasser bzw. Übersetzer, selbst wenn er die Terminologie des zu behandelnden Fachgebiets beherrscht, offensichtlich Schwierigkeiten hat, wenn es um die Wahl der korrekten Verben, Präpositionen, Präpositionsverbindungen usw., kurz gesagt um die Einbettung der Benennung in den Fachtext, geht. Zweifellos sind die Benennungen einer der Hauptinformationsträger jeglicher fachlichen Kommunikation. Isoliert und unverbunden werden sie aber eine kommunikative Funktion nur in Sonderfällen, z.B. als Deskriptoren bei der Inhaltsangabe eines Dokuments, erfüllen können; sie sind in dieser Form nur Indikatoren für vorkommende Begriffe; die Relationen zwischen ihnen verbleiden jedoch unklar.

Um diese Relationen sichtbar zu machen, sind weitere sprachliche Mittel erforderlich, deren Status als fachsprachliche Elemente weit weniger klar ist, als der der Benennungen, die per Definition zu einem oder mehreren Fachgebieten gehören. Damit ist erneut die Frage nach den fachsprachlichen und gemeinsprachlichen Elementen in einem Fachtext gestellt.

2.3 Fachsprachliche Elemente Gemeinsprachliche Elemente

Die neuere Fachsprachenforschung ist auf dem Wege, die Dichotomie Gemeinsprache Fachsprache wenn es je eine echte Dichotomie war aufzugeben und im Rahmen des Begriffs der "Gesamtsprache" (Hoffmann, 1984) neue und adäquatere Gliederungen zu erforschen, die eine realistischere Sprachbeschreibung gestatten. Dieser Ansatz läßt auch die summarisch als "gemeinsprachliche Elemente" eines Fachtextes bezeichneten Sprachmittel in einem neuen Licht erscheinen. Diese Neuorientierung berührt auch die fachsprachliche Phraseologie.

Daß Verben, Adjektive und andere Wortarten als Benennungen fungieren können, ist nicht neu. Darauf hat schon Renz (1971, S. 304 f) hingewiesen. Handelt es sich z.B. um Verben wie "gesenkschmieden", "schweißen", "destillieren" usw., werden sie auch von Nicht-Fachleuten ohne weiteres als Benennungen erkannt, ganz abgesehen davon, daß sie terminologisch bearbeitet und in Fachwörterbüchern als Teil der Terminologie eines Sachgebietes verzeichnet sind. Weniger klar sind Fälle wie

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"ziehen"

in:

einen Wechsel ziehen, die Fäden ziehen, eine Linie ziehen, einen Draht ziehen

"errichten"

in:

ein Testament errichten

"belasten"

in:

einen Motor belasten, eine Liegenschaft belasten, ein Bauelement belasten

Auf den ersten Blick und isoliert betrachtet sind diese Verben gemeinsprachlicher Natur, obwohl die sprachliche Intuition die hier keineswegs als Analyseinstrument benutzt werden soll sich dagegen wehrt, besonders wenn im Falle der Übersetzung deutlich wird, daß das zielsprachliche Äquivalent einem ganz anderen und eventl. sehr fachspezifischen semantischen Feld angehört.

2.4 Ein Fragenkatalog

Aus der Übersetzungspraxis, den Fehleranalysen im fachsprachlichen Übersetzungsunterricht und Untersuchungen an Fachtexten ist der folgende Fragenkatalog entstanden.

a) Welchen semantischen Veränderungen unterliegt ein gemeinsprachliches Verb, wenn es in fachlichen Kontexten auftritt?

b) Welche Faktoren bewirken diese semantischen Veränderungen?

Ist es der Kontext als Gesamtheit?

Ist es das einzelne Fachgebiet?

Sind es die Aktanten?

c) Kann eine semantische Veränderung schon durch syntaktische Merkmale festgestellt werden?

transitives <-> intransitives Verb

Reflexivität

besondere von der Gemeinsprache abweichende Präpositionsverbindungen etc.

d) Werden alle oder nur einige Verben beeinflußt?

Lassen sich Beeinflussungsgrade feststellen?

Ist eine Typologisierung möglich?

Können die Aktanten in Kategorien zusammengefaßt werden?

e) Ist es möglich, die in einem Fachgebiet auftretenden Verben nach ihrer Bedeutung zu systematisieren?

Entstehen dabei Begriffssysteme oder Teilsysteme?

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Welche Beziehungen bestehen dann gegebenenfalls zwischen diesen Begriffen?

f) Können Merkmalskategorien abgeleitet werden, die eine Verbbedeutung (Verb-begriff) an ein bestimmtes Sachgebiet binden?

g) Welche Konsequenzen können eventuell daraus für die Terminologie, die fachsprachliche Lexikographie und Terminographie, die fachsprachliche Übersetzung und besonders die Maschinenübersetzung abgleitet werden?

Um Antworten auf unsere Fragen und Hypothesen zu finden, haben wir eine Untersuchung an spanischen Fachtexten der Mechanik vorgenommen. Insgesammt wurden 4115 Satzbrüche exzerpiert und analysiert. Der Schwerpunkt lag dabei auf dem "scheinbar harmlosen gemeinsprachlichen Verb" und seiner Funktion bzw. Bedeutung in diesen Fachtexten. Auf die Analysemethode soll hier nicht näher eingegangen werden, da sie bereits andernorts beschrieben worden ist (Picht, 1983, S. 191 f; 1985, S. 296 f; 1987, S. 149f).

Die Analyse von Fachwendungen kann prinzipiell aus einem semasiologischen oder einem onomasiologisch-terminologischen Gesichtswinkel erfolgen, wobei jedoch nicht ausgeschlossen werden soll, daß auch andere Ansätze nützliche Ergebnisse erbringen können.

2.5 Der Semasiologische Ausgangspunkt

Es liegt auf der Hand und hat sich bei der Untersuchung gezeigt, daß Erkenntnisse und Analysemethoden der Valenzund Kollokationsforschung mit Vorteil eingesetzt werden können, da dort gefragt wird:

welche sprachlichen Elemente können verbunden werden und warum?

wie kommen solche Verbindungen zustande?

welche Gegebenheiten gestatten/verhindern eine Verbindung?

Allerdings bleiben Fragen unbeantwortet, die m.E. für die fachsprachliche Phraseologie von zentraler Bedeutung sind, wie:

welches Element soll als Kern der Phrase angesehen werden?

übt die Benennung als Kern der Fachwendung einen semantischen Einfluß auf das Verb aus?

kann überhaupt von einer semantischen Beeinflussung

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gesprochen werden?

sind die einzelnen Komponenten einer Fachwendung schon eigenständige fachsprachliche Elemente, bzw. Einheiten?

Bei der semasiologischen Sprachbetrachtung wird vom Wort als Einheit von Zeichen und Inhalt ausgegangen, das eine Reihe von Verbindungsmöglichkeiten Valenzen aufweist. Sie kommen in der syntaktischen Struktur, d.h. an der Oberfläche, zum Ausdruck und lassen sich in den semantischen Strukturen auf der Bedeutungsebene feststellen. So weist z.B. ein Verb eine größere oder kleinere semantische Spannweite auf. Die Valenzen werden durch die Aktanten sichtbar und lassen eine gewisse Bedeutungsdifferenzierung zu, die auch für die Fachsprachen relevant ist. Allerdings ist die Bedeutungsdifferenzierung einerseits oft nicht scharf genug und andererseits verteilen die Verbindungsmöglichkeiten sich auf weit verschiedene Fachgebiete und/oder Fachlichkeitsgrade. Für die Gemeinsprache wenn man mit diesem Begriff weiterhin arbeiten will mag eine relative Unschärfe adäquat, ja sogar positiv sein, da eine kreative Flexibilität erhalten bleibt. In den Fachsprachen dagegen kann und sollte vom Grundsatz der höchstmöglichen Genauigkeit nicht abgewichen werden.

Wenn wir noch einmal die unter Punkt 2.3 angeführten Beispiele betrachten, so fällt es bei Anwendung dieser Analysemethode schwer am deutlichsten wird dies sichtbar in der Lexikographie Fragen zu beantworten wie:

handelt es sich hier aus semantischer Sicht noch um ein und dasselbe Verb?

liegen andere/neue Bedeutungen vor?

handelt es sich nur um Bedeutungsnuancen?

wie soll zwischen neuer/anderer Bedeutung und Bedeutungsnuance unterschieden werden?

wie groß muß/darf der Unterschied sein, um z.B. lexikographische Konsequenzen zu haben?

welche objektiven Kriterien und nachvollziehbaren Analysen können ur Entscheidung herangezogen werden?

Es soll nicht bezweifelt werden, daß Lösungen gefunden werden können und gefunden worden sind, z.B. Valenzwörterbücher, die dem gemeinsprachlichen Bedarf in einer Sprache genügen. Komplizierter dagegen wird es in der mehrsprachigen Lexikographie.

Betrachtet man die fachsprachliche Lexikographie so kann von einigen löblichen Versuchen abgesehen von Lösungen kaum die Rede sein.

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2.6 Der Onomasiologisch-terminologische Ausgangspunkt

Ändert man nun den Betrachtungswinkel und legt terminologische Analysemethoden zugrunde, so verschiebt sich auch der Ansatz. Da es sich um fachliche Kontexte handelt, in denen die fachsprachliche Phraseologie auftritt, erscheint es adäquat, gerade diesen Ansatz zu wählen.

Die terminologische Analyse geht bekanntlich vom Begriff und nicht von der Benennung aus. Die Benennung und dazu gehören auch die Verben ist lediglich Indikator für einen Begriff, der in erster Linie Gegenstand der Analyse ist.

Fachsprachliche Wendungen bestehen in der Mehrzahl der Fälle aus einem Verb, bzw. Verbalgefüge und einem oder mehreren Aktanten. Diese Terminologie soll fortan für die Ausdrucksebene verwendet werden.

Um die Begriffsebene deutlich abheben zu können, entspricht dem Verb der Verbbegriff und dem Aktant der Gegenstandsbegriff.

2.6.1 Die Merkmale Wie bei jeder terminologischen Analyse müssen zunächst die Merkmale, die einen Begriffsinhalt ausmachen, festgestellt werden.

Eine Benennung zeigt einen oder mehrere Begriffe an. Dies gilt für beide Begriffsarten. Die Merkmale und ihre Konfiguration gestatten es, eine Begriffsdifferenzierung sichtbar zu machen, die durch die Benennung allein nicht mehr geleistet werden kann:

z.B. Brücke Bauwerk; in der Zahnmedizin

Die Polysemie der Benennung, die Gegenstandsbegriffe bezeichnet, ist relativ leicht zu erkennen, weil die Kommunikationssituation, in der eine Fachwendung auftritt, das Sachgebiet indiziert. Dieser Teil einer Fachwendung ist also verhältsmäßig einfach zu verifizieren. Bei den Verbbegriffen dagegen ist es in der Regel schwieriger, eine solche Differenzierung "auf den ersten Blick" vorzunehmen. Hier ist die Valenzanalyse hilfreich, da die Aktanten die Funktion eines "Kontrastmittels" haben, das die Verschiedenheit der Verbbegriffe anzeigt, selber aber keinen semantischen Einfluß auf den Verbbegriff ausübt. Die verschiedenen Verbbegriffe existieren per se; ihre Differenzierung kann im sprachlichen Zeichen allein nicht mehr ausgedrückt werden, wohl aber in der Fachwendung

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einen Wechsel ziehen

die Fächen ziehen

eine Wurzel ziehen

2.6.1.1 Betrachtet man eine Benennung aus dem Blickwinkel der Polysemie, so stehen die noch gemeinsamen Merkmale der bezeichneten Begriffe wie wenige es auch sein mögen im Mittelpunkt; richtet sich der Blick dagegen auf die Merkmalkonfiguration der einzelnen Begriffe mit gleicher Benennung, so ist das unterscheidende Merkmal ausschlaggebend. Damit ist auch die Frage nach der Bedeutungsnuance beantwortet, denn der Begriff A kann mit dem Begriff B nicht identisch sein, wenn auch nur ein Merkmal existiert, das sie nicht gemeinsam haben.

Dieser erste Analyseschritt bietet wenig grundsätzlich Neues; er ist aber unumgänglich, da er die Voraussetzungen für den zweiten Schritt schafft, nämlich eine scharfe Begriffstrennung auf der Grundlage der Merkmale.

2.6.1.2 Eine Fachwendung enthält aber mindestens zwei miteinander vorbundene Begriffe. In welcher Beziehung stehen diese Begriffe zueinander, worauf beruht die mögliche Verknüpfung? Wenn nun die Begriffsmerkmale Eigenschaften angeben und die Verknüpfbarkeit auch eine Eigenschaft ist, so muß sie in den Merkmalen zu finden sein.

Der zweite Analyseschritt beschäftigt sich folglich auch mit den Merkmalen, jedoch unter dem Aspekt der Verknüpfbarkeit.

Die an einem Begriff festgestellten Merkmale werden also daraufhin untersucht werden müssen, ob sie nur eine rein beschreibende oder auch gleichzeitig eine verknüpfende Eigenschaft in sich verbergen. Unter dem Aspekt der Verknüpfbarkeit ergeben sich damit zwei Gruppen von Merkmalen, Verknüfungsmerkmale und Nicht-Verknüpfungsmerkmale.

Alle Merkmale konstituieren gemeinsam den Begriff an sich, sie indizieren die Beziehungen zu anderen verwandten Begriffen. Auf dieser Verwandtschaft beruht der innere Zusammenhang von Begriffssystemen. Für die Definition wird eine dem Definitionszweck angemessene Auswahl von Merkmalen herangezogen. Die Verknüpfungsmerkmale dagegen bilden darüber hinaus die Grundlage für die virtuelle Verknüpfbarkeit eines Begriffs mit anderen Begriffen zu einer komplexeren Einheit, die sprachlich durch eine Fachwendung realisiert wird. Die Leerformel dieser Merkmalskategorie ist "verknüpfbar mit", "nur auf verknüpfbare Begriffe beziehbar".

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Charakteristisch für die Verknüpfungsmerkmale ist, daß sie "kontaktsuchend" aus dem Begriffsinhalt wie ein Steckkontakt nach "außen" führen. Das impliziert, daß es verknüpfbare Begriffe gibt, die in den "Steckkontakt" hineinpassen.

Folgende Beispiele sollen dies illustrieren.

1. schmieden

Metall, Eisen, Kupfer, Silber, Gold, Quecksilber

In der Metallbearbeitung muß der Begriff "schmieden" neben allen anderen Merkmalen das Merkmal "nur auf schmiedbare Gegenstände beziehbar" enthalten.

Der Begriff "Metall" kann das Merkmal "schmiedbar" nicht enthalten, weil nicht alle Metalle geschmiedet werden können, z.B. Quecksilber. Die Begriffe ''Silber", "Gold", "Eisen", "Kupfer", dagegen müssen dieses Merkmal enthalten.

2. Salzsäure reagiert mit Eisen.

Der Verbbegriff "reagiert mit" enthält in der Chemie das Verknüpfungsmerkmal "nur auf chemisch reaktionsfähige Stoffe beziehbar".

Die Gegenstandsbegriffe "Salzsäure" und "Eisen" enthalten das Merkmal "fähig chemisch zu reagieren" "chemisch reaktionsfähig".

Hier läßt sich einwenden, daß nicht alle "chemisch reaktionsfähigen" Stoffe notwendigerweise miteinander reagieren. Hier hilft nur das Fachwissen des Textverfassers; für den Überstezer dagegen ist die Frage irrelevant, da der fachliche Inhalt des Textes vorgegeben ist.

2.7 Grade Der Fachlichkeit Von Begriffen

Der Grad der Fachlichkeit von Begriffen ist für die fachsprachliche Phraseologie isofern relevant, als wenig fachspezifische Begriffe ein breiteres Spektrum verknüpfungsfähiger Begriffsklassen zulassen als sehr fachspezifische. Die eingangs erwähnte Untersuchung hat dies bestätigt. So traten Verbbegriffe wie "beginnen" und "beenden" mit jeglicher Art von Verlauf, Prozeß, etc. auf. Die Aktanten als Kontrastmittel gaben lediglich das oder die Fachgebiete an, zeigten aber keinerlei Begriffsdifferenzierung im Verbbegriff an, die Merkmalkonfiguration verblieb unverändert in allen Beispielen. Der Verbbegriff "apretar" (anziehen von Muttern, Schrauben) dagegen wurde nur mit "tuerca" und "tornillo" verknüpft, also nur mit der

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Begriffsklasse "schraubbare Verbindungselemente".

In der Fachwendung "einen Wechsel ziehen" besteht die mit dem Verbbegriff verknüpfbare Begriffsklasse nur aus den Begriff "Wechsel" und seinen Unterbegriffen.

Die angeführten Beispiele illustrieren den engen Zusammenhang zwischen dem Fachlichkeitsgrad eines Begriffs und den potentiellen Verknüpfungsmöglichkeiten.

2.8 Rangfolge Der Glieder Einer Fachwendung

Die Antwort auf diese Frage hängt davon ab, ob sie für die Begriffs- oder Benennungsebene gestellt wird.

Auf der Begriffsebene ist es m.E. irrelevant vom Kern und von der Peripherie zu sprechen, da die Verknüpfung von Begriffen in einer Fachwendung anderer Natur ist als die bei der Bildung neuer Begriffe (z.B. Determination DIN 2330, 1979, S. 6).

Die Begriffsverknüpfung "Kupfer schmieden" kann prinzipiell von beiden Begriffen aus gesehen werden. Einmal "Kupfer" + verschiedene Verbbegriffe, wo "Kupfer'' der konstante Begriff der Fachwendung ist, und zum anderen "schmieden" + "schmiedbare Metalle" mit der Konstante "schmieden".

Auf der Ausdrucksebene dagegen ergeben sich Rangfolgen gemäß den Gesetzen der Syntax. "Kupfer" + "schmieden" stehen unabänderlich in einer Verb-Objekt-Beziehung zueinander. Diese grammatischen Beziehungen können relevant werden, wenn es z.B. um die lexikographische Präsentation von Fachwendungen geht, z.B. "hinaufpumpen einer Flüssigkeit".

Soll der grammatische Kern (das Verb) als Eingang gewählt und durch Angabe der Begriffsklassen, die als Aktanten auftreten können, ergänzt werden oder sollen zu den Benennungen der Gegenstandsbegriffe die möglichen Verben in einem Eintrag aufgenommen werden? Warner (1966, S. 39) schlägt folgende pragmatische Lösung vor:

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Ob dieser Aufbau einer Wortstelle heute noch den lexikographischen Anforderungen entspricht, soll dahingestellt bleiben; in einer terminologischen Datenbank ist sie sicher nach anderen Gesichtspunkten zu gliedern und wird in der vorgeschlagenen Form nur eine Teilmenge der aufzunehmenden Daten darstellen.

2.8.1 Synonymie und Äquivalenz, Polysemie und Homonymie Synonymie und Äquivalenz können hier gemeinsam behandelt werden, da sie auf der Begriffsebene auf dem gleichen Prinzip beruhen, nämlich mindestens zwei sprachliche Zeichen sind einem Begriff zugeordnet. Dieser Sachverhalt gilt auch für die Fachwendung, allerdings mit der Erweiterung, daß 2 Fachwendungen nur dann synonym bzw. äquivalent sein können, wenn die Benennungen des Verbbegriffs und die des Gegenstandsbegriffs voll synonym bzw. äquivalent sind und die gleichen Verknüpfungsmöglichkeiten aufweisen.

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Polysemie und Homonymie können prinzipiell auch in der fachsprachlichen Phraseologie auftreten, allerdings sind sie hier bedeutend seltener als in der Terminologie und recht ungefährlich für die Verständigung, da sie kaum im gleichen Fachgebiet anzutreffen sind.

Der Strom fließt (Elektrotechnik)

Der Strom fließt (Hydrographie)

2.9 Sprachliche Realisierung Der Gliedbegriffe

Für die Benennungen der Gegenstandsbegriffe ergeben sich keine Abweichungen von dem was schon aus der Terminologielehre bekannt ist. Für die sprachliche Realisierung der Verbbegriffe können je nach Sprache mehrere Möglichkeiten zur Verfügung stehen, zwischen denen die kontextuell und stilistisch adäquate ausgewählt werden kann; z.B.

1. ein Testament errichten

2. das Errichten eines Testaments

3. die Errichtung eines Testaments

In allen drei Fällen ist die Verknüpfung des Verbbegriffs mit dem Gegenstandsbegriff deutlich, jedoch verliert der Verbbegriff in der Substantivform einen Teil seines Handlungselements, das in den Beispielen 2 + 3 durch ein weiteres fast inhaltsloses Verb, z.B. "geschehen", "erfolgen", ergänzt werden muß. Die so entstehenden Funktionsverbgefüge sollten aber mit Vorsicht behandelt werden, da sie nicht immer mit dem einfachen Verb voll synonym sind, z.B. zur Ausführung bringen ausführen.

Die sprachliche Realisierung des Verbbegriffs kann sprachbedingt auch aus einer Wortgruppe bestehen, die als Gesamtheit in der Fachwendung fungiert, z.B.

de

eine Flüssigkeit hinaufpumpen

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es

elevar un líquido por bomba

In anderen Fällen deutet sich die Differenzierung der Verbbegriffe, die durch ein und dasselbe Verb realisiert werden, durch die Präposition an, z.B.

reagieren auf (er reagiert auf seinen Anruf)

reagieren mit (Salzsäure reagiert mit Eisen)

Ein Austausch ist nicht möglich; es ist daher naheliegend, die Präposition als Bestandteil der Benennung des Verbbegriffs zu betrachten.

Daß nicht nur die unmittelbaren Aktanten als "Kontrastmittel" auftreten können, sondern auch weiter entfernt liegende Satzglieder, die durch bestimmte Präpositionen eingeleitet werden, geht aus einigen der folgenden Beispiele hervor, die aus der eingangs erwähnten Untersuchung stammen.

actuar

1.

"einwirken auf"

: ... el citado resorte actúa sobre una palanca compensadora.

2.

"wirken, funktioneren"

: ... los granos de una muela abrasiva, que actúan como pequeñas cuchillas.

3.

"handeln, arbeiten"

: Si el roblonado se realiza en caliente, debe actuarse con suficiente rapidez como para que el roblón no se enfríe, ...

4.

"arbeiten mit, getrieben durch"

: ... remachadoras neumáticas, que actúan con aire a presión, ...

2.10 Fachsprachliche Phraseologie Und Terminologie

K. Daniels (1976, S. 257) sagt zur Stellung der Phraseologie: "Im Unterschied zu den bekannten Teilbereichen der Sprachbeschreibung hat die Phraseologie bisher keinen festumrissenen Stellenwert in der Grammatik, sie wird hier meist als eine Spracherscheinung zwischen Wort und Satz angesehen und unterschiedlich stark beachtet."

Für die fachsprachliche Phraseologie erscheint mir diese

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Plazierung nur teilweise zutreffend, da die fachsprachliche Phraseologie und die Phraseologie, so wie sie von der Sprachwissenschaft heute definiert wird, sich doch in recht wesentlichen Punkten unterscheiden.

Schon Warners Ausführungen und Beispiele zeigen, daß sich der Bereich der fachsprachlichen Phraseologie einerseits bis hinauf zur Satzebene und andererseits bis hinunter zur einfachen Verknüpfung von zwei fachsprachlichen Elementen weit unterhalb der Satzebene erstrecken kann, z.B.

der Strom fließt

der Motor anlassen

Es erscheint daher wenig hilfreich, syntaktische Kriterien für eine Abgrenzung zu benutzen.

Folgt man L. Hoffmanns Einteilung der Sprachbeschreibung (1984, S. 72f) in Sprachebenen, nämlich

1. Grapheme und Phoneme

2. Morpheme und grammatische Kategorien

3. Lexeme und Wortformen

4. Syntagmen, Phrasen und Sätze

5. Texte

so ergibt es sich fast von selbst, daß Terminologie auf der 2. und 3. Ebene und die fachsprachliche Phraseologie auf der 4. Ebene einzugliedern sind, wie Hoffmann es ja auch selbst getan hat, ohne doch explizit von fachsprachlicher Phraseologie zu sprechen.

Bei dieser Zuordnung liegt der Schwerpunkt vorwiegend auf linguistischen Kriterien.

Eine andere, eher auf pragmatischen Kriterien beruhende Zuordnung, die auch Warner schon andeutete, ergibt sich, wenn die kommunikativen Funktionen und die Affinität zu den Sachbereichen in den Vordergrund gestellt werden.

Diese beiden Zuordnungen und es ließen sich sicherlich noch andere finden schließen einander nicht aus, sie sind komplementär. Besonders die zweite Zuordnung rückt die Phraseologie inhaltlich in die unmittelbare Nähe der Terminologie, da Fachwendungen aus Benennungen und anderen fachsprachlichen Elementen bestehen, die auf den Ebenen 2 und 3 schon mit terminologischen Methoden bearbeitet worden sind. Somit wäre die fachsprachliche Phraseologie als eine Weiterführung der Terminologie auf der

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darüberliegenden Ebene, sozusagen als eine weitere Dimension der Terminologie, anzusprechen.

3. Welche Disziplinen Werden Durch Die Anwendung Des Terminologischen Ansatzes Auf Die Fachsprachliche Phraseologie BerÜhrt?

Im dritten Teil meines Beitrages möchte ich noch eine Antwort auf die letzte Frage des Katalogs versuchen.

3.1 Terminologie

Die theoretisch orientierte Terminologieforschung wird sich noch eingehender als bisher mit dem Wesen des Begriffs und seiner Arten beschäftigen müssen; dabei wird Begriffen, die sprachlich durch Verben realisiert werden (Verbbegriffe), größere Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt werden müssen.

Die Begriffsanalyse wird sich auf weitere Elemente erstrecken müssen als bisher, da es gilt, die Beziehungen zwischen zwei und mehr Begriffen zu untersuchen und ihre Verknüpfbarkeit auf begrifflicher Ebene im Sinne der fachsprachlichen Phraseologie zu erforschen. Für die Benennungsebene gilt sinngemäß das gleiche. Mit anderen Worten, die terminologische Analyse muß um eine Dimension erweitert werden, wenn die Bedürfnisse der fachsprachlichen Phraseologie abgedeckt werden sollen.

3.2 Fachsprachliche Lexikographie Und Terminographie

Trotz der erwähnten Versuche, Fachwendungen im Wörterbuchartikel sinnvoll und benutzerfreundlich einzubauen, meine ich, daß es sich noch immer um Neuland handelt, besonders wenn die terminologischen Datenbanken ebenfalls einbezogen werden.

Wohl werden in neueren terminologischen Datenbanken phraseologische Datenelemente gespeichert, z.B. in Danterm, doch haben diese Daten eher den Charakter von Belegstellen. Eine eigentliche Analyse mit dem Ziel der Feststellung der Verknüpfungsmöglichkeiten oder eine explizite Äquivalenz-bestimmung hat jedoch noch nicht stattgefunden.

Die prinzipielle Frage, wo und in welcher Form Fachwendungen in lexikographische Werke und terminologische Datenbanken aufgenommen werden sollen, ist kaum

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diskutiert, geschweige denn gelöst worden. Trotzdem bin ich der Meinung, daß die inzwischen entwickelten elektronischen Hilfsmittel es wesentlich erleichtern werden, Fachwendungen benutzerfreundlich zugänglich zu machen, da eine terminologische Datenbank über weit mehr Kombinations-möglichkeiten verfügt als es bei herkömmlichen Fachwörterbüchern aus praktischen Gründen der Fall ist.

3.3 Fachsprachendidaktik Und Fachübersetzerausbildung

Der Einbau der fachsprachlichen Phraseologie in Ausbildungsprogramme und damit ihre unmittelbare Nutzbarmachung im Unterricht erscheint mir relativ leicht; denn hier bietet sich die Einbettung in die terminologische Studienkomponente an, die auf schon bekanntem Stoff aufbauend lediglich erweitert werden muß.

Es ist nicht zufällig, daß wesentliche Impulse zur Erforschung der fachsprachlichen Phraseologie gerade aus diesem Bereich kommen, denn hier verlangen phraseologische Fehler Korrektur und Erklärung.

3.4 Maschinenübersetzung

Für den Erfolg und die Qualität einer Maschinenübersetzung ist es im Gegensatz zur Humanübersetzung unerlässlich, daß phraseologische Probleme vor der Übersetzung gelöst sein müssen. Hier wird es davon abhängen: 1. ob die fachsprachlichen Phraseologien dann zur Verfügung stehen werden, d.h. erarbeitet worden sind u.z. in einer für den Rechner akzeptablen Form und 2. ob zwischen bestehenden Terminologiebanken mit fachsprachlich-phraseologischen Daten das erforderliche Interface geschaffen werden kann, um sie als back-up dictionaries benutzen zu können.

3.5 Fachsprachenforschung

In der Fachsprachenforschung kann die fachsprachliche Phraseologie die Grauzone zwischen der Terminologie und den darüberliegenden Sprachebenen erhellen. Die sogenannten "gemeinsprachlichen Elemente" werden erneut auf ihren fachsprachlichen Stellenwert untersucht werden müssen. Eine solche Analyse wird in einer langen Reihe von Fällen die "Gemeinsprachlichkeit" dieser Elemente als Fehlklassifizierung entlarven und somit zu einer weiteren Präzisierung des Fachsprachenbegriffs beitragen können.

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3.6 Wissenstechnik Und Wissentransfer

Für die sich rasch entwickelnden Gebiete der Wissentechnik und des modernen Wissentransfers, die beide wie auch die Terminologie begriffsbasiert sind, und für die die Beziehungen zwischen Begriffen entscheidend sind, können Erkenntnisse gewonnen werden, die die Berührungsflächen mit der Terminologie zu gemeinsamen Grenzzonen von beträchtlicher Tiefe erweitern. Ansätze hierzu sind deutlich sichtbar, wo moderne terminologische Datenbanken mit Wissensbanken kombiniert werden, so z.B. an der Universität Surrey (The British Term Bank, 1986).

4. Abschließende Bemerkungen

Zusammenfassend kann festgestellt werden, daß

die fachsprachliche Phraseologie sich in wesentlichen Punkten von der heutigen gemeinsprachlichen Phraseologieforschung unterscheidet;

eine enge Verbindung zwischen Terminologie und fachsprachlicher Phraseologie besteht, die es berechtigt, die letztere als eine wesentliche Teildisziplin der ersteren zu betrachten;

die fachsprachliche Phraseologie mit terminologischen Methoden bearbeitet werden kann und sollte;

die fachsprachliche Phraseologie und ihre weitere Entwicklung im Zusammenhang mit anderen Disziplinen und Anwendungsbereichen gesehen werden sollte, wo sie direkt oder indirekt zu qualitativen Verbesserungen und neuen Erkenntnissen beitragen kann.

Die fachsprachliche Phraseologieforschung, die von dem hier angesprochenen Blickwinkel ausgeht, ist noch relativ jung. Umfangreichere grundlegende Untersuchungen sind erst im Entstehen. Obwohl es schon jetzt möglich ist, einige der Fragen des eingangs erwähnten Kataloges befriedigend zu beantworten und für andere erste Lösungsansätze zu erkennen, so verbleibt doch ein erheblicher Rest, der nur durch weitere intensive Studien abgebaut werden kann.

Literatur

Daniels, K. (1976-1985) Neue Aspekte zum Thema Phraseologie in der gegenwärtigen Sprachforshung, Teil 1-5. Muttersprache, 1976, 257-293; 1979, 71-96; 1983,

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142-170; 1984/85, 49-68; 1984/85, 151-173.

DIN 2330 (1979) Begriffe und Benennungen. Allgemeine Grundsätze.

Draskau, J. (1986) A Valency-Type Analysis of Four Monolexical Verbs and two Polylexical Verbs in English LSP Texts from two Subject Fields, Marine Engineering and Veterinary Science. Unesco ALSED-LSP Newsletter, 25-42. Vol. 9, no. 2 (23).

Faber, D. (1984) Kollokative mønstre. Specielt med henblik på økonomisk sprogbrug. Manus. Handelshøjskolen i København.

Friedrich, W. (1958) (Besprechung) de Vries und Jörgensen, O. N. Fachwörterbuch des Kraftfahrzeugwesens. Lebende Sprachen, 190-191. Bd. 3. (Zitiert nach Warner).

Haensch, G. (1960) (Besprechung) Becker, E.A. und Merz, O. Fachwörterbuch. . . Lack- und Farbengebiet. Stuttgart 1950. Babel, 92. Bd. 5 (Zitiert nach Warner).

Hoffmann, L. (1984) Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache. Eine Einführung. 2. überarbeitete Auflage. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.

Kjær, A.L. (1986) Fraseoleksemer i tyske ét-sprogsordbøger. ARK 29. Sproginstitutternes Arbejdspapir. Handelshøjskolen i København.

Müller, F. (1960) Der Ingenieur-Übersetzer in der Technik. Lebende Sprachen, 180-181 (Zitiert nach Warner).

Picht, H. (1983) Hvad gør et almensproget verbum til et fagsprogligt verbum? Verbernes terminologisering. Martinet, H., Hjørnager Petersen, V. und Qvistgaard, J. (eds) AScLA-Sympiosiet "Oversættelse og tolkning", 189-201. 4.-6. oktober 1982. Handelshøjskolen i København, Fagsprogligt Center.

(1985) Termer og deres fagsproglige omgivelser fagsproglig fraseologi. Nordisk Terminologikursus, II. Bind I, "Rolighed", Skodsborg, DK. 5.-16. august 1985. Proceedings, 296-316. Handelshøjskolen i København.

(1987) Terms and their LSP environment LSP Phraseology. Meta. Vol. 32, no. 2. Objective: Year 2000 Terminotics. State of the Art. Prospects for the future.

Renz, S. (1971) Zu einigen Problemen des Terminus. Muttersprache, 81, 304-312.

Schlomann, A. (1928) Illustrierte Technische Wörterbücher in sechs Sprachen: D-E-R-F-I-S. Hrsg. A. Schlomann. Bd. 2. Elektrotechnik und Elektrochemie. Verbesserte, vervollständigte und stark vermehrte Auflage.

The British Term Bank (1986) Technical Report no. 1. February. Sowie interne Arbeitsdokumente. University of Surrey.

Warner, A. (1966) Internationale Angleichung fachsprachlicher Wendungen der Elektrotechnik. Versuch einer Aufstellung phraseologischer Grundsätze für die

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Technik. Beihefe der ETZ. Heft 4. Berlin: VEB-Verlag G.m.b.H.

Wüster, E. (1970 [1931]) Internationale Sprachnormung in der Technik; Besonders in der Elektrotechnik. Dritte, abermals ergänzte Auflage. Bonn: H. Bouvier u. Co. Verlag.

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7
Onymic Units in LSP Vocabularies and their Implications for Translation Theory, Terminography and Lsp Onomastics

Rosemarie Gläser
Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig

It is a common experience shared by lexicographers, lexicologists and terminologists, by technical translators and foreign language teachers that onymic units, i.e. proper names, are comparatively frequent in LSP vocabularies. In view of their morphological and functional properties proper names form an integral part of the terminologies in the technical, social and natural sciences. It is obvious that they are essential in LSP vocabularies in many languages, although there may be cross-cultural and linguistic differences, which will be illustrated in the following study by examples from English and German. Thus proper names will occur as constituents of compounds (diesel engine/Dieselmotor; Erlenmeyer flask/Erlenmeyerkolben; Röntgen rays/Röntgenstrahlen), of multiple terms such as Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; Sturge-Weber-Dmitri syndrome, and of terminological word-groups which are on the borderline of phraseological units. Examples are Verner's law/Wernersches Gesetz; Shakespearean sonnet/Shakespearesche Sonettform; Basedowsche Krankheit; Magenresektion nach Billroth. On the other hand, proper names of various types may be the basis of derivation of technical terms and items of nomenclature. These derivatives chiefly cover nouns, verbs and adjectives. Examples: Keynesianism, Darwinist, pasteurisation, Hegelianer; to bowdlerise, to macadam, to boycot; adjectival deonymic derivatives may occur as determinators or nouns, e.g. Belgian slag, Chomskyan transformation, Wagneresque style.

There are numerous cases of proper names which have developed into technical terms without undergoing any morphological changes. Examples occur among physical units of measurement (ohm, joule), whereas others result from the process of clipping (volt and torr after the Italian physicists Volta and Torricelli). But logically seen, these morphologically simple words are reductions of an original compound comparable to that of Ångström unit (the German equivalent being das Angström, a unit of length which has now fallen into disuse). Other examples of proper names used

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as simple common nouns are spa (a resort), karst (a mountainous area eroded by wind and rain) and meander (a long-winding watercourse).

These examples of onymic units in word-formation quoted from different subject areas show that the onymic potential in LSP word-stocks is quite considerable. In terms of definition theory, in the majority of cases the proper name in its function as a determinator in a compound or terminological word-group expresses the differentia specifica, whereas the common noun, the determinatum, stands for the generic term or the genus proximum. In terms of terminology standardization, however, the onymic part of a technical word or terminological word-group is no clue to the concept behind, because it only expresses extrinsic characteristics or `relational semantic features' (Relationsmerkmale) and not intrinsic characteristics or `inherent semantic features' (Eigenmerkmale) which are more desirable in term formation. Thus proper names may refer to persons (the discoverer or inventor), groups of persons, mythological and legendary figures, countries, regions, continents, rivers, islands; in short, to anthroponyms and toponyms. The general recommendation given by terminologists, on the other hand, is to avoid onymic units in the coining of new terms altogether and to use self-explanatory common nouns instead, because onymic units are believed to obscure the meaning of the term.

This rigid limitation would also exclude the use of technical metaphors which are, however, a flourishing phenomenon in every field (recent examples are computer science and technology). The relational and inherent semantic features form a complex semantic configuration. Even if the proper name is not self-explanatory to the uninitiated (the layman) it has the advantage of language economy and international circulation and is perfectly intelligible to the specialist. Moreover, the onymic unit allows further derivations.

Onymic units, however, cover more than proper names functioning as constituents of word-formation although these attract our attention in the first place and have repeatedly been the subject of studies on the structural and semantic patterns of word-formation in various languages and subject areas. We must be aware of the fact that onymic units in technical vocabularies also comprise nomenclatures. These may be understood as name-like lexical units which designate elements of a homogeneous system, mostly physical objects. Thus items of nomenclatures (Nomenklaturzeichen) have a labelling character; they designate, identify and individualize objects with common properties and classify them in a

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system. A clear advantage of nomenclatures is that the designation process is regulated by conventions, which results in lexical units following a certain pattern of word-formation. As Sager, Dungworth and McDonald (1980, p. 292) have aptly remarked: ''Nomenclatures overcome the unpredictability of word-formation and the ambiguity inherent in popular names and general language naming processes. They are also an international, or at least supranational, instrument of communication."

Typical examples of nomenclatures are the periodical system of chemical elements and the IUPAC nomenclature of chemical compounds. Chemical elements have been designated by deonymic derivatives from names of persons, peoples, mythological figures of antiquity, countries etc. (Winter, 1986), e.g. einsteinium, polonium, germanium, plutonium, thorium. The nomenclatures of anatomy are elaborated on the basis of international conventions (cf. the nomenclatures of Paris 1955/1966, of Tokyo and Mexico) binding on the naming (designation) and classification of bones, nerves, organs, arteries, muscles and glands, for symptoms and diseases. Examples: clavicula/Schlüsselbein/collarbone; ventriculus/Magen/stomach; glandula thyreoidea/Schilddrüse/thyroid gland. Moreover, names of diseases may be derived from the names of mythological, literary or fairy tale figures. The idea behind is to mitigate unpleasant associations with a particular disease by using names in a disguishing or protective function, which specially holds for symptoms in psychiatry: Oedipus complex, Clytemnestra complex, Raskolnikow situation, Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome (cf. Nestmann, 1986; Lauer, 1986). The nomenclatures of plants and animals, on the other hand, founded by Carl von Linné (Linnaeus 1707-1778) is based on Latin vocabulary. Each name is a binary, binomial, combination (viola tricolor; felis communis) and has only one representation in the biological system derived from phylogenetic relationships. Nomenclatures also exist for breeds and crossings of plants and animals, but in these fields the process of naming is not systematic and less guided by international regulations. Moreover, commercial considerations come into play, which results in arbitrary names. Examples are Ayrshire, Guernsey, Holstein (cattle); Berkshire (pig); Hampshire (sheep), New Hampshire (chicken). Names of horticultural crossing used in German are Red Spur (an apple), Red Lake (a red currant). With reference to such names L. Drozd speaks of "terminologische Alogismen" because of the obvious absence of an intelligible motivation of the name (Drozd, 1964).

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Further examples of nomenclatures are those of vitamins, minerals, of gales in meteorology, of glaciations in physical geography (Elster/Elbe/Saale/Weichsel glaciation, cf. Langer, 1986), of types of ships and trawlers in naval English (Bermuda cutter, Icelandic trawler, Newfoundlander, cf. Spitzner, 1986) etc. In fact, nomenclatures are open-ended systems in all these subject areas and adapt themselves to communicative needs.

As regards their onymic status, items of nomenclatures stand midway between proper names (nomina propria) and common nouns (nomina appellativa). They are, however, by no means void of semantic content, although they have a chiefly labelling function. Indirectly items of nomenclature refer to a generic concept underlying them, e.g. bone in the case of clavicula, muscle in abductor longus pollicis, animal in felis communis. In this respect, nomenclatures may be a means for expressing specialist thought adequately and for easing LSP communication on an international scale.

Last but not least, onymic items with special reference to LSP vocabularies also include trade names/trade marks. In the light of the vertical stratification of a language for special purposes (cf. the models suggested by Ischreyt, 1965; Hoffmann, 1976/1984) or of the distinction between centre and periphery of specialist communication (Möhn and Pelka, 1984), trade names and advertising texts are typical of "the language of consumption" ("Verkäufer- und Verbraucher-sprache").

In contrast to nomenclatures, trade marks are more subject to sudden changes so that they may fall into disuse as soon as the product they label is no longer of commercial interest or has been ousted by another. Moreover, trade marks hardly ever establish classificatory systems like nomenclatures. As they are purpose-built lexical items to designate a commercial product, their creation is arbitrary. The lexical source material ranges from everyday words which in BE and AE assume a deviant spelling so that they can be registered to far-fetched metaphorical names and computer-made coinages which will attract the future consumers' attention (cf. Gläser, 1973, 1978).

Although the principal function of trade marks is to individualise and label a product, they also include conceptual elements by more or less loosely relating the given product to a certain type of commodity. Thus the trade marks Mazda, Ensign, Volvo, Peugeot, Volga are associated with the generic concept car: Lux and Lilienmilch with a soap; Johnny Walker and Highland Queen with a brand of

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Scottish whisky; Rolex and Omega with a watch; Players, Chesterfield and Carmen with a cigarette etc. Another difference between trademarks and items of nomenclatures is that trademarks are not regarded as elements of the lexicon of a national standard language (in other words, the language for general or common purposes). Nor do they appear in the average LSP dictionary. Instead, they are presented in trade catalogues, delivery lists, information leaflets, and, of course, in advertising texts.

In the course of time, some trademarks may lose their individualising character of proper names and become common nouns. In this case they cease to be registered and protected items. This change from trademark (Warenzeichen) to common everyday word (Freizeichen) occurred with the English trademarks hoover (a vacuum cleaner), nylons (nylon stockings), and with the German trademarks Vaseline (an ointment) and Spalt (an aspirin against a headache). Obviously trademarks may intermingle with the core of LSP vocabularies, if we consider the names of pharmacological substances, drugs, detergents, paints etc. as peripheral lexical items of medicine or chemistry, or the names of computer ware which refers to electronics and mathematics.

The growing linguistic awareness of the onymic potential in LSP vocabularies was one of the lasting repercussions of the XVth International Congress of Onomastic Sciences which took place at the University of Leipzig, August 13-17, 1984. The general theme of this congress was "The Proper Name in Language and Society". One particular section was devoted to the sociolinguistic differentiation and the pragmatics of proper names. Against this background it became evident that languages for special purposes in their historical and present-day diversifications of communicative functions do have a pragmatic dimension and that they reflect the increasing specialisation of social activity. The section on sociolinguistics included seven papers on the onymic potential in LSP vocabularies of different languages. The subject areas under analysis ranged from medicine, phytopathology (i.e. the investigation of plant diseases) and general technical fields to literary science and historiography. Examples were quoted from English, German, Russian and Modern Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia). Based on empirical observation and founded on theoretical considerations, a new field of research was ushered in and given the tentative name of LSP onomastics. This is an inter-disciplinary field and stands midway between onomastic studies and those of the linguistic description of LSP in a broader sense of applied linguistics. LSP onomastics (Fachsprachenonomastik) is defined as a

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subdiscipline of onomastics which investigates the origin, structure and function of proper names as designating units (i.e. units in a nominating function) in specialist communication. It applies such methods of investigation as used in the synchronic analysis of word-formation, in phraseological research, in terminography, in contrastive linguistics and in translation theory.

As a follow-up volume of the proceedings of the onomastic congress a special issue of the Leipzig periodical Namenkundliche Informationen (No 9/1986, Leipzig) was entirely devoted to LSP onomastics (cf. Gläser, 1986). Its title reads "Eigenname und Terminus. Beiträge zur Fachsprachenonomastik" and gathers together ten contributions chiefly written by young research workers of the ESP team at the Foreign Language Centre of Leipzig University. The individual articles deal with onymic units in such subject areas as pedagogics, psychology, linguistics, physical geography, pharmacology, chemistry, phytopathology, architecture, civil engineering, and shipbuilding and maritime English.

The objectives of the new field of LSP onomastics can be viewed from the angle of onomastics and that of LSP research. For further elaboration of onomastic problems, the following questions may be raised:

1. Which classes of proper names are preferably used as constituents of technical words (these include alongside terms and items of nomenclatures also jargon words and everyday words which may have a specific meaning)?

2. How do proper names become common nouns in LSP and to what extent is the onymic origin still transparent in common nouns which are only loosely related to LSP (this question of "onymic reconstruction" would pertain to such words as borstal, boycot, to bowdlerise, karst, hoover; einwecken, röntgen, verdieseln)?

3. Which is the theoretical status of nomenclatures and trademarks in the onymic system?

The complementary perspective of LSP onomastics, that of LSP studies proper, will accentuate the following questions:

1. What are the prospects of proper names as constituents of terms and items of nomenclatures in view of the recommendations of terminology standardizers?

Comment: Standardization documents such as DIN 2330,

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Berlin 1979, consider proper names as highly undesirable constituents of technical terms and therefore recommend their substitution by a self-explanatory common noun. They plead for the predominance of inherent semantic features over relational semantic features in a compound or a terminological word group, e.g. instead of Wankelmotor the term Rotationskolbenmotor. An English example would be rose window or wheel window instead of Catherine-wheel window (referring to Gothic architecture).

2. What is the distribution of onymic constituents of technical terms in different languages, but within the same subject area?

Comment: This question pertains to comparative lexicology and to translation theory. In a number of cases there is a asymmetrical distribution of onymic constituents, e.g. in English and German terms.

Different equivalence relationships may be expressed by onymic constituents in English as opposed to common nouns in German terms, e.g. Allen screw vs. Innensechskantschraube; plaster of Paris vs. gebrannter Gips, Putzgips, Pariser Gips (Baumann, 1986); Boolean algebra vs. Schaltalgebra (electronics), Boolsche Algebra (mathematics); Colorado beetle vs. Kartoffelkäfer. The opposite case holds for junior cell (chemistry) vs. Curie-Zelle (Winter, 1986). On the other hand, different onymic units may be used in English and German terms, e.g. Argand diagram vs. Gaußsche Zahlenebene; Avogadro number vs. Loschmidtsche Konstante; Prussian blue vs. Berliner Blau; Belgian slag vs. Thomasschlacke; or the English term may contain more information-conveying constituents than the German term as in Bacon high-pressure hydrogen cell vs. Bacon-Zelle. The opposite case is also found: Boyle's law vs. Boyle-Mariottesches Gesetz (chemistry) (cf. Winter, 1986).

3. How should specialist translators (LSP translators) decide in the case of synonyms in the target language provided by equivalents containing an onymic constituent or consisting of common nouns only? Should the self-explanatory term without an onymic constituent be preferred to meet the requirements of the terminology standardizer, even if the term with an onymic constituent is still more popular? Example: plaster of Paris vs. gebrannter Gips, Putzgips, Pariser Gips.

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As we have seen, translation aspects of onymic units in LSP word-stocks are of topical and practical interest for the technical translator and the student trainee. Equivalence relationships in the source and target languages with reference to onymic constituents of terms and terminological word groups, and the need for updating specialist dictionaries are a daily experience of the technical translator. As a rule, items of nomenclatures offer few translation problems as long as their source material is Latin and Greek and they have a more or less international circulation as so-called internationalisms. Difficulties will arise in the case of names of commercial breeds of stock animals, of pets, of flowers, fruit and vegetable, of decorative trees, berry shrubs and the like, when these names have no exact correspondence in the target language. Here we are already in the area of trademarks which are not translated.

To conclude, proper names have always played an active part in word-building processes in LSP vocabularies. Despite the criticism raised by terminology standardizers they prove their longevity. Their much disputed disadvantage of not describing the essence, but only concomitant circumstances, of the particular phenomenon can be refuted by taking into consideration their advantage of language economy and explicitness in the light of the history of LSP vocabularies. We can be confident that proper names in LSP will continue to give us food for thought in LSP theory and that LSP onomastics may shed a fresh light on some of the standing problems.

References

Baumann, P. (1986) Eigennamen im Fachwortschatz der Architektur und des Bauwesens im Englischen und Deutschen. Gläser, R. (ed) Eigenname und Terminus, 85-91.

DIN 2330 (1979) Begriffe und Benennungen. Allgemeine Grundsätze. Berlin und Köln.

Drozd, L. and Seibicke, W. (1973) Deutsche Fach- und Wissenschaftssprache. Bestandsaufnahme-Theorie-Geschichte. Wiesbaden.

Drozd, L. (1964) Grundfragen der Terminologie in der Landwirtschaft. Muttersprache, 74, 296-312; 336-344, 360-369.

Gläser, R. (1973) Zur Namengebung in der Wirtschafts-werbung: Warenzeichen im britischen und amerikanischen Englisch. Eichler, E., Fleischer, W., Große, R., Neubert, A. and Walther, H. (eds) Der Name in Sprache

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und Gesellschaft. Beiträge zur Theorie der Onomastik, 220-238. Berlin.

(1978) Warennamen im Englischen und Deutschen. Namenkundliche Informationen, 33, 14-25. Leipzig.

(1985) Eigennamen in der Terminus- und Nomenklaturenbildung der Natur- und Gesellschafts-wissenschaften. Linguistische Studien, 129/1, 119-126. Reihe A. Arbeitsberichte. Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Zentralinstitut für Sprachwissenschaft. Berlin.

(ed) (1986) Eigenname und Terminus. Beiträge zur Fachsprachenonomastik. Namenkundliche Informationen, Beiheft 9. Leipzig.

(1986) Grundzüge einer Fachsprachenonomastik. Eigenname und Terminus, 3-13.

Hoffmann, L. (1976) Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache. Eine Einführung. Berlin.

(1984) Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache. Eine Einführung. 2., überarbeitete Auflage. Berlin.

Ischreyt, H. (1965) Studien zum Verhältnis von Sprache und Technik. Institutionelle Sprachlenkung in der Terminologie der Technik. Düsseldorf.

Langer, M. (1986) Eigennamen im englischen Fachwortschatz der physischen Geographie. Gläser, R. (ed) Eigenname und Terminus, 46-55.

Lauer, I.-A. (1986) Zur Rolle des Eigennames im psychologischen Fachwortschatz des Deutschen und Englischen. Gläser, R. (ed) Eigenname und Terminus, 20-34.

Möhn, D. and Pelka, R. (1984) Fachsprachen. Eine Einführung. Tübingen.

Nestmann, R. (1985) Motivation and structure of eponyms in medical language. Linguistische Studien, 129/1, 262-267. Reihe A. Arbeitsberichte. Berlin.

Pfeifer, W. (1985) Über Tier- und Pflanzennamen. Linguistische Studien, 129/1, 279-285. Reihe A. Arbeitsberichte. Berlin.

Picht, H. and Draskau, J. (1985) Terminology: An Introduction. Guildford: The University of Surrey.

Sager, J.C., Dungworth, D. and McDonald, P.F. (1980) English Special Languages. Principles and practice in science and technology. Wiesbaden.

Spitzner, I. (1986) Eigennamen im englischen und deutschen Wortschatz der Seewirtschaft. Gläser, R. (ed) Eigenname und Terminus, 91-99.

Wiese, I. (1984) Fachsprache der Medizin. Eine linguistische Analyse. Leipzig.

Winter, H. (1986) Der Eigenname als Konstituente in chemischen Fachwörtern des Englischen. Gläser, R. (ed) Eigenname und Terminus, 73-85.

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8
Die Fachsprachlehre Im Rahmen Der Estnischen Theorie Der Schriftsprache

Henn Saari
Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR

O. Die estnische Sprache ist in Eugen Wüsters Arbeiten einmal erwähnt worden zwar indirekt, aber doch. In seiner "Einführung in die Allgemeine Terminologielehre und Terminologische Lexikographie" schreibt er: "Terminologische Sprachnormung. . . setzt etwas voraus, was in der Wissenschaft von der Gemeinsprache kaum Platz findet. Das ist die Bewertung von Sprachbestandteilen." Dort komme es auf die Ist-Normen an, ''die Terminologie dagegen zielt auf Zweckmäßigkeit, und diese wird durch die Soll-Normen verkörpert. Immerhin gibt es aber zwei Sprachforscher, die auch die Gemeinsprache einbezogen haben, als sie der Theorie der Sprachnormung und der Sprachplanung eigene Bücher widmeten" (Wüster, 1979, S. 3). Als einen von den beiden nennt Wüster den Esten Valter Tauli aus Uppsala. Taulis Ansichten waren in der Hauptsache von Gegebenheiten seiner Muttersprache geprägt. Tauli hat eine Seite des estnischen gesamtsprachlichen Geschehens im 20. Jahrhundert übermäßig hervorgehoben, nämlich die vorsätzliche Umformung der Schriftsprache nach einem konstruierten Ideal. Doch der Grund und Boden für seine Denkweise war die Überzeugung der estnischen Sprachpfleger, daß die gesamte Schriftsprache sich bewußt entwickeln und bereichern läßt eine Überzeugung, welche sich tatsächlich im estnischen Leben als fruchtbar erwiesen hat. Es geht dabei nicht nur und nicht hauptsächlich um die Auflegung von Soll-Normen; besonders heutzutage ist die Aufdeckung und Bereitstellung der inneren Eigenwerte der Nationalsprache in den Vordergrund gerückt. Doch ist bei allerlei westlichen sowie östlichen Kontakten, deren wir uns erfreuen, die bewußte Sprachregelung fortwährend nötig und die Funktionalstilschichten, die das am meisten betrifft, sind der publizistische und der Fachstil.

Die estnische terminologische Sprachnormung entstand vor rund 80 Jahren und das Grundlegendste wurde in den 20er und 30er Jahren geleistet. Die Entwicklung der estnischen Fachsprache wurde immer als eine der Hauptlinien des gesamtsprachlichen Aufbaus angesehen und die Vereinheitlichung durch die Neuschöpfung hat dabei bis heute wahrscheinlich eine um einen Grad größere Rolle gespielt als

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bei europäischen Großvölkersprachen unseres Jahrhunderts. Deswegen decken sich unsere geläufigen Ansichten gut mit der Prager Theorie der Funktionalstile. Alle sog. Fachsprachen sehen wir in ihrer Gesamtheit als eine Subsprache der nationalen Schriftsprache an; diese Subsprache heißt Fachsprache und wird nach Spezialgebieten untergliedert.

Die Teilnahme der linguistisch Geschulten an der Terminologiearbeit ist in Estland nie etwas anderes als eine Selbstverständlichkeit gewesen und die koordinierende Rolle des Sprachlers ist von alledem nicht wegzudenken.

Es muß betont werden, daß die von Wüster genannte Bewertung von Sprachbestandteilen und die Zweckmäßigkeit von der allgemeinen Sprachregelung gar nicht auszuschließen sind. Von estnischen und litauischen Linguisten ist die Zweckmäßigkeit zu einem Oberprinzip über alle speziellen Grundsätze der bewußten Sprachentwicklung gehoben worden. Was aber die quantitative Rolle der Termini in der bewußten Entwicklung des Estnischen angeht, so hat die Bereicherung des Wortschatzes für die schöngeistige Literatur und Essayistik seit den 30er Jahren an Aktualität eingebüßt, wodurch sich heute der Anteil der Termini bei der Bereicherung der Schriftsprache noch mehr hervorhebt.

Es braucht wohl keines besonderen Beweises, daß im Rahmen einer allgemeingültigen terminologischen Auffassung spezielle Theorien für Einzelsprachen von Nutzen sind, die die konkrete Struktur der Sprache und die sozialhistorische Lage des betreffenden Volkes in Betracht ziehen.

Nach Auffassung der estnischen Linguisten ist die Fachsprachregelung sowohl den allgemeinen Normungsprinzipien als auch speziellen, nur die Fachebene betreffenden Grundsätzen unterstellt. Nachdem das allgemeine Prinzip der Zweckmäßigkeit schon genannt worden ist, soll auf einen anderen Grundsatz näher eingegangen werden. Es ist das Prinzip der Eigenart der Nationalsprache. Auf diesem basiert die Regelung des Verhältnisses zwischen der sprachlichen Eigenschöpfung und dem Entlehnen einschließlich der Interlingualismenaneignung. Der Inhalt dieses Prizips ist nicht mit der trivialen Deutung des Wortes Eigenart erschöpft. Es wird von der Erkenntnis abgeleitet, daß die Sprache als gesellschaftliche Erscheinung im Grunde einen typischen Fall der langfristigen Beständigkeit darstellt. Die Veränderungen der Sprache dienen nicht nur der Anpassung an neue historische Situationen, sondern auch der Bewahrung der Nationalsprache als solche. Die Sprache verändert sich, um sich zu bewahren. Wir betrachten die Sprache als einen äußert mächtigen Mechanismus des gesellschaftlichen Gedächtnisses

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(Rebane, 1970, S. 80). Die ungeregelten Veränderungen in der Sprache sind vom Standpunkt ihrer gesellschaftlichen Funktionstüchtigkeit gesehen eine Zufallsgröße und damit mal nützlich, mal gleichgültig, mal nachteilig, wobei auch die gleichgültigen Veränderungen, wenn sie sich anhäufen, für die Gedächtnisfunktion der Nationalsprache nicht von Vorteil sind. Demnach soll bewußt nur soviel in der Sprache verändert werden, wie es für die Erhaltung der Funktionstüchtigkeit erforderlich ist. Das letztere setzt unter anderem auch ausgewogene Kontakte mit anderen Sprachen voraus.

Hiervon läßt sich die ganz allgemeine Regel ableiten, wonach der Neuschöpfung aufgrund des eigenen Sprachmaterials der Vorzug zu geben ist, ohne jedoch die Möglichkeiten der Entlehnung und der indirekten Nachbildung auszuschalten. Es gilt nun, diese Regel zu detaillieren. Hier haben wir auch schon einigen Erfolg zu verzeichnen; dazu wird unten ein Beispiel gebracht die Erörterung des Eigenwort/Fremdwort-Problems.

Da die Fachsprache ein Teilgebiet der natürlichen Nationalsprache ist, läßt sie sich selbstverständlich mit linguistischen Methoden erforschen. Es ist aber nicht zu vergessen, daß die Erforschung des fachlichen Sprachmaterials auch zur Lehre von der gesamten Sprache so manches beitragen kann. Die Fachsprache ist in gewissem Sinne etwas Einfacheres im Vergleich mit der Gesamtsprache einschließlich die Sprache der schöngeistigen Literatur. Besonders sind die Beziehungen von Form und Inhalt, von Ausdruck und Bedeutung in der Fachsprache klarer gestaltet als in der Sprache im allgemeinen. So erleichtert die Fachsprache das theoretische Herangehen an die Sprache. Es soll nur überprüft werden, inwieweit sich die an dem fachsprachlichen Material erzielten Ergebnisse in die Theorie der Literatursprache übertragen lassen. Unsere Erfahrung bezeugt, daß z.B. beim Aufbau der Theorie der estnischen Komposita das terminologische Material Schlüsse mit großer Zuverlässigkeit ermöglicht.

Auch ist nicht belanglos, daß für die praktische Terminologiearbeit die Bedeutung des Terminus meistens mit dem Begriff gleichgesetzt werden kann. Das ist an und für sich eine grobe Vereinfachung, da doch die Begriffe logische und die Wortbedeutungen linguistische Einheiten sind, also zu verschiedenen Wissensgebieten gehören, doch eben in der Terminologie ist ihre Korrelation so eng, daß ihre praktische Gleichsetzung kaum zu Fehlern führt.

Im folgenden sollen einige Probleme der Fachsprache, zu

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denen wir eigene Standpunkte erarbeitet haben, behandelt werden.

1. Ich möchte mit einem rein fachsprachlichen Problem beginnen und zuerst zum Verständnis des Begriffes Terminus einiges beitragen. Es geht also um die Definition des Terminus. Gewöhnlich wird der Terminus von einem Begriff abhängig gemacht und nicht selten wurde gefordert, daß dieser Begriff durch eine ausdrückliche Definition festgesetzt sein muß. Man sagt auch, der Terminus werde nicht vom Kontext, sondern vom fachlichen Wortfeld (subject field) bestimmt und lasse sich nur in einem solchen Feld definieren. Das alles hat zweifellos seinen Sinn, wenn man die betreffenden kurzen Aussagen sachgemäß ausdeutet. Doch beleuchten viele herkömmliche Definitionen den Terminus von einer, von der Begriffsseite aus. Ich habe versucht, meinen Fluter in einer anderen Richtung aufzustellen, und gehe von der Tatsache aus, daß eine Subsprache, wie die Fachsprache es ist, eine Menge von sprachlichen Einheiten zu eigen haben muß. Das sind also solche Einheiten, die notwendig sind, um eben die spezifisch fachliche Kommunikation zu ermöglichen, sie werden sozusagen von Fachgebieten angefordert.

Wollen wir die fachlichen Spracheinheiten kurz Fachausdrücke nennen. So angesetzt umfaßt der Begriff Fachausdruck vieles. Hierher gehören außer Wörtern Wortverbindungen, aber auch Einzelteile der zusammengesetzten Wörter, die in der gleichen Gestalt als eigenständige Wortformen nicht vorkommen (estn. absoluut-; laus-, z.B. in lauspilvitus `Bewölkungsgrad bedeckt', lausriie `Textilverbundstoff'; purd- `klastisch' in purdkivim `klastisches Gestein, Trümmergestein'; kiiv- `windschief' in kiivsirged `windschiefe Geraden'). Weiter gehören zu den Fachausdrücken Nachsilben mit festgesetzten Bedeutungen, wie -aan, -een, -ool in der Chemie, und Wortfolgen, die nicht immer normale syntaktische Verbindungen sind, wie z.B. die Befehlsformeln zur See und beim Militär. Die letzteren sind oft idiomatisch, sie lassen sich dann nicht Wort für Wort, sondern nur als Ganze übersetzen, z.B. estn. tasane edasi, buchstäblich "stiller vorwärts", russisch malyj vperjod, buchst. "kleiner vorwärts", englisch slow ahead, deutsch voraus langsam. Vom Gesagten genügt, um den Fachausdruck als den nächsthöheren Gattungsbegriff, das genus proximum für den Terminus aufzustellen. Und wenn wir jetzt nach dem artbildenden Unterschied, der differentia specifica fragen, so können wir zu der einfachsten und verbreitetsten Auffassung Vertrauen haben, wonach kaum etwas außer Wörtern und Wortverbindungen zu den Termini gezählt wird. Für das

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Estnische müssen die eigenförmigen Komponenten der Komposita hinzugezogen werden, so daß die Definition des Begriffes Terminus wie folgt lauten wird: ein Terminus oder Fachwort ist eine fachgebundene, von einem Spezialgebiet des Wissens und Könnens angeforderte Spracheinheit in Gestalt eines Lexems, einer Wortverbindung oder einer Komponente der Komposita. Es bleibt nur noch die Aufmerksamkeit darauf zu lenken, daß die Grenze, sei sie klar oder unklar, zwischen den fachlichen und übrigen Spracheinheiten mehr von Belang ist als die Grenze zwischen den Termini und den übrigen Fachausdrücken, da sich die Fachsprachlehre mit allem Fachlichen in der Sprache befassen muß.

Die aufgeführte Definition will keinesfalls die praktische Regel bestreiten, daß man bei der Festsetzung und Korrektur der Fachwörter immer von Begriffen und nicht von der vorhandenen Wortauswahl ausgehen muß. Sie befreit uns aber von dem ziemlich unfruchtbaren Problem, wie streng und eindeutig ein Begriff festgesetzt sein muß, um das entsprechende Wort Terminus nennen zu dürfen, oder welche Gestalt diese Festsetzung haben müßte. Wir Linguisten wissen besonders gut, wie lange man oft nach Realdefinitionen, nach Erschließung des Inhalts unserer Begriffe suchen muß, auch wenn man von der Existenz des Begriffes längst überzeugt ist. Wollen wir z.B. an die Realdefinitionen von Wort, Satz oder Eigenname denken. Die sind nicht vereinheitlicht und werden nie vereinheitlicht werden, die entsprechenden Begriffe sind aber da und die Termini fest eingebürgert. Auf Fachgebieten, die sich heutzutage schnell entwickeln, läßt sich die Dynamik, die Beweglichkeit der Begriffe beobachten, so daß sich die Beschreibungen von Begriffen und Gegenständen von heute auf morgen verändern, wobei die schon mal in Gebrauch genommenen Fachwörter lange funktionstauglich bleiben oder sogar helfen, den Begriff aufzubewahren, damit er nicht im Gewimmel des Anderswerdens vorzeitig untergeht.

Aufgrund unserer Definition haben wir eine Art Worterklärungen für Fachwörterbücher vorgeschlagen und auch schon praktiziert, die wir Anknüpfungserklärungen nennen. Hier stellt man keine strengen Begriffsbestimmungen auf, die Erklärungen werden kurz gehalten und solche Merkmale vermieden, die sich bald verändern könnten; Ziel ist, soviel zu sagen, daß der Fachmann das gegebene Wortgebilde eindeutig mit dem ihm bekannten Begriff verbinden kann. Dabei wird oft die innere Form des Wortes mit in die Erklärung einbezogen; manchmal erklärt das Wort seinen Inhalt durch seine innere Form von selbst schon genügend. Auf solchem Herangehen beruhen z.B. die Erklärungen im "Wörterbuch des Informationswesens. Estnisch-Englisch-Deutsch-Russisch", erschienen 1977.

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Daß auch Abkürzungen Termini sein können, möchte ich bestreiten. Entweder ist die Abkürzung nur eine rein äußere Modifikation des Wortgebildes, die ohne die Vollform nicht existiert, oder sie ist schon in eine Wortwurzel umgeschlagen, also in ihrer neuen Funktion nicht mehr als Abkürzung anzusehen. (Ein sehr klarer Fall davon ist das englische laser, das aus Anfangsbuchstaben einer Aussage gebildet sein soll, die eine Tätigkeit, nämlich die Lichtverstärkung, light amplification, bezeichnet; der Laser selbst ist aber gar keine Tätigkeit, sondern ein Gerät. Das Wort laser ist keine Abkürzung mehr.)

2. Was nun die Feld- und Kontextbedingtheit der Termini angeht, so sei an die herkömmliche Formel erinnert: ein richtiger Terminus werde nicht vom Kontext, sondern vom fachlichen Wortfeld (subject field) bestimmt. Diese noch neulich geläufige Formel widerspiegelt die tatsächliche Bewandtnis einseitig und bedarf deswegen einer Präzisierung.

Bei allem Einverständnis mit der Behauptung Helmut Felbers (1984, S. 12), daß sich die Bearbeitung von Einzelfällen zur Arbeit an den Fachfeldern verbreiten muß, können wir dem Terminus seinen eigenständigen Inhalt nicht absprechen. In einem fachlichen Wortfeld werden aber diese Inhalte gegeneinander abgestimmt, d.h. das Feld übt seinen Einfluß auf das Einzelwort aus, konstituiert aber nicht den Kern der Wortbedeutung. Was dabei wohl am wichtigsten ist, das ist die Einengung der Bedeutung. Je enger das Feld eingegrenzt wird, desto enger und eindeutiger wird die Bedeutung des Terminus. So hat das Wort Objekt in den humanistischen Wissenschaften eine allgemeinere Bedeutung als in der Syntax und in einzelnen Sprachlehren hat es noch verschiedene engere Bedeutungen. Z.B. bezeichnet Objekt in der finnischen oder estnischen Syntax eine Dreikasusrektion; in der russischen entspricht dieser Rektion nur die Akkusativrektion, die ihrerseits nur einen Teil des gesamten russischen Objektbegriffs ausmacht (das sog. direkte Objekt, pr'amoje dopolnenije).

Was den Kontext angeht, so können wir uns hier nicht nur einen modernen Begriff der allgemeinen Linguistik zunutze machen, sondern auch zu einem Schluß kommen, der in der Sprache weitere, nicht mit der Fachsprache begrenzte Gültigkeit hat. In der sowjetischen Terminologielehre wurde schon früh (Reformatskij, 1961, S. 51) der Begriff des Kontexts dazu erweitert, was die heutige Sprachwissenschaft Konsituation nennt. Zum Text gesellt sich hier die Sprechsituation, zu der unter anderem auch der Sprecher, der Hörer, das Gedächtnis der beiden, die Verbindung und der

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Verbindungskanal mit seinen beiden Enden gehören (vgl. Metslang, 1978, S. 272). In der herkömmlichen Wortlehre wird angenommen, daß einem Wort seine genaue Bedeutung erst vom Kontext verliehen wird; eine bessere Formulierung sagt, daß die Bedeutung durch den Kontext "erst klar wird" (Wahrig, 1984, S. 2200). In der Konsituation gibt der Sprechende oder Schreibende, den wir Sender nennen, seinem Gedanken irgendeine sprachliche Form der Sender weiß, was er ausdrücken will. Es ist aber nicht ausgeschlossen, daß sich sein Ausdruck mehrdeutig auslegen läßt, und das bringt dann Geräusch in den Kommunikationskanal. Der Empfänger empfängt den formellen Ausdruck und versucht, ihn richtig auszudeuten. Dabei hilft ihm nicht nur der Text, sondern auch andere Bestandteile der ganzen Konsituation, wobei sein Gedächtnis das, was er schon weiß keine geringe Rolle spielt. Wir sehen hier also das Zusammenwirken der Wortund grammatischen Bedeutungen mit der konsituativen Lage, die der Empfänger in Betracht ziehen muß, um das Empfangene zu verstehen. In der Konsituation wird die vom Sender gemeinte Bedeutung des Ausdrucks klar oder wenigstens klarer. Je eindeutiger die Worte, desto geringer ist die Rolle der Konsituation. Da sich die Mehrdeutigkeit und sonstiges Geräusch aber auch in der Fachsprache nie gänzlich vermeiden lassen, kann die Einbeziehung der Konsituation auch hier nicht ausgeschlossen werden. Das Gesagte gilt also für die Sprache überhaupt. In der Fachsprache muß man hier deshalb, aber auch nur deshalb strenger vorgehen, den Ausdruck mehr von der Konsituationsbedingtheit befreien, weil die Mißverständnisse in der fachlichen Kommunikation mehr Schaden anrichten können, als es in alltäglichen Lebenssituationen gewöhnlich der Fall ist. Das Fehlen der Konsituationsbedingtheit ist demnach kein immanenter Charakterzug der Termini. Auch ist diese Bedingtheit keine Alternative der Feldgebundenheit des Wortes. Es ist vielmehr ein Ziel, das man in der Terminologiearbeit unter Beachtung von typischen Konsituationen, die das Verständnis erleichtern, in vernünftigen Grenzen anstreben soll.

Also soll man nicht die Möglichkeit außer acht lassen, die Fachausdrücke dort in der laufenden Kommunikation zu verkürzen, wo die Konsituationen die Eindeutigkeit des Ausdrucks gewährleisten. Die Konsituationen sind auszunutzen, nicht nur beiseite zu schieben.

3. In Helmut Felbers "Terminology Manual" steht geschrieben, daß nur die "terms of concepts" für den Fachsprachsachverständigen von Belang sind, nicht aber die Beugungs- und Satzregeln (Felber, 1984, S. 98). Wer an der Neuschöpfung von Termini beteiligt gewesen ist, möchte hier

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fragen, wie es denn mit den Regeln der Wortbildung steht.

Am sichersten läßt sicht behaupten, daß die Antwort von der konkreten Sprache abhängt. Am Beispiel des Estnischen ersieht man, daß die Antwort sogar für eine Einzelsprache nicht einheitlich zu sein braucht. Wie das Deutsche, so ist auch das Estnische eine Sprache mit vielen zusammengesetzten Wörtern und vielfältigen Möglichkeiten der Kompositabildung. Die Vorderglieder der Komposita vermitteln ihre Bedeutung noch differenzierter als im Deutschen, insbesondere wird zwischen dem nominativischen und dem genitivischen Bestimmungsglied unterschieden. Diese Differenz ist in der allgemeinen Sprache geringer und in der Fachsprache größer; die entsprechende Regel kann demgemäß als zur Fachsprache gehörig angesehen werden (sie wurde auch gerade für die Fachsprache vorgeschlagen). Der Nominativ korreliert mit einer gewissen Gruppe von Bedeutungen und der Genitiv mit einer anderen. Z.B.: palavik `Fieber', Gen. palaviku; palavikravi `Fieberbehandlung' (in der Psychiatrie), dagegen palavikuravi `Heilverfahren gegen Fieber'. Eine große Ausnahme bilden die systematischen chemischen Stoffbenennungen, wo nur der Nominativ angewandt wird; z.B. entspricht dem lateinischen natrii sulfas (mit Gen. natrii) das estnische Wort naatriumsulfaat mit dem Nominativ naatrium-. Das gehört also ganz zur Fachsprache, zu einem ihrer Teilgebiete.

Dagegen sieht es mit Ableitungen von Verbalstämmen anders aus. Die Stellung des Verbs in der Terminologie ist lange Zeit ein Problem gewesen; soweit ich informiert bin, sind erst in den 70er Jahren ernstere Stimmen laut geworden, die dem Verb in der Fachsprache die gleiche Stellung wie anderen Wortarten einräumen. Auch Eugen Wüster hat sich dazu geäußert (Wüster, 1979, S. 112). Bei der Betrachtung der estnischen Deverbalbildung hat sich herausgestellt, daß in den Gruppen von Ableitungen, die von einem Verbalstamm ausgehen, eben dieser Stamm die terminologische, begriffsnahe Bedeutung trägt, während verschiedene Suffixe im laufenden Text frei angewandt und synonymische Bildungselemente auch aus stilistischen Erwägungen beliebig ausgetauscht werden können. Das Gesagte gilt, soweit die Idiomatisierung noch nicht vorangeschritten oder engere Bedeutungen nicht durch Festsetzung an einzelne Ableitungen gebunden sind. So kann man die estnische Deverbalableitung größtenteils aus der Spezialgrammatik der Fachsprache ausschließen. (Diese Erkenntnis hebt wieder einmal die Notwendigkeit hervor, die Verben als solche und nicht nur in der Gestalt substantivischer Ableitungen in die Fachwortlisten aufzunehmen.)

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Am terminologischen Sprachmaterial haben wir einige Regelmäßigkeiten der Deverbalableitung beschreiben können, die für die Gesamtsprache gelten, in der Fachsprache aber als besonders beachtenswert erscheinen, da sie die Einengung bzw. die Erweiterung des Wortsinnes in feinen Abstufungen ermöglichen. Hierher gehört das sog. Doppelverhältnis des Deverbalsubstantivs, das sich zum Teil auch mit deutschen Beispielen veranschaulichen ließe: dem transitiven Verb widerspiegeln und dem reflexiven sich widerspiegeln entspricht ein einziges Deverbalsubstantiv Widerspiegelung als Benennung des Vorgangs, wobei also die Opposition transitiv/intransitiv neutralisiert, nicht mehr zum Ausdruck gebracht wird. Im Estnischen kann man ein solches Substantiv mit verschiedenen synonymen Suffixen bilden, die doch insoweit nicht ganz synonym sind, daß das eine die genannte Opposition beibehält, das andere sie aber neutralisiert: Infinitive peegeldada und reflexiv peegelduda; die differenzierenden Substantive peegeldamine und peegeldumine; das neutralisierende Substantiv peegeldus zu beiden Verben. So geht denn die Fachsprachforschung wieder einmal Hand in Hand mit der Erforschung der Schriftsprache überhaupt.

4. Wo wir, estnische Terminolinguisten, unseres eigenen Erachtens in der praxisbezogenen Theorie am meisten fortgeschritten sind, das ist die Lehre von der Synonymie in der Fachsprache.

Für die Synonymie wurde in der sowjetischen Fachsprachlehre schon früh ein Platz eingeräumt, der zwar eng und streng begrenzt, doch trotzdem vorhanden war. Das widerspiegelt sich gut in posthumen Arbeiten Dmitri Lottes (gest. 1950; Lotte, 1961, S. 15, 21ff.). Dagegen war während der Auflebung des russischen terminologischen Gedankens Ende 60er/Anfang 70er Jahre die Synonymie in der Terminologie meist verpönt. Zu dieser Frage haben sich zwei estnische Linguisten im Jahre 1970 auf einem internationalen Finnougristenkongreß in einem gemeinsamen Vortrag geäußert (Kull und Saari, 1975, S. 245 ff.). Die Forderung, daß nur ein Ausdruck einem Begriff entsprechen soll, wurde nicht für ganz falsch erklärt, wohl aber wurde ihre störende Trivialität eingesehen. Wir haben drei Gruppen von Fällen hervorgehoben, wo der doppelte Ausdruck zugelassen, teils sogar zu empfehlen ist. In der estnischen Sprachpraxis haben sich diese drei Gruppen von Synonymen bewährt, wenn es auch in anderen Sprachen nicht der Fall sein mag.

Die erste Gruppe umfaßt Wortpaare, die aus einem Eigenwort und einem Fremdwort desselben Inhalts bestehen. Die zweite

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Gruppe bilden die Grundtermini mit ihren Alltagsvarianten. Wir halten es für angebracht, durchdachte, terminologisch vertretbare Alltagsvarianten in Wörterbücher und Normblätter aufzunehmen, um unsachkundigen Kurzbildungen vorzubeugen und die Front zwischen den hochsprachlichen Fachausdrücken und dem Werkstattslang zugunsten der ersteren aufrechtzuerhalten, obwohl wir es weder für nötig noch für möglich halten, den Fachslang ganz aus der Kommunikation auszuschalten. Die dritte Gruppe bilden sprachpragmatisch und kontextuell bedingte Veränderungen des Grundterminus im Rahmen des grammatisch und semantisch Möglichen. Die Auslassung des Bestimmungsgliedes bei Wiederholung ist wohl trivial. Hierher gehören aber z.B. auch solche Fälle, wo bei festgesetzter Zusammenschreibung eines Terminus doch getrennt geschrieben werden muß, wenn das Bestimmungsglied definit ist: keeleselg `Zungenrücken', doch keele selg, wenn keel `Zunge' im konkreten Satz definit ist. Auch durch das Variieren der inneren Form der Ausdrücke können Varianten entstehen, die das gleiche Denotat bezeichnen und doch einigermaßen sinnverschieden sind, z.B. beim festgesetzten elektrijaam, buchstäblich "Elektrizitätsstation", muß man auch jõujaam, buchst. "Kraftstation" oder energiakäitis, buchst. ''Energiebetrieb" zulassen. (Das sind die estnischen Bezeichnungen für `Kraftwerk'.) Außerdem gehören zur dritten Gruppe die Übergangsstellen vom motivierten Ausdruck zu dem arbiträren, wodurch das Fachwort verkürzt und eine flottere Bildung von zusammengesetzten Termini ermöglicht wird. Das markanteste Beispiel aus dem Estnischen ist wohl das Phantasiewort raal `Rechenautomat, Elektronenrechner' in Zusammensetzungen wie raalreferaat `maschienelles Referat', raalreguleerimine `direkte digitale Steuerung, DDC' usw. Auch gehört hierher das Ersetzen von Komposita durch Ableitungen, wie z.B. vagunitühjendi -> kaadur (beide `Waggonkipper').

Im folgenden sei auf die Eigenwort/Fremdwort-Paare (E/F-Paare) kurz eingegangen.

Neben anderen sowjetischen Forschern hat Valerij Akulenko behauptet, daß ein "wenig internationalisierter" Fachwortschatz den Vorteil habe, aus der Gesamtsprache des entsprechenden Volkes motiviert zu sein, und den Nachteil, daß die Ausdruckslänge wächst (Akulenko, 1977, S. 81). Unter anderem sollen einige finnisch-ugrische Sprachen als Beispiel dazu dienen, daß die Mitteilungen sich merklich verlängern, wenn man Eigenwörter anstatt Fremdwörter benutzt. Welche finnisch-ugrischen Sprachen Akulenko meint, wird dabei nicht klar, allerdings haben wir die Gültigkeit seiner

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Behauptung für das Estnische überprüft und sind zu einem anderen Ergebnis gekommen. Als Prüffeld diente uns die mathematische Terminologie, die sich im Estnischen früh ausbildete und darum nicht von dem modernen Bestreben nach Kürze berührt wurde. Im mathematischen Fachwörterbuch aus dem Jahre 1978 (Matemaatika, 1978) finden sich rund 170 EF-Paare. Die Wortlänge wurde nach der Silbenzahl bestimmt. Die durchschnittliche Länge der Eigenwörter gegenüber der Länge der entsprechenden Fremdwörter betrug 0,84 bei strenger Silbenzählung und 0,81 bei einer Art "freimütiger" oder "volkstümlicher" Silbenzählung. Daß estnische Eigenwörter also im Durchschnitt kürzer sind als die Fremdwörter desselben Inhalts, hängt mit der Tatsache zusammen, daß die durschschnittliche Länge der estnischen Texte im Vergleich mit den deutschen, finnischen, russischen Übersetzungen bzw. Urtexten geringer erscheint. Wenn im Russischen eher die Fremdwörter als ableitungsfähiger gelten (davlenije `Druck', aber das abgeleitete Adjektiv kompressionnyj), so ist es im Estnischen genau umgekehrt, und sollte sich ein Fremdwort als nicht gut ableitungsfähig erweisen, dann genügt meistens, einen eigenen Wortstamm einzusetzen: suru- und surve ergeben eher ansprechende Weiterbildungen als kompressiooni-. Es ist kaum zu bezweifeln, daß die erwähnten Ergebnisse für die gesamte Schriftsprache Gültigkeit haben, wenn auch die konkreten Zahlen bei anderem Material andere Werte annehmen können.

Was die theoretische Begründung der Synonymie in der Fachsprache angeht, so sei kurz auf zwei Thesen hingewiesen und weiter über die sog. Zweitanalyse der EF-Paare berichtet. Die erste These betrifft die stilistische Ausdrucksqualität der Fachtexte. Eine in gewissen Grenzen gehaltene Abwechslung des Ausdrucks kann auch den Fachtexten nicht schaden, wenn sie stilistisch vollwertig sein sollen. Und das sollen sie doch. Wenn man die Fachliteratur auch nicht gerade zur "Zierde der Nationalsprache" erheben will, so ist heute ihr Anteil im gesamten Lesegut beachtenswert und deswegen auch ihre Rolle bei der Spracherziehung des Volkes nicht zu unterschätzen. Natürlich sei dem Fachmann nach wie vor das Recht eingeräumt, das gleiche Ding immer mit gleichem Wort zu nennen, um Klarheit zu beschaffen, mögen die Nuancen des Stils auch darunter etwas leiden 1.

Die zweite These spricht von der sog. semantischen Asymmetrie, die aus der logischen Semantik und den formalisierten Sprachen bekannt ist. Demnach funktioniert ein Kommunikationssystem störungsfrei, wenn eine Bezeichnung immer nur einem Bezeichneten entspricht, während dem Bezeichneten auch mehrere Bezeichnungen entsprechen

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können. Oft ist eine solche Asymmetrie vorteilhaft; wer z.B. mit den Befehlslisten für Elektronenrechner vertraut ist, hat auch die vielfältige Bedeutungsgleichheit der Commands erlebt. Für die Fachsprache sollte auch der Erklärungswert des parallelen Ausdrucks wichtig sein; ich meine die Fälle, wo ein Ausdruck den anderen eben erklärt, sei es denn in formalisierten Sprachen

oder in der natürlichen: ikosaeeder on kakskümmendtahukas `Ikosaeder ist ein Zwanzigflächner'.

Die vorhin erwähnte Zweitanalyse geht von der Annahme aus, daß es sich in genügend begrenzten Fachwortfeldern prinzipiell um Vollsynonyme handelt. Der Terminus als fachsprachliche Einheit wird von dem Signifikat (Designat), also von dem Inhalt konstitutiert. Demnach können das Eigenwort und das Fremdwort in EF-Paaren nicht mehr als verschiedene lexikalische Einheiten, sondern als verschiedene Zeichenkörper desselben Zeichens angesehen werden. Anders gesagt, sie sind die Alloformen des Terminus. Die erste Stufe der Analyse die übliche Bewertung soll zeigen, ob beide Alloformen in der Fachsprache verbleiben können. Angenommen, keine von ihnen ist gerade fehlerhaft, können sie der Zweitanalyse unterzogen werden, die folgende Prüfpunkte umfaßt: 1) Der Endo- und Exobezug der Alloformen; 2) ihre Präzisionsfähigkeit; 3) ihre Fähigkeit zur Weiterbildung, worüber schon das Allerwichtigste gesagt worden ist; 4) die Systembildungsfähigkeit und vielleicht ist die Liste der Prüfpunkte damit noch nicht erschöpft.

Endobezug heißt, daß die Alloform für das ganze eigene Volk, für das ganze Sprachkollektiv existiert. Der Endobezug ist meistens, doch nicht ausnahmslos die Eigenschaft des Eigenwortes, während der Exobezug sehr oft zu den Eigenschaften des Fremdwortes zählt. Exobezug hat soviel zu bedeuten, daß die Alloform das internationale Spezialistenkollektiv anspricht, das verständlicherweise auch einen Teil des eigenen Sprachkollektivs einschließt. Die Voraussetzung ist natürlich, daß es sich auch wirklich um ein interlinguales Wort handelt, daß Form und Bedeutung sich in vielen Sprachen decken die Form mit gewissen regelmäßigen Veränderungen von einer Sprache zur anderen, die Bedeutung im engen Fachwortfeld gänzlich. Also sind verschiedene Alloformen für verschiedene Benutzerkreise bestimmt und haben dementsprechend auch verschiedene Vorteile. Darin liegt schließlich auch ihre Daseinsberechtigung.

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Man kann zwei Arten von Endobezug unterscheiden: die einfache Eigenwörtlichkeit und die Transparenz. Die einfache Eigenwörtlichkeit hat zu bedeuten, daß das Wortgebilde (der Zeichenkörper) als eigen empfunden wird. Hier können wir uns auf die Faustregel berufen, wonach jedes Fremdwort richtig, die Vielzahl der Fremdwörter im Text aber falsch ist. Wenn man sich der einfachen Eigenwörtlichkeit von einem sehr rationalen Standpunkt aus nähert, so findet man darin wenig Vorteilhaftes, sie hat aber einen starken Hintergrund im nationalen Sprachbewußtsein. Valerija Danilenko, die so manches für das Fremdwort in der russischen Terminologie übrig hat, ist überzeugt, daß die eigensprachliche Variante jedesmal vorzuziehen ist, wenn nicht die Kürze und die Fähigkeit zur Weiterbildung dem Fremdwort den Vorzug geben (Danilenko, 1977, S. 171). Das widerspricht auch nicht Wüsters Ansichten, der die Angleichung von Wortgebilden zwar guthieß, die Angleichung von Begriffen aber für "unvergleichlich wichtiger" hielt (Wüster, 1979, S. 94).

Die Transparenz der Fachwörter ist besonders für den Unterricht von unüberschätzbarer Wichtigkeit, und dasselbe gilt für die Berührungsgebiete des Fachlichen und des Alltäglichen. Aus diesem Grund wurden die estnischen Benennungen für Fachärzte in die offizielle Nomenklatur der Berufe mit aufgenommen und für den öffentlichen Gebrauch empfohlen (lastearst, närviarst, silmaarst neben pediaater, neuropatoloog, oftalmoloog), auch wenn im offiziellen Russisch nur die Ausdrücke wie vrac-pediatr, vrac-nevropatolog usw. zugelassen sind.

Im Kontaktfeld vieler östlicher sowie westlicher Einflüsse, wo wir Esten leben, haben wir auch erfahren, daß die Transparenz der Fremdwörter durch ihre langen, verwickelten und verschwommenen Schicksale in verschiedenen Sprachen zuweilen stark beeinträchtigt ist. Und wenn auch das Estnische im allgemeinen ganz gut gegen die störende Einmischung des Englischen geschützt ist, macht sich in der letzten Zeit doch der semantische Zwiespalt bemerkbar, der entsteht, wenn man ein Fremdwort statt der herkömmlichen Bedeutung mit der neulich aus dem Englischen entlehnten ausstattet. Z.B. verlieren etliche Zusammensetzungen mit kontroll- an Verständlichkeit, wenn das Wortglied im englischen Sinne `Leitung, Steuerung' in Komposita eingebaut wird, denn bisher hat das Wort kontroll, ein einzelner spezifischer Fall ausgenommen (kontroller `Kontroller als Umschaltgerät für Stromkreise'), die Bedeutung `Kontrolle, Überwachung, Aufsicht, Prüfung gehabt. Es verwirrt einen, wenn der Computerlehrer die CTRL-Taste als Taste für "kontrollsümbolid" (statt juhtmärgid; juht- `Leit-, Steuer-') erklärt.

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Zur Präzisionsfähigkeit sei gesagt, daß wir der Behauptung einiger Slawisten, die Fremdwörter seien dank ihrer Isoliertheit im Sprachsystem genauer (Kutina, 1970, S. 89), nicht beipflichten können. Es mag hier ein Unterschied zwischen den Klein- und den Großvölkersprachen bestehen. Bei Großvölkern begnügt man sich oft mit der Muttersprache, während bei Kleinvölkern die Beherrschung von Fremdsprachen lebenswichtiger und deshalb Tradition geworden ist. Die Fremdwörter stehen dann nicht isoliert im sprachlichen Bewußtsein. Auch läßt sich die Sprache eines kleinen Volkes mit sprachpflegerischen Mitteln leichter beeinflussen, die Neubildungen verbreiten sich verhältnismäßig schnell. So müssen wir wahrnehmen, daß sich die interlingual verbreiteten Wörter von uns kaum beeinflussen lassen, also wenn sie schon mehrdeutig sind, können auch wir das nicht vermeiden; dagegen den eigenen Wortschatz können wir besser nach terminologischen Prinzipien ausbauen. Solche Bestrebungen haben auch Erfolg gehabt; als ein Beispiel sei das Wort ökonoomia angeführt, dessen verschiedene Bedeutungen von wenigstens sechs estnischen Eigenwörtern vermittelt werden (majandus, majandusteadus, kokkuhoid, majand, majus, majapidamine; Mereste, 1980, S. 175).

Die Systembildungsfähigkeit der Termini hängt von ihrer inneren Form ab und besteht in den meisten Fällen darin, daß ein sich wiederholender Wortteil die Wörter zu einer Gruppe vereinigt, die fachlich relevant ist. Die Erscheinung ist in der Terminologie gut bekannt. Deswegen sei hier nur auf eine Einzelheit, die sprachliche Begriffsinduktion hingeweisen. Uns haben die Fälle interessiert, wo die formellen Beziehungen der Eigenwörter Wortgebilde entstehen lassen, die solchen Begriffen entsprechen, welche in der internationalen Wissenschaft nicht geläufig sind und auch nicht durch interlinguale Termini ausgedrückt werden. Das beste Beispiel ist die Bildung von rõhkkond aus madalrõhkkond `Zyklone' und kõrgrõhkkond `Antizyklone'; rõhkkond bedeutet demnach den nächsten Gattungsbegriff für die beiden Wettererscheinungen.

Der Sinn der Zweitanalyse ist nicht, die Eigenwörter in jedem Fall vorzuziehen. Sie soll von Fall zu Fall zeigen, welche Eigenschaften ein Wort mit dem anderen gleichbedeutenden hat, damit man imstande ist, dieses oder jenes für verschiedene Texte zu empfehlen.

5. Im letzten Punkt soll die Aufmerksamkeit auf ein Teilproblem der Synonymie gelenkt werden, das mit zu der allgemeinen linguistischen Semantik gehört und sich mit dem terminologisch-lexikalischen Material lösen läßt. Das ist das

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Problem der verschiedensinnigen denotatgleichen Termini (oder Wörter überhaupt). Wir wollen hier nur ein Beispiel analysieren, nämlich die Ausdrücke Schwefeltrioxid und Anhydrid der Schwefelsäure; im Estnischen übrigens sind sie beide Einwortbildungen: vääveltrioksiid und väävelhappeanhüdriid.

Das bekannte Dreieck von Gomperz und Ogden verbindet drei Punkte, die in der Literatur verschieden benannt werden. Ich gebrauche hier die Bezeichnungen Wort- oder Zeichenkörper, Signifikat (auch Designat genannt) und Denotat (auch Referent genannt). Das Denotat ist, kurz gesagt, die Sache oder das Ding, das genannt wird; im Signifikat befindet sich der sprachliche Inhalt des Wortes; der Wortkörper ist das äußere Gebilde, das aus Phonemen oder Schriftzeichen besteht. Die Verbindungslinie zwischen dem Wortkörper und dem Signifikat stellt das Bedeutungsverhältnis dar. Von der Verbindung zwischen dem Wortkörper und dem Denotat kann gesagt werden, daß sie die assoziative Verknüpfung zwischen dem Wortgebilde und der Sache darstellt: beim Hören des Wortes kommt die Sache in den Sinn. Man kann darüber verschiedener Meinung sein, ob diese Verknüpfung mit zur Wortbedeutung gehört. Z.B. John Lyons schreibt folgendermaßen darüber: "Da die Gleichheit der Bedeutung die Synonymie ein solches Verhältnis ist, das zwischen zwei (oder mehreren) lexikalischen Einheiten besteht, hat sie mit dem Sinn, nicht mit der Referenz [der Denotation] zu tun" (Lyons, 1968, S. 427). Also für die Fälle der Synonymie schließt Lyons den Denotatbezug aus der Wortbedeutung aus. Lyons geht davon aus, daß die Synonymie zwischen Wörtern, dagegen aber das Denotationsverhältnis zwischen dem Wort und der Sache besteht. Wir können wohl annehmen, daß er eben auf die Natur der Denotation nicht genügend Acht gibt. Wie gesagt, haben wir es hier mit Assoziationen zu tun, also doch mit Inhalten des Bewußtseins. Auch Lyons stellt nicht in Abrede, daß die Denotation (die Referenz) im allgemeinen ein semantisches Verhältnis ist (Lyons, 1968, S. 425).

Demnach kann man nun auf zweierlei Art und Weise vorgehen. Man kann nur die Gleichheit des Signifikats zur Synonymie rechnen, man kann aber auch das Denotationsverhältnis mit einbeziehen und dann zwischen der signifikativen und der denotativen Bedeutung unterscheiden.

Normalerweise ist die Synonymie als Gleichheit sowohl der signifikativen, als auch der denotativen Bedeutung aufzufassen, z.B. bei Telefon und Fernsprecher ist sowohl der signifikative als auch der assoziative Inhalt der beiden Wörter gleich. So einfach ist es nicht mit Belegen von der Art unseres Beispiels: Schwefeltrioxid und

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Schwefelsäureanhydrid. Der Stoff ist derselbe, was aber den Inhalt der beiden Ausdrücke angeht, so sollten wir uns am besten an Gottlob Frege erinnern, der zu denotatgleichen Zeichen folgendes gesagt hat: "Eine Verschiedenheit [der Zeichen] kann nur dadurch zustande kommen, daß der Unterschied des Zeichens einem Unterschiede in der Art des Gegebenseins des Bezeichneten entspricht" (Frege ,1892, S. 26 = Frege, 1962, S. 39). Wie sollen wir nun die "Art des Gegebenseins des Bezeichneten" verstehen?

Wie bekannt, können wir in der Terminologie die Wortbedeutung mit dem Begriff praktisch gleichsetzen. Der Begriff als gedankliches Gebilde in der Rolle der Wortbedeutung hat seinen Platz im Signifikat. Ein Begriff hat verschiedene Merkmale. Die Logiker sagen, die einen Merkmale seien für die Begriffsbestimmung wichtig, die anderen unwichtig. Nun hat aber jedermann erfahren, daß die Wichtigkeit nichts Absolutes ist, sondern von dem gegebenen Zweck abhängt. Also können aus der Menge der Merkmale eines Begriffs in verschiedenen Fällen verschiedene Bündel der wichtigen Merkmale herausgegriffen werden. So entstehen die verschiedenen Arten des Gegebenseins des Bezeichneten. Anders gesagt: so entstehen die verschiedenen Sinne, die alle zusammen zu einem Begriff gehören. Das ist der Fall beim Stoff SO₃. Die Bezeichnung Schwefeltrioxid hebt jene Merkmale hervor, die die atomare Struktur seines Moleküls angeben. Dagegen die Bezeichnung Schwefelsäureanhydrid hebt eine andere Gruppe von Merkmalen hervor, nämlich die Beziehungen des Stoffes zu Säure und Wasser. Gleichzeitig schließt dieses Bündel von Merkmalen den Stoff in eine Klasse von Oxiden ein, welche eben solche Beziehungen zu Säuren und zu Wasser haben. Das ist, was ich meine, wenn ich Schwefeltrioxid und Schwefelsäureanhydrid sinnverschiedene denotatsgleiche Termini nenne. Sind diese nun aber Synonyme oder nicht?

Wenn man nun so vorgeht, wie John Lyons und andere es tun, also bei der Bestimmung der Synonymie nur den signifikativen Inhalt des Wortes in Betracht zieht, so kommt in Frage, die beiden Bezeichnungen überhaupt nicht zu den Synonymen zu zählen, da sie doch verschiedene Sinne haben. Und Lyons sagt auch ausdrücklich: "Man kann annehmen, daß. . . die Gleichheit der Referenz [der Denotation] eine notwendige, aber nicht genügende Bedingung der Synonymie ist" (Lyons, 1968, S. 427).

Für den Terminologen geht hier aber etwas verloren. Eine Welt voller Dinge, voller Denotaten ist sein Element. So hält er es für natürlich, daß zwei Bezeichnungen des gleichen Stoffes doch synonym sind. So bezieht er die denotative Bedeutung,

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die Assoziation zwischen dem Wortgebilde und der Sache immer in die gesamte Wortbedeutung mit ein.

Ich glaube, jegliche Einseitigkeit in dieser Frage wird beseitigt, wenn man auch in der allgemeinen linguistischen Semantik die Synonymie nicht nur aufgrund des Signifikats bestimmt, sondern auch die denotative Bedeutungsgleicheit als ausschlaggebend ansieht.

Ein anderes Beispiel der sinnverschiedenen denotatgleichen Synonymie bilden die Bezeichnungen Schwerpunkt des Dreiecks und der Schnittpunkt der Seitenhalbierenden des Dreiecks. Hier läßt sich nur bezweifeln, ob wir die gesamten Ausdrücke selbständige Termini nennen können, da sie syntaktische Verbindungen von Termini sind. Das Beispiel zeigt aber, daß die sinnverschiedene denotatgleiche Synonymie nicht nur zu Wortbedeutungen, sondern weiter zum inhaltichen Aspekt der Sprache gehört ².

So haben wir anhand des terminologischen Materials einen Begriff gebildet, der nicht nur in der Fachsprachlehre, sondern auch in der Linguistik im allgemeinen angewandt werden kann. Wenn wir ihn auf die allgemeine Schriftsprache beziehen wollen, brauchen wir nur einige Präzisierungen vorzunehmen, die die sog. Mitbedeutungen betreffen und den prinzipiellen Unterschied zwischen dem Begriff als logische und der Bedeutung als linguistische Einheit verdeutlichen.

Übrigens hängen verschiedene Sinne eines Begriffs man könnte sie auch Begriffe im engeren Sinne nennen nicht davon ab, ob für sie differente Zeichenkörper existieren. Man denke z.B. an den Begriff Freiheit, der für den Politiker, den Juristen ("Freiheitsentzug", "-beraubung"), den Physiker oder Ingenieur (''Freiheitsgrade") verschiedene Sinne hat und doch immer mit dem gleichen Wort bezeichnet wird. Als Beispiel für solche Mehrsinnigkeit in den Grenzen eines Fachgebiets dienen mehrere mathematische Begriffe, darunter Winkel, der allein in der Planimetrie dreifach definiert werden kann: 1) als Vereinigung zweier Strahlen, 2) als Vereinigung der Lagen einer sich begrenzt drehenden Halbgeraden, 3) als eine gewisse Maßzahl.

Man hat die Fachsprache und ihren Wortschatz lange Zeit als etwas betont Besonderes und Eigenartiges angesehen. Vielleicht haben wir so unsere Wissenschaft vor uns selbst rechtfertigen wollen. Man sollte gelassen bekennen, daß die Fachsprache vor allem eine natürliche Sprache ist und daß wir ihre Eigenart, ihre besonderen Züge nicht zu verleugnen brauchen, wenn wir ihr lexikalisches Gut zur allgemeinen Sprachforschung heranziehen³.

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Anmerkungen

1. Ein Beispiel aus Theo Bungartens Vortrag auf dem Vaasaer Symposion: "Es wird gezeigt, daß die optimale Dämpfung eines Dämpfers, dessen Dämpferflüssigkeit eine Flüssigkeit zweiter Ordnung ist..."

2. Die Bezeichnungen der Art Anhydrid der ... säure seien aus der Nomenklatur der chemischen Stoffe gestrichen. In der chemischen Literatur finden sie sich doch. Vom Standpunkt der praktischen Terminologiearbeit ist dazu nur soviel zu sagen, daß es tatsächlich den Fachleuten vorbehalten bleiben muß, die sinnverschiedene denotatgleiche Synonymie zu benutzen oder nicht zu benutzen. Wenn es um eine Nomenklatur geht, die aus strukturbezogenen Stoffbezeichnungen bestehen soll, gehören anderssinnige Bezeichnungen wirklich nicht dazu, ohne daß man sie aus der ganzen Wissenschaft auszuschließen braucht.

3. Ausführlichere Behandlung der hier angesprochenen Probleme in: Saari, 1980; 1981a; 1981b; 1981c; 1983; 1985.

Literatur

Akulenko, V. (1977) Naucno-techniceskaja revol'ucija i problema internacional'noj terminologii. Naucno-techniceskaja revol'ucija i funkcionirovanije jazykov mira, 73-84. Moskva.

Danilenko, V. (1977) Russkaja terminologija. Moskva.

Frege, G. (1892) Über Sinn und Bedeutung. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Philosophische Kritik, 25-50. N.F. Bd. 100.

(1962) Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung. Göttingen.

Felber, H. (1984) Terminology Manual. Paris.

Kull, R. und Saari, H. (1975) Die Entwicklung des estnischen terminologischen Gedankens und die Förderung der Fachsprachen in den letzten Jahren. Pars. 1. Acta linguistica, 245-249. Congressus tertius internationalis Fenno-ugristarum Tallinnae habitus. 17.-23. VIII 1970. Tallinn.

Kutina, L. (1970) Jazykovyje processy, voznikajuscije pri stanovlenii naucnych terminologiceskich sistem. Lingvisticeskije problemy naucno-techniceskoj terminologii, 82-94. Moskva.

Lotte, D. (1961) Osnovy postrojenija naucno-techniceskoj terminologii. Moskva.

Lyons, J. (1968) Introduction to theoretical linguistics.

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Cambridge.

Matemaatika (1978) = Matemaatika oskussõnastik. Tallinn.

Mereste, U. (1980) Terminid ökonoomia, ökonoomika ja majandus. Keel ja Kirjandus, 3, 173-176. Tallinn.

Metslang, Ch. (1978) Nekotoryje sintaksiceskije aspekty stichovogo parallelizma v estonskoj runiceskoj pesne. Dissertacija ... kand. filol. nauk. Tallin.

Rebane, J. (1970) Informatsioon ja ühiskondlik tunnetus. Ajalooline materialism, 7-99. Tallinn.

Reformatskij, A. (1961) Cto takoje termin i terminologija. Voprosy terminologii, 46-54. Moskva.

Saari, Ch. (1981) Analiz principov estonskoj terminologii. Dissertacija ... kand. filol. nauk. Tallin.

(1985) Pary svojejazycnych i inorodnych terminov (mnogoaspektnyj analiz). Mokslo kalbos kulturos ir terminologijos problemos, 121-127. Vilnius.

Saari, H. (1980) Omasõna ja võõrsõna paarid eesti oskussõnavaras (1). Eelduste loomine. Keel ja Kirjandus, 11, 654-666, 12, 737-743.

(1981a) Omasõna ja võõrsõna paarid eesti oskussõnavaras (2). Omast vaatenurgast. Keel ja Kirjandus, 4, 201-210; 5, 282-288.

(1981b): Verb ja tema moodustuspesad eesti oskuskeeles. Tartu Riikliku Ulikooli toimetised, 574, 51-79. Tartu.

(1983) Mida nimetada terminiks. Terminoloogilisi mistselle (II). Keel ja Kirjandus, 5, 249-252.

Wahrig, G. (1984) Deutsches Wörterbuch. S.1.

Wüster, E. (1979) Einführung in die Allgemeine Terminologielehre und Terminologische Lexikographie. T. 1. Wien, New York.

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9
Language Status Planning in Québec

Jacques Maurais
Conseil de la langue française, Québec, Canada

Since 1969, three major language laws have been enacted in Québec: the Act to promote the French language in Québec of 1969 (Bill 63), the Official Language Act of 1974 (Bill 22) and the Charter of the French Language of 1977 (Bill 101). There have also been a number of other laws with linguistic impact (see Maurais, 1987), but I will focus in this address on certain aspects of Québec's language planning project as defined in the Charter of the French language, which is currently in force.

Several factors, which emerged more conspicuously in the 1960s, were at the root of the various language laws. Among them are: the economic inferiority of Francophones, not only within the whole of Canada, but within Québec itself, the preponderance of English in the labour market and the apprehensions of French-speaking Canadians regarding their demographic situation. For a long time, the demographic aspect largely dominated the language debate. Québec is the only Canadian province with a French-speaking majority and, before the government intervened in the language field, certain demographic indicators were alarming. Immigrants were becoming assimilated into the English-speaking group, while Francophones, because of their declining birthrate, could not offset the number of immigrants that were swelling English-speaking ranks. Hence, a growing language shift toward English was noted, facilitated by the educational system. Not only Allophones (immigrants whose mother tongue is neither French nor English), but even French-speaking Québecers were more attracted to English schools than to French schools. In 1971-1972, 85% of Allophone youngsters attended English schools, while only 15% attended French schools (see St-Germain, 1980, and Paillé, 1981). In 1973, 25,000 French-speaking youngters were enrolled in English schools (Duchesne, 1973). By the late 1960s, it had become obvious that Allophones would only attend French schools if French were required on the job and if the urban environment, especially in Montréal, reflected the predominantly French character of Québec. This situation motivated language legislation in three main areas the school, the workplace and public signs. I would now like to discuss the way in which the Charter of the French language

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deals with these three areas and attempt to assess its impact on them.

In the area of fundamental rights, the Charter of the French language sets forth the following principle: "Every person eligible for instruction in Québec has a right to receive that instruction in French" (section 6). The 1977 version of the Charter recognized the right to instruction in English of a child whose father or mother had received elementary instruction in English in Québec (section 73a), a child whose father or mother was domiciled in Québec when the Charter came into force and had received his or her elementary instruction in English outside Québec (section 73b), and a child, and his or her younger brothers and sisters, who, when the Charter was adopted, were already receiving instruction in English in Québec in a kindergarten, elementary or secondary school (section 73c and d). These provisions were compatible with the Constitution of 1867, that guaranteed Protestant instruction in Québec (which at the time meant instruction in English, for all practical purposes).

Certain aspects of this situation were modified rather substantially when the Supreme Court noted, in July of 1984, that new constitutional rules had changed Québec's capacity to enact or enforce its own conditions for access to instruction in English. The Supreme Court recognized that a part of the 1982 Constitutional Act of Canada (particularly section 23) was designed to establish a different system of access to instruction in English. The judgment handed down opened the door to English instruction in Québec to two new categories of children: a child whose mother or father had received elementary instruction in English anywhere in Canada, and the brothers and sisters of a child of a Canadian citizen, who had received or was receiving elementary or secondary instruction in English in Canada. It should also be noted that the children of Canadian citizens whose mother tongue was English (even if these citizens had not attended English school in Canada) would be eligible for English instruction in Québec if so authorized by the Québec government under the provisions of section 59 of the 1982 Constitutional Act.

These rules have had a number of repercussions on Québec's linguistic communities. Francophones (with the exception of those who attended English elementary school) no longer have the freedom to choose the language in which their children receive their education. Moreover, although Anglophones retain their educational institutions, Francophones and the children of immigrants can no longer attend them. And finally, immigrants must enroll their children in French schools.

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The chapter of the Charter of the French language devoted to the language of instruction also allows Francophones, Anglophones and Allophones complete freedom in choosing the language of instruction at the Cegep (pre-university) and university levels. Parents may also choose the language of instruction at the elementary and secondary levels if they enroll their children in non-subsidized private institutions.

What has been the impact of the provisions contained in the Charter of the French language on English schools in Québec? In 1976-1977, 16.6% of Québec's school age children (12.2% of whose mother tongue was English) attended English schools compared to 15.6% (12.5% of whose mother tongue was English) for the 1969-1970 school year, the first year of application of the Act to promote the French language in Québec, which gave parents the freedom to choose the language of instruction (see St-Germain, 1980). In 1983-1984, enrollment in English schools dropped to 11.8% (9.1% of whose mother tongue was English). This decline was the result of the combined effect of the Charter of the French language, the lower birthrate and, especially, the exodus of Anglophone Quebecers (a net migration loss) (see Paillé, 1985b).

The effects of the Charter on the behaviour of Allophones are even more apparent. In 1976-1977 (the Charter was assented to on 26 August 1977), of 63 800 Allophone children, 50,700 attended English schools (79.5%); in 1986-1987, of 69,000 children, 24,200 were in English schools (35.1%) (Paillé, 1985b). This means that, within ten years, the proportion of Allophones attending French schools rose from some 20% to nearly 65% (for school demographic-linguistic questions, see Paillé, 1985b, in particular). One of the major objectives of the language legislation, which was to prevent immigration from contributing to a decline in the French character of Québec, therefore appears to have been achieved, at least for the time being. However, were immigration to return to its pre-1976 level, at a time when half of the immigrant children in the schools were from other Canadian provinces, the sections of the Charter of the French language relating to the language of instruction would not have their full impact since a number of the provisions were invalidated in 1984 by the Supreme Court of Canada. This could result in a decrease in the relative importance of French schools in the Ottawa River border region (Paillé, 1985a and b).

The pre-eminence given to the question of the language of work was the pivotal aspect of both the 1974 and 1977 language laws, to the extent that, in this respect, there was only a difference in degree between Bill 101 and Bill 22, as a political economist of an Ontario university has noted: "What

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is particularly striking about the law as it applies to the private sector is its strong continuity with Bill 22, the Official Language Law of 1974" (Coleman, 1984, p. 144). However, to better grasp the significance of the legislative provisions relating to the language of work, a brief historical overview should be provided.

The work of the commission of inquiry set up in 1969 by the Québec government to study the position of the French language in Québec (Gendron Commission) showed that the English language in fact dominated in the workplace. The Gendron Commission summarized the situation as follows:

French appears to be useful only to French-speaking persons. In the province of Québec itself, it remains basically a marginal language, since non-French-speaking persons have little need of it and many French-speaking people use English as much as and sometimes more than their mother tongue for important work (Gendron Report, 1972: I, p. 108).

In short, French was the language of menial jobs and low incomes and not the language of access to the upper echelons and their attendant benefits.

To carry out its mandate, i.e. to "advise the government on any legislative or administrative measures which might be passed to see to it that French is the working language in public and private undertakings in Québec" (section 14b of Bill 63 of 1969), the French Language Bureau (Office de la langue française) had begun, even before the Gendron Report was published, to set up administrative mechanisms that were to be used in implementing the 1974 legislation and the Charter of the French language.

However, to determine the management processes to bring about a linguistic change in the workplace, the French Language Bureau had to conduct pilot experiments in a number of firms. These experiments demonstrated that a francization programme could be managed in the same way as any other activity of a firm, such as a change in a manufacturing process, without halting or slowing down production, but that there would be socio-psychological effects (including resistance to change). These francization experiments also showed that the largest firms would produce spread effects that would extend to medium and small businesses. Both the 1974 and the 1977 laws took this into consideration by first compelling firms with more than 100 employees to use French in the workplace. The pilot experiments also showed that the incentives for companies to

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use French, proposed in Bill 63, were ineffective because the firms never got beyond the linguistic analysis stage and that, accordingly, ways of compelling companies to use French had to be determined.

Moreover, the experiments showed that a linguistic profile of the company first had to be drawn up. Hence, a linguistic analysis questionnaire was developed. The Charter of the French language stipulates that all companies with more than 50 employees must fill out the questionnaire. The main areas covered in the analysis were: written communication within the company, oral communication at meetings, written communication with firms outside Québec, forms, training and reference manuals, language used in internal signs, language used in advertising, the company's policy in regard to teaching of the second language to its management personnel and other employees, linguistic criteria for hiring, promoting and transferring employees, use of French terminology within the company, the volume of translation from English to French and from French to English, and so on.

Once the linguistic analysis is completed, the company must negotiate a francization programme with the French Language Bureau. According to the Charter (section 141):

The francization programme is intended to generalize the use of French at all levels of the business firm. This implies: (a) the knowledge of the official language on the part of management, the members of the professional corporations and the other members of the staff; (b) an increase at all levels of the business firm, including the board of directors, in the number of persons having a good knowledge of the French language so as to generalize its use; (c) the use of French as the language of work and as the language of internal communication; (d) the use of French in the working documents of the business firms, especially in manuals and catalogues; (e) the use of French in communications with clients, suppliers and the public; (f) the use of French terminology; (g) the use of French in advertising; (h) appropriate policies for hiring, promotion and transfer.

As part of its francization programme, the firm negotiates with the French Language Bureau the list of positions that require knowledge of another language with a view to ensuring communication among the departments of the firm or with other companies outside Québec. It has been proposed that these positions be known as linguistic bridges. They are only to be used for communications within the firm itself (Corbeil, 1975 [1974], p. 25).

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In firms employing more than 100 people, a francization committee devises a fracization programme and supervises its application (section 150); workers must make up at least one-third of the members of the francization committee (section 146) which, according to an 1983 amendment, must meet at least three times a year.

The francization process described above may not apply to head offices and, since 1983, to research centres. The text of section 144 was amended by Bill 57, passed in 1983. It now reads as follows:

The manner of applying francization programmes in head offices and in research centres may be decided by special agreements with the Office to allow the use of a language other than French as the language of operations.

A regulation of the French Language Bureau defines the two criteria which entitle a company to a special agreement: if, on the one hand, 50% or more of the revenue of the firm is derived from exports outside Québec and, on the other, it is impossible for the firm to meet the requirements of section 141 of the Charter (quoted above in full), given the frequency of its transactions abroad, the complexity of the techniques used, its specialized staffing needs or the effects that a francization programme could have on its competitive position. One of the two criteria is sufficient to entitle the firm to a special agreement; the first criterium has been the most frequently invoked until now (see FTQ, 1985, p. 24).

Employees of (federal) Crown corporations are not subject to the provisions of the Charter of the French language, but must comply with the federal Official Languages Act, which promotes bilingualism; it is estimated that there are 40,000 to 50,000 such employees (d'Anglejan, 1984, p. 44). If the employees of firms under federal jurisdiction (banks, interprovincial transport companies and so on), non-unionized workers and those working in firms with fewer than 50 employees ¹ were added to employees of Crown Corporations, there would be nearly a million workers (out of 2.8 million) who are not really subject to the language legislation according to the chairman of the Commission de protection de la langue française (quoted in a 26 January 1985 supplement to La Presse, p. 5; see also Le Soleil, 20 October 1984).

What headway has been made in the francization of business firms? Since 1977, francization has been organized administratively for the most part. More than 97% of the firms employing over 50 people have conducted their linguistic analyses and more than 87% of these firms have set

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up francization programmes that have been approved by the French Language Bureau. By 31 March 1986, 43.7% of the large firms registered with the French Language Bureau had received their francization certificates and the remainder were implementing francization programmes that had been approved by the Bureau. Also by that date, 1,370 small and medium-sized firms (61.6%) had obtained their francization certificates (Office de la langue française, 1986, p. 13-14). The certificates attest to the fact that the firms can operate in French, i.e. that they have translated their most important documents and that a sufficient number of their management staff can express themselves in French. At this stage, francization has been achieved . . . on paper, for, although the infrastructure required for francization has been set up, a second stage, the establishment of French as the customary language of work, still has to be completed.

From 1971 to 1979, slight progress in the use of French throughout the labour force was noted; 66% of Francophones worked only in French in 1971, compared to 70% in 1979 (Monnier, 1983). Progress was more noticeable in Montréal, where 48% of French Quebecers used French as the language of work in 1971 and 55% in 1979. The largest gains in terms of the opportunity to work solely in French were recorded by office, transportation and communications employees, whereas there was a decline in this respect among Francophone administrators. It is nevertheless true that the analysis made by the Gendron Commission in 1971 was equally valid eight years later, since the French language has not made sufficient progress according to Monnier (1983, p. 38 and p. 87-89) ². However, the significance of this finding is relative, since the inquiry was conducted only two years after the Charter of the Franch language had been adopted and part of the improvement noted was the result of an increase in the number of years of education that Francophones were acquiring and in the number of firms belonging to Francophones. Since 1979, no major survey has been conducted. Available surveys are based on relatively small samples and rather general questionnaires, and therefore their margin of error is greater than the variations noted with respect to previous surveys (see, for example, Monnier, 1984).

The conclusion of research conducted jointly by the University of Québec at Montréal and the CSN and FTQ labour federations, based on data collected from December 1982 to January 1984 from 35 worker's representatives on francization committees, is as follows:

The statements that we have gathered indicate quite clearly that, in the five to six years following adoption of

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Bill 101, the use of French clearly became more widespread in the 35 firms on which our survey was based. Simultaneously, we noted that, in a major proportion of the cases, the gains made remained fragile and that francization as such was far from complete. Our survey also showed that, as a whole, the workers apparently played only a rather secondary role in the francization of the firms (Prairie, 1986, p. 118).

Finally, a report by the Conseil de la langue française on the francization of firms, published in 1986, states that ''progress has in fact been made in the use of French over the last few years", but much remains to be accomplished (Conseil de la langue française, 1986b, p. 67). The report is based on consultations with labour union representatives, members of parity committees, sectorial and professional associations, heads of firms, representatives of young workers, the principal members of the management staff of the French Language Bureau, and representatives of the Centre de linguistique de l'entreprise.

Language demands were often related to the fact that Québec did not have a French image. Signs were often bilingual, if not solely in English. The late premier, Réné Lévesque (quoted by Yves Beauchemin in La Presse on 25 April 1980), said:

In its own way, each bilingual sign says to the immigrant: there are two languages here, French and English, and you choose the one you want. To the Anglophone, it says: you don't need to learn French; everything is translated.

This statement faithfully reflects the attitude of the Nationalists toward the sign question in the late 1960s and early 1970s when they called for intervention by the government in this area.

Here is one author's description of the sign situation in downtown Montréal in the 1960s:

Look at downtown Montréal, in the Sainte-Catherine-Peel area, for example: almost all the large signs are only in English. . . There is some French on small signs in shop windows and on menus, to promote sales! But, to assert our presence, come on! These shopkeepers advertise in English, their language, or that of the most powerful in Canada, the language they have chosen, turning up their noses at the French demographic reality of Québec and Montréal itself (Lorrain, 1966, p. 80).

In 1969, the Act to promote the French language in Québec

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timidly paved the way for intervention by entrusting the French Language Bureau with the mandate to "advise the government on any legislative or administrative measures which might be passed in regard to public posting to ensure the priority of the French language therein" (section 14d). The Official Language Act of 1974 made French mandatory on public signs, rejected English unilingualism in favour of French unilingualism or bilingualism, and no longer mentioned the "priority" of French: "Public signs must be drawn up in French or in both French and another language, except within certain limits provided by regulation" (section 35). In 1977, the Charter of the French language opted squarely for French unilingualism: "except as may be provided under this act or the regulations of the Office de la langue française, signs and posters and commercial advertising shall be solely in the official language" (section 58, 1977 version). Only as an exception could the wording in French on signs be accompanied by another language in cases of ''cultural activities of a particular ethnic group" (section 61) and in "commercial establishments specializing in foreign national specialities or the specialities of a particular ethnic group" (section 62); French is not mandatory in "messages of a religious, political, ideological or humanitarian nature" from non-profit associations (section 59); and, finally, "firms employing not over four persons including the employer may erect signs and posters in both French and another language in their establishments" (not outside their establishments), but "French must be given at least as prominent display as. . . the other language" (section 60). Only the official language may be used on traffic signs (section 29).

Section 58 of the Charter of the French language was amended in 1983 to permit signs (and advertising) in a language other than French without the obligation to include a French version:

. . . in the cases and under the conditions or circumstances prescribed by regulation of the Office de la langue française, public signs and posters and commercial advertising may be both in French and in another language or solely in another language.

But this provision has not yet been made in a regulation of the French Language Bureau.

French unilingualism in signs was deemed necessary because it was to symbolize, in the eyes of the entire population, the real possibility of linguistic change. This is how it was justified:

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We have therefore chosen a number of highly visible, concrete manifestations of language and we have made them the subject of provisions in the Charter of the French language. These manifestations are: company names, signs, advertising and terminology. The changes that are occurring and will occur in these areas are directly visible and actually modify what we perceive with our eyes and ears. This will be an obvious confirmation for everyone that the law is effective, that things are changing (Corbeil, 1977, p. 12).

The provisions of the Charter of the French Language relating to signs were contested before the courts. In March 1982, the Superior Court recognized that Québec was entitled to prescribe the exclusive use of French on public signs ((1982) SC 355). However, in a judgment handed down on 28 December 1984, the same court decided in favour of five Anglophone merchants in Montréal: although the government was entitled to prescribe the use of French, it could not prohibit the use of other languages, because of the freedom of expression enshrined in the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms ((1985) SC 147). These two contradictory decisions were appealed.

From 1 October 1985 to 28 February 1986, violations of Charter provisions concerning public signs increased noticeably; the number of cases sent by the Commission de protection de la langue française to the Attorney General grew by 1,000% (Le Soleil and Le Devoir, 19 March 1986). The situation was apparently serious enough for the Conseil de la langue française to express its concern publicly (Conseil de la langue française, 1986a).

According to a study done by the Conseil de la langue française, there was a slight decrease in the number of unilingual French signs in Montréal from 1984 to 1986. Despite all of this, the number of unilingual French signs in Montréal in 1986 (depending on the method used, it is estimated at 64.7% or 77.5% for the sectors studied) was clearly higher than in the early 1970s (see Maurais and Plamondon, 1986).

Québec language legislation is broader in scope than the three aspects I have discussed in this address. Two of these three aspects are particularly innovative: while many language policies around the world have dealt in large measure with the question of education, in relatively official or explicit ways, none, to the best of our knowledge, has dealt as directly with the question of language in the workplace and in business, and it appears that none has touched on the

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question of public signs to the same extent.

Notes

1. Note, however, that the French Language Bureau may require the francization of a firm employing fewer than 50 people (section 151).

2. "As the Gendron Commission had noted, French is still used less frequently in the most prestigious professional categories; it has even regressed among management staff. This situation perpetuates the image of the French language as a dominated language on the labour market" (Monnier, 1983, p. 38).

References

Bourhis, R.Y. (1984) Conflict and Language Planning in Quebec. Clevedon (Avon, England): Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Coleman, W.D. (1984) Social Class and Language Policies in Quebec. Bourhis, R.Y. Conflict and Language Planning in Quebec, 130-147. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Conseil de la langue française (1986a) Avis du Conseil de la langue française sur la nécessité de préciser les intentions gouvernementales en matière linguistique. Québec: Conseil de la langue française.

(1986b) Les enjeux actuels de la francisation des entreprises. Coll. notes et documents no 57. Québec: Conseil de la langue française.

Corbeil, J.-C. (1975 [=1974]) Description des options linguistiques de l'Office de la langue française. Régie de la langue française. Coll. Etudes, recherches et documentation no 2.

(1977) Pricipes sociolinguistiques de la Charte de la langue française. Langues et usage des langues. Coll. Notes et documents no 50, p. 1-12. Québec: Conseil de la langue française.

D'Anglejan, A. (1984) Language Planning in Quebec: An Historical Overview and Future Trends. Bourhis, R.Y. Conflict and Language Planning in Quebec, 29-52.

Duchesne, L. (1973) La situation des langues dans les écoles du Québec et de ses régions adinistratives (1969-70 à 1972-73). Québec: Ministère de l'Education.

F.T.Q. (Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec) (1985) Travailler en français, nos droits, nos responsabilités, nos moyens d'action. Montréal: F.T.Q.

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Lorrain, R. (1966) La mort de mon joual. Montréal: Éditions du Jour.

Maurais, J. (1987) L'expérience québécoise d'aménagement linguistique. J. Maurais (ed) Politique et aménagement linguistiques. Québec: Conseil de la langue française and Paris: Éditions Robert.

Maurais, J. and Plamondon, P. (1986) Le visage français du Québec, Enquêtes sur l'affichage. Québec: Conseil de la langue française.

Monnier, D. (1983) L'usage du français au travail. Dossiers du Conseil de la langue française no 15. Québec.

(1984) La situation de la langue française au Québec, Statistiques récentes. Québec: Conseil de la langue française.

Office de la langue française (1986) Rapport annuel 1985-1986. Québec, Éditeur officiel.

Paillé, M. (1981) The Impact of Language Policies on Enrollment in Public Schools in Québec.

(1985a) Contribution à la démolinguistique du Québec. Coll. Notes et documents no 48. Québec: Conseil de la langue française.

(1985b) Conséquences des politiques québécoises sur les effectifs scolaires selon la langue d'enseignement. Communication présentée à la Société historique du Canada, 28 mai 1985.

Prairie, M. (1986) La francisation des entreprises: l'expérience vécue par des travailleurs et des travailleuses de la CSN et de la FTQ. Montréal: UQAM CSN FTQ.

Rapport Gendron (1972) 3 vol. Québec: Editeur officiel.

Saint-Germain, C. (1980) La situation linguistique dans les écoles primaires et secondaires, 1971-72 à 1978-79. Québec: Conseil de la langue française.

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II. TECHNOLECT STUDIES

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10
Communicative Function and Grammatical Variations in Medical English Scholarly Papers: A Genre Analysis Study

Françoise Salager-Meyer, Gérard Defives,
Cathy Jensen and Maria de Filipis
University of the Andes, Mérida

This research has been supported by Grant No M-273 from the Consejo de Desarrollo Científico, Humanístico y Tecnológico de la Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela.

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

In this work we examine the variations of certain linguistic devices (called "variables") within the communicative context of medical English (ME) scholarly papers and provide, by means of a principal component analysis, a framework of grammatico-rhetorical relationships that characterize the style of a particular sub-genre.

To this end, a corpus of ME articles has been divided into three distinct sub-genres, viz, editorials (ED), research papers (RP) and case reports (CR). The purpose of this research is then to carry out a grammatico-rhetorical analysis which attempts to determine how the surface structure elements of the texts reflect their communicative function, i.e., we try to explain how and why the variables (or formal schemata) are used to express fundamental ME concepts (content schemata or communicative events). The impact our research has at the didactic level will also be presented.

Corpus

Our corpus is made up by high-face validity materials provided by students during the last four years of our teaching at the University Hospital of the Andes. The topics covered by the articles are thus linked to those studied by our students in their postgraduate courses.

A key aspect of our research was to involve specialists from the content fields who helped us select the texts. Moreover, their knowledge of the subject matter was absolutely essential to the analysis of the communicative function of the

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texts. Our corpus is made up of 51 texts totalling 75.506 running words divided as follows: 16 CRs (17.906 words), 17 EDs (21.550 words) and 18 RPs (36.050 words) drawn from 34 different journals. The texts covered 17 medical specialities. Fourty five texts were written by native speakers of English and 6 by non-native English speakers.

Methodology

Seventeen variables (selected on the basis of the results of a previous research: Salager et al., 1987) were considered ¹. Their frequency of occurrence was recorded for each text on separate index cards (one for each variable). The number of words in each text and the frequency of occurrence of each variable per hundred words were computed and a principal component analysis was applied to the obtained matrix². Through a principal component analysis a table of quantitative data is reduced to a set of graphs which highlights the similarities and differences among the observed objects (the 51 texts) and the frequency of occurrence of the variables.

We can imagine that each text is represented by a point in a 17-dimensional space since each text is characterized by 17 measurements (17 frequencies). Obviously, this representation is not concretely feasible but the representation of our sample given by the principal component analysis is the optimal projection for this 17-dimensional-space on bi-dimensional spaces (planes). Similarly, the variables are characterized by their distribution in the 51 texts (Escouffier, 1978). The combined presentation of the variables and the texts allows for the interpretation of the classification.

Results and Discussion

The results of the principal component analysis shows that 46.21% of the total inertia of the cloud of points were restored with the first three principal components. We will hereafter analyze the linguistic characteristics of these three components and relate them to the communicative function of each ME sub-genre, keeping in mind that the three principal axes (components) present the results in hierarchical order of discrimination of the original data matrix.

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First Principal Axis: Present and Future Verb Tenses (active Voice) vs. Simple Past and Passive Voice

The first principal axis (cf. Graph 1) displays the leading division of the text dispersion, i.e., the opposition between present/future tenses (active voice) on the one hand, and passive voice/simple past tenses on the other. Moreover, it can be seen that the total number of variables on the right hand side of the plane is far greater than that on the left hand side (12 vs. 5). As far as the text distribution is concerned, the most striking finding is the separation between EDs on the one hand, and CRs and RPs on the other. Grammatical forms are then much more varied in EDs than in the other two sub-genres. Since it is well known that belletristic prose is richer in grammar than scientific discourse, it can be said that EDs are the most literary oriented ME sub-genre.

This relative formal freedom can be explained from a communicative standpoint. First of all, EDs are generally surveys of contemporary thought and practice and their scope is rather extense (as compared to that of the other two sub-genres). They frequently discuss a single disease or group of diseases, diagnosis or treatment procedures, medical practice, general medical problems often in a social, economical or historical context. Second, the communicative purpose of EDs is often to raise questions, diagram problems, propose definitions and offer alternatives and/or solutions for future research (frequent use of the future tense), examine, discuss and criticize. The preponderance of the simple present tense (active form) reflects the argumentative style of EDs, their tendency to evaluate knowledge, to make background qualified generalizations, to present truths as well as diverging viewpoints and new conclusions.

Authors of EDs generally defend and attack, try to convince the readers of their views and to emphatically recommend solutions (frequent use of MST). Herein lies the semantic justification of "that-clauses" (THT). Indeed, opinion verbs call for the existence of such clauses whereas in texts where nothing is being discussed (the CR itself), there is a dearth of THT-clauses. Whereas nominality has been found to be the most outstanding feature of LSP (Hoffmann, 1976), the hallmark of editorial style is its verbality.

Another communicative feature of EDs is their persuasiveness: the author's emphasis is on the reader with the purpose of creating certain reactions. This explains why INT forms are a distinctive feature of EDs (out of 32 occurrences in our corpus, 31 were found in EDs). However, the questions are not real

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questions but rather a way of drawing the readers' attention to a particular argument. Special mention must be made of text 47, a reprint of an editorial originally written in French in 1867 and translated into English. The fact that it is encountered on the very right of the plane 1x2 means that it makes more frequent use of the present tense than the other texts. This should come as no surprise since it has been shown elsewhere (Causse, 1985, p. 173) that in French scientific prose the most frequently used tense is the present (60-90%) whereas in English scientific literature it is the simple past the present occurring only in 25% of the tenses used.

It is also interesting to note that the three EDs published in the British Medical Journal (42, 50 and 51) are the ones which are the farthest from the origin. It thus seems that they recur to the presentand future tenses more frequently than the other EDs do. In the more scientific group of articles (RPs and CRs), this distinction is not observable. This corroborates once more the finding that scientific style is much more homogeneous than literary prose.

If we now have a look at the variable dispersion on the left hand side of the plane 1x2, it can be observed that the simple past tense (PST) and passive voice (PAS) are the two variables which are typically associated with CRs and RPs. Indeed, the simple past tense, as Wingard (1981, p. 56) noted, is the most appropriate from narrating the sequences of procedures in the actual research that is being reported and is related to the tendency, especially in RPs to make generalizations about previous work.

As far as the passive voice is concerned, it is most closely associated with the rhetorical function of describing procedures and experiments performed (Materials and Methods section). In fact, a formal scientific text with a purely informative function (especially CRs) calls for frequent use of passives. It may be precisely this close association between the passive voice system, simple past tense and their function which is a characteristic of English experimental writing. This overall verb profile is not dissimilar to the one obtained by other discourse analysts (Wingard, 1981; Oster, 1981; Tarone, 1981; Bruce, 1984).

The text dispersion on the left hand side of the plane 1x2 shows some interesting features. First of all, it can be observed that RPs form a more homogenous group than CRs do and they tend to be grouped in the center of the left part of the plane, near EDs. This suggests that RPs tend to use more variables than CRs do, the latter being the most "economical" ME sub-genre. A functional explanation of this assertion lies

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in the fact that CRs are given much less importance in medical journals and that they are not only very short but also extremely restricted as far as topic is concerned.

Then, whereas the overall verb profile for CRs seems to be broadly similar to that of RPs, small differences emerge which can be accounted for by the situational context of each sub-genre. In fact, RPs are characterized by an enquiry style: they involve asking question, suggesting possible answers, putting forward and verifying hypotheses, giving reasons and explaining causes. By contrast, CRs are essentially descriptive and expository.

The authors' intrusion, then, is more apparent in RPs than in CRs, especially in the Discussion/Comment section of the paper (which, by the way, is much longer in RPs than in CRs) where it is reflected in a heavier use of grammatical forms. Proof for this assertion is given on the one hand by CR no 8 which is encountered on the very left of the CR-RP group: is is a Case Report of the Massachussetts General Hospital without Introduction nor Discussion sections. It only lists the investigative and therapeutic procedures as well as the patient's signs and symptoms. It is thus, from a rhetorical standpoint, the most objective, descriptive and dispassionate text of our corpus in which the author's involvement is almost kept to zero. On the other hand, CRs no 18, 24 and 48 are found on the extreme right of the CR group. In these three CRs, the Introduction and the Comment sections make up about 75% of the whole article, thus leaving a very small space to the case report itself. It is not surprising then to find these texts "mixed" with RPs.

To conclude, it can be said that the shorter the case report proper in relation with the other rhetorical sections of the text, the more author-marked the article. These considerations illustrate here again how the use of grammar in a message is determined by certain discourse conventions and explains the grammatical load progression observed on the continuum of text-types formed by CRs, RPs and EDs. Indeed, on the scale from CRs to EDs, the rate of ESPness slowly decreases from very specialized towards more general communicative situations.

Second Principal Axis: Use of Modals (cf. Graph 1)

The second principal axis merely highlights a décalage between CRs (on top) and RPs (on the bottom). This axis is characterized by MAY (the most discriminatory variable on this axis) and, to a lesser extent, by WHO. As far as the other modals are concerned, it is interesting to note that MST

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(must), actualization of an emphatic recommendation, appears to a very limited degree in our sample and, as was mentioned before, is, as well as CAN (used to indicate more definite possibilities), an ED marker. Our analysis thus shows that MAY is the modal which most discriminates among the three ME sub-languages.

The other variable related with the second axis is WHO, more frequently used in CRs than in RPs. In functional terms this may be explained by the fact that CRs, as their name indicate, are reports of cases, i.e., they essentially give information about the patient by means of such typical expressions as ''we report on one patient who. . .", "she was a healthy young woman who. . ." whereas the main focus of RPs is the reporting of the results of a piece of research.

Third Principal Axis: Gerund (-ing Form)

The third principal axis (or component), as well as the second one, simply highlights a décalage between EDs, CRs and RPs (cf. Graph 2) in the sense that the non-finite verb form is not a very distinctive feature of any of the three ME sub-genre. However, an impressionistic functional analysis of the use of the gerund in our corpus reveals some interesting features. In RPs, the most homogeneous group on the plane 1x3, most -ing forms are of the compound-word type (e.g., life-threatening situation) and are also particularly frequent after prepositions which indicate the sequencing of thrapeutical procedures. Conversely, in CRs, -ing forms mainly correspond to descriptive adjectives and derived nouns (clubbing, bloating, flushing). Finally, in EDs, most -ing forms are substituting phrases with "of", "who", "which" and "that". It should be made clear that the above observations merely mean that EDs, CRs and RPs tend to recur more frequently to a given function of the present participle, this selection being made for a special communicative purpose conditioned by the professional statement.

Pedagogical Implications

Our research has an obvious impact at the didactic level in that it helps us state firm guidelines for text selection. Indeed, the fundamental task of reading teachers is to select appropriate texts for their students. For the sake of pedagogic efficiency, the ME instructor should check the match between the text grammatical load and its explicit structure. Since RPs and CRs are rhetorically well organized, these two sub-genres should be chosen as early reading exercises, especially CRs as

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they have been identified as being the least loaded, both grammatically and conceptually. At more advanced levels of language instruction, the ME teacher may move on to less than ideally (more loosely) organized articles, viz., EDs, which are the most attitudinally-marked ME papers, lack explicit rhetorical structuring and exhibit idiosyncratic stylistic variations within the limits of shared rhetorical conventions.

The results of our research are also intended to contribute to an underlying rationale for any course in ME research report writing. Exercises should be devised drawing the learner's attention to alternative ways of "saying" things, making use of restricted and less restricted style.

Conclusions

The continuum of text-types within ME is then best seen as a circle with a central common core. The core expands in all directions with various realizations of text types at different levels of specialization and abstraction. Our results fit in with the communicative constraints operative in medical writing which have been discussed in this paper. The attitude adopted by the writer towards the addressee varies along a scale from almost pure descriptive (CRs), through advice, suggestion (RPs) to judgment, value and instruction (EDs), i.e., from that of an objective informant to that of instructor and critical writer. Further research may reveal that they could relate to specific conceptual structures of journal articles in other areas and in other languages.

Notes

1. List of variables: simple present (PR), present perfect (PRP), simple past (PST), future (FUT), passive voice (PAS), conditional (CON), can (CAN), must (MUST), -ing form (GRD), or (OR), which (WHC), that (conj. THT), negative form (NEG), interrogative form (INT), personal pronouns (SPR), may (MAY), who, whom, whose (WHO).

2. For a detailed explanation of the mathematical procedure, write to Françoise Salager-Meyer, Apartado 715, Mérida, 5101, Venezuela.

References

Bruce, N. (1984) Rhetorical constraints and information

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structure in medical research writing. EMP Newsletter. Vol. 1, No 2, 5-17.

Causse, F. (1985) Problématique d'une information à la rédaction scientifique en anglais. Perrin, M. (ed) Pratiques d'Aujourd'hui et Besoins de Demain, 169-179. Bordeaux.

Escouffier, Y. (1978) Cours d'Analyse de Données. Montpellier: USTL.

Hoffmann, L. (1976) Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache. Eine Einführung. Berlin.

Oster, S. (1981) The use of tenses in reporting past literature in EST. Selinker, L., Tarone and Hanzelli (eds) English for Academic and Technical Purposes: Studies in Honor of Louis Trimble, 53-64. London: Newbury House Publishers.

Salager, F. et al. (1987) Grammar and English written communication. Cornu, A-M, Vanpaijs, J., Delahaye, M. and Baten, L. (eds) Beads or Bracelets? How do we approach LSP?, 127-141. Oxford University Press.

Tarone, E. et al. (1981) On the use of the passive in two astrophysics journal papers. The ESP Journal. Vol. 1, No 2, 123-146.

Wingard, P. (1981) Some verb forms and functions in six medical texts. Selinker, L., Tarone and Hanzelli (eds) English for Academic and Technical Purposes: Studies in Honor of Louis Trimble, 53-64. London: Newbury House Publishers.

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Graph 1.
First and second principal axes, plane 1x2

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Graph 2.
Third principal axis, plane 1x3

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11
Discourse Analysis in Occupational Settings: "Technical Meetings"

Friedrich Lenz
Technische Hochschule Darmstadt

1. Introduction

This paper originates from an ESP-project carried out at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt and at the University of Birmingham. It focuses on spoken ESP analysed from a pragmalinguistic perspective.

The starting point of the project was a needs analysis in an expert-oriented Darmstadt company which can be regarded as representative for Germany in the field of mechanical engineering. Unlike most other approaches to syllabus design where the extra-linguistic data from the needs analysis lead to the linguistic content of the syllabus on the basis of experience, plausability and intuition, a corpus of authentic language data was gathered in comparable English companies. Only the linguistic analysis of the data from selected speech events identified as those where the target population is most likely to use English, can provide the basis for the final syllabus design. In this paper I would like to concentrate on a linguistic analysis of "Technical Meetings", the speech event identified as most important for the target group.

The analysis is based on a corpus of 6 meetings which were recorded in a Birmingham company last summer. They were each between 45 and 90 minutes long and the 6 to 10 participants (including a chairman) referred to the meetings as "Technical Meetings". Their purpose can accordingly be described as the discussion of technical problems in connection either with previously manufactured goods or production orders.

2. Hypothesis

First attempts to analyse the data were quite unsuccessful since the applied discourse models had been designed with either different or non-specific speech events in mind. Especially the fact that a rather high number of speakers can,

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but need not, participate in the communicative activities caused problems. The recognition of turn-taking procedures proved to be a key to more fruitful analyses.

This led to the following hypothesis which is relevant for specific speech events and thus to spoken ESP in general:

As long as discourse analysis neglects the turn-taking rules in operation, it cannot show consistent results as the discourse structures evolving at different phases of the speech event are dependent on the turn-taking rules employed by the participants.

In order to prove this hypothesis, I would first like to describe the rule-set for turn-taking in Technical Meetings and then give some examples showing the influence of these rules on the discourse structure.

3. Turn-taking

The turn-taking rules in Technical Meetings are of course not fundamentally new, but are related to the conversational system analysed by Sacks et al. (1974/1978) in their "simplest systematics of turn-taking for conversation." They even are of the opinion that the conversational turn-taking rules are the source for other turn-taking systems since they regard conversation as the "basic form of speech exchange system". Whether this is true or not, cannot be settled in this paper, but it seems necessary to give a brief (and even more simplified) description of their system.

The rule set in Sacks et al. is hierarchically ordered and applies at every Transition Relevance Place defined as the place where a turn can be syntactically ended, usually the end of a sentence or in the case of ellipsis a part of it ¹. The rule set is as follows:

1. (a) If in the current turn the speaker selects the next speaker, then the current speaker must stop and the selected gains the right to the turn. (Other-Selection)

(b) If current speaker does not select next speaker, then any other party may self-select, first speaker gaining rights to a turn. (Self-Selection)

(c) If current speaker does not select next speaker, then current speaker may, but need not, claim rights for a further turn.

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2. If 1 (c) has been applied, the procedure (a)-(c) starts again until a speaker change is effected.

4. Turn-taking in Technical Meetings

I would like to start with rule 1 (c) where obvious differences in our data can be found. The conversational system offers the possibility that in the case of no self-selection the current speaker can also stop speaking. This consequently results in silence or in Sack's terminology, discontinuous talk, which can last until someone reopens the conversation. In meetings we do not find this type of silence. The chairman seems to feel responsible and takes over before a discontinuity could arise. All we find in our data are short gaps between two turns.

The role of the chairman is also relevant in relation to other turn-taking rules, and one might expect that his position offers privileged use of these rules. Hence, it is no surprise that it is the chairman who most frequently uses rule 1 (a) to select others. The following examples ² show the chairman using this technique.

(1)

Chairman

. . . we can incorporate that in the next monthly returns

*

do you feel that would be useful Steve

Steve

. . .

Chairman

. . . we've had a bad spate with straightness of propshafts

*

we've three inch
what size are they Stan

Stan

. . .

Chairman

we had that Nortson equipment wasn't it which didn't work very well

*

do you remember that John

John

. . .

On the other hand, all other participants also make use of this technique as illustrated in (2):

(2)

Roger*

do you know where that score marks came from Steve

Steve

. . .

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Steve*

. . . I mean is there any reason Ray

Ray

. . .

John S.*

If it had been rejected would you have made it again John

John

. . .

Even the chairman can be selected:

Stan*

Yeh there's also been internal rejections as well George (=Chairman)

Chairman

. . .

Similarly, the self-selection rule (1 b) is used by both the chairman and the participants.

(3)

Steve

. . .

Chairman*

If I can just come in there

Usually, the rule is not explicitly employed:

Steve

. . .

Stan

We haven't been downgrading any tube on earth

Chairman*

Your impression John that there wasn't downgrading. . .

Chairman

. . .

Steve

. . . it was a production error the information wasn't on the order in the first place

Stan*

That was not a production error

George

. . .

Tony

Do we know whether this is the required cut length or erm the customer do they take several lengths of the tube

Steve*

No the straight length is the finished length. . .

From these examples it can be concluded that the selection procedures of the examined Technical Meetings are the same as in the conversational system. But it should be noted that this conclusion only refers to the techniques by means of which speaker selection is effected, but not the whole system. A closer look at the corpus reveals a significant difference reflected in the varying "turn size."

The description of the conversational system was based on the observation that speaker change potentially occurs at

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Transition Relevance Places which usually coincide with the end of a sentence. Thus, the units out of which a turn is constructed have the length of a sentence so that in conversation most contributions are one sentence long. They can of course be longer when rule 1 (c) applies, but as the whole turn-taking procedure in this case starts from the beginning again, a speaker's turn will not be stretched out for a large number of units.

In meetings, however, multi-unit turns are common. In most of the meetings transcribed they amount to more than 50% of the talk. It appears that the turn-taking system for meetings must be based on two separate concepts of Transition Relevance Place. How can this be explained?

In multi-unit turns we hardly find simultaneous talk; that is, no one tries to self-select at the usual conversational Transition Relevance Places. The participants seem to know (unconsciously) that a long contribution is in progress. There should consequently be conventional procedures which the participants co-operatively employ in order to make multi-unit turns possible. A look at the data shows that these turns are in fact indicated by the participants. Either the preceding speaker or the speaker himself introduces the utterance in a way which makes a long contribution predictable. This is usually done by mentioning the utterance type (i.e. the speech act in discourse analytical terminology) which the contribution is intended to represent. From the immediate context it is clear that such an action cannot be performed in one sentence, but will have ot comprise a series of sentence units. Consider (4):

Chairman

I'll ask Steve Hughes now to just take us through that list er talk it through the problems that we had with particular tubes all right Steve

Steve

. . . (multi-unit turn)

Chairman

John has had a report from Austin Rover on this haven't you would you like to comment about that John

John

. . . (multi-unit turn)

A speaker can also introduce his own multi-unit turn:

Chairman

. . .

John

There is one further comment I'd like to make on it George. . .

(multi-unit turn)

Chairman

. . .

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Tony

Can I have another one while we're over here. . . (multi-unit turn)

Once an extended turn is introduced, the speaker has the right to keep the floor for as many sentences as he needs to perform his complex speech act. But this causes a new problem for the participants since they have to ''officially" terminate the extended turn. How do they reinstitute the conversational turn-taking unit?

This is either done by the current speaker using rule 1 (a) and selecting another speaker at the end of a usual turn-constructional unit or all participants collaborate. In the latter case the speaker ends his utterance at a conversational Transition Relevance Place. Since the conversational turn-taking is suspended, no one will immediately self-select. Only after a short silence (of 1-3 sec.) does another participant (often the chairman) self-select. Thus, this short silence is a typical and methodical procedure to reintroduce conversational turn-size. The following passage (of approximately 5 minutes) demonstrates termination methods.

(5)

John S.

.

. (approximately 200 words)

.

*

. . . it'll only depress confidence in the vehicle still further <2 seconds>

Chairman

Can I take you on. . .

.

. (150 words)

.

*

. . . if there should be any more problems <2 seconds>

John W.

There is one further comment. . .

.

. (120 words)

.

. . . BRD are expecting deliveries week twenty seven

*

<2 seconds>

As mentioned, the second termination method is to select a new speaker:

Chairman

.

. (200 words)

.

*

. . . have you any comments about that Stan

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Stan

. . .

Retrospectively, we can say that the participants in Technical Meetings rely on the same selection mechanisms as in conversation, but they use additional techniques to introduce and terminate extended turns ³. Both the chairman and the other participants have the same selection techniques at their disposal and both have the right to extended turns. The different roles do not seem to play a part in turn-taking terms. They are only reflected in the chairman's responsibility for ensuring an uninterrupted continuation of the meeting⁴. The chairman's responsibility also covers the agenda. It seems to be his right and duty to "officially" close old topic areas and initiate new points on the agenda. These places in the meeting are combined with extended turns; that is, the chairman introduces his own or another participant's multi-sentence turn. It is here where substantial effects on the discourse structure come into play⁵. This can be shown when one tries to apply models for discourse analysis to the data.

5. Discourse Analysis

In their original model, Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) examined classroom interaction where the teacher controlled topic movement. In turn-taking terms, this type of speech-exchange system differs considerably from our meetings since the self-selection technique can only be legitimately applied by the teacher (cf. McHoul, 1978). Nevertheless, there are striking similarities to some phases of the meeting. The following examples shows how Sinclair and Coulthard's categories fit our data.

(6)

move: act:

St.

. . . for example

Ch.

yes fine thanks Steve

follow acc
up

B

also in this document is the customer's

focussing ms

O

complaint received through the technical

U

department that's direct to the technical

N

department two of these of

com

D

I er <throat clearing> think the worst one

A

of course is the 40 mm by 2.5 to 2.75 er

R

propshaft tube for BRD frontwheel drive

Y

in I plus 35 material which we have issued reports on and er John has had a report

EX

from Austin Rover on this haven't you

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would you like to comment about that John opening

el,
nom

The chairman ends the preceding exchange with a `classical' school type follow-up move which consists of an "accept". This act is "realized by a closed class of items yes, no, good, fine" (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975, p. 43).

The actual boundary exchange also follows Sinclair and Coulthard's classroom format with a focussing move in its centre. "Focussing moves represent a change of plane. The teacher stands for a movement outside the communication and says. . . `this is what our communication will be about.' Focussing moves have. . . a compulsory head realized by a metastatement (. . . with the function to help the pupils to understand the purpose of the subsequent exchange). . . and an optional comment (realized by statement and tag question. It is subordinate to the head of the move and its function is exemplify, expand, justify, provide additional information)" (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975, p. 45).

It is typically followed by an opening move, which initiates a new exchange. "The function of an opening move is to cause others to participate in an exchange" (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975, p. 45).

The reason why Sinclair and Coulthard's model, which fails to produce useful results for large parts of the meetings, is, however, adequate for the analysis of the example above lies in the fact that boundary exchanges are comparable to those parts of the meeting where the chairman moves on to the next point on the agenda. The essential factor here is that it is only the chairman who can and must perform this task. To do this he makes use of a turn-extending technique, since a single sentence unit would not suffice to introduce a new topic area. He can introduce his own or as in example (6) another participant's multi-unit turn, but, as in the classroom, no other participant can initiate such a boundary exchange. It is this privilege which accounts for the similar discourse structure.

For most other parts of the meeting the model cannot be applied since the data do not conform to the basic three move exchange structure: teacher's opening move, pupil's answering move and teacher's follow-up move. Because of the free distribution of the selection techniques we find totally different structures where, for instance, all of the participants can open the exchange. Similarly, all participants have the chance to comment on previous talk, thus producing a sort of follow-up move. As this can be repeated by various speakers

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such an exchange consists of an open series of moves performed by unpredictable speakers.

A passage like the following would thus not fit into Sinclair and Coulthard's categories:

(7)

Chairman

. . . it's just this attention to detail right through this that's the problem

Ray

Can I ask for whether we can check this 1.5 whether it used to be random length as now (or) a cut length

Stan

I have only known it as a cut length

John

It's always been a cut length

Chairman

I think so yes

Ray

That's how we took this order on. . .

As most other discourse models concentrate on dynamic communication, they also are unable to provide adequate categories although they do not presume the 3 move structure. Edmondson's (1981) model, for example, allows for a number of moves between the initial "proffer" and final "satisfy", but assumes that there are only two conversationalists negotiating the international structure.

6. Concluding Remarks

In summary, we have seen that the turn-taking procedures have an essential influence on the discourse structure and that the recognition of the respective techniques can lead to an adequate pragmatic description of the Technical Meetings under discussion. For some sections of the meeting the descriptive apparatus still has to be developed as existing models do not offer the required categories. In order to design a model which can handle all phases of a meeting, it seems to be most promising to start with a unit which reflects both the turn-taking and the functional implications of an utterance. This unit could be the adjacency pair, a category which Sacks et al. introduced in their conversational turn-taking model. The characteristic feature of such a pair is that "the first pair part sets constraints on what should be done in a next turn (e.g. question making answer specifically relevant for next turn). . . and is the basic component for selecting next speaker" (Sacks et al., 1978, p. 28f.). It remains to be seen whether all pairs that play a role in Technical Meetings can be identified and whether these build up larger structures. It seems however to be the only way of avoiding the failures which

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one encounters when applying analytical models designed for different speech events.

Notes

1. This draws on the everyday observation that we usually speak in sentences and let out our interlocutors finish their sentences.

2. In order to avoid unnecessary pre-interpretation, there is no punctuation in the transcription. Where possible, new turn- or sentence-units start on a new line.

The line with the phenomenon under discussion is indicated by an asterisk.

3. For a more comprehensive treatment of turn-taking in Technical Meetings, see Lenz (1988).

4. And even this is difficult to prove as we can only observe that there is no instance of discontinuous talk, and it is mainly the chairman who takes the turn after a short gap; but there also are cases where others finally self-select.

5. Notice that the different discourse structures are not motivated by the turn-taking system as such, but the special roles and tasks that have to be fulfilled. As specific turn-taking techniques are used for this job, the recognition of these elements can however be used for analytic purposes and can, for instance, serve as indicators.

References

Edmondson, W. (1981) Spoken Discourse. A Model for Analysis. London: Longman.

Lenz, F. (1988) Turn-Taking in Technical Meetings. Zu einem Aspekt der Interaktion in mündlicher Fachkommunikation. Linguistische Berichte 1988.

McHoul, A. (1978) The Organisation of Turns at Formal Talk in the Classroom. Language and Society, 7, 183-213.

Sacks, H. et al. (1978) A Simplest Systematics for the Organisation of Turn-Taking for Conversation. Schenkein, J. (1978) Studies in the Organisation of Conversational Interaction, 7-56. New York: Academic Press.

Sinclair, J. and Coulthard, M. (1975) Towards an Analysis of Discourse. London: Longman.

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12
Hedging as a Translation Problem in Scientific Texts

Raija Markkanen and Hartmut Schröder
University of Jyväskylä

In this paper our discussion of hedges in scientific writing is limited to texts on philosophy and linguistics and our particular concern is with the problems hedging may cause for the translation of these texts.

The Concept of Hedging

Our view of hedging differs from, for example, the strict definition given by Hübler (1983). Hübler makes a distinction between understatements and hedges, although he uses understatement also as a coverterm for both. Understatement proper means for him that `the emotional negatability (of sentences) is restricted through the indetermination of the phrastic', i.e. concerns the propositional content of the sentence (e.g. It is a bit cold in here contains an understatement), whereas hedging means that it `is restricted through the indetermination of the neustic', i.e. concerns the speaker's attitude to the hearer regarding the proposition (e.g. It is snowing in the mountains, I suppose contains a hedge). We do not draw such a distinction but understand by hedging any `manipulative non-direct sentence strategy of saying less than one means' (Hübler, 1983, p. 23). The most important linguistic devices used as hedges (e.g. in English and German) are modal verbs, modal adverbs and particles, the use of certain personal pronouns and avoidance of others, the use of agentless passives and other impersonal expressions as well as certain choices in the vocabulary. We agree with Hübler when he says that the reason for using hedges is to make sentences more acceptable to the hearer and thus increase their chance of ratification. The necessity for ratification is caused by the inherent negatability of sentences, and thus the function of hedging is to reduce the risk of negation.

In accordance with Brown and Levinson (1978), we consider hedges as strategies for minimizing the threat to face that lurks behind every communicative act. In ordinary face-to-face interaction there is need for saving both the

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hearer's and the speaker's own face; in written texts, particularly in the type of texts we are dealing with here, the writer is mostly concerned with saving his or her own face. The main functions of hedging in scientific texts seem to us to be: (1) the modification of the writer's responsibility for the truth value of a proposition, (2) the modification of the definiteness of a proposition or of the weightiness of the information given in it, or (3) the modification of the writer's attitude to the propositions and the information in the text or even the hiding of this attitude (cf. Markkanen and Schröder, 1987).

From the point of view of LSP hedging has been discussed for example by Lachowicz (1981), who sees its function in LSP texts to be `the reduction of the author's commitment to the truth value of the statements and the modulation of the degree of certainty on the author's part'. He also suggests that hedges allow the author to be more open to other possibilities of interpretation. Zuck and Zuck (1987) discuss hedging in newswriting and define it as `the process whereby the author reduces the strength of what he is writing'. To these views of hedging we would like to add that we do not consider it as an inherent characteristic of a text but as a product of writer-reader communication, i.e. the linguistic devices used for hedging get their meaning only through the response they produce in the readers. Therefore the analysis of hedging in a particular text should begin with an analysis of the communicative situation; it is important to know for example what kind of readership the writer has had in mind (cf. Markkanen and Schröder, 1987). We also think that hedging in scientific texts serves the struggle for objectivity, which the `scientific community' often considers a necessary characteristic of scientific writing, and that it increases what Bungarten (1986) calls `sprachliche Entfremdung'. Interesting though these last mentioned aspects are we cannot discuss them within the frame-work of the present paper.

Hedging in Texts of Philosophy and Linguistics

So far, we have restricted our study of hedging in LSP to texts on philosophy and linguistics. We have done this because the texts have been mostly neglected in LSP research and because they show features which are different from those found in the field of science and technology, which have been well represented in the LSP literature. One difference between e.g. a philosophical text and one on science and technology is that the argumentation in the former is not based so much on bringing in experimental data and logical evidence than on

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plausibility and credibility (cf. van Dijk, 1980). Relevant for the argumentation in philosophical texts is acceptability, i.e. assumptions have to be made explicit, concepts defined carefully, etc. Spillner (1983, p. 35) points out that in texts in which the use of experimental data and logical deduction are not so important the style of writing becomes an essential element in achieving credibility. The convincingness of the argumentation in these texts depends on the use of linguistic devices, not only what is normally called `style' or the use of rhetorical devices but also on the use of hedges. Consequently, texts on philosophy and linguistics, differently from texts on science and technology, contain a certain degree of redundancy. For these reasons they also provide fruitful material for studying hedging.

Hedging as a Translation Problem

The amount of hedging used in a particular text can be assumed to depend on such factors as the writer's scientific paradigm and his or her position within it, the writer's personality, and, more importantly from our point of view, the writer's linguistic and cultural background. It is this last mentioned factor that has led us to consider the problems hedging can cause for translation.

The conventions for scientific writing and the style of argumentation have been shown to vary from culture to culture (e.g. Galtung, 1979). These conventions also include the use of hedges. Clyne (forthcoming) refers to differences in hedging between speakers of German and English in academic writing; his analysis `accentuates the greater use of hedging in academic texts by Germans than in those by English speakers . . .Double (and even triple) hedging occurs in texts by Germans (especially modal + agentless passive or impersonal construction)'. These differences in the conventions may cause problems for those who write in a foreign language (according to Clyne, German speakers follow the German conventions even when writing in English) and may also be problematic when texts are translated from one language into another. The basic problem for translation is whether hedges should be translated and, if they should, when and how.

We can, of course, say that the translator sees hedges as a problem only if he or she has understood them in the original text. In his hermeneutic explanation of translation Paepcke (1986) emphasizes the importance of understanding in the translation process or, as he says, `without understanding translation is blind'. Understanding does not here mean only

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the decoding of information but also the understanding of the writer's intention, in which the ways the writer expresses himself are of prime importance. In other words, translation is not only about what an author says but also about how he says it. A translation must not only preserve the meaning but also the effect of the original text, i.e. it must produce `an equivalent response' in the reader as the original text does, which is considered as an important criterion for translation quality assessment by e.g. Nida (1964).

As hedges are part of how the writer expresses himself, they should be translated but so that their effect remains the same in the text. This is where the problems arise since the conventions of hedging may be different in the two cultures involved or, as Roman Jakobson says, `the main problem in translation is to find equivalence in difference'.

Examples of Translation Problems

As a way of illustration of the problems in translation we have been referring to, we will present some examples from texts produced by a bilingual English-Finnish writer and a trilingual German-English-Finnish writer. Both have written texts first in one language and then translated them into the other language(s) or produced parallel texts in the two or three languages. They are both `ideal translators' in the sense that they know the subject matter of the original text, they also know the intentions of the original writer, and they are fully competent in the languages involved. In what follows, we will present some examples of their solutions in the translation of hedges.

In the case of the English-Finnish bilingual the clearest and most interesting differences in hedging between the two texts occur in the use of personal pronouns, passives and impersonal expressions. Even a cursory reading of the texts reveals the fact that the writer uses much more 1st person pronouns in his English text than in the Finnish one. The following is a typical example:

I am sure, also, that there will be some readers who will be frustrated with my refusal to tidy up the messes I make. My only excuse is that I work better that way or, more seriously, that I find that the only way to elicit the complexities of actual language use. Let me demonstrate what I mean with some examples.

Tällainen sotkujen suvaitseminen, jopa niistä

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nauttiminen, saattaa tuntua jotenkin kieroutuneelta, niin kuin aviomies, joka väittää siistille vaimolleen, että työ sujuu paremmin silloin kun kirjoituspöytä on sekaisin. Se on kuitenkin ainoa tapa tehdä oikeutta luonnollisen kielen kompleksisuudelle. Viitoittamaani sotkujen tietä voisi havainnollistaa esimerkein.

In the example there are eight occurrences of the 1st person singular pronoun and possessive in English, whereas the Finnish text contains only one occurrence of the 1st person possessive suffix. Instead, the Finnish text has impersonal expressions like saattaa tuntua, voisi havainnollistaa. Where the English text has `my refusal to tidy up the messes I make', the Finnish text says `this kind of tolerance for mess', and when the English text has `I find that the only way', the Finnish text says neutrally `it is the only way'.

The avoidance of the 1st person singular and hiding behind an impersonal or passive expression is a hedge. The risk of the proposition being negated is greater when the writer writes in his own name than when he expresses things impersonally or more objectively. However, the use of the 1st person singular can in some cases also be considered a hedge: when it occurs with verbs of thinking or meaning, the expressions (e.g. I think, I assume) can be interpreted as meaning something like `this is what I think, others may think differently', i.e. a hedge. This fact does not, however, alter the clear difference between the two texts.

Our English-Finnish bilingual writer also uses the 1st person plural in both texts, but again more in the English text. The 1st person plural we can be considered a hedge because in using it the writer withdraws from full responsibility behind a kind of collective, unless of course he uses it as an editorial plural or `pluralis auctoris'. Otherwise the we can be interpreted in several different ways (cf. Korhonen and Kusch, 1987), but our writer seems to use it mostly to refer to himself and his readers, as in the following passage:

How shall we interpret my conversational implicature? If we approach this little conversation objectively . . . we must rule out of our analysis both `actual' intention, to which we have no access . . . This leaves as our only criterion . . . .

The corresponding passage in the Finnish text contains only one occurrence of the 1st person plural, in the other cases it has either the passive or some other impersonal expression:

Miten tulkita keskusteluvihjantaani? Jos lähestytään

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keskustelua objektiivisesti. . . . joudutaan sulkemaan analyysistä pois sekä todellinen tarkoitukseni, johon meillä ei ole pääsyä. . . . Ainoaksi analyysikriteeriksi jää silloin olettamus. . . .

Thus again the Finnish text goes a step further in hedging if compared with the English text: the writer does not refer to himself and his readers but resorts to impersonality.

There is a reason for these differences that has to do with a difference in the structures of English and Finnish: Finnish offers more possibilities for impersonal expressions. First of all, the use of the 1st person is less conspicious in Finnish: the pronoun itself does not have to be used but a mere suffix in the verb is enough; the same applies to the possessives. In many contexts, for example in the type of writing we are concerned with here, the use of the pronouns would be too emphatic and would even sound too pompous. Secondly, the 3rd person singular form of the verb can be used without a subject as an impersonal expression. Thirdly, the Finnish passive, which would more adequately be called an indefinite person because it implies a human agent, can be used also with intransitive verbs, which is impossible with the English passive. However, we do not think that these structural differences explain it all; we do think that there is a cultural tradition in Finland which makes one avoid bringing forth one's own person and resort to impersonality. Our bilingual writer has followed this tradition in his Finnish text, i.e. has in House's (1981) terms, used a cultural filter in his translation.

Our trilingual German-English-Finnish writer also seems to adopt the conventions of hedging required by the scientific community for which he is writing. Our examples from his German and English texts show that he hedges more in German than he does in English, which is in agreement with Clyne's (forthcoming) findings:

In diesem Aufsatz möchte ich eine neue Interpretation der Phänomenologie Husserls, der Ontologie Heideggers, sowie der Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten beider Philosophen vorschlagen.

In this paper I want to outline a new interpretation of the central tenets of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology, of Heideggers ontology and of the differences between the two.

Um diese These zu belegen, muss ich mich hier auf einige, wenngleich wie ich hoffe, zentrale Elemente des Husserlschen Denkens beschränken.

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Here I can only discuss some central tenets of Husserl's theory of meaning and language.

In the first of the above examples the writer uses möchte . . . vorschlagen in the German text, which is milder than the English I want to outline. Similarly, in the second one muss ich mich . . . beschränken is more `hedgy' than the English I can only discuss. Moreover, in the second example the English text has no equivalent for the hedge wenngleich wie ich hoffe of the German text. The differences between German and English could perhaps be explained through differences in argumentative style: in Galtung's terms, a German writer typically builds a big pyramid, i.e. a big theory and consequently needs to hedge more than the Anglo-American writer who builds several small pyramids.

Both our writers thus make adjustments to the conventions of the target culture in their translation of hedges. They can do this because, as writers of the original texts, they know exactly what their intentions were when writing the original. But can a `normal' translator do this? Can the translator increase or decrease the amount of hedging used in the original if the conventions of the target culture seem to require this? Does the translator in doing so make the original writer sound more certain or uncertain than he or she wanted to be? These problems are obviously part of what House (1981) calls the Social Role Relationship of the interpersonal dimension of a text, which she says `presents the most difficult problems of translation equivalence'.

What we suggest is needed to answer the above questions is some kind of psycholinguistic test on the effect hedging has on the readers, tests on how different readers respond to hedges, whether readers respond on the basis of their own cultural conventions even when reading in a foreign language, what effect different translations of a hedge have on readers, how readers recognize hedges, etc. We know that response-based tests of translations have been suggested before (Nida and Taber, 1969) and have been criticized as only `a rough indication of people's general, undifferential impression of a translation' (House, 1981, p. 13). Still, we feel that they could be used for a more limited aim than the assessment of the quality of a whole translation, i.e. to measure people's responses to hedging.

Analysed Sources

Kusch, M. (forthcoming) Husserl and Heidegger on Meaning.

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Kusch, M. (forthcoming) Husserl und Heidegger zur Frage der Bedeutung.

Kusch, M. (forthcoming) Husserl ja Heidegger merkityksestä.

Robinson, D. (manuscript) The Tropics of Translation/Kääntämisen kääntöpiirit.

References

Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1978) Universals in language usage: politeness phenomena. Goody, N. (ed) Questions and Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bungarten, T. (1986) `Sprachliche Entfremdung' in der Wissenschaft. Bungarten, T. (ed) Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft. Hamburg: Edition Akademion.

Clyne, M. (forthcoming) The socio-cultural dimension: The dilemma of the German-speaking scholar. Schröder, H. (ed) Subject-oriented Textlinguistics. Berlin: W. de Gruyter Verlag.

van Dijk, T. (1980) Textwissenschaft. Eine interdiziplinäre Einführung. Tübingen.

Galtung, J. (1979) Deductive thinking and political practise. An essay of the Teutonic intellectual style. Galtung, J. (ed) Papers on Methodology. Essays on Methodology, Vol. II. Copenhagen.

House, J. (1981) A Model for Translation Quality Assessment. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.

Hübler, A. (1983) Understatements and Hedges in English. Pragmatics and Beyond, IV:6. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Korhonen, R. and Kusch, M. (forthcoming) The rhetorical function of the first person in philosophical texts The influence of the intellectual style, paradigm and language.

Kusch, M. and Schröder, H. (eds) Text, Interpretation, Argumentation. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.

Lachowicz, D. (1981) On the use of the passive voice for objectivity, author responsibility and hedging in EST. Science of Science, No. 2, Vol. 2.

Markkanen, R. and Schröder, H. (1987) Hedging and its linguistic realizations in German, English and Finnish philosophical texts: A case study. Erikoiskielet ja käännösteoria. VAKKI-seminaari VII. Vaasa.

Nida, E.A. (1964) Toward a Science of Translation. Leiden: Brill.

Nida, E.A. and Taber, C.R. (1969) The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: Brill.

Paepcke, F. (1986) Im Übersetzen leben. Übersetzen und Textvergleich. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.

Spillner, B. (1983) Methodische Aufgaben der

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Fachsprachenforschung und ihre Konsequenzen für den Fremdsprachenunterricht. Kelz, H.P. (ed) Fachsprache 1: Sprachanalyse und Vermittlungsmethoden. Bonn.

Zuck, J.G. and Zuck, L.V. (1987) Hedging in newswriting. Cornu, A., Vanparijs, J., Delahaye, M. and Baten, L. (eds) Selected Papers from the Fifth European Symposium on LSP. Leuven: OUP.

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13
Scientific Discourse Against the Background of Standard Language

Zenon Grabarczyk
Akademia Medyczna w Bydgoszczy

A continuous extension of human knowledge relates to the formation of new communication spheres, where language use takes on specific registers.

Professional jargon or scientific register assumes different names like: functional style, scientific style, sublanguage, etc. The English language in this area uses such terms as: sublanguage, restricted language, the language of science and technology, scientific discourse, the English we use for science. As far as English legal language is concerned the term `English of law and administration' is largely applied.

The concept of professional jargon attracted, during the last years, a great attention of curriculum authors, foreign language teachers and linguists. What is really the professional jargon? The professional and scientific jargon is a complex of all linguistic means obtained in a professionally limited sphere of human communication.

These means may be divided into those which are present in all professional sublanguages and such ones that are found only in some of them.

The professional jargon is rather a particular use of language than any different language.

Trampe (1977, p. 4) defines this language in the following way:

''. . . vidare framhålls det att fackspråk snarast är ett sätt att använda språket inte ett särskilt språk och att skillnaderna mellan olika användningssätt huvudsakligen visar sig som tendenser /i statistisk mening/ i språket".

There are two definition tendencies of the essence of scientific discourse: stylistic and lexicological.

The first tendency examines professional jargons in their particular stylistic aspects (functional style) and the second one aims at defining a given professional vocabulary, in

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particular its terminology (scientific style).

Bloomfield (1960) assumes that scientific style reveals such characteristics as: precision, a continuous exchange with standard language, exact definition of terms, a large use of different linguistic structures, use of figures, symbols and signs.

A genuine professional thinking is always associated with the specialist since it requires a full clarity of concepts and utterances. Scientific thinking is not only present in natural language, but also in artificial language, the language of symbols typical of mathematics and other sciences characterized by shortness and precision. Every sentence of artificial language may be translated into natural language through a more descriptive form. Many sciences use this language because of greater precision.

Klaus (1963) maintains that in natural language it is easy to express everything, freedom of expression in artificial language is much more limited. Nevertheless, the use of symbols is largely found in such fields of knowledge as physics and mathematics. Futher characteristics of scientific style are: predominance of content words, use of additional attributes leading to greater precision, a complex system of interrelationships among particular utterances, high frequency of particular constructions, frequent use of the present tense and passive form.

Short utterances, avoidance of articles may make the reading of English scientific literature hard to understand, for example,

Proper design voids equipment corrosion. Dry air aids cleaning of tanker hold.

The translation of such sentences may be difficult.

The reader of scientific texts must comply with certain monotony, lack of stylistic variation and a high degree of lexical repetition. A set of linguistic items, present in a given scientific register, testifies to the concept of `restricted language'. It should, therefore, be stated that there is rather a modest choice of linguistic units typical of standard language, past tenses are rarely met because the temporal aspect is of little value.

Bloomfield (1960, p. 45) writes about the complexity of scientific style in the following way:

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"The exact responses, and the careful and often complex calculations of science, enforce an unusually meticulous style of speech the scientific scope of forms and the domain of substitutes have to be clearly indicated. This produces a general scientific style of utterance".

The scientific discourse eliminates the linguistic units of emotion and picturesqueness. The care for a beautiful representation of the work is out of question here because, first of all, emphasis is placed on a content area of language. For a great number of scientists and technicians language appears to be the tool in order to achieve certain goals and, that's why, they don't care so much for language style and its beauty.

Savory (1953, p. 90) stresses the lack of emotion in scientific prose:

"A third characteristic of scientific prose, and one that is much likely to be admitted by the ordinary reader, is coldness. Never, in normal circumstances, does it show a glimmer of feeling or warmth".

The professional jargons and other sublanguages use, in the text, a definite style called a professional style.

Hoffmann (1976) differentiates four classification criteria of science texts according to:

a) scope of communication and subject

b) degree of specialisation

c) means of expression

d) the way in which the subject is treated.

In Weisgerber's view (1974) the scientific registers are the basis of scientific and technological advance. The lexis becomes the principal point of study while dealing with scientific discourse.

The same view is held by Seibicke (1959) who claims that the essence of scientific discourse may be fully understood against the background of standard language. All professional sublanguages are treated by him as `embranchments' of the standard language `trunk'.

Scientific discourse has not derived its own syntactic units, that's why, it is formed on the ground of standard language.

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Some words are replaced by new concepts but the basic structure remains unchanged.

The difference between standard language and the language of science may primarly be seen in language use. It should be stressed that, for example, the vocabulary of social sciences is less stable than that of natural sciences what is proved by the fact that social conditions change more quickly than cognition in natural sciences.

An interesting view on this topic, i.e., the relationship between standard language and the language of science is presented by Hoffman (1976, p. 8):

"Jede Fachsprache ist ein relativ selbständige Kommunikationsmittel und verhielt sich zur Gemeinsprache wie das Besondere zum Allgemeinen, ihre Besonderheit läge aber nur in der Auswahl und Zusammenstellung der sprachlichen Mitteln selbst".

The relationship among these languages is shown in the figure below:

Standard language, like scientific discourse, bears many names which have to be mentioned in order to represent better its function in relation to scientific discourse: literary language, national language, common language, standard language and native language.

When we speak about a professional jargon, we mean the language used in a given profession or field of knowledge. Consequently, there are many professional sublanguages related to human knowledge and professional activities. In order to comprise the communication of any area of scientific discourse it suffices to get acquainted with a few science texts, specialized periodicals revealing the linguistic units of a given sublanguage. A high specialization text is difficult to understand for a layman. The precise distinction between `significant' (linguistic form) and `signifié' (content) defines a

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double work perceptive on scientific texts. An expert may easily understand text content whereas in a foreign language it may be difficult for him to understand standard language units. A foreign language teacher usually masters a greater amount of linguistic signs, he better recognizes formal constructions and sentence structures.

The translation from native language into a foreign (scientific) one may appear difficult since professional concepts can't always be understood in all their complexity. The specific characteristic of professional jargons is the presence of international terms borrowed from Latin and Greek. They are said to be positive aspects of scientific discourse. A relative frequency of international terms found in science texts makes their comprehension much easier. The result of it is the tendency to generalizations and the transfer of meaning on international scale in the field of science, technology and communication.

Specialized Vocabulary

Halliday et al. (1964) assumes that grammar and lexis constitute two aspects of linguistic form. The first aspect represents `closed set' and the second one `open set'. The most relevant language characteristics may be seen in lexical units and some of them will do in order to identify any given register. Scientific terms, in particular, differentiate specific sublanguages except for those which belong to more than one branch of science, e.g., morphology in biology and linguistics.

Halliday divides sublanguages into those which are distinguished by field of discourse, mode of discourse and style of discourse. The field of discourse includes a certain scope of linguistic activities, i.e. content. Within this classification we find such registers like: law, medicine, politics, biology, mathematics, etc. The mode of discourse differentiates oral language from written language and the style of discourse refers to the relationship between participants.

The lecture given on law, for example, will include legal science, the mode of discourse will be in the form of an academic lecture and in role-relationship: lecturer student.

According to Hoffmann (1976) scientific literature reveals, in relation to other literary means, a quantitative preponderance, it influences natural language and contributes to its development. The standard language contains all

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scientific discourse elements. The scientific discourse, on the other hand, comprises only its certain part.

Considering the fact that it is impossible to cover simultaneously all communication spheres, we use micro-analyses which, at first, study a part of language the concrete communication scope. The greater amount of such analyses will be carried out, the more distinct character of scientific discourse will be revealed. The full representation of scientific discourse, at all levels, brings out the complete description of this sublanguage and its comparison with other registers. Such research procedure may be applied in practice, among other things, in the choice of specialized texts. These investigations show that there is a preponderance of standard language over other sublanguages. The analysis of literary language brings about certain results but, on the other hand, common language analysis is difficult to be arrived at.

A growing infiltration of sciences into all domains of our life is well reflectedin the vocabulary expansion of scientific discourse. A great number of scientific concepts enter the standard language contributing to its higher degree of abstraction. The vocabulary expansion leads to greater differentiation of conceptual categories and to a more precise `articulation of reality' and therefore to the perfection of inter-human communication.

The delimination of any distinct lexis division encounters many obstacles because of overlapping frontiers between one group of words and the other one.

The study of professional jargons in the area of science text choice (Schilling, 1965), particularly in the GRD, brought to the vocabulary division into the three basic groups:

a) general vocabulary

b) general-scientific vocabulary

c) specialized (professional) vocabulary.

It should not be contested that all sublanguages contain a general vocabulary. The delimination of distinct division in the scope of oral communication seems to be difficult to be achieved in regard to individual language command levels.

On the basis of literary language the so-called basic vocabulary is arrived at (Grundwortschatz), which is the basis of standard language vocabulary and it serves as an comparison between standard language and scientific

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discourse. The above mentioned vocabulary division may be represented in the following figure:

The circles in this figure show the terminology of the most important professional fields. It follows that some words belong to:

a) general vocabulary and particular professional vocabulary

b) the second vocabulary and further professional vocabularies

c) general vocabulary and two or more terminologies.

LSP texts may represent certain difficulties to the person who is not a specialist in a given field of knowledge, for example, the sentence: `a circumscribed staphylococcal infection of the subcutaneous tissues'.

Such sentences may be incomprehensible for a certain group of people, but they describe completely meaningful scientific facts. The main difficulties in those sentences are concepts, scientific terms.

It is evident that a scientist must be skilled in using these particular terms while identifying and operating different chemical substances, minerals, instruments, etc.

The development of any branch of knowledge always brings about the emergence of a suitable terminology. In the formation of scientific and technological terminologies the following principles are usually in force: systematics, precision, reproductivity, uniformity and correctness.

According to Flood (1960) there are three sources of origin of scientific terms:

1) Common language vocabulary, e.g. energy, power,

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sentence, box.

2) Loan-words from other languages in their unchanged form: refoulement, renvoi, laissez-faire, etc.

3) The terms coined by scientists themselves: supersonic, pluviometer, lunar module, etc.

Girard (1968) compares the structure of lexis to a star in the middle of which there is the lexis under constant action, it contains the highest frequency words used in everyday situations. This center of the common lexis is called the basic vocabulary. Further, the specialized terminology is found. General words and special terms show certain relationships making up general, scientific vocabulary. Still further, we find strictly professional terminology characteristic of a given science or a group of experts. At the very end of this star there is a sphere of lexis being in `full swing'. There are many new terms. The professional registers represent the structural characteristics similar to standard language, but they differ in regard to their special semantic content.

The use of everyday language proves that general vocabulary may enter specialized vocabulary: a technical term having entered general vocabulary, very often, loses its equivalence and it evokes many different associations, e.g. such words as criticism, electrified.

A man may be electrified into action and people may claim to be allergic to all sorts of things and conditions.

The words of the highest frequency of occurrence belong to general vocabulary, since they use their concepts in all spheres of communication, the specialized terms, on the other hand, are only used by a small group of experts.

In Rivenc's (1968) view the constant language means of a scientific style are formed by terminology, which constitutes 10-20 per cent of all the words of the scientific text. In an ideally ordered terminology one concept corresponds to one linguistic sign.

According to Gilbert (1973) in specialized vocabulary standard language words have a special meaning, they usually bear nominal character and they form a specialized terminology complex.

Among the three components: lexis, syntax and particular scientific discourse characteristics the functional style of specialized vocabulary plays an essential role. Within the

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professional lexis, there should be a border line between comprehensible and incomprehensible elements, although a certain degree of overlapping is usually met. This case is very common in legal language: what one person considers to be a specialized term, the other one admits it as a part of general vocabulary. The higher degree of text comprehension, the lower degree of specialization. In the view of this fact, the definition of professional terminology should be arrived at and the lexis has to be divided into two groups: strictly professional and general.

The professional jargons, in relation to other sublanguages, are characterized by the high frequency of nouns and, therefore, the professional literature is said to have a nominal style. The reason for this fact is the presence of complicated nominal constructions aiming at the linguistic precision. This precision is achieved through the use of a great number of attributes whose greater part is constituted by nouns: family allowance, eye-witness, labour code prescriptions, etc.

In science texts there is a relatively high degree of verbal nouns, e.g. finding, growing, failing. They are followed by adjectives: latent crime, skilled witness, legal heir, etc.

Hoffmann (1976) assumes that in a professional jargon the verb plays a second-rate role what testifies to the well-developed deverbalization of scientific style. The expansion of sentences is usually achieved through the verb.

Pointing out the main differencies obtaining between standard language and LSP has a great significance for the teaching of professional sublanguages.

References

Bloomfield, L. (1960) Linguistic Aspects of Science. Chicago.

Flood, W. (1960) Scientific Words: their Structure and Meaning.

Gilbert, P. (1973) Rémarques sur la Diffusion des Mots Scientifiques dans le Lexique Commun. Langue Francaise.

Girard, D. (1963) Vers une Conception Scientifique de l'Enseignement des Langues. Le Francais dans le Monde.

Halliday, M.A.K. and McIntosh, A. and Strevens, P. (1964) The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching. London.

Hoffmann, L. (1976) Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache. Berlin.

Klaus, G. (1963) Semiotik und Erkenntnistheorie. Berlin.

Mazur, M. (1961) Terminologia Techniczna. Warszawa.

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Phal, A. (1973) L'Obstacle de la Langue dans la Préparation das Etrangers aux Etudes Scientifiques Francaises. Langue Francaise.

Porter, D. (1976) Scientific English, an Oversight in Stylistics? Instytut Anglystyki, University of Warsaw.

Rivenc, P. (1968) Lexique et Langue Parlée. Le Francais dans le Monde.

Saussure de, F. (1922) Cours de Linguistique Générale. Paris.

Savory, H. (1953) The Language of Science, its Growth, Character and Usage. London.

Schilling, I. (1965) Allgemeinwissenschaftlicher Wortschatz des Russischen. Leipzig.

Seibicke, W. (1959) Fachsprache und Gemeinsprache. Muttersprache.

Selinker, L. (1974) Working Papers in English for Science and Technology. Seattle: University of Washington.

Trampe af, P. (1977) Fackspråk och fackspråklig utbildning. Stockholm.

Weisgerber, B. (1974) Theorie der Sprachdidaktik. Mayer.

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14
The Message and the Medium: Exploring their Relationship in Oral Medical Presentations

Paz Buenaventura Naylor
University of Michigan

We are all familiar with McLuhan's dictum, ''The medium is the message," with reference to electronic media. Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous American architect, has also said "Form and function are one." In language, iconicity has been recognized beyond onomatopaeic expressions in more recent linguistic literature. Halliday (1967), demonstrated that syntactic forms were also expressive in literary works. In Naylor (1956), we can see that in the prose of Sir Thomas Browne, there were clear differences in the structure of the sentences found in his Religio Medici compared to those in some of his letters to family and friends. The Latinic sentence structures, characterized by formal balance and its periods and caesuras, were by their very form expressive of the lofty thoughts in the Religio, whereas the lack of such formal structuring of sentences bespoke more mundane thoughts and attitudes.

There is nothing new in the notion that form is in itself expressive, not merely a vehicle for substance or meaning, and by inference, the relationship is dialectic and interactive. It is therefore not surprising that in the study of how oral medical papers are presented at medical meetings, differences in discourse structure and dynamics of communication (from, say, linguistics papers at linguistics meetings) should become apparent. In trying to account for such differences, it became equally clear that the intrinsic differences of subject matter demanded differences in medium of communication and its linguistic correlates, in effect and in various ways, the substance of the message shaping the structure of the medium.

In a paper, "On the Presentation of Medical Papers at Medical Meetings: A Critique," (1985), Bernard Naylor, a physician and Professor of Pathology at the University of Michigan Medical School, gave pointers on what to avoid and what to do for a good and effective presentation of papers at medical meetings. While most of the suggestions and objections were applicable to public speaking in any setting, some were of specific application to medical presentations and would not apply to linguistics presentations mainly due to the

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differences in format and medium of communication that the subject matter required.

Medical papers are based on empirical physical data the human body and other biological systems, which are best presented visually by means of slide transparencies. Literally, a picture was worth a thousand words. Thus, the showing of slide transparencies has become standard practice and has come to form the backbone of oral presentations at medical meetings. Such slide transparencies constitute visual text; they are more than visual aids. They are presentational rather than representational; they transcend metaphoric function. They do not stand for something else; they are it. In at least this narrower sense, we can say with McLuhan that, like the pictures in the television box, the medium is indeed the message.

It seemed reasonable enough to presuppose that such a difference of format would have linguistic correlates that would entail differences of textual forms and modifications in the dynamics of discourse. Since slide transparencies form an integral part of an oral medical presentation, and since the effective use of an electronic pointing device (addressed in B. Naylor's paper but generally deemed irrelevant to linguistics presentations), it was predicted that the use of linguistic deictic devices would be a major difference between an oral medical presentation and an oral linguistics one. This paper has therefore set out to "profile" the discourse structure of an orally delivered medical paper in terms of the relative frequency of occurrence of major sentence types and of linguistic deictic devices and their various discourse-pragmatic functions. In so doing, it is hoped that the interactive relation between form and function, between the medium and the message in a broader sense, will become recognizable.

Conduct of Study

In a study of the discourse pragmatics of focus based on Tagalog (P. Naylor, 1975, 1986), I described the discourse functions of the non-agent-focus sentence type (formally passive in Tagalog) in terms of a relative-frequency analysis of its occurrence in various types of text in different genres of discourse, oral as well as written.

This proved to be quite revealing. Along with relative frequency of occurrence, we could also observe the patterning and the contextual/pragmatic motivation of the occurrence of

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certain sentence types as well as their associated morphosyntactic forms. As we trace the patterns of occurrence of certain grammatical forms, we could at the same time define the place or the function of each within specific discourse structures. Thus, relative-frequency analysis proved to be a revealing technique for profiling text or discourse structure beyond a simple numerical account of the occurrence of certain forms.

The same technique of relative-frequency analysis was used to provide a basis for a profile of the structure of discourse and a description of discourse dynamics at play in the oral medical presentations included in this study.

I attended two sessions in two different meetings of pathologists, making careful observations as a member of the audience and noting first impressions as a linguist-observer while voice-recording the presentations on tape. As a member of the audience, I was recording "naive" observations and evaluations of over-all coherence, rapport with the audience, and effectiveness of communication as talks proceeded. I wanted to subsequently find out if and how "scientific" analysis will corroborate intuitive reactions. (This will be discussed below.)

The first session was part of the Annual Meeting of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology held in Chicago on March 8, 1987. There were six speakers and, as the panel organizer said, the program reflects the big changes taking place in surgical pathology, with the first three papers "exploring the new world of immunohistochemistry and the other three will be dealing with the new techniques of fine needle aspiration biopsy." The second session was part of the Interim Meeting of the American Society of Cytology, held in San Fransisco on March 28, 1987. It consisted of four presentations and as the program states:

This symposium will review the current evidence relating human papillomavirus (HPV) to carcinoma of the uterline cervix and its precursors. . . . The focus of the panel will include DNA studies including in situ hybridization, the morphologic features of HPV infection in benign and preinvasive epithelial lesions.

As material for comparison, I attended two sessions of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Boston on April 11-12, 1987. The first was a session on the Whorf hypothesis with reference to Chinese and the second was a session on Japanese discourse analysis. There were four speakers in each session. I made similar intuitive

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assessments of over-all coherence, rapport with audience, and effectiveness of communication as I listened and observed carefully while voice-recording the proceedings on tape.

After reviewing the tapes as I began to study them in detail, I decided to narrow down the scope of my material in order to gain depth and clarity of detail and a sharper focus on the picture that will emerge from the analysis of the material. I therefore selected four of the Linguistics presentations that would parallel as closely as possible the types of subject matter deemed representative of the medical presentations.

The medical presentations chosen were categorized as specific (developing a single topic of discourse), statistical, methodological, and historical. The specific paper was about "Cytoplasmic Filamentous Proteins their Basic Biology". The statistical paper was on epidemiology, with most of the slide transparencies showing charts and statistical data. The methodological talk was a procedure or "how-to" paper on "the diagnosis of breast lesions with fine needle aspiration cytology". The paper characterized as ''historical" was on the clinical applications and future directions of fine needle aspiration cytology and although it was not meant to be a historical paper, it was presented in more of a historical vein, outlining the development of the technique over the years as the speaker did. All four followed the standard format of projecting slide transparencies of their material and "speaking to" their slides. (The "historical" speaker, however, projected the fewest slides.) Some speakers even included slide transparencies of text.

The Linguistics presentations were categorized as: specific, experimental, language-learning, and philosophical. The specific paper was on the function of the relative clause in Japanese discourse. The experimental paper was given by a psychologist reporting on reactions of subjects to questions based on a counter-factual premise. The language-learning paper was on the learning of counterfactual constructions by Chinese children. The philosophical paper discussed matters pertaining to the concept of truth in Chinese and the ability of Chinese speakers to think theoretically. Only one speaker projected a few lines of text that seemed to merely serve as a pnemonic aid for remembering the main points the speaker was making. The speaker on Japanese (the "specific" paper) gave a hand-out to which he referred as he went along.

Based on the prediction as stated above and on experience in previous discourse studies that showed relative frequency of occurrence of sentence types was diagnostic of types of text, the following items were selected for counting relative

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frequency of occurrence in the discourse under study: deictic devices, copula predications, passive clauses, active clauses, and stative clauses. Deictic devices consisted mainly of the demonstrative pronoun this but included in this category are other "pointing" devices such as here, the/another and there's, accompanied by marked intonation and/or physical pointing. Copula predications are sentences with a predicate noun or adjective joined to its subject by a form of to be. (Trimble, 1985, refers to this type as "stative". This term, as part of a verbal paradigm, implies that such sentences are verbal when in fact they are not.) I found the rubric stative to be most appropriate to cover clauses with verbs that denote states but are active in form in English; e.g., X lies dormant, Y shows Z.

Furthermore, the literature abounds in characterizations of scientific language as being predominantly descriptive, with predominance of passive constructions and nominalizations. Relative frequency data on the selected clause types should inform us on the tenability of some of these putative characteristics of scientific language.

The actual figures for frequency of occurrence of the selected categories were then converted to percentages based on the total number of clauses counted. Clauses with deictic expressions were counted twice: once for the occurrence of deictics (this figure is not included in the base total) and a second time for clause-type category (included by clause category in the base total). Similarly, stative clauses were counted twice: once for occurrence as an active clause and as such, included in the base total and a second time for occurrence as a stative clause (this figure is not included in the base total). Thus, the percentages for copula predications, passive, and active clauses should total 100%.

Further observations were recorded, correlations and inferences based on relative-frequency information were then worked out.

MEDICAL:
Specific
Statistical
Methodological
Historical

Deictics
30%

17%

27%

17%

Copula Predications
33%

27%

35%

37%

Passive Clauses
15%

22%

5%

13%

Active Clauses
52%

51%

60%

50%

Stative Clauses
25%

14%

30%

22%

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LINGUISTICS:
Specific
Experimental
Language Learning
Philosophical

Deictics
11%

12%

3%

3%

Copula Predications
37%

22%

24%

66%

Passive Clauses
13%

1%

5%

5%

Active Clauses
50%

77%

71%

66%

Stative Clauses
18%

26%

31%

34%

Table 1.

Deictic Devices and their Function

A look at the chart will show that it is in the use of deictics that oral medical discourse departs most widely from the linguistics oral presentations. This was predictable in view of the fact that the oral medical presentations had a very large visual component. This correlation is further borne out by the lower incidence of deictics in the more historical talk in which the fewest number of slides was shown. There was clustering of the occurrences of deictics as well when slide transparencies were being shown.

Jespersen (1964) referred to this and that as "pronouns of pointing" and added that that was the more abstract. Sure enough that did not occur as an indexing device in my data. Whenever that (not as a relative pronoun but as a demonstrative pronoun) occurred, it functioned simply as a pro-form (along with the anaphoric functions normally associated with pro-forms).

In the context of oral medical presentations, in addition to pronominal function, deictics have three other functions that are identifiable at varying levels of analysis. When Jespersen (op.cit.) referred to this and that as "pointing pronouns" he was taking into account their pragmatic function as well as their grammatical function. Within the standard format of oral medical presentations, this pointing or indexing function takes on empirical force and physical meaning. Deictics become a linguistic substitute for the electronic pointer or the index finger. (In the presentations I studied, the electronic pointer was not used, the indexing function of deictics could then be viewed as its linguistic correlate.)

Deictics also function as a device for coherence between visual and linguistic text components. It seems so obvious once it is

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pointed out but pointing to the things in the slide transparencies as one talks about them brings the visual and the linguistic component together as a coherent though composite whole. What is less apparent is that without the deictic devices to provide the cohesive element, the visual and the verbal components of the discourse would move along separate parallel paths that never meet. Coherence in this sort of composite discourse is a necessary function of indexing devices.

Pointing to something demands audience response. Thus, indexing devices have yet another function as they provide a means for establishing rapport with the audience. In the normal course of events, the more the speaker points, the more the audience responds by looking at what is being pointed out and, as a result, the more are the points of communication being established. Perhaps we may refer to this as the communicative function of indexing devices.

Thus the failure to use deictic devices sufficiently may redound to a discourse of insufficient coherence, hanging together only loosely and just as importantly, such failure may result in poor audience rapport.

Notice that the speaker who gave the "statistical" paper shows a relatively low percentage of use of deictics. This is not justified by the fact that, unlike the "historical" presentation which also shows 17%, slide transparencies of the statistical information formed the backbone of the presentation and the ratio of visual to verbal text was extremely high. It appears that insufficient use of deictics accounts for the impression of looseness of textual fabric and lack of rapport with the audience. (As a member of the audience, the sense I got was of the slide transparencies moving along a parallel line and the linguistic text moving along another parallel line and the twain never met. I can also remember my attention straying more times than that of an attentive audience should have done.)

In contrast, the two other speakers in the medical group who used a relatively high percentage of deictics appeared to be highly effective communicators, commanding audience attention and giving a clearly coherent presentation. Of the two, the speaker who gave the "methodological" presentation was the more dynamic and seemed to have greater rapport with the audience but this may be due to other contributing factors as well, rather than to sufficient use of deictics alone. I must point out, however, that the figure 27% compared to 30% (for the "specific" presentation) could be misleading since in the latter, the ratio of visual text to linguistic text was so

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much higher. Thus, the density of incidence of deictics in relation to the number of slide transparencies in the "methodological" paper was actually higher even if the over-all percentage of use was slightly lower.

Admittedly, these evaluations of effectiveness of communication are merely intuitive. They were not scientifically determined yet they have validity at some level of description. Perhaps an instrument for measuring audience reaction and effectiveness of communication should be devised to make it possible to scientifically measure presumably subjective impressions. Further study is indicated in this direction to provide a scientific basis for some of the more highly tentative correlations suggested here.

Passive Function

The literature abounds with statements to the effect that scientific language is characterized by predominance of passives (e.g., the paper given here by our colleague from Poland; W. Lehmann, 1983; Bloomfield, 1939, to name a few). The percentages indicating the relative frequency of occurrence of passive clauses in oral medical presentations belie such statements.

While it is true that the medical papers show higher percentages for passive clauses than the linguistic ones, the overwhelming predominance of active clauses is beyond question. Perhaps statements regarding the use of passives need to be rephrased to reflect the fact that passives occur more frequently in scientific language but they do not necessarily predominate. (One of our Finnish colleagues at this meeting informed me that in a study of scientific texts in German, they started out expecting to find prevalent use of passives but to their "surprise", they did not find it.)

It is interesting to note, however, that both the medical and the linguistics "specific" presentations showed closely similar figures for passive incidence -15% and 13% respectively. This would suggest that the nature of the subject matter is more a determining factor in passive use than the general category of "scientific" discourse.

When the discourse develops and focuses on essentially a single topic, there appears to be a tendency toward greater referentiality or anaphoricity. The passive, with its referential or anaphoric subject, is more likely to occur with higher frequency. (In the Tagalog study (Naylor, 1986), "single-topic"

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text types showed a preponderance of passive clauses as well.) On the other hand, the medical "methodological" paper was addressing procedures how to do something. Active sentences would therefore lend themselves better to the task of conveying such a message. Similarly, the linguistics speaker reporting on subjects' reactions in an experiment would also be more likely to convey his report in active sentences since he was talking about what the subject did.

There may be other factors of a more cultural nature that are at play in the instances of passive use shown in the chart. For example, the speakers who gave the "statistical" and the "historical" presentations in the medical group are men in their late fifties to early sixties who were educated in Europe. The speaker who gave the "specific" paper in the linguistics group was originally from Japan. Nonetheless, I do not believe that this factor would negate the general validity of the correlation between nature of the subject and incidence of the passive that is here being suggested. I would expect that any tendencies due to cultural factors would be more a matter of degree than a matter of substance.

W. Lehmann (op. cit., p. 125, p. 221) points out that "scientific results are supposed to be impersonal" and "the facts are to speak for themselves without involvement by the writer." To this end, the passive lends itself so perfectly. "Use of the passive permits placing the inanimate fact in subject position, eliminating the agent entirely." For this reason, scientists favor the passive when writing English, according to Lehmann.

In this study, a very interesting use of active clauses with the same pragmatic function as the passive (as described in the preceding paragraph) has come to light. The medical speakers were using teleological sentences to refer to or describe certain phenomena in the slide transparencies. Examples were legion but since this sort of sentence was not the focus of this study, I did not do a relative frequency count of its occurrence. (Should we wish to determine the degree to which this usage is "taking over" passive function and also to see the pace at which its progress proceeds, such a study would be well worth pursuing.)

To cite a few examples, we have:

The individual cells do not show the morphologic picture of malignancy.

. . . this intermediate skeleton forms a rigid network upon

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which the contractile elements can exert their focuses.

. . . they surround the Z disc, they interconnect the Z disc. . they similarly insert to underplaque. . .

The cell decomposes and becomes ragged at the edges and it comes out like a blurb. . .

This juts and abuts. . .

By personifying and subjectivizing the non-human entities they were talking about, they have succeeded in maintaining an objective and impersonal stance without losing the dynamism of the active voice.

Text and Transitivity: The Question of Descriptiveness

Hopper and Thompson (1980), in their Transitivity Hypothesis, described the scale of transitivity and argued that high transitivity correlates with narrative movement and low transitivity correlates with background, descriptive material in the discourse.

It has been said of scientific language that it is predominantly descriptive. The figures in the chart above provides corroborative evidence for this characterization of scientific discourse via the notion of degree of transitivity.

Copula predications, which show a high frequency of occurrence, are non-verbal constructions and transitivity relations are not encoded by the grammatical structure at all. This clause type is atransitive. (In many languages, e.g., Tagalog, there is no equivalent of the copula to be and its meaning is conveyed by parataxis or simple juxtaposition of subject and predicate.)

Formally active sentences (agent as subject, verb in finite form, no participle) occurred with very high frequency in all of the texts studied as the chart above shows. However, a fairly high proportion of these clauses (28% to 52%) had verbs that denoted states rather than actions and were therefore low on the scale of transitivity. The sentences, although active in form, were in fact descriptive in function. The examples given above of "teleological" sentences are also examples of formally active sentences with stative meanings and the fact that they described cells and other entities in the slide

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transparencies could hardly escape the reader's notice. They were thus clearly descriptive.

When we combine the percentages for copula predications and stative clauses, we get total percentages of from 41% to 66% of all clauses that are classifiable as low/zero transitivity, which is in turn correlatable with non-narrative or descriptive function. With such a high proportion of atransitive/low transitivity clauses, these examples of medical scientific discourse are clearly predominantly descriptive in character.

There are of course other parameters for descriptiveness such as the use of modification structures and relative clauses. (In passing, I have observed many instances of "piling on" of descriptive phrases and clauses as many as seven in one sentence.) In this regard, a separate study of the internal structure of sentence types should yield insights on what the constituent linguistic elements are and how these are combined to form descriptive text.

Conclusion

This brings us back to where we started: the relationship between content and form, substance and structure, message and medium. It is clear that since much of medical data require visual presentation, particularly in oral presentations, the grammar of the discourse is geared toward indexing, describing, and specifying what is being shown and talked about.

This study suggests that we need to refine and redefine much generalization about scientific language in terms of how specific linguistic elements that constitute discourse structures are combined to shape the form that fits the substance of the message. This means that we need finer categorizations of what the discourse is about. It is not enough to talk about "scientific discourse" or "medical language". Our perceptions and our pronouncements will need to be phrased in terms of variation and differences of degree along certain parameters rather than in terms of oppositions of polarities. Subcategorizing written medical discourse into "editorial", "case report'', and "research paper" types or genres is a step in the right direction. However, it is not precise enough for the sort of in-depth qualitative analysis that discovering the nature of the relationship between the message and the medium demands.

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Note

There are two points that this study has brought out more as offshots than as part of the core of the topic at hand.

First, we are faced with the paradox of needing greater and finer detail on both the nature of the subject matter and the complexities of their formal media, from which will arise the necessary generalizations the higher and the only appropriate level of abstraction at which linguistic tendencies can be compared and confirmed as universals of language.

Secondly, if indeed English scientific discourse shows features attributed to languages like Tagalog, seemingly based on pragmatic considerations (of presumably different provenance), then we shall have to consider yet other typological parameters based on pragmatic/communicative intent.

References

Bloomfield, L. (1933) Language. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

(1939) Linguistic Aspects of Science. Foundations of the Unity of Science 1:4. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Crombie, W. (1985) Process and Relation in Discourse and Language Learning. London: Oxford University Press.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1973) Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan, R. (1976) Cohesion in English. London: Longman.

Hopper, P.J. and Thompson, S.A. (1980) Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse. Language, 56:2, 251-299.

Lehmann, W.P. (1983) Language: An Introduction. New York: Random House.

Naylor, B. (1985) On the Presentation of Papers at Medical Meetings: A Critique. Acta Cytologica, 29:3, 197-201.

Naylor, P.B. (1956) A Stylistic Analysis of Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici. Unpublished Manuscript.

(1975) Topic, Focus, and Emphasis in the Tagalog Verbal Clause, Oceanic Linguistics, 14, 12-79.

(1986) The Pragmatics of Focus, in Geraghty, Carrington and Wurm (eds), FOCAL I: Papers from the Fourth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Pacific Linguistics, C-93. Canberra.

(1987) Focus, Discourse Pragmatics, and Language Typology. To appear in Proceedings of the XIVth

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International Congress of Linguists. Berlin.

Silverstein, M. (1979) Language Structure and Linguistic Ideology. The Elements. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Tannen, D. (1982) Oral and Literate Strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives. Language, 58:1, 1-21.

(ed) (1984) Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.

Trimble, L. (1985) English for Science and Technology. A Discourse Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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15
Zur Kontrastiven Analyse Von Medizinischen Fachtexten. Eine Diachrone Studie

Sabine Ylönen, Dagmar Neuendorff und Gottfried Effe
Universität Jyväskylä und Universität Oulu

1. Fragestellung

Kontrastive Analysen von Fachtexten sind die Grundlage für das Herausfinden von Verstehensschwierigkeiten beim Lesen fremdsprachiger Fachtexte.

Während Widdowson (1979) und Buhlmann (1981) ein universelles Modell für den wissenschaftlichen Kommunikationsprozeß annehmen, schließen wir uns der Meinung Spillners (1983) und Schröders (1986) an, daß wissenschaftliche Kommunikation nach Regeln verläuft, die sich in der Tradition einer jeden Kulturgemeinschaft entwickelt haben und entsprechend differieren.

Unsere Hypotese lautet: auch in der Medizin ist der wissenschaftliche Diskurs nicht universal, sondern kulturgebunden.

Zur Überprüfung dieser Hypotese sind konkrete kontrastive Analysen von Fachtexten notwendig ¹. Diese Fachtexte sollten, um eine Vergleichbarkeit zu sichern, derselben Textsorte² angehören und, um zuverlässige Aussagen zu erhalten, aus einem möglichst großen Korpus stammen. Die Analysen müssen, wenn es um Kulturgebundenheit geht, neben linguistischen besonders auch extralinuistische uns pragmatische Faktoren berücksichtigen³. Auf die Bedeutung extralinguistischer und pragmatischer Faktoren für den wissenschaftlichen Diskurs wurde in der Literatur bereits mehrfach hingewiesen. Zum einen werden kultur- und nationalspezifische Normen für das fachbezogene und wissenschaftliche Schreiben festgestellt: Kaplan (1972) und Clyne (1981) unterscheiden vier von der englischen Linearität abweichende Diskursstrukturen, Galtung (1983) beschreibt Unterschiede zwischen sachsonischem, teutonischem, gallischem und nipponischem Stil. Zum anderen ist von einer eigenen Kultur verschiedener Fachgebiete (Oksaar, 1983) und Schulen die Rede: Fuller (1984) stellt für die Medizin eine Schema-Theorie fest, nach der es in den verschiedenen Fachbereichen ein von Experten festgelegtes Schema für die

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Durchführung von klinischen Versuchen gibt, das sich in den medizinischen Forschungsberichten widerspiegelt.

Ausgehend von einer auf finnische Medizinstudenten ausgerichteten Lehrwerkproduktion "Deutsch für Mediziner" ⁴ wurde in einer Pilotstudie nach Unterschieden im Diskurs deutscher und finnischer medizinischer Zeitschriftenartikel gesucht (Neuendorff, 1987). Die Analyse ergab Unterschiede auf allen Ebenen des Textes, begonnen mit der Textgroßstruktur (Aufbau, Gliederung, Überschriften, Gestaltung von Abstracts) über die Makro- und mediale Ebene (textuale Ausformung der einzelnen Abschnitte, Explizität versus Inexplizität, Einsatz metasprachlicher Signale u.a) bis zur Mikrostruktur (Differenzen vorwiegend im Bereich der Kohärenz). Ob dieses Ergebnis verallgemeinert werden kann, soll im folgenden auf einer breiteren Materialgrundlage überprüft werden, wobei wir uns hier auf eine Analyse der Ebene der Textgroßstruktur beschränken.

Eine Pilotstudie konzentrierte sich auf die Texteinbettung⁵ wissenschaftlicher Artikel in medizinischen Fachzeitschriften des Jahrgangs 1986. In allen war neben anderen Rubriken (wie "Aktuelle Diagnose", "Aktuelle Therapie", "Übersichten" usw.) die Textsorte (TS) "Originalien"⁶ anzutreffen. Auffallend war, daß bezüglich der Gliederung in Teiltexte⁷ der TS ''Originalien" (im folgenden sprechen wir auch von Artikelgliederung) drei Typen unterschieden werden konnten: Typ A, nichtexplizite Gliederungssignale (damit sind gemeint: Abschnittsgliederungen durch Zeileneinzug, numerische bzw. Buchstabenzählung am Rand der Zeile, graphische Hervorhebung der eingezogenen 1. Zeile. Diese ist syntaktisch in den Text integriert.), Typ B. mit inhaltlichen Gliederungssignalen (Textgliederung durch Uberschriften, die stets syntaktisch von dem folgenden Text getrennt sind und sich auf den Inhalt des Teiltextes beziehen.) und Typ C, mit strukturellen Gliederungssignalen (Artikelgliederung durch Uberschriften, die sich auf die Funktion des entsprechenden Abschnittes beziehen.).

Im folgenden soll untersucht werden, ob die von Schröder (nicht publiziert) für die Sozialwissenschaften festgestellte Angleichung des finnischen Diskurses an den englischen auch auf die Fachsprache der Medizin zutrifft⁸. Hinweise für eine Orientierung der deutschen Diskurstradition in der Medizin an der angloamerikanischen sind z.B. bei Lippert (1978) zu finden, der eine Anglisierung der Titel medizinischer Zeitschriften besonders in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Schweiz feststellt.

Unsere zweite Hypotese ist in diesem Zusammenhang, daß der

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wissenschaftliche Diskurs in der Medizin heute zumindest teilweise durch die angloamerikanische Wissenschaftskultur beeinflußt wird, was im folgenden durch Analysen deutscher, finnischer und englischer medizinischer Zeitschriften auf den Ebenen der extralinguistischen und pragmatischen Faktoren sowie der Textgroßstruktur aus diachroner Sicht überprüft werden soll.

Unser diachroner Ansatz beschränkt sich hierbei auf der Ebene der Textgroßstruktur auf die Untersuchung des Vorkommens der oben genannten drei Gliederungstypen und auf der Ebene der extralinguistischen und pragmatischen Faktoren auf eine Analyse der zitierten (und somit rezipierten) Literatur als Ausdruck dafür, an welches Paradigma sich die jeweilige Forschungsarbeit anlehnt bzw. welches sie vertritt ⁹.

2. Material Und Methoden

Unser Korpus entstammt den folgenden Zeitschriften: Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (DMW) aus Deutschland/BRD¹⁰, Medizin und Sport (M&Sp) aus der DDR, Duodecim (DUOD) aus Finnland, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) aus den USA und British Medical Journal (BMJ) aus Großbrittanien. Mit Ausnahme von M&Sp handelt es sich bei allen um Zeitschriften der Allgemeinmedizin, bei denen ein ähnlicher Rezipienten-/ Produzentenkreis angenommen werden kann. Alle der genannten Zeitschriften werden von finnischen Bibliotheken abboniert und also vermutlich auch von finnischen Medizinern gelesen (deshalb die Auswahl von M&Sp als Vertreter einer DDR-Zeitschrift). Diachron wurden die Zeitschriften DMW, Duodecim und JAMA untersucht, die alle im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts entstanden sind und sich daher zum Vergleich anbieten.

Bei unserer Analyse konzentrierten wir uns auf die TS "Originalien". Methodische Grundlage war das Textanalysemodell nach Schröder (1987, s. Tab. 1). Die vorliegende Untersuchung beschränkt sich auf die Ebenen der extralinguistischen und pragmatischen Faktoren (Ebene I) sowie der Textgroßstruktur (Ebene II). Sie wurde in folgenden drei Schritten durchgeführt:

In einem ersten Schritt wurde die Texteinbettung unter Konzentration auf die Einbettung der Teiltexte der Textsorte Originalien (Artikelgliederung) anhand der Gliederungstypen A, B und C in den genannten fünf Zeitschriften des Jahrgangs

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1986 untersucht. Dabei wurden die Hinweise der Zeitschriftenredaktionen an die Autoren für die Abfassung von Originalien mit der Analyse der Originalien von jeweils vier bis sechs Heften verglichen.

Der zweite Schritt bestand in der diachronen Analyse der Artikelgliederung (anhand der drei Gliederungstypen) in den Zeitschriften DMW, Duodecim und JAMA. Die Analyse wurde für den Zeitraum zwischen 1885 (JAMA, 1914) und 1986 vorgenommen. Die untersuchten Jahrgänge der Zeitschriften gehen aus Abb. 2 und 3 hervor. Die Absicht, die Zeitschriften in einem regelmäßigen Abstand von jeweils 20 Jahren zu bearbeiten, konnte nicht konsequent eingehalten werden, da einige Jahrgänge in den erreichbaren Bibliotheken nicht zur Verfügung standen. Von jedem Jahrgang wurden sechs Hefte bearbeitet.

Im dritten Schritt wurde die zitierte (und somit rezipierte) Sekundärliteratur aller in den ersten beiden Schritten bearbeiteten Artikel statistisch aufbereitet.

3. Ergebnisse Und Diskussion

3.1 Analyse Des Jahrgangs 1986

3.1.1 Vorschriften der Zeitschriftenredaktionen für die Gestaltung der TS "Originalien" Die Vorschriften für die Abfassung von Originalarbeiten für die untersuchten Zeitschriften des Jahrgangs 1986 sind in Tabelle 1 zusammengefaßt.

Alle Zeitschriften (außer der finnischen) schreiben eine ähnlich strenge Gliederung der Artikel vor, die wir im folgenden als strukturelle Gliederung bezeichnet haben. Die Gliederung der Artikel der amerikanischen Zeitschrift wird sogar völlig von der Redaktion angefertigt. Die finnische Zeitschrift formuliert eine strukturelle Gliederung nur als Empfehlung: "Die Abfassung von Originalarbeiten wird in folgender Anordnung empfohlen, aber nicht vorgeschrieben: Einleitung (ohne Überschrift), Material und Methoden, Ergebnisse, Diskussion, Zusammenfassung." ¹¹

Auffällige Unterschiede sind im Bereich der Plazierung der Angaben zu den Einrichtungen, an denen die Forschungsarbeiten durchgeführt wurden, zu beobachten. Während die englischen, amerikanischen und finnischen Zeitschriften sie nur im Zusammenhang mit der Dienstanschrift/Verfasseradresse angeben, plazieren die deutschen Zeitschriften diese generell in den Kopf der Arbeit,

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die DDR-Zeitschrift sogar noch vor den Titel der Arbeit. Diese Beobachtung stimmt überein mit der Feststellung von Galtung (1983, S. 321) über den teutonischen Stil: "In Deutschland scheint die Struktur im großen und ganzen doch ziemlich einer Pyramide zu entsprechen. Es herrschte ein ungeheurer Respekt vor dem Professor, ...".

3.1.2 Analyse der Gestaltung der Originalien unter Konzentration auf die Artikelgliederung Beispiele für die Textinbettung der Textsorte Originalien und ihrer Teiltexte (Artikelgliederung) sind in Abbildung 1 zusammengefaßt. Neben der vorgeschriebenen/empfohlenen strukturellen Gliederung (Typ C) konnten noch zwei weitere Gliederungstypen festgestellt werden: eine Absatzgliederung ohne Überschriften (Typ A) und eine inhaltsbezogene Gliederung (Typ B).

Eine Übersicht über die Verteilung der Gliederungstypen A, B und C auf die untersuchten Artikel des Jahrgangs 1986 gibt Abb. 2. Typ A kommt nur in M&Sp vor. Er hat einen Anteil von etwa einem Fünftel. Typ B ist in M&Sp und in Duodecim anzutreffen. In der DDR-Zeitschrift beträgt der Anteil dieses Typs gut ein Viertel, in der finnischen Zeitschrift etwas mehr als die Hälfte. Die bundesdeutschen, englischen und amerikanischen Artikel sind ausschließlich nach Typ C gegliedert.

3.1.3 Vergleich der redaktionellen Vorschriften für die Abfassung von Originalien mit der tatsächlich auftretenden Artikelgliederung Ausgehend von der Annahme, daß eine Artikelgliederung nach Typ C angloamerikanische Tradition ist, könnte geschlußfolgert werden, daß die bundesdeutsche Zeitschrift sich bezüglich der Artikelgliederung völlig dem angloamerikanischen Stil angepaßt habe ¹², da die Hinweise für die Autoren hier hundertprozentig eingehalten wurden. Die Zeitschriften aus Finnland und der DDR aktzeptieren dagegen auch anders gegliederte Artikel, wobei die DDR-Zeitschrift die Einhaltung der Hinweise für die Autoren am freizügigsten handhabt, sich also am wenigsten vom angloamerikanischen Stil beeinflussen zu lassen scheint¹³. Ob es sich hierbei tatsächlich um eine Anpassung oder Nichtanpassung an den angloamerikanischen Stil handelt, soll im folgenden durch die Analyse älterer Zeitschriftenjahrgänge überprüft werden.

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3.2 Diachroner Ansatz: Die Gestaltung Der Abschnittsüberschriften In Deutschen, Finnischen Und Amerikanischen Wissenschaftlichen Medizinischen Zeitschriftenartikeln Zwischen 1885 (1914) Und 1986

3.2.1 Vorgehensweise Um die in 3.1.2 aufgezeigten Unterschiede in der Artikelgliederung (Gestaltung der Abschnittsüberschriften) zu erklären, wurden in ca. 20järigem Abstand die Zeitschriftenartikel von DMW, Duodecim und JAMA auf die Gestaltung ihrer Abschnittsüberschriften hin untersucht.

Dabei ergaben sich einige methodische Probleme:

Die Textsorte "Originalien" 1986 ein relativ fest umrissener Begriff wurde unschärfer, je weiter wir in der Zeit zurückgingen. Die Zeitschriften selbst waren immer weniger gegliedert, was einzelne Sparten wie "Originalien", "Therapie", "Diagnostik'' usw. betraf. Wir lösten das Problem, indem wir uns entweder an die Artikel hielten, die in den (später erstellten) Indices als Originalien bezeichnet wurden, oder solche Artikel wählten, die nach dem Verständnis der Zeit als fachwissenschaftliche Zeitschriftenartikel gelten können.

Ferner gab es das Problem der Artikelfortsetzung. Solche Artikel wurden jeweils als eine Einheit gerechnet.

Schließlich fanden sich in Bezug auf die Abschnittsgliederung einige Texte mit Mischtypen. Sie wurden jeweils nach den dominierenden Eigenschaften der Überschriften dem entsprechenden Typ (A, B oder C) zugeordnet.

3.2.2 Auswertung Der Analyse

JAMA:

Bereits im Jahrgang 1914 finden sich alle Typen der Abschnittsgliederung (A, B, C). Typ B bildet den Schwerpunkt mit knapp der Hälfte der Belege. Relativ nach folgt Typ A mit gut einem Drittel. Noch nicht so verbreitet ist Typ C, der aber bereits knapp ein Fünftel einnimmt. Bereits im Jahr 1934 hat sich Typ C als dominierende Form der Gestaltung der Abschnittsüberschriften mit fast 50% durchgesetzt, B verliert seine Vormachtstellung und ist ebenso wie A rückläufig. Mit leichten Schwankungen setzt sich diese Entwicklung bis 1965 fort, wo Typ C mit fast 70% eindeutig dominante

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Kategorie ist, A und B in erheblich reduzierter Form fortbestehen. Endpunkt der Entwicklung ist sicherlich unter dem Einfluß normierender redaktioneller Vorschriften und deren Handhabung 1986 die 100prozentige Durchsetzung von Typ C.

DMW:

In der Zeitschrift sind in den ersten uns zugänglichen Jahrgängen vom Jahr 1885/87 nur die Gliederungstypen A und B vorhanden. A ist mit über 90% dominante Kategorie, B ist nur mit wenigen Belegen vertreten, C fehlt völlig. Dieses Bild ändert sich auch 1914 nicht, nur ist eine deutliche Zunahme von Typ B zu erkennen, Dieser wächst unter Zurückdrängung von A an, bis er 1956 zur dominanten Kategorie geworden ist. Eine Unterbrechung dieser gradlinigen Entwicklung ist nur 1923 zu bemerken, wo Typ A auf über 80% ansteigt und B ca. 10% verliert. Typ C tritt in DMW das erste Mal 1956 auf, wo er sogleich auf über ein Drittel der Belege kommt. Bereits auf fast 40 % kommt Typ C 1965 (und damit recht in die Nähe der dominanten Kategorie B). 1986 hat sich Typ C, wie aufgezeigt, unter dem Einfluß der redaktionellen Vorschriften 100prozentig durchgesetzt.

Duodecim:

Hier zeigt sich eine ähnliche Ausgangssituationwie in DMW. 1887 ist Typ A mit über 90% dominante Kategorie. Wie in DMW ist in den folgenden Jahren ein Anstieg der Abschnittsüberschriften nach Typ B zu erkennen, wobei A vorerst dominante Kategorie bleibt. Interessant ist, daß die Aufwärtsbewegung von B in Duodecim ebenso wie in DMW im Jahr 1923 unterbrochen wird. Allerdings behält Typ A in Duodecim länger als in DMW seine Dominanz. Erst 1964 (und hier bereits stagnierend) wird B zur dominanten Kategorie.

Typ C tritt erstmatig 1945 auf und zwar mit über 10%. Er wächst bis 1965 auf über ein Fünftel. Wenn 1986 auch B noch dominante Kategorie ist, so hat Typ C sie mit 47,8% doch bereits fast eingeholt und weist somit den Weg, den die Entwicklung in der Zukunft wohl nehmen wird.

(Zu dem Dargestellten vgl. Abbildung 2)

3.2.3 Diskussion Der Ergebnisse

1. Die für 1986 aufgezeigten Unterschiede im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs auf der Ebene der

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Abschnittsüberschriften sind historisch erklärbar.

2. Die von uns verwandte Methode des statistischen Vergleiches hat sich als valid erwiesen, was besonders der gemeinsame Bruch in der Linearität der Entwicklung bei DMW und Duodecim im Jahre 1923 zeigt.

3. Die Tatsache, daß der obenaufgezeigte Bruch in der Linearität der Entwicklung DMW und Duodecim gemeinsam ist, deutet zusammen mit der Tatsache, daß Duodecim den Entwicklungen in DMW mit leichter zeitlicher Verzögerung folgt, daruf hin, daß die Entwicklung des finnischen medizinischen Wissenschaftsdiskurses, wie er sich in den behandelten Zeitschriften darstellt, bis 1945 unter Einflußnahme des deutschen Diskurses verläuft.

4. Typ C der Abschnittsüberschriften ist eine Eigenart des angloamerikanischen Modells, da er bis zum Ende des 2. Weltkrieges weder in den finnischen noch in den deutschen Zeitschriftenartikeln anzutreffen ist.

5. Der deutsche und finnische Diskurs entwickelt sich bis 1945 unabhängig vom angloamerikanischen. Das ist daran zu erkennen, daß Typ C der Abschnittsüberschriftengestaltung erst ab 1945 (1956) in dem finnischen resp. deutschen medizinischen Wissenschaftsdiskurs zu finden ist.

6. Nach dem 2. Weltkrieg orientieren sich sowohl der finnische als auch der deutsche Diskurs zunehmend am angloamerikanischen, wenn auch in unterschiedlich stark zunehmenden Maße.

Es fragt sich, ob der Übergang in der Gestaltung der Abschnittsüberschriften von Typ A zu Typ C, wie er an unserem Material zu erkennen ist, nicht mit einem Wechsel in Bezug auf die rezipierte Sekundärliteratur zu verbinden ist.

3.3 Analyse Der In Medizinischen Fachtexten Deutscher, Finnischer Und Amerikanischer Fachzeitschriften Verwendeten Sekundärliteratur Unter Berücksichtigung Der Historischen Entwicklung

3.3.1 Fragestellung Zur weiteren Stützung der Hypothese von der Beeinflussung des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses in der Medizin durch die angloamerikanische Wissenschaftskultur haben wir eine Analyse der Literaturangaben in

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wissenschaftlichen Fachbeiträgen amerikanischer, deutscher und finnischer medizinischer Fachzeitschriften vorgenommen. Die bereits für die synchrone und diachrone Analyse verwendeten Fachzeitschriften wurden daraufhin untersucht, aus welchen Sprachen zitiert wurde und wie häufig die einzelnen Sprachen benutzt wurden. Weiter wurde untersucht, ob sich eine Verschiebung in Bezug auf die Häufigkeit der Sprachen, aus denen wissenschaftliche Artikel rezipiert werden, erkännen läßt.

Der Vergleich der Ergebnisse der Analyse der Literaturangaben der verschiedenen Zeitschriften mit den Ergebnissen der Analyse der Abschnittsüberschriften (3.2) soll die Hypothese untermauern, daß es Anzeichen dafür gibt, daß ein Paradigmenwechsel in der finnischen und deutschsprachigen Medizin stattgefunden hat oder sich gerade vollzieht, der zumindest teilweise auf eine Änderung des Rezeptionsverhaltens zurückführen ist.

3.3.2 Vorgehensweise In den zur Verfügung stehenden Jahrgängen der untersuchten Zeitschriften wurden die Literaturangaben der oben definierten wissenschaftlichen Beiträge jeweils nach Sprachen aufgeschlüsselt und ausgezählt.

Es ergaben sich bei den älteren Jahrgängen einige Probleme: Literaturangaben werden nur selten explizit gemacht. Es wurden also auch angegebene Namen und Werke und/oder Jahreszahlenangaben als Literaturangaben gezählt. Vollständige Literaturangaben finden sich nur teilweise entweder in Fußnoten oder im laufenden Text. Erste Literaturverzeichnisse, wie sie heute allgemien üblich sind (am Ende des Textes) sind zwar schon 1885 festzustellen, doch regelmäßig erscheinen diese erst in Jahrgängen nach dem 2. Weltkrieg. Eine Ausnahme stellt JAMA dar, in der systematische Literaturverzeichnisse schon früher anzutreffen sind. Trotz der aufgezeigten Unsicherheiten glauben wir, daß deutliche Entwicklungsrichtungen nachgewiesen werden können.

3.3.3 Resultate der Analyse (vgl. Abbildung 3)

JAMA:

Englisch ist in allen untersuchten Jahrgängen am stärksten vertreten.

Englisch ist 1986 einzig zitierte Sprache.

Deutsch hat 1934 noch eine relativ wichtige Rolle inne es

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steht an zweiter Stelle doch geht die Bedeutung rasch und stark zurück.

Andere Sprachen sind auch vor 1986 nahezu unbedeutend.

Eine Stichprobe in BMJ ergibt das gleiche Ergebnis, nur Französisch hat den verschwindend kleinen Anteil von 0,3%.

DMW:

Englisch hat bis 1923 eine geringe Bedeutung. Nach dem 2. Weltkrieg ist ein starker Anstieg zu verzeichnen. Heute ist Englisch die hauptsächlich zitierte Sprache.

Französische Literaturangaben treten im letzten Jahrhundert noch relativ häufiger auf als englische, sind aber heute kaum noch von Bedeutung.

Andere Fremdsprachen sind kaum anzutreffen.

Deutsche Litersturangaben waren im letzten Jahrhundert und auch in diesem Jahrhundert noch bis 1965 vorherrschend, bis dann der "Take off" ins Englische eintrat.

Auch die in der DDR erscheinende Zeitschrift Medizin und Sport zeigt 1986 den relativ hohen Anteil von gut einem Viertel englischsprachiger Literaturangaben. Russisch und Französisch dagegen sind kaum zitiert.

Duodecim:

Englisch hat bis 1925 einen unbedeutenden Anteil an den Sprachen der Literaturangaben, ab 1945 ist ein steiler Anstieg zu konstatieren und Englisch ist heute beherrschende Sprache der Sekundärliteratur.

Deutsch ist bis 1945 die Sprache, die am häufigsten in den Literaturangaben auftaucht. Eine deutliche Spitze ist um 1925 festzustellen. 1965 sind deutschsprachige Literaturangaben wesentlich seltener nachgewiesen und 1986 wird deutschsprachige Sekundärliteratur kaum noch zitiert (1,7%).

Schwedisch ist nahezu unbedeutend, nur 1945 wird schwedische Literatur relativ häufig zitiert.

Finnisch hat nur in den Anfangsjahren der Zeitschrift die stärkste Position und hat sich danach bei einem Anteil

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von knapp 10% eingependelt.

Die Analyse der insgesamt 9303 Literaturangaben zeigt deutliche Tendenzen:

In JAMA wird zunehmend nur noch englischsprachige Literatur zitiert. Anderssprachige Literatur hat dort heute keine Bedeutung mehr.

In der DMW hat englischsprachige Literatur eine beherrschende Rolle, deutschsprachige Literatur wird nur noch wenig zitiert.

Dagegen spielt in Medizin und Sport Englisch (noch?) eine untergeordnete Rolle und die Muttersprache Deutsch eine beherrschende.

In Duodecim hat Englisch als Sprache der zitierten Literaturangaben nach 1945 sprunghaft zugenommen und das Deutsche fast vollständig verdrängt.

3.4 Vergleich Der Analyse Der Abschnittsüberschriften Und Der Bibliometrischen Analysen

Ein Vergleich der Ergebnisse der Untersuchung der Abschnittsüberschriften und der bibliometrischen Analyse zeigt folgendes: In allen verwendeten Zeitschriften ist eine starke Tendenz zum strukturell gegliederten Wissenschaftsdiskurs (Typ C), wie er in den englischsprachigen Zeitschriften heute ausschließlich vertreten ist, zu verzeichnen. Dabei ist festzustellen, daß sich die Artikelgliederung der TS "Originalien" in der DMW heute schon völlig dem englisch/amerikanischen System angepaßt hat und auch der Anteil der in der Muttersprache zitierten Literatur nur noch 20% beträgt.

Bei Medizin und Sport dagegen sind noch alle drei Gliederungstypen anzutreffen, wobei allerdings der strukturelle Typ überwiegt. Die Tatsache, daß in dieser Zeitschrift relativ wenig englische Literatur verwandt wird, läßt den Schluß zu, daß die rezipierte bzw. zitierte Literatur einen Einfluß auf die Konstitution der Textstruktur hat. Sicher spielen hier auch weitergefaßte kommunikative und soziale Zusammenhänge eine Rolle, die hier nicht erörtert werden können resp. sollen.

Duodecim hat einen etwas größeren Anteil an englischsprachiger Literatur als DMW, steht aber bei der Verteilung der Typen der Abschnittsüberschriften anders als DMW. Jeweils etwa die Hälfte der untersuchten Texte sind

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strukturell (Typ C) bzw. durch inhaltlich formulierte Überschriften (Typ B) gegliedert. Die Tendenz in Richtung strukturelle Gliederung ist jedoch stark steigend, so daß anzunehmen ist, daß sich dieser Typ (Typ C) in den nächsten Jahren durchsetzen wird.

Es scheinet also zumindest in Ansätzen auf der Ebene der Textgroßstruktur bezogen auf die Artikelgliederung sowie auf der extratextualen Ebene der Literaturangaben nachweisbar zu sein, daß der finnischsprachige Wissenschaftsdiskurs in der Medizin über das deutsche zum englisch/amerikanischen Modell überwechselt. Die medizinische Fachsprache des Deutschen wiederum hat in der untersuchten BRD-Zeitschrift das englischsprachige Modell schon voll übernommen, während in der DDR-Zeitschrift ein stärkeres Festhalten an eigenen Traditionen festgestellt werden kann, wobei allerdings auch hier eine Tendenz hin zum angloamerikanischen Modell erkennbar ist.

4. Schlußfolgerungen Und Perspektiven

Die kontrastive Analyse deutscher, finnischer und englischer medizinischer Fachtexte auf den Ebenen der Textgroßstruktur (Texteinbettung) und der extralinguistischen und pragmatischen Faktoren (rezipierte Literatur) ergab, daß ausgehend von kulturgebundenen Unterschieden des medizinischen Diskurses eine Entwicklung in Richtung universelles Modell durch die Dominanz der angloamerikanischen Diskurstradition zu verzeichnen ist.

Welche Konsequenzen ergeben sich daraus für die Lehrwerkerstellung für den fachbezogenen Fremdsprachenunterricht (FFSU) in Finnland, speziell für unser Material "Deutsch für Mediziner" (s. Ylönen, 1987)? Müssen Mediziner überhaupt noch Deutsch lernen oder reicht nicht ein FFSU in Englisch, das sich zu einer Universalsprache in der Medizin zu entwickeln und dessen Kenntnis heute notwendige Voraussetzung zur Erreichung einer hohen Effektivität in der Forschung zu sein scheint, aus?

Eine solche Betrachtungsweise birgt einige Gefahren, denn inwieweit können Forschungsmethoden und -ergebnisse von einem Land auf andere übertragen werden, besonders in der Medizin, wo es darum geht, Menschen zu heilen? Krankheiten sind meist auch psychosomatischer Natur und Menschen sind Individuen, die immer auch ihren bestimmten kulturellen Hintergrund haben, der von Diagnose und Therapie berücksichtigt werden müßte und sich nicht ohne weiteres in

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ein vorgeschriebenes Schema pressen läßt.

Besteht bei einseitiger Orientierung an einem Paradigma nicht die Gefahr einer unmenschlichen Schematisierung der medizinischen Forschung, die die Grundlage für Diagnose und Therapie bildet?

Entwickelt sich eine Medizin, die von "Patientenmaterial" spricht, nicht von einer Humanwissenschaft zu einer technischen Wissenschaft?

Meyer zu Schwabedissen (1979) unterstreicht, daß die Medizin sich auf ihre hippokratischen Tugenden besinnen solle, die er von der heutigen Entwicklung in der Medizin gefährdet sieht. Er schreibt: "Ich fürchte, daß heute die politische Macht Amerika auch das Machtdenken in der Medizin bestimmt. Die englische Sprache ist Ausdruck dieser Geisteshaltung."

Tatsächlich stimmt es bedenklich, wenn deutsche und finnische Autoren sich zum überwältigen Teil an englischer und amerikanischer Literatur orientieren, und diese wiederum, wie die Analyse der in JAMA und BMJ zitierten Literatur zeigt, überhaupt keine Notiz von den in anderen Sprachen erscheinenden Arbeiten nimmt.

So gesehen gewinnt der Fremdsprachenunterricht eine enorme Bedeutung. Gute Fremdsprachenkenntnisse in verschiedenen Sprachen ermöglichen Wissenschaftlern und Medizinern eine Zurkenntnisnahme der Forschung dieser Sprachräume und damit auch anderer Paradigmen. Dies wiederum könnte zu größerer Vielseitigkeit und damit Objektivierung medizinischer Forschung führen.

Welchen Einfluß die starke Orientierung an der angloamerikanischen Medizin auf deutsche und finnische Forschungsansätze ausübt, soll eine nächste, interdisziplinär mit Medizinern durchzuführende Untersuchung beleuchten.

Zur Effektivierung des FFSU sind genaue Kenntnisse und die Vermittlung kontrastiver Unterschiede auf der medialen und der Mikroebene der Texte notwendig. Diskursunterschiede auf diesen Ebenen, wie sie z. B. im Bereich der Kohärenz zu erwarten sind, sollen kommende kontrastive Analysen deutscher und finnischer medizinischer Fachtexte untersuchen.

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Anmerkungen

1. Die Bedeutung kontrastiver Analysen "für die Fachsprachenforschung, die deskriptive Kontrastive Linguistik und die Textsortentheorie", ihr "praktischer Anwendungszweck für die Übersetzungswissenschaft und den Übersetzer, ... den fachsprachlichen Fremdsprachenunterricht und ... Fachwissenschaftler, der in die Lage kommt, einen Aufsatz, Vortrag etc. in einer Fremdsprache zu verfassen" hebt Spillner (1983, S. 123) hervor.

2. Die Textsorten werden hier mit Spillner (1983, S. 11) "pragmatisch-kommunikativ aufgefaßt als determiniert durch die Kommunikationspartner, den Kommunikationsgegenstand, den Kommunikationszweck, die Kommunikationsart (z. B. `geschrieben' vs. `gesprochen', `monologisch' vs. `dialogisch') und den Kommunikationsort (z. B. `öffentlich' vs. `privat')."

3. Zur Definition extralinguistischer und pragmatischer Faktoren s. Schröder (1987, S. 151f).

4. zu Informationen über das Projekt der Lehrwerkproduktion "Deutsch für Mediziner" s. Ylönen (1987)

5. Das Wissen um die Texteinbettung ist für die Textrezipienten ein Mittel für die schnelle Orientierung und für schnelles Finden relevanter Information. Wir benutzen im folgenden das Modell nach v. Hahn (1983, S. 123)

6. Sie kann folgendermaßen charakterisiert werden: Kommunikationspartner sind Mediziner, Kommunikationsgegenstand ist die medizinische Forschung, der Kommunikationszweck besteht in der Darstellung neuer Forschungsergebnisse, die Kommunikationsart ist schriftlich und der Kommunikationsort öffentlich (medizinische Fachzeitschrift).

7. Hoffmann (1987, S. 230) bezeichnet den Absatz als Teiltext, wir dehnen den Begriff Teiltext hier aus auf Textabschnitte, die durch bestimmte Gliederungs- signale (wie Überschriften) klar voneinander unterschieden werden können.

8. Von einer solchen Angleichung berichtete Schröder in seinem Vortrag auf dem III. Linguodidaktischen Kolloquium der Sektion Fremdsprachen im Januar 1987 in Karl-Marx-Stadt.

9. Eine diachrone kontrastive Analyse der medizinischen Forschungsinhalte und -traditionen, die genauere Aussagen über das vertretene Paradigma geben könnte, bleibt einer nächsten Untersuchung vorbehalten, die interdisziplinär mit Medizinern durchgeführt werden soll.

10. Ab 1949 BRD

11. Übersetzung S. Ylönen

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12. Eine solche Anpassung stellt auch Spillner (1983) für französische medizinische Zeitschriften fest.

13. Dieses Ergebnis liefe konform mit Lipperts (1978) Titelanalyse: bei DDR-Zeitschriften ist keine Anglisierung der Zeitschriftenartikel festzustellen.

Literatur

Buhlmann, R. (1981) Texte verstehen. Schriftenreihe des türkisch-deutschen Kulturinstituts. Istanbul.

Clyne, M. (1981) Culture and Discourse Structure. Journal of Pragmatics, 5, 61-66.

Fuller, S.S. (1984) Schema Theory in the Representation and Analysis of the Text. Dissertation. University of Southern California.

Galtung, J.(1983) Struktur, Kultur und intellektueller Stil. Leviathan, 3, 303-338.

Hahn, W. v. (1983) Fachkommunikation. Entwicklung-Linguistische Konzepte-Betriebliche Beispiele. Berlin, New York.

Hoffmann, L. (1987) Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache. Berlin.

Kaplan, R. (1972) Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural education. Croft, K. (ed) Readings on English as a second language. Cambridge.

Lippert, H. (1978) Rückzug der deutschen Sprache aus der Medizin? Med. Klin., 73, 487-496.

Meyer zu Schwabedissen, O. (1979) Stellungnahme. Diskussion: Rückzug der deutschen Sprache aus der Medizin? Med. Klin., 74, 408-411.

Neuendorff, D. (1987) Überlegungen zu einigen Unterschieden in finnischen und deutschen medizinischen Fachtexten. Erikoiskielet ja käännösteoria, 58-77. VAKKI-seminaari VII. Vaasa.

Oksaar, E. (1983) Fachsprachen, interaktionelle Kompetenz und Kulturkontakt. Kelz, H.P. (Hrsg.) Fachsprache 1: Sprachanalyse und Vermittlungsmethoden. Bonn.

Schröder, H. (1986) Teksti Argumentaatio Kulttuuri. Ajatuksia tieteellisen tekstin kontraktiivisesta diskurssianalyysistä. AFinLA Yearbook 1986. Jyväskylä.

(1987) Aspekte sozialwissenschaftlicher Fachtexte. Ein Beitrag zur Fachtextlinguistik, 264f. Hamburg: Helmut Burke Verlag.

Spillner, B. (1983) Zur kontrastiven Analyse von Fachtexten - am Beispiel der Syntax von Wetterberichten. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 51/52.

Widdowson, H.G. (1979) Explorations in Applied Linguistics. Oxford

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Ylönen, S. (1987) Material ''Deutsch für Mediziner". Schröder, H. und Ylönen, S. (Hrsg.) Ideen für den fachbezogenen Fremdsprachenunterricht (Deutsch als Fremdsprache). Reports from the Language Centre for Finnish Universities, 29, 133-151.

Herrn Hartmut Schröder danken wir für viele kritische Hinweise bei der Erstellung des Manuskripts.

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DMW
Med. u. Sp.
DUODECIM
JAMA
BMJ

Richtlinien für die Abfassung von Originalarbeiten
Hinweise für die Autoren

Hinweise für die Autoren*

Instructions for authors

1. Titel
1. Titel

1. Titel
1. Einrichtung, Leiter
Abstract (von der Redaktion verfaßt)
2. Namen der Autoren (mit Titel)
2. Autoren

2. Namen der Autoren
2. Titel
1. Titel
3. Abstract
3. Abstract

3. Einrichtung
3. Namen der Autoren
2. Namen der Autoren
4. Einleitung (ohne Uberschr.)
4. Introduction

4. Zusommenfassung
4. Zusammenfassung
3. Einleitung (ohne Uberschrift)
5. Materials and Methods
5. Methods

5. Einleitung
5. Sachwörter
4. Material und Methoden
6. Results
6. Results

6. Methodik/Kasuistik
6. Problem- u, Zielstellung
5. Ergebnisse
7. Comment
7. Discussion

7. Ergebnisse
7. Material und Methoden
6. Diskussion
8. References
8. References

8. Diskussion
8. Diskussion
7. Zusammenfassung
erste Seite unten links:
Einrichtung, Namen u. Titel der Autoren eine Korrespondenzadresse
erste Seite unten links: Einrichtung, Namen, Titel u. Dienststellung der Aut., eine Korrespondenzadresse

9. Folgerungen
9. Literatur
8. Danksagungen

10. Danksagungen

10. Name, Dienstellung U. Dienstanschrift der Verfasser

9. Literatur
Instructions for authors

11. Liter turverzeichnis

10. Summary

12. Name, Titel, Korrespondenzadressen der verfasser

11. Name, Titel, Dienststellung u. Dienstanschrift der Verfasser

"All accepted manuscripts will be copy edited according to AMA style, and returned to the corresponding author for approval.

*"Die Abfassung von Originalarbeiten wird in folgender Anordnung empfohlen, aber nicht vorgeschrieben: . . ." (s.o., Ubersetzung S. Ylönen)

The authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including any changes made by the capy editor and authorized by the corresponding author."

Tabelle 1. Vorschriften für die Abfassung von Originalarbeiten.

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16
Translation and Author's Editing of Biomedical Communications Written by Finnish Authors

Sheryl Hinkkanen
The English Centre, Helsinki

Abstract

Most Finnish scientists publish their research results through the international scientific press, usually in English. Few Finnish biomedical researchers have sufficiently good command of English to be able to compose a scientific article that will be accepted for publication as such; to most, the services of a translator or author's editor are essential. This paper gives some idea of what is involved in the work of a translator and author's editor in Finland. Problems are encountered because of linguistic and stylistic differences between Finnish and English, because of a lack of training in scientific writing, because the English of the scientific article is a language of conventions, sometimes even because of authors' attitudes. In the literature, English for medical and paramedical purposes (EMP) is considered from too narrow a perspective, concentrating on physicians' peer communications in scientific publications and conferences, whereas EMP in practice is a much wider concept, as illustrated in this presentation. The paper draws on experiences gathered as an in-house editor employed by a publicly funded, multidisciplinary research institution in the field of occupational health and safety, as a translator and author's editor working for a private agency, and as a freelancer.

Introduction

Like many others, I owe my profession to chance. In 1970 I came to Finland and enrolled in the University of Helsinki. Fellow students soon began asking me to check their applications and abstracts. The real breakthrough occurred in 1974, when I was asked to translate and edit some papers for the Medical Research Council of the Academy of Finland. I accepted the work though I had had no previous exposure to medical English. Thus I acquired my first client, and an interest in English for medical and paramedical purposes

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(EMP).

My experience of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) began in 1971, when I taught at a private language school for a year. Over time I found that although I enjoy translation and editing, I am too social by nature to want to work only with paper texts. By continuing to teach, I also keep better in touch with the problems encountered by Finns in learning English properly.

I have taught all levels of English, from beginners' classes to advanced, specialized conversation and professional translation courses, at grade school, at an adults' evening school (where I completed the requirements for teacher qualification), at a vocational school, at enterprises, at continuation courses for translators, and at the English Department of the University of Helsinki. In the autumn semester of 1987, I will teach a new course offered by that Department, i.e., scientific editing, to be followed by a corresponding translation course in the spring. There is a real need in Finland for qualified author's editors in particular; to my knowledge the country has only a dozen or so dedicated author's editors working with EMP texts.

The aim of this presentation, as stated in my abstract, is to give the audience some idea of what is involved in the work of a translator and author's editor working with biomedical English in Finland. But I have another goal, too one that has crystallized only recently.

The EMP literature abounds in discussions of physicians' and researchers' use of highly-specialized jargon English, or Medicalese (see McIntyre (1987) for an interesting commentary on Medicalese), employed for very specific types of medical communication (journal articles, for instance) on certain levels (usually among peers) and at predetermined forums (such as scientific conferences). I contend, however, that EMP cannot and should not be so restricted in concept. EMP involves also other types of communication (e.g., public health administrators' bulletins, any health care professionals' international meetings, even popularized medical encyclopedias, to name a few) and many instances (the public and private health care sectors, international bodies, nursing services at tourist centers, etc.) that are virtually ignored in the literature.

Furthermore, I do not envision the decline in EMP translation that many expect to be the result of increased university-level specialized TEFL. Such instruction rarely involves sufficient, thorough training in English scientific

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writing. In fact, university curricula seldom require courses for attaining a high standard of scientific writing in the mother tongue. But even this point is off the mark, for it, too, is biased. Recipients of TEFL at this level are not the only EMP users and never will be.

Translator-language Checker-author's Editor

There is universal agreement about the translator's title and job description. Nowadays even the translator's role as a cultural bridge has gained acceptance; slavish adherence to the original text is no longer required or considered indicative of a `good' translation.

The standard Finnish term for a person who corrects the language of a manuscript before it is sent to a publisher is kielentarkastaja (`language checker'). The term is also applied to the type of work I do, which involves complex stylistic and contextual editing to adapt the EMP manuscript to its intended forum, not only checking grammar and spelling. Consistent use of this term instead of one more clearly reflecting the editing nature of the work indicates that the work is poorly understood and not highly esteemed and thus now well paid, either. In Finland, a common misconception is that anyone with English as his/her native language is a competent `language checker'.

The English term I use is author's editor, which I consider to be more accurate. It gives some idea of the type of work done, i.e., editing manuscripts and not just proofing text, and reflects the one-on-one relationship of the author and the editor before the manuscript is submitted for publication. See back issues of CBE Views, the official publication of the Council of Biology Editors (e.g., CBE Views, 1984, Vol. 7, Nos. 1 and 3; CBE Views, 1985, Vol. 8, Nos. 2, 3, and 4; CBE Views, 1986, Vol. 9, Nos. 2 and 4), for a discussion of the term and of author's editors' ethics, and for information about a project for author's editors' certification which I think would do much to raise our status as professionals.

Experiences in the Public and Private Sectors; Freelancing

My work experience in the public sector totals approximately 5.5 years and comprises various short contracts with the Medical Research Council of the Academy of Finland and five

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years on the staff of the Publication Office of the Institute of Occupational Health, a multidisciplinary research institution in the field of occupational health and safety. I have been with my present employer, the English Centre, a private translation bureau, for over two years. I have done varying amounts of freelance work for the past 15 years. I have never advertised to get it; the volume of work is such that a word-of-mouth reputation is sufficient.

In my experience, the work itself does not differ essentially regardless of where it is done. What do differ are work organization and the nature of the author-translator or author-editor relationship.

Lack of comprehension for the work itself and low esteem are particularly characteristic of the public sector. Bureaucratic desicions about issues related to EMP services are made by high-ranking experts (e.g., director generals, scientific directors, and middle managers) who do not fully understand either the processes by which scientific knowledge is disseminated of the transmission roles of those other than scientists (Laaksovirta, 1986). Translators are considered unnecessary and the author's editor's importance is grossly underestimated; it is assumed that researchers have sufficient command of English to produce manuscripts that need minor corrections at best.

Vague job descriptions and an ambiguous organizational status also cause problems in civil service. The Institute of Occupational Health has one staff member who, in theory, is responsible for all the English manuscripts turned out by Institute personnel, who numbered 547 as at December 31, 1984. That year is used as the source here because it is the last full calendar year I was employed by the Institute.

In 1984, 401 research reports of all types were published by Institute staff, and about 300 scientific papers were presented at international conferences (Asp, 1985). No precise figures on breakdown by language of publication are available. In a small random sample the ratio of English publications to those in other languages (mostly Finnish) was approximately three out of four. Moreover, most publications in other languages included an English abstract or summary. These data, though imprecise, indicate the enormous volume of work.

There were no objective criteria for determining which work should be given priority, nor was there an administrative buffer of any kind; the position was thus one of great pressure and constant crossfire despite its low esteem and

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low salary. Professional isolation was another serious drawback at the Institute of Occupational Health.

But working at the Institute had some saving graces. Experts were always available for consultation, there were librarians who could check terms, obscure references, or journal lists, and close contacts with authors were assured. Thus the first time I came across new terms that sounded suspicious and could be found in no sourcebook (e.g., innocent bystander, orphan diseases, phantom beds), I didn't have to trust the author or ask for a (biased) explanation.

''The research activities of the Institute of Occupational Health focus on the interactions of work and health" (Asp, 1985, p. 8), and so if not all, then by far the majority of English scientific papers produced by Institute staff are EMP texts in the very broadest sense. As shown by Tables 1 and 2, however, medical physicians are an important author group, but chemists, physicists, social scientists and others are also EMP authors.

Higher academic degree
Doctorate (included docents)

59

Licentiate

48

M.A. or M.Sc.

117

B.A. or B.Sc.

15

Nurses, physiotherapists

38

Laboratory workers, technical and research assistants

99

Others

171

Total

547

Table 1. Institute of Occupational Health staff according to education as at December 31, 1984 ¹.

Medicine

58

Physical education

9

Chemistry

38

Physics

14

Engineering

36

Biology, natural sciences

8

Psychology

22

Social sciences

19

Mathematics, statistics, data processing

7

Other

28

Total

239

Table 2. Institute of Occupational Health staff according to field of science as at December 31, 1984 ¹.

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Compared to civil service, working for a translation bureau has the following advantages: i) it eliminates bureaucratic hassles; ii) it ends isolation and provides colleagues and an atmosphere conducive to enlightening professional discussions; iii) it increases job esteem and ends wage-related politics. Specialization, however, is difficult, as one cannot predict the nature or topics of work from one day to the next. Distance between the EMP translator/editor and the author ensures objectivity but hampers contacts. Nearly all the present EMP clients of this translation bureau are specialist physicians on hospital staffs or working in research institutions or pharmaceutical firms, i.e., experts without access to the services provided by university language centers.

Most of my personal clients are people I got to know while working in the public sector, other personal acquaintances, or their acquaintances. The best features of freelancing are its freedom and the intensive cooperation it enables. My EMP freelance clientele consists mostly of experts without access to the services provided by university language centers. Table 3 shows the amount and type of freelance EMP work done since January 1, 1986. It shows that, once again, physicians are not the largest client group.

All EMP work

105

Physician as author

21

Other author

84

EMP translation (Finnish to English)

7

Physician as author

3

Other author

4

EMP editing

98

Physician as author

18

Other author

80

Table 3. Freelance EMP work commissioned between January 1, 1986 and July 31, 1987.

Typical Problems

I would classify the most common problems into two main groups: i) those caused by linguistic differences combined with a lack of training in scientific writing and, in the case of editing, insufficient command of EMP; and ii) those caused by author's misplaced attitudes, whether being overly sensitive,

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shy, stubborn, disregarding advice, or whatever. The latter can be further divided into those who do so unwittingly and those are aware of their lack of compliance with requests.

*Comparisons are exceedingly difficult for Finnish authors writing in English, because of differences in everything from sentence structure and word order to the actual words used to make comparisons. Comprehension of the author's idea often requires good knowledge of Finnish. Here are some examples:

1. "The costs of resin-bonded bridges per unit are considerably lower compaired (sic) to traditional bridges and therefore it was entitled to make a distinction between them."

The author has transposed the Finnish comparative verrattuna (`compared with/to') directly into English, and has used it in exactly the same way: first object of comparison + comparative form + verrattuna + second object of comparison. The author has also selected the wrong dictionary translation for the Finnish oikeutettu (`entitled, justified' and others, depending on context). The new sentence was:

"Per unit, resin-bonded bridges cost considerably less than bridges; therefore it was justified to distinguish between them."

2. "The finding of the present study that women have about twice that often bridges than men is confirmed by earlier studies."

Here we have another common mistake, an exact translation of the Finnish formula: frequency + kertaa niin (`times so' would perhaps be a good rough translation) + ... Furthermore, the word `confirm' has been misused. The edited sentence read:

"The finding of the present study that women have bridges about twice as often as men is consistent with earlier results."

3. "Three figures in our results deviate from curve depending except differences in initial weights on few number of samples in mean value."

This unusually murky idea is fully incomprehensible until the author's editor realizes that the word `except' is a wrongly

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selected dictionary translation for the Finnish paitsi, used in comparisons with partners like myös to mean `not only...but also. Drawing highly on the data presented elsewhere in the paper, the following sentences were proposed, with uncertainty:

"Three figures in our results deviate from the curve. These deviations are probably due not only to differences in initial weights of copper, but also to the small number of samples from which the mean value was determined."

*Anyone editing Finnish authors' texts should always keep in mind that Finns often confuse the letters c, k, and g; d and t; and p and b. The main reason is that the Finnish language has traditionally substituted the natively occurring k for c and g, p for b, and t for d in words of foreign origin. Many Finns cannot even pronounce the foreign consonants properly.

*Finnish EMP texts frequently sound very unscientific because nearly everything discussed is `estimated'. This very common mistake stems from the Finnish verb arvioida, a derivative of the verb arvata (`to guess'). `Estimate' may be a good translation for arvioida in some contexts, whereas in others `valuate', `assess', even `evaluate' are preferable. Finnish EMP authors do not understand the need for distinction.

*Other, different problems arise after the initial text leaves my hands. Edited texts may be difficult to read, and thus difficult to retype, but despite repeated requests, very few clients consent to cleantyping or to sending the final manuscript for proofreading, even when I offer to do so free of charge. Or if an entire magazine is to be printed, I may be sent the galley proofs of the text columns, but nothing else, again despite repeated requests. Some very odd things have been printed, or the impression given by a publication may not be the one intended, simply because of slips that could have been avoided had proper proofing been done.

Conclusion

Discussions with author's editors at international meetings have been heartening. By exchanging experiences with others, I have learned that the EMP difficulties 1 encounter in Finland are not all that different from those of author's editors elsewhere in the world, a comforting thought given our

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relative isolation and small group here in Finland.

Notes

1. Asp, 1985, p. 10.

References

Asp, S. (ed) (1985) Current Research Projects 1985. Helsinki: Institute of Occupational Health.

CBE Views (1984) Vol. 7, No. 1.

CBE Views (1984) Vol. 7, No. 3.

CBE Views (1985) Vol. 8, No. 2.

CBE Views (1985) Vol. 8, No. 3.

CBE Views (1985) Vol. 8, No. 4.

CBE Views (1986) Vol. 9, No. 2.

CBE Views (1986) Vol. 9, No. 4.

Laaksovirta, T. (1986) Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge to Society. Acta Universitatis Tamperensis. Ser A, Vol. 210. Tampere: University of Tampere.

McIntyre, L. (1987) Why Take the Fun Out of Medical Writing. AMWA Journal. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2-4.

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17
Theme as an Aid to Text Processing

Bruce Carter
Pitman Professional English Centre (Birmingham)

This paper starts from four interlinked premises. First, that LSP is an instrumental activity; learners wish to acquire L2 competence as a means to non-linguistic ends. Reading is likely, therefore, to be confined to a specific genre, or set of genres. Second, L2 readers will have two primary objectives: understanding the information content of a text, and making an informed judgement about the intent, or function, of the text. Third, that reading is an interactive process; readers do not passively record, as it were, but actively predict, hypothesise and interpret as they proceed through a text. Fourth, that in the vast majority of cases readers will approach a text with some prior knowledge of the field and a set of preconceptions which, particularly in the case of a foreign language text, may well diverge from those of the writer both intellectually and culturally. In other words the frames of reference, or schemata, employed by writer and reader may differ radically, so give rise to a serious danger of misinterpretation.

A foreign language text will also, of course, frequently pose lexical and syntactical problems. The key question for the reader, then, is how can I know, or at least be reasonably confident, that my interpretation is accurate, when I have no means of checking other than by recourse to the text itself.

I shall advance the claim in this paper that attention to Theme in a text offers a partial solution to the problem, in a variety of ways, by offering

a) An objective and checkable basis for interpretation.

b) Rapid perception of the overall message.

c) An effective technique for locating specific information within a text.

d) A means of identifying key Topics and Participants and the relationship between them.

e) An indication of the nature and intent of a text.

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To do this, I shall proceed in three stages:

1. To consider briefly the functions of Theme in a text.

2. To examine in what ways, in the light of these functions, attention to Theme can aid readers in processing texts.

3. To examine, in an ESP context, ¹ some genre-specific elements in Thematic choice.

The Function of Theme in a Text

The basic function of Theme, I shall argue, is to present readers with a sequenced set of starting points at a variety of levels which indicate both how the writer or speaker has organized the message and how the writer or speaker wishes to present the message in terms of negotiating it with the reader or hearer.

The notion of Theme is, of course, controversial, but for both theoretical and practical pedagogical reasons I shall follow Fries and Halliday in particular in regarding Theme as, in Halliday's words, `the point of departure of the message', and realised in sentence and clause initial position, that is to say, classifying the opening item in a sentence or clause as Theme and regarding this opening item as the basis on which the rest of the sentence or clause is to be interpreted. Fries puts it as follows:

"1. Thematic progression correlates with the structure of a text.

2. Thematic content correlates with the method of development of a text (and the nature of the text).

3. The choice of what information is to be treated as theme is not determined by the choice of what information is to be treated as given or new, though it is related to that choice.

4. Clause and sentence level themes fit into a larger pattern which governs information flow within sequences of sentences."

Two further steps can, I believe, be added.

Fries' view rests on the proposition that Theme is realised syntactically. Syntactic analysis of Thematic items shows that

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they can be divided broadly into two categories, grammatical subject items and non grammatical subject items. This appears to have interesting implications for the controversial question of the relationship between the Theme-Rheme distinction and that of Topic and Comment. Many linguists appear to wish to conflate Theme-Rheme with Topic and Comment, evidenced by the typical description of Theme as `what is being spoken about' and Rheme as `what is being said about Theme'. The obvious objection is that if Theme and Topic describe the same phenomenon one of the terms appears to be redundant. However, if we take Fries' position, a clear distinction can be made between Theme and Topic.

For a non grammatical subject item in Theme position, such as, for example, in 1973 in the sentence In 1973 there was a dramatic rise in oil prices, does not answer a `what' question, and so it hardly makes sense to describe it either as `what is being spoken about', or `Topic'. A broader description is required. Grammatical subject themes may well be Topic items, but even this is open to question. Earlier in this text I was used as Thematic item, in the sentence beginning I shall advance the claim in this paper. . . In what sense could I be a Topic item here?

My second step comes into play at this point. Thematic items, though realised textually, may work on two planes, the content plane and the interactive plane ². The content plane can be regarded in general terms as including all items which form part of the argument of the text, what the text is about. The interactive plane includes all those items which can be regarded as the writer addressing the reader directly (see exemplification table on pages and).

This analysis, I believe, may shed considerable light on the vexed question of the relationship between Theme-Rheme and the Given-New distinction. If we accept that Theme is `the point of departure of the message', then it can be regarded as Given from the writer's point of view for the purpose of the negotiation of the message at this particular point in the text. The writer is at this point inviting the reader to share a perspective. It may very well be New from the reader's point of view, indeed the reader may well decline to share the writer's perspective.

To summarize, then, I would claim that the basic function of Thematic Choice in a written text is to present readers with a sequenced set of starting points at a variety of levels which indicate both how the writer has organised the message and how the writer wishes to present the message in terms of negotiating it with the reader. A Thematic item is in effect

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saying to the reader `interpret what follows in the light of this'. The Thematic item may fulfil one or more of a widely disparate possible number of functions. Grammatical subject Themes primarily provide a Topic and Participant framework for the argument of the text on the content plane; they may, however, be items on the interactive plane. Similarly, too, non grammatical subject Thematic items may be on the content or on the interactive plane. Their primary function, however, is alerting the reader to the boundaries of validity of that part of the text. This categorisation of Thematic items is illustrated in the table following, using the text of this paper so far as an example.

Key: T = Topic item

Content plane

Interactive plane

P = Participant items

Para S = Setting

T

P

S

T

P

S

1. This paper

X

First, that LSP

X

Reading

X

Second, L2 readers

X

Third, that reading

X

Fourth, that in the vast

majority of cases

X

In other words

X

2. A foreign language text

X

The key question for the reader

X......

X

3. I

X

4. To do this

X

5. The basic function of Theme

X

The notion of Theme

X

Fries

X

6. Two further steps

X

Fries' view

X.......

X

Syntactic analysis of

Thematic items

X

This

X

Many linguists

X

The obvious objection

X

However, if we take Fries'

position

X.......

............

..........

(X).....

X

For a non grammatical subject

item in Theme position

X

A broader description

X

Grammatical subject Themes

X

Earlier in this text

X

In what sense

X

7. My second step

X.......

X

Thematic items

X

The content plane

X

The interactive plane

X

8. This analysis

X

If we accept that Theme is 'the

point of departure of the message

(X)....

..........

(X).......

..........

(X).....

X

The writer

X

It

X

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Key: T = Topic item

Content plane

Interactive plane

P = Participant items

Para S = Setting

T

P

S

T

P

S

9. To Summarise

X

A Thematic item

X

The Thematic item

X

Grammatical subject Themes

X

They

X

Similarly

X

Their primary function

X

They

X

Theme as an Aid to Readers

In what ways, then, can attention to Theme aid readers in processing text?

The ordering of Thematic items in a text will, as Fries says, indicate the information structure of the text, both prospectively, in terms of information flow, and retrospectively, in terms of how the key items of information interrelate. Reference to the table on pages and, for example, shows clearly that paragraph 1 establishes the field, that the paper addresses the question of LSP reading. Paragraph 2 presents the problem, or the question. Paragraphs 3 and 4 are direct writer intervention. The introduction of the new Topic item Theme in paragraph 5 suggests strongly that Theme is a mechanism proposed by the writer as a way of addressing the problem. Paragraphs 6 and 7 discuss, develop and categorise the Topic of Theme. Paragraph 8 looks like some sort of evaluative conclusion, and paragraph 9 is overtly a summary conclusion or set of conclusions, indicating the end of this section of the paper.

Thematic items, therefore, by virtue of being a sequenced series of writer choices directly recoverable from the text, provide an objective basis for interpretation which can be checked, so reducing the danger of misinterpretation arising from differing reader and writer schemata or from lexical or syntactical complexities. They both enable rapid perception of the overall message, which can only too easily be lost sight of if the detailed text poses complications for the reader, and provide an effective location device for specific information within a text. Moreover, they provide a means of identifying key Topics and Participants in the text. It is, in practice, exceedingly rare for any of these not to occur in Theme position somewhere in the text.

Finally Thematic choice, particularly in terms of plane interaction, can tell us a good deal about the nature and intent

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of a text as well as its content, ³ whether, for example, a text is a description of a process or sets out to persuade readers to adopt a certain point of view.

It is perhaps at this point worth considering two possible objections.

The first concerns the problem of delineating what constitutes a Thematic item. It is indeed true that to do this with academic precision is exceedingly difficult. For practical purposes, however, it can be done effectively by applying the following ground rules:

1. Start with paragraph-initial Theme to provide a broad overview, then take in sentence Theme, taking as sentences all the words which occur between two full stops.

2. Ignore any item in initial position which functions primarily as a connector and does not include a content item, eg, and, however, so, and proceed to the first word or connected group of words.

3 If the initial item in a sentence is the grammatical subject of that sentence, then that item is Thematic.

4. If the initial item is not the grammatical subject, then treat as Thematic

a) an opening adverbial word or phrase

b) an opening participle phrase

c) the whole of a dependent clause

d) up to the first content item in a sentence starting with existential there or formal it⁴.

The second possible objection concerns the grouping under one heading of all Thematic items that are not grammatical subjects. However, while it is undoubtedly true that there are significant functional differences between, for example, the four categories of item referred to under sub-heading 4 above, it can still be claimed that all four categories share the macro function of providing a relational `frame' rather than a Topic or Participant frame⁵.

Though a full categorisation of Thematic items would clearly need to address these questions in detail, in terms of practical pedagogical application of Thematic choice to reading comprehension it seems preferable to restrict the classification to the macro level. Extension in terms of levels of delicacy would undoubtedly be of great value in terms, for instance, of sensitisation to choice of syntactic structure, but might well prove too demanding in a typical ESP learning

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situation.

Genre-specific Elements of Theme

I shall now, in the final section of this paper, turn to a brief comparative analysis of Thematic choice in a small selection of banking and medical articles in professional journals. Some key findings are summarised in the table below.

BANKING
ARTICLES

MEDICAL ARTICLES

Total number of Thematic items

252

285

% of grammatical subject Themes

63.5

75

% of non grammatical subject Themes

36.5

25

Total number of nominal groups as grammatical subject

139

194

As % of total Thematic items

55

68

Premodification patterns:

% of items with no premodification

53

52.5

% of items with one premodification

34

33.5

% of items with two or more items

13

14

Postmodification patterns:

% of items with no postmodification

70

4.5

% of items with one item

22

24

% of items with two or more items

8

21.5

Table 2.

As can be seen from the table, the medical articles show a higher incidence of grammatical subject items in Theme position, and a higher incidence and greater complexity of postmodification of Thematic nominal groups. Perhaps surprisingly, there is no appreciable difference in premodification patterns. This may, however, be at least partially explained by the fact that the medical articles were of a clinical nature.

The tendency towards utilisation of longer Thematic items in the medical texts probably reflects the fact that these texts are more technical in nature. The relatively greater demand on short-term memory for processing is mitigated by a number of factors.

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Thematic sequencing in the medical texts is far more linear, at least at section level, and more Topic based. There is less use of relational setting, considerably less use of metaphor, and clearer signalling of distinction between fact and comment.

A readability survey of the texts analysed suggests strongly that Thematic choice is a significant factor in ease of processing, in two particular respects, the ratio of grammatical subject to non grammatical Themes and the relative incidence of the two categories of Theme through the text. Firstly, a high proportion of non grammatical subject Themes appears to present the reader with greater difficulty. Secondly, a long sequence of only one type of Theme, especially non grammatical subject Themes, seems to render a text less accessible.

It seems reasonable to conclude, then, that there are indeed genre-specific elements in Thematic choice and that further research in this area could have fruitful applications in sensitising readers to certain key features of the types of text they have to process.

Notes

1. This paper will be confined to Thematic choice in English. How applicable this may be in other languages requires investigation.

2. This distinction broadly follows that made by Sinclair between `autonomous' and `interactive' planes of discourse.

3. To test this claim try for instance applying Theme analysis to advertising texts. The result can be devastating!

4. It can be convincingly argued that an existential there sentence is totally Thematic, but for practical purposes the first content item will suffice.

5. A point which presumably accounts for their description by some commentators as `marked' or `predicated' Themes.

References

Alderson, J.C. and Urquhart, A.H. (1984) Reading in a Foreign Language. Longman.

Benesová, E. and Danes, F. (1970) A Symposium of Functional Sentence Perspective (Reviews and Notes). Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics, 15. Prague:

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Universita Karlova.

Benesová, E., Hajicová, E. and Sgall, P. (1973) Remarks on Topic/Comment Articulation. Prague Bulletin of Matematical Linguistics 20. Prague: Universita Karlova.

Carrell, P.L. (1983) Editorial Article: Some Issues in Studying the Role of Schemata, or Background Knowledge, in Second Language Comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language. Vol I, no 2. Birmingham: University of Aston.

Fries, P.H. (1983) On the Status of Theme in English: arguments from discourse. Petöfi, J.S. and Sözer, E. (eds) Micro and Macro Connexity of Texts. Papers in Text Linguistics, 45. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1985) Introduction to Functional Grammar. Edward Arnold.

Hasan, R. (1984) Coherence and Cohesive Harmony. Flood, J. (ed) Understanding Reading Comprehension. Newark Delaware: International Reading Association.

Hoey, M. (1983) On the Surface of Discourse. George Allen & Unwin.

Johns, T.F. and Davies, F.I. (1983) Text as a Vehicle for Information: the classroom use of written texts in teaching reading in a foreign language. Reading in a Foreign Language, 1, 1. University of Aston.

Sinclair, J. McH. (1983) Planes of Discourse. Rivzi, S.N.A. (ed) The Twofold Voice: Essays in Honour of Ramesh Mohan. Salzburg: Universität Salzburg.

Van Dijk, T.A. (1977) Text and Context: explorations in the semantics and pragmatics of discourse. Longman.

Winter, E.O. (1977) A Clause-Relational Approach to English texts, Instructional Science 6.

(1982) Towards a Contextual Grammar of English. George Allen & Unwin.

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18
LSP Texts in a Diachronic Perspective

Britt-Louise Gunnarsson
University of Uppsala

1. Introduction

A research project called ''LSP Texts in the 20th Century", which is being carried out at FUMS, the Department of Scandinavian Languages at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, has as its aim the study of genre-bound linguistic change ¹. We are analysing LSP texts of two genres, science and popular science, within the fields of economics, medicine and technology. The texts chosen are from three periods, 1895-1905, 1935-1945 and 1975-1985. We have collected texts on two subjects within each field: taxes and banking within economics, lung and skin diseases within medicine, and electricity and telecommunication within technology. Altogether we are analysing 180 articles (see Gunnarsson, Melander and Näslund, 1987). Our aim is to describe the changes in the message structure of these text genres, message structure meaning the semantic and pragmatic patterns of texts. Linguistic change shows up at different levels of a text. It can therefore be studied at more superficial as well as at deeper text levels. Our analysis within the LSP project is broadly sociolinguistic in scope. We consider texts as reflections of the surrounding society and try to place them in their general and specific contextual frames. For our study, deeper levels such as the cognitive and pragmatic are of the greatest interest. Our hypothesis is that it is at these levels that the correspondence between text and context can be most directly observed.

In this article I will describe the model which I have worked out for synchronic and diachronic analysis of LSP texts. It rests on a sociolinguistic basis, and the correspondence between context and text is therefore essential. I distinguish three types of context components: 1) text-external (situation, actor and function), 2) intertextual (genre), and 3) intratextual (text role and text means). These components are hierarchically organized; the text-external are superposed on the inter- and intratextual; situation is superposed on action and function etc. These context components can in turn be related to different text levels and I distinguish the following levels: cognitive, pragmatic, macrostructural, microsemantic

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and microsyntactic. The main associations between component and level are assumed to be those shown in the diagram.

Context

Text level

Text-external:

Situation Actor Function

Cognitive Pragmatic

"

Intertextual:

Genre

Macrostructural

Intratextual:

Text roles Text means

Microsemantic Microsyntactic

The question in the research project I am heading, then is how texts from the genres science and popular science within the fields of economics, medicine and technology have changed during this century. The aim is to describe differences between the three fields and between the two genres in a certain period and between periods.

Society has most certainly changed since 1900 and many of the changes may be assumed to be reflected in texts, especially in LSP texts which can so clearly be said to have a function in society. Here I will first give a short overview of relevant changes in the social context of LSP texts in the course of this century.

2. Context Analysis

2.1 Text-external Factors

If we want to describe the situational context of LSP texts we can choose frames of differing scope as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1.
The LSP-text and its frames of differing scope

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All these frames, which are in fact interrelated, are important to a discovery of the correspondence between context and text. The inner frame regarding actual production of the text is more or less unique for each text. However, for genre-bound changes, which are the concern of our project, the other two frames are the most important, the middle frame showing factors unique to each field and the outer showing factors common to all LSP texts.

In many respects each field has developed in its own specific way. Theory bases are unique to each field.. Most certainly they have not been static in any field, and such changes in theory and methodology can be supposed to be reflected in the related texts. Fields also differ in how long they have been established sciences. Medicine seen as a whole is an old science. Technology and economics, on the other hand, are new and part of their growth into established academic disciplines has taken place this century. The process of becoming established can be seen as a change of world from a professional world of work with its rules to an academic world with its rules. The professional situation is a third factor that is unique to each field. The role and status of the main professions in the three fields have changed and these changes are liable to be reflected in the texts.

In many respects, however, their development may be assumed to be the same, reflecting changes in society as a whole. Within professional life and the academic world there are a number of trends that are quite noticable. Specialization and professionalization are terms used quite frequently to describe developments during this century. It is obvious that the labour market has become more diversified. Today there are many more different occupations, and many more well defined occupations. The same trend is obvious within the academic community. There are a lot more different disciplines for example, far more different types of professors. There are many more different courses and many more universities and colleges etc. Technologization and internationalization are other terms that are used to try to describe what has happened in the last 85 years.

With regard to the educational sector the 20th century has seen considerable expansion. Compulsory education is now several years longer than it was in the beginning of the century. A higher percentage continue their studies up to college and university level, the specialist education is longer. As to the public sector we can for one thing note that the standard of living of the average Swede has improved. We can also note a successively higher degree of state involvement, for example in social and financial matters. Finally, as for

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private life, we find changed patterns in domestic and family life, and also in the role of leisure in the life of men and women.

These contextual factors describe the wider situational scope. If we now look at the actors within the three fields, we can suppose that specialization, professionalization, etc. have had consequences. The differences in theoretical and practical knowledge between one professional and another are probably greater. We now have a society with more experts.

The functions of LSP texts have also changed during this century. What functions texts play in a certain society is dependent on the situation in general and on the roles the different actors are allowed to play. If society changes, the functions will thus also change. If society becomes more specialized, texts will most certainly serve more specific functions. Of great importance to the functions of texts is the general explosion of information the word is not too strong that has taken place this century. We now produce books, journals, newspapers, brochures and pamphlets to far greater extent than a hundred years ago.

2.2 Intertextual Factors

With regard to the genre factor our hypothesis is that the societal changes I discussed earlier have had consequences for the genres, seen in their entirety. The information explosion, specialization, diversification etc may be assumed to have resulted in clearer boundaries between genres and also in firmer genre conventions.

2.3 Intratextual Factors

The term text role refers to the roles of author and reader. An interesting question from our point of view is the correspondence between genre and text role. We assume that texts from different genres differ. We also assume that texts from different periods differ in terms of text roles. We are asking, for example, whether the specialization of society has resulted in greater distance between author and reader in the texts. Does the author appear more as an expert, far away not only from lay people but also from other professionals?

The expression text means refers to the vocabulary, morphology, syntax, textual patterns, typography etc. of the language in general, that is, all the means that we as speakers and writers of a language can use to communicate with people who speak the same language, for example Swedish. These means have also undergone changes during this century,

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partly due to the societal factors that I expanded on earlier. It is of special interest from our point of view to study whether, and if so how, textual patterns have changed this century.

3. Text Analysis

The basis for our method of text analysis is a description of the text at the cognitive and pragmatic levels. By means of a categorization of the cognitive and pragmatic content it is possible to compare the proportions of the different cognitive and pragmatic categories from text to text, from genre to genre, and from period to period both qualitatively and quantitatively. From this rough categorization we then seek to describe the macrostructure. The microstructure will also be analysed.

3.1 Analysis of Cognitive Text Content

How can we obtain a comparable picture of the content of LSP texts from different fields and different subjects? How can we capture the changes that are relevant from a sociolinguistic point of view? Questions like these provide a background to the method of analysis on a cognitive level that I have worked out.

The aim is to describe the cognitive network of texts and by cognitive I mean a text level related to the content, that is the knowledge presented in the text. The content in fact varies from field to field, from subject to subject, from text to text. At an abstract level it can however be said to vary with regard to a few cognitive worlds: a scientific world, a practical world, an object world, a private world and an external world. These worlds correspond to the different sectors of society which were considered relevant to LSP texts, and to which changes during this century can be assigned: scientific world to academic community and educational sector, practical world and object world to professional life, private world to private life, and external world to public sector.

My world concept has similarities with the schema concept which we recognize from theories within cognitive psychology (cf. Schank and Abelson, 1977; Spilich et al, 1979; van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). The five worlds scientific, practical, object, private and external are possible knowledge structures, which means that they form a background for the idealized authors when they construct texts and for the idealized readers when they try to build up a mental representation of the text they read. This does not, however,

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mean that all authors and all readers of LSP texts have these worlds equally available. On the contrary, one of the purposes of analysing texts by means of cognitive worlds is to describe the differences between authors belonging to different expert fields and specializing in different subjects, between authors from different periods, and between authors with different pictures of their readers.

Within each world I discern certain abstract categories that are common to different texts: within the scientific world, theories, classes, methods, explanation, observation, experiment, result etc.; within the object world, reasons, object, course, change. Figure 2 shows the worlds and their related categories for the medical field. These worlds and categories appear in variant forms for each field.

In the medical field, the practical world becomes the hospital world and the object world becomes the disease world. As for the categories, actors become doctor and patient, object becomes disease, process becomes disease process and so on.

In the figure, the left-hand side concerns texts that are object-descriptive and the right-hand side texts that are action-descriptive. (Object-descriptive and action-descriptive is a distinction which I have found relevant to LSP texts as a whole and to their constituent parts.) Within each schema, surrounded by a frame, there is a time dimension along the horizontal axis. In object-descriptive texts, disease is central within the disease world. The disease is preceded by medical causes (to the left in the schema) and is followed in time by the disease process and the medical change (to the right). In action-descriptive texts, the treatment is central within the disease world. Treatment is preceded by disease (to the left in the schema) and followed by the result of the treatment (to the right). The vertical axis allows different aspects to be focused on. Disease is described with the focus on the disease (at the top of the schema), on the organ (in the middle) or on the patient (at the bottom). Treatment is described with the focus on the treatment as such (at the top of the schema), on treatment of an organ (in the middle) or on treatment of the patient (at the bottom). Time and place (or sector) are placed outside the frames of the schemas. I have done so to emphasize that these dimensions are not categories of the schema. Instead they cause the schema as a whole to vary.

By means of these categories the content words of each LSP text will be described and conclusions will be drawn as to the worlds within which the text moves (see Gunnarsson, 1987,

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Figure 2.
The five cognitive worlds for the medical field

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and forthcoming).

3.2 Analysis of Pragmatic Text Content

LSP texts are not only means of reflection on society but also means of acting within society. Authors and readers are both actors and the LSP text is an instrument that the author-actor can use to try to influence his or her readers. Within the LSP project we will categorize the pragmatic content of our texts in two ways. First, the main purpose of each text will be categorized in general categories: to inform, criticize, teach, instruct, propagate ideas etc. Second, the parts of each text will be analysed as to their function within the pragmatic structure which the text as a whole constitutes.

I will expand a little here on the second way of analysing pragmatic content. Within certain branches of pragmatic theory both written and oral texts are seen as speech acts. Written texts are thus acts between authors and readers. The author uses a text to get the message through to his or her readers, to make them act or think in a desired way. The author is considered to have a main purpose in sending the message, and this main purpose can be traced to one or more parts of the text. This part of the text we can describe as its goal information. The purpose of the other parts of the text is to help make readers cooperate, understand, agree to, and know how to act in accordance with the author's goal. This later information is called auxiliary information (cf. Rossipal, 1978).

In our analysis of pragmatic content we are thus categorizing the smaller parts of the text in terms of their relationship to the main purpose, in terms of their role within the purpose structure of the text. Our categories are as follows:

Categories

Subcategories

Goal information

-explicitly formulated purpose

-implicitly formulated purpose

Auxiliary information aiming to secure reader's

a. cooperation

-indication of addressee -indication of relevance of the message
-marking of author's authority

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b. comprehension

-definition
-categorization
-illustration
-explanation

c. conviction

-example
-proof

d. competence to act

-description of action

By means of these categories the pragmatic structures of LSP texts may be analysed (see Gunnarsson, 1987, and forthcoming).

3.3 Analysis of Other Text Levels

I will end by saying a few words about the analysis of our texts on the other text levels that I mentioned earlier.

Analysis of cognitive and pragmatic content will be the basis of descriptions of the macrostructure of the texts. By means of our analyses it will be possible to draw cognitive and pragmatic networks for each text and to compare these in terms of genre, time, field, and subject. We also intend to analyse the microstructures of the texts. We will describe their microsemantic patterns, with regard to thematic progression. Our starting point for these later analyses, however, is the cognitive and pragmatic analyses.

Notes

1. The project team consists of Björn Melander, Harry Näslund and myself as project director.

References

van Dijk, T.A. and Kintsch, W. (1983) Strategies of discourse comprehension. New York.

Gunnarsson, B.-L. (1987) Facktexten och den sociala kontexten. En analysmodell. Gunnarsson, B.-L. (ed) Facktext. Ord och stil. Språkvårdssamfundets skrifter 18. Malmö.

(forthcoming) The LSP text and its social context. A model for text analysis.

Gunnarsson, B.-L., Melander, B. and Näslund, H. (1987) Facktexter under 1900-talet 1. Projektpresentation och

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materialbeskrivning. FUMS Rapport nr 135. Uppsala.

Rossipal, H. (1978) Funktionale Textanalyse. Denotation und Konnotation als Textwirkungsmittel. Tyska institutionen. Stockholms universitet.

Schank, R.C. and Abelson, R.P. (1977) Scripts, plans and knowledge. Johnson-Laird, P.N. and Watson, P.C. (eds) Thinking. Readings in cognitive science. Cambridge etc.

Spilich, G.J., Vesonder, G.T., Chiesi, H.L. and Voss, J.F. (1979) Text processing of domain-related information for individuals with high and low domain knowledge. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior 18.

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19
The Bergen English for Science And Technology (best) Corpus: a Pilot Study ¹

Magnar Brekke
University of Bergen

0. Outline

In this paper I wish to present the plans and prospects for our ongoing collection of machine readable texts representing English for science and technology (EST). As an illustration of some of the uses of such a collection I will present the findings of a pilot study into sentence length and pronoun incidence. In conclusion I will point out some reasons for explicitly acknowledging the pragmatic dimension in EST studies.

1. Background

The original impetus came in the early 80's, when the English Department in the University of Bergen was asked to establish English language training courses for Norwegian students involved in the new program of Technologically Oriented Studies (TOS) under the Natural Science faculty². Not unlike other institutions facing a similar challenge, we found that one of the major obstacles in our development of course material was the absence of relevant and representative text samples of the type(s) of language that beginning science students were most likely to encounter. At the same time some of our own graduates found themselves teaching special kinds of English that we had not trained them to handle. A project oriented course which was developed to cater to their needs further emphasized the advantages in using computational methods in investigating text corpora of various sorts, but very few corpora were available.

At this time the Department became involved in a joint project with the Norwegian Term Bank to translate between English and Norwegian a large set of technical specifications for the petroleum industry. This immediately raised the question of how to calibrate the style suited for this type of documentation, which indicated a need for establishing a reference body of ''approved" text to provide such calibration

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for the human translators involved in the project. The initial procedures were manual, only involving standard word processing of the target text, but we soon started looking for ways of rationalizing many of the tedious routine tasks which constitute the bulk of any major translation or text handling operation, from the use of electronic glossaries, immediate retrieval of recurring passages or sentences, etc. to various degrees of machine assisted translation.

The result of this activity was a direct involvement in developing an English to Norwegian machine translation system on the basis of an existing commercial system for English to German ³, which again, of course, opened the same Pandora's box: whose English, and which sublanguages, should the system be designed to handle? At the time of writing, this question has been reasonably well answered, which would not have been feasible had we not had access to large amounts of authentic text for analysis and testing purposes.

2. Plans for the B.E.S.T. Corpus

2000+ word samples (cf. LOB/BROWN)

Domains initially restricted to TOS subjects plus petroleum technology

Genres initially restricted to univ. textbooks and technical specifications

Pragmatic aspects to be made explicit

OCR entry to ensure regular updates and continuous growth

Systematic statistical profiling (cf. KWIC, OCP, BYU Concordance etc.)

3. Pilot Corpus

In order to test the validity of our initial corpus design it was decided to establish a small pilot corpus and undertake preliminary studies of it as part of a graduate seminar on EST in the fall term of 1986. After a preliminary discussion of selection principles and a quick introduction to terminal work, the 7 students registered for the seminar started keying in on UofB's Unisys mainframe computer the passages of their chosen texts. These were as follows (details in bibliography):

COM = programming textbook

ESL = EST textbook

EXP = introduction to expert systems

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GEOL = geology textbook

PSY = psychology textbook

DNV = technical specification

During the course of the seminar, each student was provided with printouts from the KVIKKIS concordance package available on the UofB mainframe: various frequency lists of all texts, such as f-list of all words, f-list of function words, f-list of content words, etc. After discussions of the material, decisions were made as to a reasonable lower cut-off point for word frequencies and then a KWIC-concordance and a backward word-list were produced. This material, which was available to all students, formed the basis for the linguistic-pragmatic analysis which constituted the bulk of the seminar time and which resulted in a report being produced for each text. The complete set of seminar reports have since been collected and distributed as a leaflet to all participants, on the assumption that the value of each individual contribution would be enhanced by the comparison/contrast with other contributions. The leaflet also functions as a brief introduction to this kind of computer assisted quantative analysis as a basis for linguistic/pragmatic analysis. The remainder of this paper is derivative of the seminar work just described in that it attempts to characterize and study the pilot corpus from an overall perspective.

4. Preliminary Studies and Results

4.1 Words Per Sentence (WPS)

As a safe place to begin a quantitative study of relatively formal linguistic features, we considered sentence length (wps), one of the "measurable characteristics" described by Barber in his classic 1962 study (cf. Swales, 1985). To avoid getting entangled in definitional knots we used a superficial but operational criterion for `sentence', namely a string of words (i.e. characters separated by spaces) followed by final punctuation (i.e. period/full stop, exclamation mark or question mark). One advantage of such a definition is of course that it circumvents the problems generated by Barber's clause identification; another is that it makes the sentence a machine readable object, despite the obvious inherent pitfalls.

In Barber's material there appeared two peaks when sentences containing the same number of words were tabulated, the highest one at 16-20 wps, another at 26-30 wps. To eliminate potential sources of error in our comparison we ignored "one-word sentences" and sentences of more than

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70 words, since the occurrence of such strings tends to be rather insignificant. Taking sentences of 2-70 words as the normal spread (in practice 50 turned out to be a better cut-off point) we could quickly establish a correspondence with Barber's investigation, since about 21% of the sentences in both corpora fell in the 16-20 wps range; however, there was no sign of Barber's second peak at 26-30 wps, which represented 15% of his sentences (with about 12% in the adjoining columns above and below). Here the BEST data showed a relatively smooth slope from 16-20 to 41-45 wps (cf. fig. 1).

WPS DISTRIBUTION IN BEST/Barber

Fig. 1

However, Barber's data were taken from one domain and genre only (an article on astronomy), while the BEST data combined several, as indicated above. If we break down the BEST data into individual curves, the picture becomes less unified (cf. fig. 2-4):

WPS DISTRIBUTION IN ESL/EXP

Fig.2

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The individual text most closely reflecting the overall profile is ESL. Three texts clearly stand out from the rest: EXP, which has few short sentences and peaks at 31-35, and COM/DNV (cf. fig. 3). COM peaks at 6-10 wps and falls in sharp, jagged steps toward 45, while DNV peaks at 11-15 wps. PSY (cf. fig. 4) has a marked "Massif Central" where about 54% of the sentences have 16-25 wps. None of the individual texts, however, show clear indications of any second peak. It should be kept in mind, of course, that each text has only about 10% of the number of words in Barber's text and that the wps distribution could shift in a larger sample.

WPS DISTRIBUTION IN COM/DNV

Fig. 3

WPS DISTRIBUTION IN PSY/GEOL

Fig. 4

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Since we are only dealing with an experimental pilot corpus, it should prove interesting to compare our results with a more established reference text. The Brown and LOB corpora each has a category J of general EST-texts totalling about 100.000 words. A quick test for sentence length, automatically provided as part of any concordance facility being used, reveals a somewhat different general distribution than the Barber/BEST texts (cf. fig. 5):

WPS IN "LEARNED & SCIENTIFIC" TEXTS

Fig.5

The J-texts contain, relatively speaking, fewer short sentences and more long sentences, with a blunt peak at 21-25 wps. Since this collection contains a great number of different texts, such levelling is to be expected. The general tendency is clear, however: the J-texts peak to the right of the Barber/BEST texts with respect to wps.

As a calibrated contrast to all of the above we also examined the statistical results from Brown and LOB, subcorpora K dealing with general fiction. The difference here is striking, in that both subcorpora show a very marked peak at 6-10 wps, sloping smoothly away towards the higher wps figures. These curves peak to the left of the Barber/BEST texts, indicating a marked dominance of short sentences (cf. fig. 6):

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Fig. 6

The general conclusion emerging from these wps comparisons is that the language of the Barber/BEST texts represents neither fiction nor learned and scientific writing, but rather something in between. Below I will offer some suggestions as to possible reasons underlying this fact.

4.2 Pronoun Incidence

On the micro level of text elements we examined the incidence of personal pronouns in our BEST corpus by first trying to answer the following question: Of the total set of personal pronouns occurring in the texts, what proportion is taken up by each form? As generally expected in an EST text, personal pronouns are either markedly absent or, where they occur, restricted to a few (cf. fig. 7):

PROPORTION OF VARIOUS PRONOUNS IN BEST

Fig. 7

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It and we account for 3/4 of the total pronoun usage in the BEST pilot corpus; if they is added, we have rounded up almost 90%. The remaining pronouns are spectacularly underor even unpresented. Looking next at the individual BEST texts we find that 30% of all pronouns occur in the COM text; at the other end of the scale DNV has less than 3% of the pronouns and VEB just over 4% (all occurrences being the form it). PSY and ESL account for about 25% each, concentrated around it and we, respectively, while EXP has only about 12% of the pronouns, primarily we. Again a look at the existing corpora will prove illuminating, the J-corpora for comparison and the K-corpora for contrast (cf. fig. 8):

Pronoun incidence in different corpora

Fig. 8

There can be no doubt here as to the affinity between BEST and the learned/scientific J-corpora. The fiction (K-) corpora show a markedly different pattern in that the pronouns are reasonably proportionately represented.

5. The Pragmatic Dimension

So far we have only considered the question of "what?" and not the question of "why?" i.e., we have tried to explore the linguistic facts with respect to wps and pronoun usage, and it remains for us to determine whether these facts are explainable in some meaningful way. Are we looking at a specimen of some entity called EST, a subset of ESP, objectively and formally distinct from general English? I am aware that the question has been posed before and hasten therefore to add my support to those who focus on the purposes or contexts of use rather than the language in isolation. My description of the corpus selection criteria has already hinted at some tentative pragmatic explanations for the linguistic facts presented above, and I am now ready to

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put forward a rather obvious claim: that neither wps nor pronoun usage in isolation serves to place or identify a given text sample, but rather the juxtaposition of such features in the context of use or purpose of a given text. (cf. fig. 9):

WPS PEAK vs. PRONOUN INCIDENCE

Fig. 9

Figure 9 might serve to focus our discussion on this point. It will be seen that the fiction corpora (K) stand out from the rest in combining high pronoun incidence with few words per sentence. EXP is at the other extreme in having few pronouns and long sentences. Middle values of each variable (characteristic of BEST and LOB-J ⁴) are found in the intermediate-level textbooks PSY and ESL, while low values are found in the elementary-level textbook COM. GEOL and DNV are united in having extremely few pronouns; the latter is also characterized by very short sentences. Is it possible to formulate some pragmatic generalization which may underlie these differences?

Of the BEST samples, all except DNV have a didactic purpose, intended for use in some form of teaching or instructional context. ESL is the prototypical text here, its wps profile closely resembling that of the entire pilot sample, with a clear domination of relatively short sentences, as might be expected in a text designed for learners, in this case language students. Its most frequent pronoun is we, perhaps indicative of the authors' "intrusive empathy". But the picture is quite varied: COM has its peak in the 6-10 wps bracket, i.e. more short sentences than any other text sampled; are we justified in assuming a fairly elementary text? The opposite extreme seems to be EXP, with a preponderance of long sentences (31-35 wps) and a paucity of pronouns: we is used 3 out of 4 times; are we allowed to conclude that we have here a fairly advanced instructional text in front of us?

The odd member of the sample group is of course DNV, which

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is taken from a classification society document giving "recommended practice, methods and procedures for design, construction and inspection". While this must be considered symmetric specialist-to-specialist communication, we note that the average wps is far below the didactic group except COM. At the same time we also note that DNV represents the absolute low point in pronoun usage: two occurrences of it and four of he/him. The significance of this scarcity of pronouns can be expressed statistically: whereas DNV contains about 14% of the total text in BEST, it has less than 3% of the pronouns. In view of the marked tendency in technical documentation of repeating the noun rather than using a pronoun, these figures are fully as predicted but, as it turns out, this pronoun avoidance is not unique to technical specifications as a genre: the didactic text GEOL is also very low on personal pronoun usage, confined solely to the form it. In terms of wps, however, this document has fairly long sentences, peaking at 21-25 wps.

The preceding discussion will in a moderate measure have demonstrated the importance of considering the pragmatic dimension along with the linguistic one. This is where the motivation might be sought for the linguistic detail. Although I do not wish to deny the strength of the formal conventions, the technical writer does not necessarily write short sentences with few pronouns because that is what technical language is like (much like a writer puts adjectives after nouns in French because that is what French is like), but because a language with such features is better suited to communicate a message with prescision, economy and clarity. Any attempt to construct a sophisticated and detailed linguistic analysis of the structure of technical language without an explicit communicative foundation of "contextual determinants" (cf. Weber, 1982) will seldom get beyond the mere descriptive level of analysis. Therefore any text collection must, to serve its purpose, be supplied with ample pragmatic information, enabling subsequent users/investigators to identify or reconstruct its communicative function and setting.

6. Future Prospects

An undertaking of the magnitude of the planned text collection, totalling in the neighborhood of 1 million words, must necessarily proceed in stages. Another pilot investigation is scheduled for the fall of 1987, closely linked to a graduate seminar on EST. After that the systematic sampling of each domain will be started. Parallel with the

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actual text entry will run a routine charting of the standard statistical measures. This allows the corpus to become useful while still being in the build-up stages, both as a readily available source of machine readable reference texts and of statistical information on the calibrated (albeit limited) cumulative corpus.

While the intention is to make the corpus and its vital statistics generally available for researchers, students, teachers, translators and documentalists, we also have very specific applications in mind on the local LSP scene. Students enrolled in TOS courses will gradually be equipped with study guides and other teaching material, particularly bilingual glossaries and multi-word terminologies for each domain, possibly in the form of electronic ''EST Spelling Checkers". Depending on the scope and breadth of our lexical research we hope to produce studies of conceptual domains in the form of thesauri. For syntax we plan to establish, on the basis of our concordance studies, structural models for text analysis and production, with future applications in the form of electronic "EST Grammar Checkers". In conjunction with our Bergen R&D group in machine translation (ENTRA) we also plan to use the corpus as a set of benchmark tests for MT, necessarily involving a mirror-image corpus of Norwegian for Science and Technology, but that lies beyond the horizon.

Notes

1. I would like to express my thanks to the following graduate students who participated in the EST seminar in the English Department, University of Bergen, in the fall term of 1986 and who provided the basic groundwork and much of the inspiration for writing this paper: Eva Amundsen, Åse Holmedal, Elisabeth Irgens, Vebjørg Leland, Rannveig Siem, Margaret Stenersen, and Else Svendsen. My colleague Lise Opdahl is acting as joint project leader of the BEST Corpus collection. Financial support has been received from the Norwegian Research Council for the Humanities and from the Liberal Arts Faculty, University of Bergen.

2. The program is based on selected specializations in Mathematics, Informatics, Physics, Chemistry, Petroleum-related subjects and Biology. Since the majority of textbooks used are written in English, many students indicated the need for some assistance in tackling highly specialized English.

3. MacroCAT, by WCC, Chicago (formerly Weidner CC).

4. For technical reasons, BRN-J figures were not available at

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the time.

References

Swales, J. (1985) Episodes in ESP. Oxford: Pergamon Institute of English.

Weber, H. (1982) LSP, Text Typology, and Text Analysis: Aspects of a Pragmatic-Functional Approach. Hoedt et al. Pragmatics and LSP. Proceedings of the 3rd European Symposium on LSP. Copenhagen: KHH.

COM

=

Savitch, W.J. (1984) PASCAL An Introduction to
the Art and Science of Programming.
Benjamin/Cummings.

ESL

=

Sager, J.C. et al. (1980) English Special Languages.
Wiesbaden: Brandstetter.

GEOL

=

Seyfert, C.K. and Sirkin, L.A. (1979) Earth History
and Plate Tectonics. 2nd Ed. New York: Harper &
Row.

PSY

=

Tyler, L.E. and Walsh, W.B. (1979) Tests and
Measurements. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

For EXP & DNV bibliographical information is missing.

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20
Complex Noun Phrases as a Problem of Terminological Practice

Johan Myking
University of Bergen

Terminological neology involves important questions like "what is a term?", and "how should a term be made?". This concerns the delimitation of the terminological units as well as problems of form, in particular the contrasting needs for accuracy and conciseness. In the case of complex noun phrases, one of the most important and difficult problems is that of "syntagmatics": how, when or whether a distinction between syntactic and lexical phrases can be made (cf. e.g. Koucourek, 1979).

These problems have been paid considerable attention in the terminological work carried out in connection with development of the "Gullfaks" oil and gas field in the North Sea. Although the concept has priority over its linguistic representation in terminology work, the structure of language will always to some extent affect this work. This can be illustrated by the case of Norwegian prepositional N+N structures like væskeutskiller for høytrykksfakkel (high pressure flare knock-out drum) and their English equivalents, compared with compounds.

Gullfaks and the Terminol Project

Operations in the Gullfaks oil and gas field represent the first time Norwegian will be used as the official working language. All written texts on the platforms will be in Norwegian, icluding operating manuals and procedures, information boards, control panels, pushbuttons, data screen texts, etc.

The terminological implications of this language policy are quite immense. A consistent and complete Norwegian terminology must be developed for each subject field involved. These subject fields correspond to platform systems such as drilling, oil and gas processing, utilities, maintenance, safety, etc. During the past few years, this terminology has been developed at the Norwegian Term Bank ¹.

It is worth emphasizing that the terminological material is

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intended for immediate practical use. Hence, the need for transparency and accuracy, and the rather severe practice of Gullfaks-internal standardization, which does not permit the use of synonyms in Gullfaks documentation.

A close collaboration between linguistics and engineers has been indispensible. Mediating between the need for transparency and precision on the one hand, conciseness on the other, has been one of the main aspects of this collaboration. We may assume that the term-forming patterns applied will to some extent satisfy, not only the needs for transparency and precision, but also the users' intuition of linguistic acceptability, which favours conciseness. The `prepositional noun phrases' already mentioned may serve as an illustration of these often conflicting requirements.

The `Prepositional Noun Phrase'

`Prepositional noun phrase' (PNP) means an endocentric noun phrase consisting of a noun modified by a prepositional phrase, or of a nominalization of verb + noun ²:

væskeutskiller for høytrykksfakkel (high pressure flare knock-out drum)

ters med flens (flange tapping)

hovedtavle i nødkraftsystemet (emergency switchboard)

hindring av kjelsteinsdannelse (scale prevention)

Of 11,182 Norwegian terms in the Gullfaks A material (Terminol), (synonyms and deprecated terms included), 1729, or 15.5%, are PNPs. The most frequent prepositions are:

for (for)

1295 (11.6%, or 74.9% of the PNPs)

av

(of)

122

med

(with, by)

111

i

(in)

60

på

(on, at)

51

The percentage of terms using the PNP-structure is remarkably high. This especially applies to for, which, if only the preferred terms are considered, has a score of 1046 of 9953, or 10.6%. This is significantly higher than in other Norwegian technical dictionaries, and this fact may be interpreted as an indication of a drive towards precision.

Morphological Complexity

The high frequency of PNPs indicates that the Gullfaks terminology at least partially tends to be morphologically complex³. This applies in particular to the for-PNPs. A quick

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survey ⁴ of the number of stems in the PNPs in the material, indicates that there is relatively high score of for-terms consisting of four or more stems (only the 1046 preferred terms considered):

3 stems:

300/1046

(28.7%)

/tank/for/olje/prøver/

(sample container)

4>>:

745/1046

(71.3%)

/væske/utskiller/for/høy/trykk/s/fakkel/

In contrast, compounds with more than three stems are relatively rare (less than 6% of the preferred terms). If we assume that in Norwegian there are strong restrictions on the number of elements in compounds exceeding three, the PNP construction offers a possibility for extension of the term according to the level of accuracy required (cf. below):

hindring av kjelsteinsdannelse

*kjelsteinsdannelseshindring

væskeutskiller for høytrykksfakkel

*høytrykksfakkelvæskeutskiller

Criteria for Delimitation

During the initial compiling stage of the Terminol Project, certain criteria governing delimitation and fusion of relevant concepts were worked out (cf. Roald, 1986, p. 12). For instance, terms should denote component/equipment +

medium: salgsgass/rørledning (export gas/pipeline)

function/purpose: regulering/s/ventil (control/valve)

physical parameter + function: trykk/regulering/s/ventil pressure/control v.)

related component/system: agitator/motor (agitator/motor)

To a very high extent, the problems of elaborating a terminological strategy in the initial stage are related to the problem of English juxtaposition: premodified multiple compounds or nominal phrases, in which no semantic relations between constituents are formally indicated (e.g. by prepositions). According to the criteria mentioned above, a phrase like export gas pipeline inlet pressure control valve would be interpreted as three concepts on the first level of analysis, since location was excluded from the set of relevant criteria: pressure control valve /ON the/ inlet /OF the/ export gas pipeline. (Cf. Andersen, 1985.)

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Covert Semantic Relations

Due to the covert relation between the constituents of the English premodified NPs, an elaboration of Norwegian equivalents requires both correct interpretation of the covert relations, which is part of the concept analysis, and correct use of preposition:

træing AV kjetting

chain reeving

bryter FOR høyt nivå

high level switch

styring MED skråkant

side hill guide

hovedtavle I nødkraftsystemet

emergency switchboard

These facts seem rather obvious, but problems often arise, affecting:

a) the lexical status: do prepositions indicate lexical limits revealing the phrases as a whole as syntactic, not lexical, according to the given criteria? (Consequently, is the existence of such Norwegian entries the result of wrong delimitation?)

b) the optimal realization: is the correct preposition used, should the PNP be shortened?

Lexical Cohesion

It should be assumed that the purpose of terminological work is to establish linguistic units designating single and well-defined concepts, that is, the established units should have the same status as "words". (Nominalized phraseological units must of course be included in this scope, whether presented technically as phraseological units or "terms". The main point here is not to distinguish phraseological units from terms, but to exclude free word combinations.) Since the phrasal terms we are dealing with are new and coined partly by ourselves, criteria such as recurrence or frequency will often be of little use in our evaluation of term status. As terminologists, we must try to define the concepts according to the established criteria, which leads to the intention of institutionalizing these phrases as "word-equivalent" units. Their linguistic representation should then be constructed in such a way that this intended cohesion is not disturbed.

Lexical cohesion cannot be established on the basis of formal criteria alone, although the "categorizing" or "labelling" qualities of English premodified NPs (cf. Varantola, 1984, p. 111, p. 114) often seem to indicate such cohesion (although Varantola (p. 114) takes no stand concerning the status of the NPs in question). In the case of German translation of such

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NPs, it has been argued that the use of prepositions implies a risk of breaking this cohesion (Herzog, 1976, p. 77). If we were to accept in a strict sense that English premodification implies lexical cohesion, it would thus mean that the need for prepositions in Norwegian (and German, cf. Herzog, 1976) indicates a "deficit" in the ability to realize concepts adequately which is rather hard to justify.

The only way, then, in which it seems possible to distinguish between "lexical" and "syntactic" phrases, is within the framework of a context-based and situation-based set of criteria, designed for dealing with a specific task. Whether such criteria can be established and applied consistently, is a crucial problem of terminological practice.

If, on the other hand, we assume that such appropriate criteria for delimitation in fact have been applied, the problem is reduced to form, caused by the varying degree of ambiguity in prepositions. Because location is considered an irrelevant criterion of delimitation, locative or directional prepositions such as i (in), på (on, at), fra (from), til (to) etc. may be misleading:

hovedtavle i nødkraftsystemet (emergency switchboard) omrører for avgassingstank (pref.) (degassing tank mixer) <...> i avgassingstank (syn.) "

Here, a criterion of functional relation rather than location has been applied. Immediate needs for transparency have motivated the use of i in the former case (later shortened to hovednødtavle). In the latter, the "false" indication of location ("false" according to the essential criterion, not according to the physical reality) created by i is avoided by means of the more polysemous and unmarked for.

Form, Grammaticality

The extensive use of for instead of other prepositions may be explained by its lack of descriptive meaning, which allows its pure grammatical or relational meanings to dominate. In the case of degassing tank mixer and many others, the preposition for may be considered a mere substitute for the regular compound connective -s- or -<zero>-. Of all the PNPs, those linked by for have most in common with ordinary compounds, as far as the degree of semantic unpredictability is concerned. The substitution of for by -s- or -<zero>- could then be considered to be regulated by three major factors:

a) complexity: høytrykksfakkelvæskeutskiller > væskeutskiller for høytrykksfakkel

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(high pressure flare knock-out drum)

b) grammaticality, especially when the PP has the structure Adj. + N:

*lukket avløpstank > tank for lukket avløp (closed drain tank)

(Tank in a closed drain system, the tank may be open.)

c) symmetry, closely related to b):

høyt nivå

(high level)

bryter for høyt nivå

(high level switch)

bryter for høy-høyt nivå

(high high level switch)

Cf. høynivåbryter (possible), but not *høy-høynivåbryter!

The chances of stabilization of such phrases and their acceptability as "word-like" units may often seem doubtful. This is sometimes indicated by the non-idiomatic appearance and the possibility of separate inflection of a modifier consisting of a countable noun (Norwegian original):

vinsj for bomløft vinsjen for bomløftet (authentic) (boom hoist winch) ?vinsjen for bomløft (possible)

In this respect, the PNP may be considered a typical pattern for careful construction of new Norwegian designations, although it is relatively uncommon in spoken and general language, which explains the non-idiomatic appearance. However, with respect to "word-like behaviour", possible non-idiomatic or "ungrammatical" cases such as vinsj for bomløft, væskeutskiller for høytrykksfakkel etc, adapt well to drawings, pushbuttons and control panels, where ellipsis is typical and often desirable. Pushbuttons, drawings and the like must in an engineering context be considered as important text categories. The adequate formation of such texts is highly relevant to a terminological project of the Gullfaks type, although it may conflict with "pure" terminological work. Consequently, the relevance of such texts as dictionary entries cannot automatically be rejected from a pragmatic point of view. (Cf. the discussion of terms vs. "catalogue texts'', e.g. Sager, 1979 and Koucourek, 1979.)

Non-lexical ("HAPAX") Compounds

Like the English premodified NPs, the lexical ambiguity of Norwegian compounds may signal a lexical cohesion which is not present upon closer examination and analysis. Compounds

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are not always intended for institutionalization, i.e. as a term. They may function as ad-hoc descriptive or definition-like syntactic phrases, corresponding to the text-condensing compounds of newspaper headlines, etc. Such examples, found in the Norwegian original documents of Gullfaks B, are:

prosessventil ("process valve", referring to non-specified valves in the process area)

konstanttrykksystem ("constant pressure system", i.e. system working under constant pressure)

databaseskjelett ("data base skeleton", i.e. a data base without data)

setereguleringsventil ("globe control valve", i.e. 2 concepts (form-function) condensed in one word-form)

ventilhuserosjon ("valve body erosion", i.e. "erosion at. . .")

Arntz (1982, p. 113f) states concerning word groups vs. compounds in English, French and German:

"...im Englischen <kann es> schwierig sein <...>, einen Terminus als solchen zu erkennen, während die Zusammengehörigkeit der einzelnen Elemente im Deutschen aufgrund der Zusammensetzung leichter zu erkennen ist."

With regard to terminological compilation, however, the existence of such "non-lexical", newly-coined ad-hoc compounds clearly represents an under-estimated source of error in a language such as Norwegian. Probably, this applies to the other Scandinavian languages and German, as well.

The Bias of Structure

After this lengthy discussion of structural phenomena, what about the terminological approach, which emphasizes the conceptual analysis and the onomasiological methodology?

An important experience gained from the Gullfaks terminology projects is that the production speed of the petroleum business imposes severe restrictions on the possibility of conducting a thorough terminological analysis of each item encountered. An adequate analysis of the conceptual systems or fields to which "term candidates" may belong is not always possible. Emphasis has to be put on serving the immediate needs of the translators, in terms of time as well as quality.

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Given the extra-linguistic restrictions on the analysis, greater importance is attributed to the linguistic structure as "access" to the concepts. What is ideally meant as concept analysis, even in the initial extraction stage, often runs the risk of becoming a mere "word-form extraction", and this may clearly affect the quality of the product.

Without adhering to any strong version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, it seems reasonable to assume that the difference between analytic and synthetic surface structure may bias the perception of conceptual structure, other things being equal. Concerning a Norwegian's perception in this respect, the following observations may be made:

English premodified NP's will be perceived as lexical phrases, due to their "labelling" qualities, as no limits between lexical units are formally expressed

extraction of Norwegian "term candidates" will follow word limits, and consequently,

PNPs (nominalizations and modifier-head) will often be perceived as collocations (accidental or otherwise)

non-lexical compounds will often be perceived as terms

a compound will more easily be extracted than its PNP variant

When PNPs are perceived as collocations, it will often lead to separate extraction of one or all of the constituents, in modifier-head phrases mostly the modifier: In a PNP, the modifying concept is to some extent "singled out" more than in a compound equivalent, and the phrase obtains a less idiomatic appearance. This encourages a separate extraction, as shown in this authentic Norwegian example where only the noun of the modifying PP was extracted originally:

vinsj for bomløft (bomløftvinsj) (boom hoist winch)

In a language like Norwegian, the existence of "non-lexical" compounds is probably no less interesting than syntactic units like the PNPs. A discussion of "syntagmatics" in terminology must concentrate not only on the ortographic spaces in lexical units, but also on the problems created where such spaces do not exist.

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Notes

1. The English original terms were extracted from the operating manuals of Gullfaks A during the "Terminol Project" in 1982-85. Authentic Norwegian examples are drawn from the manuals of the Gullfaks B project, which succeeded Terminol in 1986. Operating manuals have been the main term source in both projects. The Norwegian preferred terms have been approved, i.e. standardized, by a committee consisting of terminologists from the Norwegian Term Bank and engineers from Statoil, the operator of the Gullfaks field. Some of the terms cited have, however, been revised at a later stage.

2. Most of the terms have the modifier-head structure. (Nominalized phraseological units like hindring av kjelsteinsdannelse (scale prevention) are treated in the same manner as the modifier-head cases, as the differences between the two are rather irrelevant to the main points of this paper.)

3. There is, however, little evidence to argue that the morphological complexity of the material as a whole is greater than in similar corpora.

4. The figures given in the paper are sample-based and preliminary results from a study of Gullfaks A term structures recently undertaken.

References

Andersen, Ø. (1985) Erfaringer fra Terminolprosjektet. Festskrift til Kolbjørn Heggstad. Oslo-Bergen-Tromsø.

Arntz, R. and Picht, H. (1982) Einführung in die übersetzungs-bezogene Terminologielehre. Hildesheim-Zürich-New York.

Herzog, R. (1976) Gegenwärtige Tendenzen in der terminologischen Wortbildung. Bausch, K.-H. et al. Fachsprachen. Normungskunde Heft 4. Berlin-Köln.

Koucourek, R. (1979) Lexical phrases in terminology. Travaux de terminologie, no. 1. Université Laval.

Roald, J. (1986) cf. below.

Sager, J.C. (1979) Commentary. Rondeau, G. (ed) Table ronde sur les problemes du découpage du terme. Montreal.

Varantola, K. (1984) On Noun Phrases Structures in Engineering English. Turku

Norske språkdata. University of Bergen, The Norwegian Term Bank and Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literature, Section for Norwegian Lexicology:

Roald, J., Myking, J. and Pedersen, P-B. (1986) Terminol.

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Sluttrapport fra et terminologisk prosjekt. No. 11.

Simonsen, G. (1986) Oppsummering av et fornorskingsprosjekt. Skilt og datasystemer på Gullfaks A. No. 12.

Jonassen, K.I. (1986) Esso/Odin-prosjektet. Sluttrapport. No. 13.

Reinton, J.E. (1987) Petrus-prosjektet. Sluttrapport for revisjonen av en petroleumstesaurus. No. 14.

Myking, J. (1987) Gullfaks B. Språk og terminologi i driftshandbøker og kurspakkar. Sluttrapport. No. 15.

Ovrum, C. Gullfaks B, borehåndbøkene. Sluttrapport. 1987. In Press.

Haugland, K.E. MESC. Sluttrapport. Forthcoming.

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21
Synonymy in the Language of Business and Economics

Vladimir Irgl
Prague School of Economics

This paper is to present the results of my recent research in synonymy in the English language of economics, especially in the language of business, trade and commerce. It is not supposed to study synonymy as a general linguistic phenomenon, nor to discuss the numerous definitions of a synonym given by synonymists. Synonymy exists not only in the lexis of a language. It occurs also in morphology, in word formation, in grammatical structures, in syntactical constructions, in phraseology. There are also transitional cases, e.g. lexical synonymy can pass into other kinds of synonymy: Pre-tax profits amount to £ 100,000. Profits before tax amont to £ 100,000.

I will confine this paper to lexical synonymy. I will abstain from giving a definition of the synonym. Instead, I will mention the well-known three basic characteristic features of lexical synonyms: 1. They are lexical items with the same or nearly the same meaning. 2. They may be defined (wholly or almost wholly) in the same terms. 3. They may be interchangable within limits.

Synonymists mostly dwell and insist on the identity or near identity of the denotational (essential) meaning, e.g. to buy to purchase. On the basis of my findings I would say that even connotational, secondary, metaphoric meanings may become the basis for synonymic relations: The prices have fallen plunged plummeted tumbled.

The existence of synonymy in LSP has generally not been denied, but it seems to have been underestimated, and usually considered as harmful to accuracy in terminology. A deeper research shows, however, that synonymy has a definite place in the language of economics, in the language of business, trade and commerce. It is therefore recommendable that students should get familiar with synonymy in LSP and should learn to discriminate between synonyms to avoid misunderstanding, mistakes, errors, and maybe even financial losses.

Synonymy in LSP must be studied not only in the field of

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terminology, but also in the non-terminological parts of LSP texts, since there is interdependence between them. Moreover, the transition between terms and non-terms in the language of business and commerce is often rather vague or deliberately overlooked. Yet, in this paper, I will not mention synonyms used in commercial slang and in commercialese, e.g. bogus bill, kite, windbill, which are slang synonyms to fictious bill or accommodation bill. Nor will I mention old-fashioned, out-dated synonyms used in commercial correspondence, such as your favour, your command, which are synonyms to your letter, your order. Neither will I mention synonyms arising from lexical differencies between American and British English, e.g. stockholder shareholder, bill of lading railway consignment note, board of trade chamber of commerce, etc., though American expressions are penetrating into the British language of business and commerce and sometimes get stuck there as true synonyms.

Synonymy is closely linked with the choice of words. The existence of synonymy facilitates the choice of words, and on the other hand, the necessity to have a choice results in the creation of new synonyms. The life of the new individual creation may be only ephemeral, but sometimes it soon gets commonly used and becomes a synonym to the original term or expression, e.g.: to halt the erosion of prices to halt the fall (decline) in prices.

The choice from among given synonyms depends on objective and on subjective factors.

Among the objective factors the most important are the following:

1. The purpose of the text and its stylistic orientation: a scientifically oriented text (among others) usually contains explicit and accurate terminology, often derived from Latin and Greek, and avoids expressiveness. On the other hand, authors of texts addressed to the general public do not insist so much on terminological accuracy, they use more common, anglo-saxon expressions, and they do not hesitate to use colourful or expressive words. Thus, we can find synonyms, such as trade deficit trade gap, minimum price floor price rockbottom price bedrock price, to reduce stocks to run down stocks, to stabilize prices to peg prices, the outflow of gold the flight of gold the exodus of gold, etc.

2. The lexical and stylistical valencies of the given synonyms: We usually say "to extend the letter of credit",

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not to prolong the letter of credit". We say "to apply for an import licence", we do not say "to ask for an import licence''. By contrast, the stylistical choice between "to request payment to ask for payment to demand payment" depends on the author's degree of insistence on payment.

3. The denotational (essential) meaning of the given synonyms: In the case of true synonyms, i.e. synonyms identical both in meaning and in usage, the choice depends on the discretion of the author. If the synonyms are not true synonyms, i.e. their meaning and usage are not identical, the differences make the author discriminate between them and influence the choice between them, e.g. business trade commerce traffic: The wholesale trade was relatively small as compared with the retail business. The principles and practice of commerce. Traffic in drugs (firearms).

The subjective factors may strengthen or weaken, or even eliminate the effects of the objective factors:

1. The author's endeavour for accuracy and explicitness may result in the creation of a new synonym to express a given idea or concept more adequately. The new synonym need not be a newly coined word. It may be a common expression or an obsolete word used with a new meaning: The honey marketers (= merchants, dealers) have found the key to unlock the potential of a country . . . The off-take (= purchases) of natural rubber from Malaysia ... Togetherness (= solidarity) is the City's most powerful asset. "Moneyness" or "liquidity" is an attribute which may be found in a much wider variety of assets than coins, notes and bank deposits.

2. The author's tendency to cumulative use of synonyms is to make the text as intelligible and complete as possible: e.g. When a country is importing more than it is exporting, its balance of trade is "unfavourable", "negative" or "adverse"; it has a "trade gap" or "deficit". A "shipped" or "on board" bill of lading is required... A system of "flexible" or "floating" exchange rates suffers from a number of defects. The "nominal" or "par" values of shares vary considerably.

The synonyms used in the cumulative way are, however, not always true synonyms. In that case, the endeavour for intelligibility and completeness is in contradiction to accuracy, e.g.: Bills of exchange are generally called bills, drafts or acceptances.

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3. The author's tendency to colourfulness and diversity, to expressiveness and originality may result in his using unusual, striking colourful or contrastive expressions which are practically never true synonyms, even if they may occur in the field of terminology, e.g.: In yesterday's sale, values for most descriptions of merino fleece were fully equal to the previous day's prices.

The subjective factors may, of course, combine with the objective factors, for example the tendency to diversity with the necessity to respect the essential meaning. The choice is then rather delicate: Marketing books is not as simple as selling soap. Fruit may be sold by growers to commission agents who dispose of the produce either to wholesalers or direct to retailers.

Expressiveness and originality can best be illustrated by synonyms (both nouns and verbs) expressing the movement of prices. By using an expressive, striking or unusual word, the author manifests his personal attidude to, or his own interest in the given fact or situation. A detailed research based on thousands of excerpts has shown that there are more than 60 verbal expressions for the upward movement of prices, and more than 40 expressions for the downward movement. The number of nominal expressions is only slightly lower. It would by far exceed the scope of this paper to give full-length examples for all of them. Let's mention only some examples for the upward and downward movements of prices:

Prices can increase, rise, grow, go up, move up, climb, jump, mount, bound up, bounce up, shoot up, rocket up, shift up, soar, escalate, edge upwards, creep up, improve, harden, pick up, surge upwards, etc.

Prices can fall, fall off, fall back, decrease, decline, go down, come down, move down, sink, drop, slip back, slide, dip, plunge, tumble, dive, slump, sag, soften, weaken, etc.

Although synonymy appears most frequently in non-terminological parts of LSP texts, its occurrence in business and economic terminology is, as has been said, fairly frequent as well, which is clearly contrary to the general endeavour and call for clarity, unambiguity and explicitness. The number of true synonyms is actually surprisingly high. They are usually compound terms in which one component may be replaced by another without any change in meaning or usage of the term: statement of account extract of

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account, mortality rate death rate, account day settling day pay day settlement day, nominal value face value, authorized capital nominal capital registered capital, terminal market futures market, buffer stock safety stock, fixed assets capital assets, closed shop union shop, end-consumer end-user, factors of production agents of production, etc. Yet, there are a number of synonyms entirely different in form, e.g.: stock-taking inventory, labour exchange job centre, ordinary shares equities, jobless unemployed, etc. Among the true synonyms there are also terms of foreign origin existing side by side with English terms: bona fide holder holder in good faith, franco frontier free frontier, act of good force majeure, etc.

If the synonyms are not true synonyms, i.e. if they differ in meaning or in usage, or in both, the user should rightly discriminate between them. Yet it happens that, in his endeavour for diversity, he ignores the discriminating features and uses the terms virtually at discretion: loan advance accommodation, yield return, publicity advertising, insolvency bankruptcy failure, winding-up dissolution liquidation (of a business), amalgamation merger tie-up (of companies), etc. Let's quote excerpts from a short piece of news in the Financial Times: "Gimbel Brothers launches a lavish parade of British imports ... Gimbels is the first to have organized a comprehensive display in New York ... It is the largest retail chain to have planned a British festival ... Gimbel's show will run for ten days .. Gimbels has previously had special exhibitions featuring products of individual foreign countries."

Different views or opinions on the same facts by different authors, schools, etc. may give rise to synonymic relations, too. If a new synonymous term has been coined to denote the same concept, a true synonym comes into being. Yet, its spreading depends on its general acceptability by professionals and the public. If the new synonymous term has a slightly different meaning, and especially if it has been defined by the author, the synonymous terms may often not be interchangeable.

Sometimes, special extralinguistic situations may give rise to synonyms, e.g. insurer underwriter (a special feature of Lloyd's insurance business), foreign trade overseas trade.

Owing to the influence of the mass media of communication, business and economic terminology has, to a great extent,

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become common property of the population. Virtually everybody is personally interested in the economic events and the economic development in his country, or in the economic measures taken or to be taken by the government or the local authorities. In the endeavour to make economic events more accessible and more understandable to the man in the street, authors of economic articles often replace complex and difficult terms by expressions more simple in form, more colourful and expressive, though often more or less different in meaning. The newly coined synonymous expressions may either live on as synonymous terms, or they disappear to be replaced by more adequate terms, or they may co-exist as non-terminological synonyms: to stabilize (prices) to peg, merger tie-up marriage (of companies), bankruptcy failure crash, to redeem (a debt) to repurchase to buy back, trade deficit trade gap, to jettison to throw overboard to cast away, the bill matures the bill falls due, etc.

Also the contrary can happen: business and economic terms whose form and essential meaning have seemingly lost their terminological adequacy may be replaced by new less common synonymous terms. Such terms usually co-exist side by side: to float a company to found a company to issue company shares, to float a loan to issue bonds or debentures, to value on sb to draft a bill on sb to draw (a bill) on sb.

If, for the purpose of better understanding and comprehension, terms are explained, interpreted or expressed periphrastically, a synonymic relation may arise between terms and non-terms: bills domiciled in London, i.e. payable on maturity in London; the contract is void, i.e. of no legal effect; the issue of notes is almost entirely a "fiduciary" one, i.e. it is not backed by gold.

In business and economic terminology there exist a number of synonyms which have been derived from full-length compound terms by omission of some of their components: letter of credit credit, labour power labour, credit squeeze squeeze, life insurance office life office. Sometimes, double elliptical forms co-exist with slightly different meanings: pound sterling pound (on the home market) sterling (on the international market), crude oil crude (unprocessed raw material) oil (merchandise). The omission of a component part may also have grammatical or morphological consequences: durable goods durables, extra charges extras, overhead expenses overheads, empty containers empties, invisible exports invisibles, etc.

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Apocopic synonyms are terms which have been derived from full-lenght terms by deliberate omission of the last syllable or part of the word: advertisement ad. The apocopy is sometimes combined with ellipsis: gilt-edged securities gilts, consolidated annuities consols.

Acronymic synonyms arise from full-length compound terms when initial letters of the component words start being commonly used both orally and in writing in place of the original term: a letter of credit an L/C [dn * el'si:], bill of lading B/L, gross national product GNP [dz * i:en'pi:], free on board FOB, etc. Sometimes, the original full-length term stops being currently used and only the acronym is used instead. It is often pronounced as a normal English word, i.e. it is not spelt: UNIDO [ju:'ni:ddu].*

Summary

The existence of synonymy in LSP has generally not been denied, but has often been considered harmful to accuracy in terminology.

Synonymy in LSP must be studied both in the field of terminology and in the non-terminological parts of LSP texts, since there is interdepencence between them. Synonymy is closely linked with the choice of words, which depends on objective and subjective factors. The objective factors: the purpose of the text and its stylistic orientation, the lexical, syntactical and stylistical valencies and the essential meaning of the given synonyms. The subjective factors (may change or even eliminate the effect of the objective factors): the author's tendency to accuracy, to cumulative use of synonyms, to colourfulness, diversity, expressiveness and originality.

Although synonymy usually appears in the non-terminological parts of LSP texts, synonyms in business and economic terminology are surprisingly frequent. There are both true synonyms, i.e. identical in meaning and in usage, and synonyms differing slightly either in meaning, or in usage, or in both. In this case, the user must discriminate between them. Different authors and schools may coin new synonyms for the same concept or fact. Owing to the influence of mass media, economic terms have become common property of the population. However, complex and difficult terms are often replaced by synonymous terms more simple in form, though sometimes not so exact and accurate in meaning.

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Other sources of terminological synonyms: terms of foreign origin existing side by side with English terms, elliptic and apocopic synonyms, acronyms.

References

Budovicová, V. (1963) Sémantické principy odbornej terminológie (Semantic Principles of Professional Terminolgy). Prague: CSTC.

Duchácek, O. (1960) Ruzné kategorie synonym (Classification of Synonyms). Prague: CMF.

Filipec, J. (1961) Ceská synonyma z hlediska stylistiky a lexikologie (Czech Synonyms from the Aspect of Stylistics and Lexicology). Prague.

Hausenblas, K. (1962) K specifickym rysum odborné terminologie (On Specific Features of Professional Terminology). Prague.

Kocourek, R. (1966) Synonyma v terminologii (Synonyms in Terminology). Prague.

Longman Dictionary of Business English (1982).

Sochor, K. (1955) Prirucka o ceském odborném názvosloví (Czech Professional Terminology). Prague

Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms. Springfield, Massachussetts.

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22
Language of the Law and Legal Language

Dennis Kurzon
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The above title has at least three meanings. The first is that the language of the law and legal language mean the same thing they are synonymous. The second possible meaning is that one, let us say language of the law, is included in the second legal language. And the third possible meaning is that we are dealing with two separate phenomena. Let us discuss the three meanings one by one.

The first one has to be rejected immediately for the simple pragmatic (in its everyday sense) reason that if language of the law and legal language mean the same thing there would be no need to talk about the two terms. It would only be part of a remark or a footnote.

The second meaning, that one, say language of the law, is included in legal language, points to a relationship of hyponymy between the two terms; legal language is, as it were, an overlord, the more general term, which refers to a variety of the language, while language of the law is one particular part of this variety. If we use the terms `language' and `sublanguage', we could say that legal language is a sublanguage of a particular language, say English, in general, while language of the law is, if we continue this pseudo-mathematical terminology, a sublanguage. This particular approach leads us in fact to suggest, at least implicitly, that legal language as a sublanguage may have more than one sublanguage. Language of the law is one such sublanguage. Perhaps one may argue that the language of the courtroom in judge/counsel exchanges, or that used by counsel addressing witnesses are other sublanguages.

The third possible meaning of the title, that language of the law is not the same as legal language, is by far the most radical of the three, and deserves more attention, since linguists, and also lawyers who have dealt with law and legal language, have always used the terms language of the law and legal language synonymously.

A basic distinction between language of the law and legal language may be made in the following way: Language of the law is the language or the style used (or the sublanguage

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used) in documents that lay down the law, in a very broad sense. These documents would include legislation, and also documents pertaining to private law such as contracts, wills and deeds, since they in their own way lay down the law for the people involved. The two parties to the contract are bound by their mutual agreement and have to fulfil their duties and have rights as laid down by the contract. Deeds may set up, and usually do, trusts. These documents are laying down the law, not in the ordinary sense of a legislature laying down the law for the public at large, but for a small group of people. As long as all the legal requirements have been fulfilled, what the two parties to a contract say, what the testator says, or what the writer of a deed says, is the law; it has total legal effect for the persons concerned, subject in the last two cases to their agreement to be involved.

Legal language, on the other hand, is the language used when people talk about the law. This is the language that is used in legal textbooks, lawyers' speech and in their correspondence. It is also used by judges when giving their decisions. This particular case may be considered controversial, since in many respects a judge's decision is also laying down the law because of the principle of precedent, an important element in the common law system (in Britain, USA, etc.). However, what the judge is really doing is open to various interpretations.

I am taking the point of view, as I have expressed elsewhere (Kurzon, 1987a), that the judge seems to be declaring the law, and not making it. S/he refers to the law on the basis of which s/he comes to his or her decision. The judge does not decide the case arbitrarily, but reaches such a decision because of the facts of the case and relevant precedents.

What I have given above are various pragmatic criteria by which language of the law may be distinguished from legal language. But there are more formal, syntactic, criteria by which these two sublanguages may be distinguished, and this is of course of importance to teachers and students of English for Academic Legal Purpose (EALP). Let us deal, first of all, with language of the law, represented by text-types such as statutes, contracts, wills and deeds. The general style of such texts is frozen. This does not include the statute, with which I shall deal below. But the texts of contracts, wills and deeds are never written afresh every time a lawyer has to draw one up. The lawyer uses what are called in the profession `formbooks', in which documents or paragraphs of documents are set out, and it is up to the lawyer to choose the appropriate paragraph or paragraphs for the particular document s/he is drawing up. All the lawyer has to add to these documents are the personal particulars of the person or

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persons involved. Let us take the contract as our representative of a frozen document. The paragraphs of a contract that relate to the technicalities of transferring home ownership from one person to another tend to be identical between document and document. What is required to be done has to be done in every case, and these technicalities are set out in the contract and take up most of the document. The contract is a bilateral agreement. It therefore requires two parties to draw it up. So what is new in fact is the names of the parties, and some type of identification, and the property which one of the parties is selling and the other is buying.

As for documents written in a formal and not in a frozen style, that is to say statutes, we also tend to have formulaic expressions, but there are far less than in contracts and other personal documents. But the style on the whole is still formal. Examples of formulaic expressions found in contracts, deeds and wills are words such as whereas, which introduces the preamble to a deed; expressions such as "I, John Smith, bequeath my property to. . .", as in a will. Such expressions are formulaic in personal documents, while in the formal language of the law, that is to say in statutes, we find less frozen or semi-formulaic expressions such as conjunction where introducing conditional clauses, which in most other varieties of English would be replaced by if, and the two modals shall and may, which express the performative aspects of the documents.

Other syntactic features of the language of the law include the impersonal approach to the style, as in a contract: "The vendor agrees to sell and the purchaser agrees to purchase", which is in the third person; and the length of the constituent sentences of the text. In various studies made of the length of legislative sentences, the figure of 50 words per sentence is more or less the average, although this does not rule out the occurrence of sentences with a few words, and far longer sentences of a hundred or more words. In studies made of complete corpora, such as the Brown Corpus of American English, texts written in the language of the law have sentences with an average length far longer than in any other variety of English (see, e.g. Kucera and Francis, 1967).

Now let us turn to legal language. Legal language is formal educated language. Certain stylistic features are therefore expected; for example, there would be no run-on or fragmentary sentences in such a text. Every sentence would consist of one independent clause and possibly a number of subordinate clauses. In this it does not differ by any means from other formal varieties of language. Even sentence length does not seem to be a distinguishing feature of legal

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language. Sentences in legal textbooks or in law reports are no longer, on the average, than sentences in textbooks on politics, psychology, history, etc. But what distinguishes legal language from other formal varieties of language are three things.

First of all, the occurrence of certain expressions and syntactic structures that have come over from the language of the law. After all, when a writer uses legal language, s/he is very often talking about some matter that has been written in the language of law, for example conditions in a contract or legislative provisions. The lawyer's day-to-day contact with legal documents has necessarily influenced his or her own style. We can identify this influence by the formulaic nature of the expressions s/he has brought over from the language of the law.

In the first of the following examples, note the compound preposition in respect of and the subordinating conjunction where; the second example illustrates the typical use of multiple and asyndetic coordination, especially with verbal phrases or with parts of them.

(1) The consideration which a plaintiff alleges must normally be given in respect of the promise made by the defendant. Where a benefit is conferred either gratuitously or in respect of a previous promise, a subsequent promise made in respect of this past benefit is not actionable.

(2) The purpose of Certiorari is to bring before the High Court any matter decided in, at issue in, or pending in, an inferior court in order that the High Court may "certify" itself that no excess of jurisdiction has occurred or is about to occur...

Secondly, Latinisms Latin words, phrases or complete sentences that have been used over the centuries to discuss law. This reflects, first of all, the historical development of western law, which was influenced very greatly by the Roman jurists, even in common-law countries. It is interesting to note that Latin maxims are found only in legal language; very rarely does one find in documents written in the language of the law a Latin expression, apart from certain possible technical terms. In a corpus of legislative texts of which I have made a study, there was only one Latin expression (Kurzon, 1983, 1987b).

Thirdly, legal vocabulary, that is to say technical terms that refer to phenomena in the legal universe. I am talking here of words and phrases such as reversionary interest, trustee, domicile, which may be defined only within a legal context.

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There are other words and phrases such as construction, judgement, privilege, which are found in other varieties of English but have a specific meaning within the legal universe. Furthermore, words such as notwithstanding, hereunder, thereto today seem to be found only in legal language and in language of the law, although in the latter the use of such words seems to be dying out.

Any science, be it the pure sciences such as physics and chemistry or the social sciences such as psychology, sociology, linguistics, and also legal science need their own terminology to describe the phenomena that are being investigated. From the above description of legal language the language of legal textbooks and law reports, etc. we may come to the conclusion that there is really no significant difference in syntactic terms between legal language and other formal varieties of English except for lexical features.

In EALP emphasis is primarily on legal language, even in countries in which English is the official language. In light of the similarity suggested here between formal academic English and legal English, the latter may be tackled pedagogically in principle like any other formal language. The student will bring into play his or her legal studies (even in the student's own native language, if such is the case) in order to understand the concepts and the terminology. In terms of text processing, the student brings to the text schemas, frames, scenarios, i.e. cognitive background knowledge.

Court decisions, that is to say judges' summing up in a particular case, seem to be on the border line between language of the law and legal language, in that such texts are written in legal language in formal terms their use of formulaic expressions, Latin expressions, and vocabulary, but on the other hand, pragmatically, the judge may not be declaring the law, that is to say, talking about what the law requires him or her to do, but may be in fact laying down the law. This is, however, controversial and this controversy may be clearly seen by placing court decisions on the border between the two.

Another type of language that is found in the legal context is what I would like to call `law talk', that is to say spoken language in the context of law. This is obviously part of legal language, but its study requires the classificatory criteria of spoken language; for example, it is necessary to distinguish between spoken formal and spoken informal language. Law talk would include the various contexts in which the law is literally spoken about, for example, interviews between lawyer and client, conversations about the law, and I stress

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about the law, between two lawyers (conversations between lawyers concerning other topics probably does not differ from conversation between other people of similar background and education), the style the lawyer uses when addressing a witness, and when addressing the jury, and of course when the judge addresses the jury. Much work on law talk has been carried out (for details see Danet, 1980; Levy, 1983; see also some of the papers in TEXT (1984), 4:1-3; and in van Dijk, 1985).

The two sublanguages may be distinguished in terms of rhetorical techniques, too. Documents in language of the law primarily do three things: command, permit and prohibit, and this limitation is reflected in the small number of structure types found in such texts. Texts in legal language, on the other hand, have a wide variety of rhetorical techniques, as with all academic texts, especially techniques connected with argumentation. Very little work, however, has been done in this particular field.

In the distinction I have been making between language of the law and legal language we may take a broader viewpoint. Are we in fact talking about language and metalanguage? Language of the law is the primary language to be discussed, and in order to discuss it we use the metalanguage, legal language. There is no doubt that legal language is a metalanguage (apart from the various pragmatic considerations mentioned above in relation to the judge's decision).

We may furthermore ask ourselves whether there are other fields other varieties of language in which there is a similar phenomenon, in which we have one particular variety and another seems to be the same variety but in fact functions as a metalanguage. The only fields in which this particular phenomenon can occur are those in which one of the fields uses language qua language, in other words, that the actual field is about language. I can suggest two, and only two such varieties: the language of literature and the language of the Bible. (Of course, linguistics is a metalanguage about language in general, but there are two possible reasons for not including it here: (1) linguistics and all uses of language, the subject matter of the discipline, do not belong to the same variety, and (2) the language studied is not homogenous, which tends to be the case with literary and biblical language.)

The language of literature is parallel to the language of the law and opposing it is the language of literary criticism, which is parallel to legal language. In the same way, the language of

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the Bible has a style of its own, while the metalanguage, if we can call it that, is the language of biblical criticism. In other words, we use the language of literary criticism to discuss the language of literature and the contents of literature. Likewise, we use the language of biblical criticism to discuss the language and contents of the Bible. But has the language of literature or the language of the Bible any influence on its metalanguages, just as, as has been mentioned above, the language of the law does have an influence on the style of legal language, e.g. in the use of formulaic expressions?

The answer as far as the language of literature and of the Bible is concerned is probably `no'. The language of criticism, be it literary or biblical, is formal language, which has been created apart from the texts which are being discussed. Literary texts and biblical texts may be read without any reference to textbooks written in the language of literary or biblical criticism respectively. In the legal universe, on the other hand, from the very beginning, there have been commentaries on the law, that is to say texts written in legal language about texts written in the language of law. Texts written in legal language have been an integral part of the development of the law, hence the influence of the language of the law on legal language. Furthermore, it is obvious that if one compares the language of literature, i.e. literary texts, with critical articles, or biblical texts with a text of biblical criticism, there are many differences in style between the two (although it should be added that, in the distant past, literary criticism was written in a literary style, for example the work of the Roman poet Horace). Moreover, in the case of the language of the Bible, I am talking specifically of vernacular translations, e.g. the Authorised Version in the English-speaking world. As for the Hebrew Bible in the context of traditional Judaism, on the other hand, the language of the Bible has had an influence on that of rabbinical commentaries. Is this due, perhaps, to the view that large sections of the Bible, especially in the Pentateuch, are legal texts?

In this paper, I have approached the legal variety of language from a more theoretical viewpoint than is usually found, distinguishing between the language in which the law is declared, be it public law in the form of legislation, or private law in the form of documents such as contracts and wills, and the metalanguage that is used to discuss the law, which is in style one of the formal varieties of language, and may be distinguished from other formal varieties mainly by register.

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References

Danet, B. (1980) Language in the Legal Process. Law and Society Review, 14:3, 445-564.

van Dijk, T.A. (1985) Handbook of Discourse Analysis, vols. 1, 3, 4. London: Academic Press.

Kucera, H. and Francis, W.N. (1967) Computational Analysis of Present-Day English. Providence: Brown UP.

Kurzon, D. (1983) Linguistic Analysis of Legislative Texts, Unpublished PhD thesis. Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

(1987a) What does the Judge Do? It is hereby performed ... Explorations in Legal Speech Acts, 57-69. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

(1987b) Latin for Lawyers. Applied Linguistics, 8:3, 127-134.

Levy, J. (1982) Applications of Linguistics to the Language of Legal Interactions. Northwestern University. mimeo.

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23
Vergleichende Analyse Deutschsprachiger Abstracts in Wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften

Hans-R. Fluck
Ruhr-Universität Bochum

1. Zielsetzung Der Analyse Im Rahmen Fachtextlinguistischer Forschung

Anliegen dieses Beitrages ist es, zur Beschreibung und Unterscheidung von Fachtextsorten beizutragen. Dabei zielt unser Interesse primär darauf, anhand der in der Erfahrung gegebenen Fachtextsorte `Abstract' interfachliche Gemeinsamkeiten und Divergenzen auf den verschiedenen Sprachebenen zu erfassen und im Hinblick auf die jeweiligen Intentionen, Funktionen und situativen Gegebenheiten miteinander in Beziehung zu setzen.

Diese unsere Zielsetzung geht mit Spillner ''von einer prinzipiellen Differenzierheit von Fachsprache, Fachtextsorte, Fachtext usw. aus" (Spillner, 1986, S. 89) und ist darauf gerichtet, eventuelle Textdifferenzierungen durch umfassende Fachtextvergleiche zu ermitteln.

Die ermittelten Befunde können zum einen einer Fachtextsortentheorie zugute kommen, indem etwa Merkmale einer Textsortenkennzeichnung eruiert und problematisiert werden. Sie können zum anderen auch der Praxis fachsprachlicher übersetzung und fachbezogenen Fremdsprachenunterrichts dienen, indem sie das Spektrum möglicher Füllungen und Realisierungen von Fachtextmustern, ihre Stilkennzeichen und fachgebietsabhängigen Ausprägungen darstellen. Darüberhinaus lassen sich solche Vergleichsergebnisse für eine umfassendere Binnendifferenzierung einer Fachtextsorte `Abstract' verwenden, deren Umfang und deren verschiedene Abstract-Typen bisher von Seiten der Textlinguistik noch nicht zureichend bestimmt werden konnten und deren Bezeichnungsvielfalt in Information und Dokumentation dringend einer Vereinheitlichung bedarf ¹.

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2. Abstracts ALS Textreferate Und Ihre Determinanten Im Referierprozeß

Gegenstand der Untersuchung und zugleich die fächerübergreifende äquivalente Textsorte sind Abstracts von wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten, publiziert in wissenschaftlichen Fachzeitschriften. Damit behandeln wir Produkte intellektuellen Referierens, die in der Terminologie von Information und Dokumentation als Textreferate bezeichnet, gemäß ihrem Bezug zum Originaltext Abstracts sind im allgemeinen abgeleitete Textformen als Form der Inhaltsangabe aufgefaßt und entsprechend ihrer Form den "Kurzreferaten" zugerechnet werden ².

Dieser Systematisierung entspricht die von der DIN-Norm 1426 (1973) gegebene Bestimmung dieser Textart in Abgrenzung gegen andere Formen der Inhaltsangabe:

"Das Textreferat ist ein Kurzreferat, das den wesentlichen Inhalt des Originaldokuments in Form von Texten wiedergibt, die sich an der Grammatik der verwendeten Sprache ausrichten" (DIN 1426, S. 4).

Dieses Kurzreferat läßt sich nach verschiedenen Einflußgrößen wie Verfasser, Form, Inhaltlicher Bezug, Zweckbestimmung unterscheiden, doch stimmt nach Pfeiffer-Jäger (1982) die Fachliteratur darin überein, daß als Hauptformen des Kurzreferats "natürlichsprachlich formulierte indikative, informative und indikativ-informative `Textreferate'" (Pfeiffer-Jäger, 1982, S. 49) anzusehen sind.

Die Herstellung dieser Textreferate wird durch verschiedene Faktoren gesteuert, u.a. auch durch mehr oder minder ausführliche und präzise Standardisierungshinweise und Normen einzelner Institutionen und Publikationsorgane (Zeitschriftenredaktionen, Referatedienste) wie zuletzt Endres-Niggemeyer (1985) in einer vergleichenden Studie gezeigt hat. Bei ihrer Darstellung dieser Steuerungsmittel und ihrer Wirkung auf das intellektuelle Referieren kommt sie u. a. zum Ergebnis, daß über den eigentlichen Referierprozeß noch zu wenig bekannt und an seiner Modellierung noch zu arbeiten sei.

Trotz dieser Wissenslücken erfordert es jedoch die starke Abhängigkeit des Produkts von der kommunikativen Situation Referieren selbst läßt sich als Teil eines umfassenden Kommunikationsprozesses begreifen (vgl. Pfeiffer-Jäger, 1982, S. 67 ff.), dessen nutzerorientierte Ausrichtung Funktion und Struktur der Textsorte

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entscheidend prägen dürfte, daß wir die auf den Text einwirkenden Faktoren von unserem speziellen Interesse her zumindest skizzenhaft darstellen.

Dabei nehmen wir folgenden Produktionsprozeß an: aufgrund einer eingehenden Orientierung über den Bezugstext (ausführliches Lesen bzw. Verfassen und Rekapitulieren des Originals) findet ein Selektionsprozeß inhaltsrelevanter Daten statt, der zunächst zu einer Faktensammlung (Notizen, Unterstreichungen usw.) führt. Anhand dieser Sammlung erfolgt eine inhaltliche Gewichtung, die in unserem Falle nutzerorientiert und autororientiert zugleich ist. Die so gewonnenen, primär funktionsbestimmten Informations-elemente werden schließlich in einen strukturierten, natürlichsprachigen Text transformiert, das `Abstract'.

Wesentliche Faktoren in diesem Prozeß, der sowohl inhaltlich wie formal einen Reduktionsprozeß darstellt er macht nach Borko und Bernier (1975, S. 5) das eigentliche Wesen des Abstracting aus sind die folgenden:

Informationsquelle (Inhalt, Umfang, Sprachform)

Textproduzent (Fachkenntnis, Kenntnis der Referier-methodik, sprachliches Wissen)

Nutzer (vermuteter Informationsbedarf/tatsächlicher Bedarf)

Normen und Standards (Hinweise und Gestaltungs-richtlinien von Institutionen und Publikationsorganen)

Textsprache (z.B. nationale Einzelsprache, Fachsprache).

Wir können diese als wesentlich auch für die Textbetrachtung erachteten Faktoren hier nicht näher erläutern, sondern müssen uns damit begnügen, diese in ein Textproduktionsmodell so einzuordnen, daß mögliche Zusammenhänge und Wirkungen dieser Einflußgrößen auf von uns zu untersuchende Texte sichtbar werden.

Ein Defizit dieser Modellierung liegt u.a. darin, daß sie die Beziehung der genannten Faktoren nicht präzise darzustellen vermag und auch die eigentliche funktional-kommunikative Tätigkeit im Hinblick auf die Informationsselektion und -transformation nicht erfassen kann. Dies entspricht jedoch unserem Wissen über den Referierprozeß ³, der äußerst vielschichtig und auch individuell abzulaufen scheint. In der Praxis wird daher, da angemessene Referiergrammatiken fehlen, nach den Beobachtungen von Endres-Niggemeyer der Referiervorgang "`irgendwie' mit implizitem Strukturwissen, Fachwissen und sicher vielen ad-hoc-Entscheidungen erledigt" (Endres-Niggemeyer, 1985, S. 49) und daher oft als eine "Kunst" angesehen (vgl. u.a. Koblitz, 1975, S. 5 und

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Cremmins, 1982).

Abb. 1.
Einflußgrößen im Referierprozeß

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3. Material Und Methodik

Das Untersuchungsmaterial dieser exemplarischen Analyse besteht aus je zehn Abstracts der wissenschaftlichen Fachzeitschriften "Fortschritte der Ophthalmologie", Jahrgang 1985, "Optik", Jahrgang 1986, und "Deutsche Sprache'', Jahrgang 1985. Diese Zeitschriften wurden deshalb ausgewählt, da bei ihnen außer dem fachlichen Gegensatz die Publikationssprache deutsch ist und die Referate jeweils am Textanfang, zusammen mit einer englischsprachigen Version, plaziert sind.

Bei allen Texten handelt es sich um von der jeweiligen Zeitschrift angeforderte Autorreferate, also um Texte, die von nichtprofessionellen Referenten angefertigt wurden.

Detaillierte Referiervorschriften liegen nicht vor, doch gibt es bei den Zeitschriften "Ophthalmologie" und "Optik" allgemeine Hinweise auf Sprachenwahl, Textumfang und Plazierung.

Im Umfang gleichen sind die Abstracts der drei Zeitschriften. Sie bestehen aus wenigstens zwei Sätzen und reichen zu Texten mit bis zu neun Sätzen ("Optik"), sieben Sätzen "(Ophthalmologie") und fünf Sätzen ("Deutsche Sprache"). Damit zeigen alle Texte in bezug auf die Originaltexte eine beachtliche Größenreduktion.

Methodisch wurde versucht, die Fachtexte in ihrer spezifischen-Funktion und Situation auf den verschiedenen Beschreibungsebenen Wort Satz Text möglichst vollständig und integrativ ⁴ zu analysieren und sie hinsichtlich der Verwendung sprachlicher und textueller Mittel anhand eines Analyserasters zu charaKterisieren. Dabei ziehlte die vergleichende Analyse auf die Feststellung universaler und spezieller Merkmale. Besonders beachtet wurde der Textbereich, vor allem die Inhaltsstruktur der Referate und der Einsatz kohäsiver Mittel. Es wurde aber auch die lexikalisch-syntaktische Textgestaltung mitberücksichtigt, ebenso formale Elemente.

4. Analyseergebnisse Und Vergleich

4.1 Merkmale Der Eigenständigkeit Und Intertextualität

Die Abstracts in allen drei Zeitschriften sind durch verschiedene formale Mittel (Schriftgrad in den Zeitschriften "Optik" und "Deutsche Sprache", waagerechte Trennungslinie

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in der "Ophthalmologie", dazu in allen drei Zeitschriften Absetzung vom Folgetext durch größere Zwischenräume) von ihrem nachfolgenden Ausgangstext abgesetzt. Hinzu kommen die spezifischen Textdeklarationen der drei Zeitschriften, die den abgeleiteten Text als "Abstract" (Deutsche Sprache), "Zusammenfassung" (Ophthalmologie) und "Inhalt" (Optik) des Folgetextes kennzeichnen und ihn somit als eigenständigen Text herausstellen.

Zu dieser formalen Eigenständigkeit, zu der auch noch die Nichteinbeziehung in die numerische Gliederung des Bezugstextes gehört, kommt eine weitgehende inhaltliche Eigenständigkeit, die in allen Fällen Textverständnis ermöglicht ohne Lektüre des Ausgangstextes. Diese inhaltliche und formale Eigenständigkeit erst schafft die Voraussetzung für eine auch separate Verwendung der Abstracts, etwa in Referatediensten (wie bei der Zeitschrift "Optik") oder im dokumentarischen Bereich als Karteiinformation.

Es gibt allerdings auch Gründe, das Abstract nicht nur als eigenständigen Text zu betrachten. In diesem Zusammenhang ist die gemeinsame Zuordnung zum übergreifenden Aufsatztitel anzuführen, die zumindest formale Beziehungen zwischen Abstract und Ausgangstext schafft ⁵.

Dagegen ergeben sich nur vereinzelt aus der Voranstellung der Abstracts, auf die sich die Autoren durch Referierhinweise ("Ophthalmologie") oder Erfahrungswissen einstellen werden, deiktische Hinweise, die auf Beziehungen zum Folgetext eingehen oder solche Beziehungen herstellen wollen:

"In diesem Artikel wird ... vorgestellt" (Optik, 1);

"Im vorliegenden Aufsatz werden. . . beschrieben" (Deutsche Sprache, 4);

"In diesem Aufsatz wird versucht. . . zu erklären" (Deutsche Sprache, 5);

"Die Vernachlässigung. . . kommt, wie hier argumentiert wird, nicht von ungefähr" (Deutsche Sprache, 6);

"... wird im vorliegenden Beitrag versucht... zu erfassen" (Deutsche Sprache, 9).

Diese deiktischen Hinweise, die für germanistische Autoren mit auffälliger Frequenz (50%) auftreten, sind unter Gesichtspunkten der Information und Dokumentation nach Koblitz (1975, S. 168) "Überflüssige Hinweise auf die Arbeit", stereotype Formulierungen, die gegen das Prinzip sprachlicher Ökonomie von Referaten verstoßen, und hier im Zusammenhang mit der Textplazierung doppelt redundant wirken.

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4.2 Inhaltsstrukturen

Bei der inhaltlichen Struktur der untersuchten Texte zeigen sich sowohl zwischen den verschiedenen Fächern als innerhalb der Einzelfächer zum Teil erhebliche Unterschiede. Zwar geht die Intention aller Autoren dahin, über die von ihnen als wichtigste Sachverhalte erachteten Inhalte ihrer Arbeiten zu informieren und somit auch Interesse dafür zu wecken, dennoch führt diese gemeinsame Handlungsorientierung nicht zu einer allgemeinverbindlichen Referatgrundstruktur oder einer inhaltlichen Superstruktur von z. B. folgendem, vielfach in der Referierliteratur ⁶ angesetzten Strukturtyp:

Abb. 2. Beispiel einer Referat-Grundstruktur

Die einzelne inhaltliche Struktur scheint vielmehr in wesentlichen Dimensionen abhängig zu sein von der fachlichen Ausrichtung der Originalarbeit, von der durch die Autoren ausgeübten und beschriebenen Forschungstätigkeit sowie von der Makrostruktur des Ausgangstextes und seiner expliziten, an den Überschriften ablesbaren Gliederung.

4.2.1 "Ophthalmologie" Der zuletzt genannte Sachverhalt zeigt sich deutlich an den Abstracts der Zeitschrift "Ophthalmologie", die in 7 von 10 Fällen der Strukturvorgabe ihres Ausganstextes Thematische Einleitung/Material und Methode(n)/Ergebnis(se)/Diskussion folgen. Diese Struktur wird allerdings durch weitere Inhaltselemente wie z. B. Problemstellung, Forschungslage, Ergebnisbewertung ergänzt und in freier Kombination variiert. Bemerkenswert dabei ist, daß die Darstellung der offensichtlich als wesentlich eingestuften Information informativ, die der ergänzenden Inhaltselemente aber überwiegend indikativ referiert werden. Dieser indikative Stil äußert sich z.B. in folgenden Formulierungen:

"Ferner werden Überlegungen angestellt, die bei der Implantation von Kunstlinsen von Bedeutung sein können" (Ophthalmologie, 8);

"Technik und Vorteile des Verfahrens werden ausführlich

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dargestellt" (Ophthalmologie, 5);

"Mögliche Mechanismen der Endothelschädigung werden diskutiert" (Ophthalmologie, 1)

Diese Mischform des indikativ-informativen Referats resultiert hier aus dem Charakter der Ausgangstexte, die methoden- und ergebnisorientiert sind und eine solche Fülle von Daten und Angaben enthalten, daß nur die neuen und wichtigen ausführlich dargestellt werden müssen und können, wenn eine Inhaltswiedergabe in Form von Kurzreferaten erfolgen soll und zudem wie in diesem Falle auf eine bestimmte Wortzahl (150, vgl. Abschnitt 3) festgelegt ist ⁷.

Aus dem beschriebenen Rahmen fällt Abstract Nr. 7, das einen Beitrag zur Medizingeschichte referiert und dreiteilig strukturiert ist.

4.2.2 "Optik" Inhaltlicher Mittelpunkt der Abstracts in der Zeitschrift "Optik" bilden wie in der "Ophthalmologie" an der informativen Darstellungsweise erkennbar die Textteile Methodik und Ergebnis. Differenzierungen ergeben sich daraus, daß der methodische Teil oft eine themaindizierende Beschreibung von physikalischen Tatbeständen beinhaltet, z. B.:

"Je nach Lage der astigmatischen Brennlinien in bezug auf Objekt- und Beobachtungsebene treten in Diffraktogrammen defokussierter elektronen-mikroskopischer Aufnahmen ellipsen- oder hyperbelförmige Auslösungslinien auf" (Optik, 7)

Ist dies nicht der Fall, werden Problemstellung oder Thema explizit genannt oder im Zusammenhang mit der Zielsetzung der Untersuchung oder ihren Vorannahmen angegeben. Die Methodik selbst wird mehrfach spezifiziert oder bewertet, stattdessen folgen aber auch Hinweise im indikativen Stil auf Methodendiskussion und Anwendungsmöglichkeiten.

Damit ergeben sich folgende Strukturtypen (in Klammern ihre jeweilige Frequenz bei 9 Abstracts, zu zehn vgl. die anschließende Einzeldarstellung):

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Abb. 3. Inhaltselemente in Abstracts der Zeitschrift "Optik"

Wiederum findet sich auch hier eine fachinhaltlich bedingte Ausnahme, Abstract Nr. 8, das die Beschreibung eines optischen Korrektionsprogrammes (COMO) zum Inhalt hat und eine singuläre Textstruktur aufweist.

4.2.3 "Deutsche Sprache" Wie in den beschriebenen naturwissenschaftlichen und medizinischen Zeitschriften sind auch die Abstracts aus dem Bereich der Humanwissenschaften in der Zeitschrift "Deutsche Sprache" im Hinblick auf Auswahl, Anordnung und Zahl der Inhaltselemente nicht auf ein einziges Grundmodell zurückzuführen. Im Vordergrund der germanistischen Abstracts stehen die Textteile Thema, Zielsetzung, Material, Methodik, Ergebnis und Diskussion, hinzu treten weitere Inhaltselemente wie Forschungslage, Desiderata, Hypothesen.

Insgesamt ergibt sich folgendes Bild (Frequenzen in Klammern):

Forschungslage (2)
Grund- und
Voranannahmen (3)
Desiderata (1)

Thema (7)
Zielsetzung (5)
Materialhinweise (5)
Methodik (4)
Argumentationsweise (1)
Ergebnis (8)
Diskussion (2)

Abb. 4. Inhaltselemente germanistischer Abstracts ("Deutsche Sprache")

Kennzeichnend für die Mehrzahl der Beiträge ist hier die

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textstrukturelle Orientierung an der Frage "Was will der Autor mit seinem Beitrag leisten?", die sich in einer entsprechenden Topikalisierung des Teiltexts Zielsetzung und folgenden linguistischen, teils stereotypen Markierungen (grammatische und lexikalische Mittel) äußert:

"... wird zu erklären versucht, . . ." (Deutsche Sprache, 1);

"... werden einige wichtige Verwendungsweisen . . . kontrastiv beschrieben" (Deutsche Sprache, 4);

"... wird versucht . . ." (Deutsche Sprache, 5);

"Gezeigt werden soll, . . ." (Deutsche Sprache, 6);

"... wird versucht, . . ." (Deutsche Sprache, 7);

"... wird . . . versucht, . . ." (Deutsche Sprache, 9).

Vereinzelt ist auch eine Textstrukturierung festzustellung, die sich zusätzlich am Ablauf des Bezugstextes orientiert und dessen innere Gliederung nachzeichnet (z. B. "zunächst. . . dann") sowie dem Rezipienten den Beginn eines Teiltextes signalisiert (z. B. "Gleichzeitig wird die Frage. . . diskutiert", Deutsche Sprache, 5; "Abschließend werden die Ergebnisse... diskutiert", Deutsche Sprache, 7).

Solche Mittel werden in den naturwissenschaftlichen und medizinischen Abstracts nicht oder nur bezogen auf den Ablauf der Forschungstätigkeit ("Zunächst wird eine dem Problem entsprechende Integralrechnung hergeleitet", Optik, 1) oder im Hinblick auf eine Gewichtung von Textteilen ("Ferner werden Überlegungen angestellt, die bei der Implantation von Kunstlinsen von Bedeutung sein können", Ophthalmologie, 8) verwendet.

Im Vergleich mit diesen beiden Textgruppen auffällig und abweichend ist ferner die Darstellungsweise des Ergebnisteils. Dieser wird überwiegend im indikativen oder indikativ-informativem Stil referiert, d.h. es wird entweder nur auf die behandelten Sachverhalte hingewiesen oder aus den Ergebnisdaten werden einige exemplarisch ausgewählt.

4.3 Gemeinsamkeiten Und Unterschiede Auf Der Lexikalischen Und Syntaktischen Ebene

4.3.1 Lexikalische Mittel Auf der Wortebene zeigen sich Unterschiede vor allem in der Benutzung der jeweils facheigenen Terminologie, die den fachspezifischen Leser voraussetzt, z. B.

"Optik":

"vektorielle Helmholtzgleichnung mit Neumannscher Randbedingung" (1), "CaWO₄- und Seltenen-Erden-Systemen" (3), "Defokussierung" (10);

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"Ophthalmologie":

"Endothelschädigung" (1), "klinische Biometrie" (2), "lamellierende refraktive Hornhautchirurgie" (4);

"Deutsche Sprache":

"topikalisierbare Wortketten" (7), "Vorfeldbesetzung" (1), "kommunikative Kompetenz" (9).

In diesen fachterminologischen Rahmen gehören auch fachgebietsabhängige Bezeichnungen für die spezifischen Forschungstätigkeiten wie z. B. in der "Optik" "messen", "entwickeln", "berechnen", "bestimmen'', "einstellen" usw. Sie sind in ihrer Abfolge festgelegt und dienen somit auch der inhaltlich-formalen Textstrukturierung.

Gemeinsamkeiten finden sich in der Verwendung allgemeinwissenschaftlichen Vokabulars, das der Einleitung und Kennzeichnung von Teiltexten, wie z. B. der Signalisierung des Ergebnisteils, dienen kann:

Optik

Ophthalmologie
Deutsche Sprache

zur Lösung
Das Ausmaß ... hängt ab
die Belege ... zeigen

es konnte gezeigt werden
Es ergeben sich ...
wird charakterisiert/kennzeichnet sich

Das Ergebnis ...
weisen keine Unterschiede auf
finden sich

Als Resultat der Untersuchung
Die ... sagt aus
wie ... herausgearbeitet wird

ergaben Werte
Somit lagen 488 Druckwerte
Es zeigt sich

konnte eine Überstimmung gefunden werden
zeigt sich
zeigt sich u.a.

Die Ergebnisse zeigen
zeigen
... Positionen erlauben

Es konnte gezeigt werden

konnte ... erreicht werden

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Abb. 5. Einsatz lexikalischer Mittel zur Einleitung und/oder Kennzeichnung des Teiltextes Ergebnis

Eine weitere Gemeinsamkeit besteht auch im weitgehenden Fehlen deiktischer anaphorischer Pronomina, insbesondere der Demonstrativpronomina, die aus einer primär hyperthematischen, fachkonventionellen und forschungslogischen Satzverknüpfung resultieren dürfte und semantisch-pragmatische Textverknüpfungsmittel in den Vordergrund der Textbildung rückt ⁸.

4.3.2 Syntaktische Mittel Im syntaktischen Bereich ergeben sich zunächst einmal Unterschiede in der Tempuswahl bei der Darstellung von Untersuchungen und Forschungsergebnissen. Während in den naturwissenschaftlichen und medizinischen Texten Experimente und Versuche ausnahmslos im Präteritum dargestellt werden, ist in germanistischen Abstracts das Präsens vorherrschendes Tempus. Das bedeutet, daß sich Tempus in Abstracts nicht so strikt an inhaltliche Kategorien binden läßt, wie es verschiedentlich dargestellt wird: "Präteritum zur Beschreibung des Experiments und seiner Bedingungen; Präsens zur Beschreibung seiner Ergebnisse" (Pfeiffer-Jäger, 1982, S. 63; vgl. auch Koblitz, 1975, S. 171 f.).

Ein weiterer Unterschied besteht in der für wissenschaftliche Arbeiten wie auch für ihre Abstracts als Mittel unpersönlicher und objektivierender Darstellung bedeutsamen Verwendung des Passivs, gerade im Deutschen⁹:

"Optik"

"Ophthalmologie"

"Deutsche Sprache"

Zahl finiter Verbformen insegsamt

65

64

58

Anzahl der Passivformen

40

28

18

Abb. 6. Passivgebrauch der untersuchten Abstracts

Der Passivgebrauch ist in medizinischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Texten signifikant höher als in den humanwissenschaftlichen, doch zeigen sich Gemeinsamkeiten in der Verwendung identischer Formulierungen wie "werden untersucht", "werden diskutiert". Die unterschiedliche fachgebietsabhängige Häufigkeit läßt sich mit den verschiedenen Forschungskonzepten erklären, die in den Naturwissenschaften sowie in der Medizin stärker auf die Darstellung von Verfahren, Geräten und Systemen

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ausgerichtet sind, sie läßt sich aber auch mit implizitem Strukturwissen und der Beachtung von Referierregeln in Verbindung bringen, die das Passiv als Ausdruck bewußter und beschreibender distanzierter Darstellung favorisieren (vgl. Pfeiffer-Jäge, 1982, S. 63).

Beachtenswert in diesem Zusammenhang ist auch die durch den Wechsel von Aktiv zu Passiv gegebene Möglichkeit, Teiltexte gegeneinander abzugrenzen, z. B.

Ergebnis

- - - ®

Diskussion

(Aktiv)

(Passiv),

sowie die dominierende Rolle des Passivs wie Preiß (1983, S. 87) bereits für englischsprachige Abstracts festgestellt hat in bestimmten Teiltexten wie in unserem Material bei den Inhaltselementen Entwicklung, Versuch, Methode, Verfahren, Diskussion.

Gemeinsamkeiten bestehen ferner im Gebrauch nur bestimmter Personalpronomina (3. Sg./Pl., Ausnahme: "wir" in einem von drei medizinischen Autoren stammenden Abstract) und in der Verlagerung subjektiver Betroffenheit auf Gegenstände und Sachverhalte (z. B. "Der Beitrag listet Beobachtungen auf. . .", Deutsche Sprache, 2; "Diese Parameter zeigen. . .", Ophthalmologie, 8) sowie in der Verwendung weiterer Mittel der Entpersönlichung.

Aus dem allen Abstracts gemeinsamen Ziel, möglichst viel an Information in möglichst wenig Worten auszudrücken, ergeben sich auch hohe Frequenzen in allen Fachbereichen bei der Verwendung von Nominalisierungen, Attribuierungen und Präpositionalphrasen. Diese Komprimierungstendenz kulminiert in jenen Texten, die den Inhalt ihres Bezugstextes in zwei Sätzen zu erfassen versuchen und in allen untersuchten Fächern auftreten ("Optik" 1x, "Ophthalmologie" 1x, "Deutsche Sprache" 3x).

4.4 Pragmatische Dimension

Aspekte der abstracttypischen pragmatischen Dimension wurden bereits mehrfach angesprochen. Dazu zählen die Berücksichtigung der Voraussetzungssituation (Hauptfunktionen von Abstracts, Fachleute als Nutzer Nutzerorientierung, Referatäußerungsformen, Wirkungsabsicht, Fachkonventionen, redaktionelle Bestimmung u.a.) und eine davon abhängige Informationsselektion und -transformation. In den verschiedenen Texten kommt diese Beziehung zum Ausdruck in relativ klaren und fachkonventionell angelegten thematischen Progressionen

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(vgl. 4.2), in der Verwendung facheigener Terminologien (vgl. 4.3.2) und der weitgehenden Vermeidung von Redundanzen, die sich im Bemühen um eine genaue und sprachlich möglichst kurze, auch der speziellen Textsituierung angepaßte Referateform zeigt.

Daß den Belangen von Information und Dokumentation dennoch nicht in allen Punkten Rechnung getragen wird, weist auf die Schwierigkeit der Textaufgabe `Referat' hin, die sowohl Anleitung wie Ubung erfordert, aber auch noch ein stärker funktions- und auf den Text bezogenes Anforderungsprofil. Dies scheint im Augenblick für die Humanwissenschaften notwendiger zu sein als für die anderen hier behandelten Wissenschaftsbereiche, wenn man die äußerst heterogene Textbildung in der "Deutschen Sprache" nicht als Herausnahme individueller gestalterischer Freiheiten interpretieren will, eine dann aber sicher zu einseitige Interpretationsweise. Denn Referieren ist keine `natürliche' Schreibweise, sondern sie muß erlernt und geübt werden (vgl. Borko und Bernier, 1975, S. 13; Thiel, 1986, S. 381 ff.).

5. Ergebniszusammenfassung

Zusammenfassend lassen sich folgende Teilergebnisse festhalten: der vorgenommene Vergleich bestätigt unsere Ausgangshypothese einer prinzipiellen Differenzierheit der Textsorte Abstract in den verschiedenen Fächern. Diese Differenzierheit ist allerdings zwischen den einzelnen Fächern und auf den einzelnen Sprachebenen unterschiedlich stark ausgeprägt und liefert noch keine Kriterien für eine exakte Binnendifferenzierung.

Die besten Möglichkeiten bietet hier das Kriterium `facheigene Lexik', das jedoch nur bei einer primär terminologischen Sichtweise trägt. Auf der syntaktischen Ebene wurden Unterschiede in der Verwendung von Tempora, Passivformen und redundanten Sprachmitteln festgestellt, die sowohl ihre Frequenz wie ihre funktionale Nutzung betreffen. Weitere Unterschiede bestehen in der Nutzung indikativer und informativer Darstellungsweisen, wobei naturwissenschaftliche und medizinische Ausgangstexte eher informativindikativ und humanwissenschaftliche eher indikativinformativ behandelt werden.

Auf der Textebene bestehen Unterschiede in der Gewichtung, Zahl und Anordnung der einzelnen Inhaltselemente, die zu fachgebietsabhängigen, aber nicht eindeutig festlegbaren Grundmodellen und Strukturtypen führen. Ferner zeigen

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naturwissenschaftliche und medizinische Abstracts, die sich auch in anderen Punkten näherstehen als humanwissenschaftliche Abstracts, eine Tendenz zur Textstrukturierung anhand der Gliederung des Ausgangstextes und zur Übernahme fachkonventionell geregelter Forschungskonzepte und Referiergewohnheiten. Insgesamt scheinen sie den bisher formulierten Anforderungen von Seiten der Information und Dokumentation besser zu entsprechen. Dieser Sachverhalt läßt sich in Beziehung zur jeweils spezifischen Ausprägung der wissenschaftlichen Tätigkeiten und ihrer Darstellung im Ausgangstext setzen.

Neben diesen Unterschieden bestehen auf den einzelnen Sprachebenen und bei der Rücksichtsnahme auf die komplexe Voraussetzungssituation sowie im formalen Bereich auch verbindende Gemeinsamkeiten, die bei aller Heterogenität der Einzelexemplare, der Fachbereiche, der Ausgangstexte und der Autoren die Zusammenfassung der untersuchten Texte zu einer übergreifenden Textsorte `Abstract' erlauben, wenn man diese mit Endres-Niggemeyer als "Textfamilie mit unterschiedlichen Superstrukturen" (1985, S. 49) begreift.

Anmerkungen

1. Vgl. Koblitz (1975, S. 24) und Pfeiffer-Jäger (1982, S. 48 ff.).

2. Vgl. DIN 1426 und in diesem Sinne auch Pfeiffer-Jäger (1982, S. 48 ff.).

3. Zur fehlenden Wissensbasis siehe Endres-Niggemeyer (1985, S. 49 f.), wogegen allerdings die umfassende weltweite Beschäftigung mit Abstracts in Widerspruch steht (vgl. Wellisch, 1980, 1984, dessen Bibliographie allerdings kaum textlinguistische Beiträge zur Thematik kennt).

4. Zu dieser weithin akzeptierten Beschreibungsperspektive der Fachtextlinguistik siehe u.a. Baumann (1986), Hoffmann (1985) und Kalverkämper (1985).

5. Auch Preiß (1983, S. 88) kommt aufgrund ihrer Untersuchungen zum Ergebnis, "daß es zwischen Ausgangstext und Abstract sowohl Gemeinsamkeiten als auch Unterschiede gibt, die einerseits rechtfertigen, beide Texte im Zusammenhang zu betrachten, die anderseits aber auch bestätigen, daß der Abstract ein eigenständiger Text ist und deshalb nicht ohne weiteres in den Ausganstext etwa als einer seiner Teiltexte integriert werden kann".

6. Vgl. z. B. die Referierregeln des Fachinformationszentrums Chemie, dargestellt bei Endres-Niggemeyer (1985, S. 40).

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7. Empfehlungen zur Verwendung des indikativinformativen Referats finden sich in DIN 1426 (1973, S. 4 f.)

8. Von daher erhält die Empfehlungen in Referierdiensten und Referierliteratur, auf Kohärenz zu achten und Sätze nicht einfach unverbunden nebeneinander zu stellen (vgl. entsprechende Hinweise bei Pfeiffer-Jäger 1982, S. 64), erst ihren Sinn.

9. Vgl. dazu ausführlich u.a. Schwanzer (1981, S. 216 ff.)

Literatur

1. Quellen

(Zitierung im Text durch Angabe von Zeitschriftenartikel und Numerierung)

Fortschritte der Ophthalmologie (1985), S. 80 (1), S. 91 (2), S. 88 (3), S. 86 (4), S. 83 (5), S. 105 (6), S. 13 (7), S. 94 (8), S. 98 (9), S. 102 (10).

Optik (1986/87) (hier nicht gekennzeichnete Beiträge alle Jahrgang 1986), S. 99 (1), S. 165 (2), S. 83 (3), S. 17 (4), S. 158/Jahrgang 1987 (5), S. 128 (6), S. 163 (7), S. 3 (8), S. 37 (9), S. 1 (10).

Deutsche Sprache (1985), S. 1 (1), S. 24 (2), S. 97 (3), S. 107 (4), S. 137 (5), S. 193 (6), S. 207 (7), S. 230 (8), S. 289 (9), S. 306 (10).

2. Sekundärliteratur

Baumann, K.-D. (1986) Der Versuch einer integrativen Betrachtung des linguistischen Phänomens `Fachtext'. Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 23, 96-102.

Borko, H. und Bernier, C.L. (1975) Abstracting concepts and methods. New York San Francisco London.

Cremmins, E.T. (1982) The Art of Abstracting. Philadelphia: ISI Press.

DIN 1426 (1973) Inhaltsangaben in Information und Dokumentation. Berlin, Köln.

Endres-Niggemeyer, B. (1985) Referierregeln und Referate Abstracting als regelgesteuerter Textverarbeitungsprozeß. Nachrichten für Dokumentation, 36, 1, 38-50.

Fromm, H. (1983) Germanistische Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Eine Umschau 1981. Schneider, Chr. (Hrsg.) Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Beispiele, Kritik. Weinheim.

Hoffmann, L. (1985) Kommunikationsmittel Fachsprache. 2. Aufl. Tübingen.

Kalverkämper, H. (1985) Textuelle Fachsprachenlinguistik als

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Aufgabe. LiLi, 13, Heft 51-52, 124-166.

Koblitz, J. (1975) Referieren von Informationsquellen. Leipzig.

Pfeiffer-Jäger, G. (1982) Referat und Referieren. Linguistische Beiträge zu ihrer Applikation in der Information und Dokumentation. (=Germanistische Linguistik, 1-2/80). Hildesheim, New York.

Preiß, S. (1983) Textlinguistische Aspekte des Abstracts. Linguistische Arbeitsberichte, 41, 83-93. Leipzig: Sektion Theoret. und Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft Karl-Marx-Universität.

Schwanzer, V. (1981) Syntaktisch-stilistische Universalia in wissenschaftlichen Fachsprachen. Bungarten, T. (Hrsg.) Wissenschaftssprache, 213-230. München.

Spillner, B. (1986) Fachtext und Fachstil. Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 12, 83-97.

Wellisch, H.H. (1980) Indexing and Abstracting. An International Bibliography. Santa Barbara Oxford.

(1984) Indexing and Abstracting 1977-1981. An International Bibliography. Santa Barbara Denver Oxford.

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III. DIDACTIC ASPECTS

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24
The Production and Comprehension of Scientific Texts

Manfred Gerbert
Technische Universität Dresden

1. LSP research is often stimulated by actual classroom experience. Since its very beginning in the twenties, LSP research has had a strong didactic tendency. In recent years teachers have come to realize that meaning-based communicative language instruction is more effective than grammar-based, form-oriented teaching and that adults learn best when instruction is focussed on life skills and is closely related to practical needs. Teachers have also introduced into their syllabuses a more task- and performance-centred orientation to bring language learning closer to real-life domains. We have now made it a rule to measure the success of foreign language instruction in terms of the students' practical skills in the language.

One recent innovation in LSP is modularized instruction, i.e. the organization of modular courses for the development of specific skills within a limited period. Language learning is thus broken down into manageable and immediately applicable blocks of language activity so that students are in a better position to evaluate their own progress.

These various forms of competency-oriented adult education must be based on a sound knowledge of the common core of the language with its phonological, lexical and grammatical regularities, as well as the ability to participate successfully in everyday conversation. If the interactive component is lacking, LSP courses can be a waste of time, because the corrosive effect of forgetting will be stronger than learning.

2. I take it for granted that we share a common concept of the communicative approach to language learning. Many writers on FLT methodology emphasize the importance of the development of fluency even at the expense of grammatical correctness. Fluency is the manifestation of knowing the language, but it is not the same as knowing facts about the language. The latter would lead to accuracy but not necessarily to fluency. Fluency means the ability to convey a message with relative ease and comprehensibility, regardless of whether its domain or content is general or specific.

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If we want to remain neutral on the `learning' versus `acquisition' issue, we could use the term Second Language Development, which suggests a more person-directed approach to language learning. It focusses our attention on process and on the interactional nature of conversation. If spontaneous speech is to be one of the goals of second language development, then students need to engage in it, preferably by negotiating their own way through a `task' or an `assignment'. The role of interaction in the classroom simply cannot be ignored, especially in an LSP class where learning is based predominantly on written scientific texts. This has been one of the reasons for a major change in the scope of LSP courses in the GDR. We have to bear in mind that among the various language activities, conversation has the maximum impact on subconsious acquisition, because the total focus is on the message. Let your learners forget that the subject matter or input is presented in a foreign language. Another advantage is this: the interactive approach for solving communicative tasks and projects extends the linguistic repertoire of the learner and provides an opportunity to test hypotheses in contextualized meaningful language use.

A lot of research work is being done in the USA, Canada and Europe into the negotiation of meaning in spoken discourse between two or more non-native speakers. Empirical studies are being carried out by means of audio or video equipment to observe the development of the students' ability to react adequately and take part in spontaneous conversation. The topics include general ones like the family and home town, as well as specific ones like building, computer usage and public health.

Some methodologists challenge the by now familiar notion of the primacy of comprehensible input by suggesting that what is needed is not only comprehensible input, but also comprehensible output. In other words, language use in situations is vital for acquisition to take place. Without it the learners do not have a forum for actively testing and refining their knowledge of the target language. It is precisely such pairs of non-native speakers (NNS - NNS) and native + non-native speakers (NS - NNS) that offer the learner the greatest opportunity to receive comprehensible input and produce comprehensible output through negotiation.

3. The notional syllabus has had a considerable impact on LSP didactics. If it is true that the notional syllabus still focusses "on the accumulation of language items rather than on the development of strategies for dealing with language in use",

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as H.G. Widdowson (1979, p. 248-249) points out, then perhaps those of us who think they have developed useful strategies should come forward and share them with their colleagues. Let me give you one example of what I mean here: The question is, what could we do to help the students understand the meaning of the preposition `for' in the following extract from a chemistry textbook:

it is a relatively non-volatile solvent for a polymer.

Some years ago, the common practice was to tell the students that `for' simply means `für' in German. In order to understand the function of this excerpt within the whole text we have to show that it is part of a comparison with other solvents, that `for' is used here as an element expressing the discourse function of comparison, reference to standard and norm, viewpoint, etc.

Of course theorethical linguistic explanations would be inappropriate in a classroom situation. It would, however, be of great help if the teacher presents some everyday utterances in a conversation involving comparisons, e.g.

She's tall for her age. Not bad for a beginner!

It's quite warm for January.

Der Junge ist ziemlich groß für sein Alter.

Try this paraphrase:

In view of the fact that this is a polymer . . .

In German you might say:

Angesichts der Tatsache, daß es sich um ein Polymer handelt, ist dieses Lösungsmittel relativ wenig flüchtig.

Or: Für ein Polymer ist es ein relativ wenig flüchtiges Lösungsmittel.

What our students need is productive familiarity with the colloquial use of such forms of technical jargon when they occur in everyday usage. Only then will the students easily recognize the somewhat deviant usage of these forms in specialized discourse.

The same is true for vocabulary: A student of mechanical engineering will easily grasp the meaning of `face milling' and `herring-bone gearing' within the respective terminologies of

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machining operations and types of gearing, provided he has learnt the general meaning of `face' and `herring-bone' before he reads a scientific text.

4. For years LSP didactics has been preoccupied with written texts and scientific formulas used in discussion. These texts require precisely defined terms and strict limitation on their usage. Such types of discourse are completely different from spontaneous informal talk on technical topics in several respects. In written communication the partners usually are considered to be seperated by a distance so that the receiver of the message will not have an opportunity to ask for clarification if this is needed. This results in higher demands for precision in sentence structure, lexis and standardized phrases, in other words: higher expenditure of energy or transportation cost. The notional approach can help facilitate the comprehension and production of scientific texts. In order to achieve global comprehension of the macrostructure of texts we have to increase the students' awareness of the writer's attitude in relation to the information he is presenting the so-called illocutionary component of text comprehension. In other words the student must be able to ascertain whether the author is asking questions, making tentative statements, expressing doubt or praising the findings of other workers in the field. These and other illocutionary acts constitute the universals of technical prose. It would be appropriate to shift our attention from the accumulation of linguistic phenomena that differ in the various sub-languages towards a search for universal discourse functions realized in specific language use.

5. Besides we are investigating texts with the aim of identifying the ways in which effective speakers and writers organize their materials. It is assumed that by increasing the students' awareness of discourse strategies, comprehension and production can be improved. In order to interact successfully with the text the student will have to apply both the text-driven (bottom-up) and the knowledge-driven (top-down) models of reading comprehension.

What are the most frequent patterns of scientific discourse? To answer this question we have to start by identifying the fundamental components of scientific discourse: (1) the overview which tells the reader what the problem and solutions are and what conclusions can be drawn from the report; (2) the detailed analysis which justifies the conclusions drawn; and (3) the description of methods, techniques, apparatus and observations.

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Good writers proceed from general ideas to particular information and details, from the given to the new. I do not believe it necessary to quote for this audience examples from scientific literature to show how discourse functions such as generalization, exemplification, co-occurrence, contrast, etc. are expressed in technical discourse. I gave one example for the comparison of solvents. I would refer you to L. Trimble's list of rhetorical functions for more examples of discourse functions. He demonstrates that the present perfect is not only a tense marker, but can also be used to indicate a greater generality of findings than the past tense. Learners should also know that the present tense or the present perfect are often chosen when the research is of more direct importance. We have to bear in mind that comprehension always involves knowledge use and inference processes. The reader's knowledge determines to a large extent the meaning that he or she derives from the text. The study of discourse processing has been strongly influenced by the recognition of the fundamental role of the learner's `general world knowledge' (Kintsch and van Dijk, 1978, p. 392) in production and comprehension. World knowledge includes the objects, states and events the discourse is about, the general picture of the world and its underlying regularities, and it remains to be seen if further research in cognitive psychology can ascertain how such knowledge is stored in memory be it in `frames', `scripts', `episodes' or `scenarios' (van Dijk, 1980, p. 213).

One thing is common knowledge, however: understanding a discourse is an active process characterized by assigning a meaningful interpretation to it, and this happens by constant anticipating, hypothesizing and testing.

Since translation can be seen as a user-oriented reproduction of text in another language, a functional view of the linguistic characteristics of LSP is applicable to this field as well as to LSP didactics.

6. I should like to add a few comments on recent attempts to establish links between LSP and other research areas and on progress in ESP. L. Selinker and D. Douglas (1985, p. 198) have this to say about LSP and Interlanguage Theory: ''Widdowson . . . points out that ESP work is not informed by a `coherent theory of ESP'. We agree, and believe that one cannot have such a coherent theory without integrating the IL produced by non-native speakers in LSP situations. And this is where context comes in."

I am afraid I have some doubts as to the practical value for LSP teaching of a concept that contains the in-built

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perspective of deficiency, that sees the learner as held back from approaching the norm however varied we may conceive it by such learning strategies as language transfer, over-generalization, backsliding and fossilization; if, however, the construct `interlanguage' is meant to provide an explanation of this `partialness' or `approximation to native-speaker competence', which we all are conscious of when we speak of `the learner', then I would be willing to accept and work with the interlanguage concept. The hypothesis on which it is based that learning a second language is systematic has yet to be proved. We need an answer to the question what kind of a system it is.

Then, here is J.T. Roberts' (1982, p. 121) view on progress in ESP: "Yet the surprising thing is that despite the intense interest in it, and the continuing proliferation of courses and materials in this area, there have in fact been very few major innovations in the last two or three years. Indeed, what is most noteworthy about ESP is its apparent lack of progress."

Granted, there have been no striking innovations, either in ESP practice or in defining the legitimate areas of concern of ESP and its specificity. But it seems to me that some people's expectations are unrealistic. After thirty years of rapid development this is not the time for phenomenal breakthroughs; we have to be a bit more modest and content with small steps as K. Rossenbeck has already pointed out in his report on the Bordeaux symposium of LSP. We have to consolidate our edifice (1) by absorbing those innovations from such fields as cognitive psychology and discourse theory, pragmatics and semantics that seem appropriate for our work and (2) by popularizing the various methods and procedures so that the vast majority of LSP practitioners can make effective use of them.

Let me conclude with an optimistic view. Even if there may have been very few major innovations in our field, we have at least seen the publication of some important books, among them L. Trimble's English for Science and Technology and J. Swales' Episodes in ESP, both in 1985. In a footnote on p. 180 Swales refers to teaching technical vocabulary, once the mainstay and chief support of LSP teaching when we began thirty years ago: "The counter-productiveness of attempting to handle technical vocabulary in the ESP class is at least one thing nearly all authors of "Episodes" agree on!"

Successful ESP classes today are based on task-oriented language activities, improved service English courses for first-and second-year students on BSc programmes, concentration on the common core language problems of students across a

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wide range of subject areas as possible and, last but not least, oral discussion after lecturettes. These are some small but very significant steps that have been taken, and I firmly believe these are steps in the right direction.

References

van Dijk, T.A. (1980) Macrostructures. An Interdisciplinary Study of Global Structures in Discourse, Interaction, and Cognition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Gerbert, M. (1982) Semantische Analyse fachsprachlicher Satzgefüge. Fachsprache 4, 4, 174-179.

(1985) The Teaching of English as a Foreign Language to Science and Engineering Students. Fachsprache 7, 3-4, 133-136.

Helbig, G. (1987) Valenz, semantische Kasus and "Szenen". Deutsch als Fremdsprache 24, 4, 200-205.

Kintsch, W. and van Dijk, T.A. (1978) Towards a Model of Text Comprehension and Production. Psychological Review 85, 5, 363-394.

Loveday, L. (1982) The Sociolinguistics of Learning and Using a Non-Native Language. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Roberts, J.T. (1982) in Kinsella, V. (ed) Surveys 2. Cambridge Language Teaching Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rossenbeck, K. (1984) Zum Stand der Fachsprachenforschung. Germanistisches Bulletin, H. 7. Lund.

Schmitt, P.A. (1985) Anglizismen in den Fachsprachen. Eine pragmatische Studie am Beispiel der Kerntechnik. Anglistische Forschungen H. 179. Heidelberg.

Selinker, L. and Douglas, D. (1985) Wrestling with `Context' in Interlanguage Theory. Applied Linguistics 6, 2, 190-204.

Swales, J. (1981) Aspects of Article Introductions. Birmingham: University of Aston.

(1985) Episodes in ESP. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Thiele, W. (1982) Die semantisch-syntaktische Beschreibung von Ursache-Wirkung-Beziehungen in englischen Texten. Abhandlungen der Sächs. Akademie d. Wiss. zu Leipzig, Philol.-hist. Klasse. Band 70. Heft 2. Berlin.

Trimble, L. (1985) English for Science and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Widdowson, H.G. (1979) Explorations in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(1983) Learning Purpose and Language Use. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wolff, D. (1985) Textverständlichkeit und Textverstehen: wie kann man den Schwierigkeitsgrad eines authentischen fremdsprachlichen Textes bestimmen? Neusprachliche Mitteilungen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis, 35, 4, 211-221.

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25
What Percentage of Text-lexis is Essential for Comprehension?

Batia Laufer
University of Haifa

Introduction

Lexis, a neglected aspect of second language acquisition (Levenston, 1979; Meara, 1980) of the sixties and seventies, has been increasingly gaining attention in the eighties. Researchers, material designers and instructors have become more interested than before in vocabulary acquisition in general (see for example Nation, 1983; Ludwig, 1984; Ringbom, 1985; Giacobbe and Cammarota, 1986), in the place of lexis in language production and comprehension (Deville et al., 1985; Kelly, 1985; Ostyn and Godin, 1985) and in vocabulary testing (Read and Nation, 1986; Takala, 1984, 1985).

In the field of Reading for Specific Purposes, it has been realized that the most serious difficulties that foreign learners experience are lexical, particularly at intermediate and advanced levels of reading. This is so because text interpretation was found to be dependent mainly on the lexical and conceptual cues (Ulijn, 1984; Laufer and Sim, 1985a, 1985b) ¹. Syntactic analysis "would normally be superficial except when the lexicon and the conceptual system do not provide enough cues to comprehend the text" (Ulijn, 1984). Moreover, foreign readers sometimes distort the syntax of the text so that it can fit their interpretation of words (Laufer and Sim, 1985).

One of the questions related to lexis and reading that has provoked interest is how many words² should a person know in a foreign language to be able to read an authentic text. Though differences in estimates can be found (which are apparently due to the different definitions of the concept of `word'), recent studies suggest that the receptive vocabulary necessary for comprehension is about 5000 lexical items (Hindmarsh, 1980; Deville et al., 1985; Ostyn and Godin, 1985). The justification for this number of words is indirect. Hindmarsh claims that the above amount is necessary to pass the reading component of the Cambridge First Certificate exam; Deville et al. and Ostyn and Godin claim that a lexicon of

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5000 words would give a coverage of 90-98% of the lexis of an authentic text and that the above coverage is necessary for comprehension. It is not clear, however, whether it was actually shown empirically that lower, lexical coverage will indeed result in inadequate comprehension in a significantly large number of cases. In other words, it would be useful to find out whether lexical coverage of 95% (or maybe a lower or higher one) is a determing factor in comprehension, rather than simply an enhancing one.

The Study

Purpose

The present study attempted to measure the relationship between the number of words understood by a reader in an academic text and the quality of comprehension of the text. Specifically, it addressed the following question: What percentage of word tokens must be understood to ensure `reasonable' ³ reading comprehension of a text? An answer to this question would also provide an indication as to what number of words should be aimed at in teaching if comprehension of authentic material is the aim of the learner. If 95% of lexical coverage is the absolute minimum for reasonable comprehension, then 5000 words should be learnt since this is the number that will give such coverage. If 90% is the necessary coverage then about 3300 words would probably suffice (Deville et al., 1985).

Subjects

The subjects in the experiment were 100 first year University students (from various departments), native speakers of Hebrew and Arabic, who were taking a course in English for Academic Purposes. The purpose of the course was to improve the students' comprehension of academic literature in English.

Procedure

The subjects were given a reading comprehension test (hence RC) which consisted of one of two texts of a general academic nature: one standardized test (a text from the reading component of "Examen Hoger Algemeen Vortgezet Onderwijs" with multiple choice questions; the other self made with open-ended questions⁴. The learners were assigned a double task: answering comprehension questions; underlining the words they could not understand in the text⁵. The papers which included the answers and the text with the underlined unknown words were then collected.

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In the second stage of the experiment, the subjects were given a lexical coverage test: This test consisted of clean copies of the same text as before and a list of 40 words from each text. The subjects were asked to translate the words or paraphrase their meaning in text-context. The lists with the translations were then collected.

For each testee, two scores were calculated: a) a reading comprehension score (RC) on the basis of the answers to comprehension questions; b) a lexical coverage (LC) score, on the basis of the information provided by the underlining of the unknown words and the translations of the vocabulary lists. The latter was done as follows. For each testee, a comparison was made between the underlined words and the list of the translations. A word could be correctly translated and not underlined as unfamiliar, i.e. the testee considered the word as known and was right in his judgement. A word could be left not translated at all and underlined in the text, i. e. reported as unfamiliar. A word could also be mistranslated or not translated at all and yet not underlined in the text, i.e. reported as familiar, but mistakenly so. The number of such discrepancies (between the testees' reports and their actual knowledge) was added up for each subject, and `awareness index' was calculated. This was 40 (the number of words on the word-translation list) minus the number of words mistakenly judged as familiar out of the 40 words, converted into percentage. The number of unknown words in the text was then calculated by dividing the reported number of unknown words in the text by the `awareness index', i.e. adjusting the testee's self-assessment by means of increasing the number of reported words by the percentage of words he mistakenly thought he knew. The number of unknown words was then subtracted from the total number of text words. The result, the total number of familiar words, was converted into percentage. The percentage of words known by a testee in a text was taken to the lexical coverage (LC) score.

Results

The two sets of scores the LC score and the RC score were analyzed; the LC score was taken to be the independent variable, the RC score the dependent one.

A 2 test showed that the group that scored 95% and above on the LC test had a significantly higher number of `readers' (scores of 55% and above) than `non-readers' (54 and below) on the RC test by comparison with the group that scored lower than 95% on the LC test. (2 df1 23.28 > 10.82 p = 0.001). The

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difference was not significant, however, between the groups: 90% and above on LC tests and 89% and below. (2 df1 = 1.7 < 3.84). When the top group (95% and above) was compared with the 90-94% LC group, the difference between the number of `readers' and `non-readers' was significant again (2 df1 = 13.52 > 10.82 p = 0.001).

A t-test comparing the mean scores on the RC tests showed that there was a significant difference between the 95% and above LC group and the 94% and below group. (t= 8.25 > 3.46 p = 0.001). The difference was not significant for the 90% ad above and 89% and below LC groups. As for the 90-94% group, the mean RC score was significantly lower than that of the 95% and above LC group. (t = 6.5 > 3.74 p = 0.001).

Discussion

In the RC test, the subjects were required to show comprehension of general ideas, to elicit and interpret factual information, supporting material, to draw inferences. In other words, they were performing tasks similar to those any reader of academic texts would be confronted with. As mentioned before, a score of 55% and above would indicate that the testee was a `reader', i.e. could function in a real-life situation, while a score below that would be characteristic of the `non-readers'.

The results of the study suggest that reading academic prose is likely to be greatly affected by the lexical knowledge of the text. A chance to become a `reader' is significantly higher if the lexical coverage of the text is 95% and above, that is if 95% of the text's word tokens are familiar to the reader. This does not mean that a person cannot understand a text when the lexical coverage is lower than that. Other factors, like grammatical clues, text organization, subject-matter familiarity may facilitate comprehension for some readers with more limited lexis. Yet, the study shows that, in the majority of cases, when the lexical coverage was below 95% comprehension was impaired in spite of the other facilitating factors that might have affected reading ⁶.

Thus, the study supports the `threshold hypothesis' in reading comprehension (Clarke, 1979, 1980; Cziko, 1980; Cummins, 1979) according to which reading is hampered by limited control of the language, and reading strategies can be applied only when language knowledge is above the threshold. The results of the present study suggest that the lexical component of this threshold level can be defined as 95% of the text-lexis; lower lexical coverage will be associated with unsatisfactory more often than with satisfactory

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comprehension.

As mentioned before, Deville et al. (1985) and Ostyn and Godin (1985) found that lexical coverage of 95% can be achieved when the learner's lexicon reaches 5000 words. It appears therefore that the lexical threshold necessary for successful reading is 5000 words since this is the number which results in the optimal lexical coverage of an authentic text, which in turn, ensures successful comprehension.

It could be argued that the study did not measure how many of the 95% of the words understood in the text had also been familiar to the reader before he read the text and how many of them were guessed in context. Whatever the proportion might have been, it is still true that 95% of word tokens were necessary to understand the text and that this coverage can be achieved by 5000 words in the learner's lexicon. Whether 95% was known and 0% guessed, or 90% known and 5% guessed, or 80% known and 15% guessed, the total effect of 95% lexical coverage made the significant difference in comprehension scores. Therefore the argument that lexical guessing takes place cannot invalidate the importance of lexical core of 5000 words to be learnt. It is precisely this solid vocabulary knowledge that will provide the reader with the necessary context for successful guessing. It was shown (Laufer and Bensoussan, 1982) that without such context, it is misinterpretation rather than guessing that often takes place.

Reports are available on the size of vocabulary of students in different countries who embark on University studies and use English for reading academic literature. The vocabulary range reported is from 500 to 3000 (See Laufer, 1987). Is it therefore surprising that very often learners prefer a bad translation of their bibliography to the almost incomprehesible original? A gap of 2000-4000 words between the amount of words they know and they should know turns reading into `mission impossible'. It is through increasing vocabulary to 5000 and ensuring a lexical coverage of 95% that reading has a good chance of becoming `mission surmountable'.

Summary and Conclusion

The study attempted to find out what percentage of text-lexis was essential for a successful reading comprehension in a foreign language. In the experiment, two sets of scores were obtained and analysed: the reading comprehension score and the lexical coverage score. Different methods of analysis led to

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a similar conclusion: lexical coverage of 95% the understanding of 95% of word-tokens in a text can ensure reasonable reading comprehension, i.e. a score of 55% and above. Lower lexical coverage is associated with unsatisfactory more often than with satisfactory comprehension. Since the 95% coverage can be achieved by learning 5000 words, it is suggested that 5000 words seems to be the lexical threshold beneath which other facilitating factors in reading comprehension may not be very effective. Since many students who begin academic studies possess much poorer vocabularies massive vocabulary expansion should be one of the major goals of any course in Language for Academic Purposes.

Notes

1. In L1 acquisition research, the importance of vocabulary was acknowledged earlier than that. (See for example reports on the relationship between lexical knowledge and reading comprehension in Anderson and Freebody, 1981).

2. A `word' is taken to be a lexical item, i.e. the smallest unit in the meaning system of language.

3. `Reasonable' reading comprehension was considered a score of 55% which is the lowest passing grade in our system in Haifa University.

4. Half of the students were given one text; the other half the other. The reliability of the standardized test is .81; the reliability of the self-made one .57.

5. If a word had been unfamiliar to the learner before it was seen in the text but was considered clear in the context, the instructions to the testees was not to mark it as unknown.

6. Since all the testees had a fairly similar educational/cultural background and a similar training in reading we assumed that there were no great differences in the ways they were using reading strategies and background knowledge.

References

Anderson, R.C. and Freebody, P. (1981) Vocabulary knowledge. Comprehension and Teaching; Research Review. Newark, Del.: International Reading Association.

Clarke, M.A. (1979) Reading in Spanish and English: Evidence from adult ESL students. Language Learning, 29, 121-150.

(1980) The short-circuit hypothesis of ESL reading or

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when language competence interfers with reading performance. The Modern Language Journal, 64, 203-209.

Cummins, J. (1979) Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters. Working Papers on Bilingualism, 19, 107-205.

Cziko, G.A. (1980) Language competence and reading strategies: a comparison of first-and-second language oral reading errors. Language Learning, 30, 101-114.

Deville, G., Vandecasteele, M., Ostyn, P. and Kelly, P. (1985) Measuring the F.L. learner's lexical needs. Paper presented at the 5th European LSP Symposium. Leuven: Belgium.

Giacobbe, J. and Cammarota, M.A. (1986) Learner's hypothesis for the acquisition of lexis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 8, 327-342.

Hindmarch, R. (1980) Cambridge English Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kelly, P. (1985) A Dual Approach to FL Vocabulary Learning: The Conjoining of Listening Comprehension and Mnemonic Practices. Ph.D. Thesis. LA-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain.

Laufer, B. and Bensoussan, M. (1982) Meaning is in the eye of the beholder. English Teaching Forum, 20(2), 10-14.

Laufer, B. and Sim, D.D. (1985a) Taking the easy way out: non use and misuse of contextual clues in EFL reading comprehension. English Teaching Forum, 23(2), 7-10, 22.

(1985b). Measuring and explaining the threshold needed for English for Academic Purposes texts. Foreign Language Annals, 18, 405-413.

Laufer, B. (1987) A case for vocabulary in EAP Reading Comprehension Materials. Cornu, A.-m., Vanparijs, J. Delahaye, M. and Baten, L. (eds) Beads or Bracelet? How do we approach LSP. Oxford University Press.

Levenston, E.A. (1979) Second language acquisition: issues and problems. Interlanguage Studies Bulletin, 41, 147-160.

Ludwig, J. (1984) Vocabulary acquisition as a function of word characteristics. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 40, 552-562.

Meara, P.M. (1980) Vocabulary acquisition: a neglected aspect of language learning. Kinsella, V. (ed) Language Teaching Surveys 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nation, I.S.P. (1983) Testing and teaching vocabulary. Guidelines, 5, 12-25.

Ostyn, P. and Godin, P. (1985) RALEX: An alternative approach to language teaching. The Modern Language Journal, 69, 346-353.

Read, J. and Nation, P. (1985) Some issues in the testing of vocabulary knowledge. Paper presented at the ACROLT

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conference. Jerusalem.

Ringbom, H. (1985) The influence of Swedish on the English of Finnish learners. Ringbom, H. (ed) Foreign Language Learning and Bilingualism. Åbo: Åbo Akademi Press.

Takala, S. (1984) Evaluation of Students' Knowledge of English Vocabulary in the Finnish Comprehensive School. Reports from the Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä.

(1985) Estimating students' vocabulary sizes in foreign language teaching. Kohonen, V., von Essen, H. and Klein-Braley (eds) Practice and Problems in Language Testing. AFinla Series of Publications No. 40.

Ulijn, J.M. (1984) Reading for professional purposes: psycholinguistic evidence in a cross-linguistic perspective. Pugh, A.K. and Ulijn, J.M. (eds) Reading for Professional Purposes. London: Heinemann.

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26
EFL Reading Difficulties Revealed by Translation and Discourse Analysis: Narrative vs. Expository Texts

Marsha Bensoussan
Haifa University

Introduction

Different kinds of texts demand different kinds of skills from the reader. Expository texts and narratives are not read in the same way. Each has specific conventions of organization, style, language, and purpose. An examination of readers' difficulties in comprehension may reveal that some are particular to one text type but less characteristic of another. If this is true, we may compare misunderstandings of certain linguistic and discourse features in different texts. This line of reasearch would have two goals: 1) to identify those text features which may cause reading difficulty and 2) to identify macro-level and micro-level structures which characterize certain text types.

In this study an expository and a narrative text were examined. While they are not necessarily more difficult than expository texts, narrative texts would probably pose different problems to the foreign language learner. Whereas experienced readers would probably be familiar with the cultural norms, schema or macro-level (global) structures, and micro-level (local) structures of each of the text types, foreign language learners may not recognize all these features.

Since reading comprehension is not an outwardly observable phenomenon, we can only measure it indirectly by asking questions after comprehension has already occurred. Researchers hypothesize that reading is an active process between the text and the reader's prior knowledge or memory schemata (Carrell, 1984, 1985; Meyer, 1975). According to van Dijk (1980), these schema set the rules by which macro-structures are organized.

There are two levels on which reading comprehension is said to occur: micro-level (local) and macro-level (global), and they are assumed to happen simultaneously (Auble and Franks, 1983; van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983; Vipond, 1980). On the one hand, readers decode lexical and syntactic features on the

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printed page to arrive at meaning (bottom-up reading), and on the other hand, they bring to bear extra-textual knowledge (top-down use of prior knowledge and schemata or frames) during the reading process.

Translation and discourse analysis were tools in the evaluation of reading comprehension. Students were asked to translate the English (L2) texts into their L1, Arabic or Hebrew ¹. Thus, they generated texts of their own which the researchers then compared against the originals.

Some mistranslations or deviations could be assumed to indicate misunderstanding of the original text. Others, however, were probably careless errors resulting from the hurried performance of the translation task itself. Since every task induces some error (Corrigan and Upshur, 1982), the researchers distinguished between technical slips of the pen and errors stemming from lack of comprehension.

Focusing on comprehension of the original text, scorers evaluated student translations according to the list of discourse features on macro- and micro-levels of reading comprehension. To arrive at the students' intended readings of the texts, we used the technique of backtranslation into English. Micro-level deviations (''mistranslations") were considered separately from macro-level deviations ("misinterpretations"). For each category, the number of (micro-level) mistranslations correlated with the number of (macro-level) misinterpretations.

Using discourse analysis, the researchers examined two separate sets of texts: an English narrative text and its translation into Hebrew and Arabic (Bensoussan and Rosenhouse, 1984), and an English expository text and its translations into Hebrew (Bensoussan and Abarbanel, 1986)².

On the macro-level, a narrative text is defined by its story grammar, the linkage of content and structural rules in context. The story grammars in the text describe the mapping of the reader's story schema onto the text (Beaugrande, 1982). This interaction may be implicit or explicit, often with more than one level of meaning occurring simultaneously. An expository text, on the other hand, is characterized by the explicit logical sequencing of an argument. The writer presents information to convince the reader.

Micro-level linguistic and discourse features reflect the macro-level purpose of the text. Consequently, one would expect narrative and expository texts to be characterized by different micro-level (as well as macro-level) structures.

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The two texts were analyzed according to a list of discourse features based on work by van Dijk (1980), Widdowson (1978) and (1979), Halliday and Hasan (1976), and Searle (1969) ³. Below is a list of discourse features according to which the two texts were analyzed.

LIST OF DISCOURSE FEATURES

I. Macro-Level Propositions

II. Micro-Level Structures

A. Utterance Level Structures

1. Propositional Content

2. Communicative Function

a. Explicit

b. Implicit

B. Word-Level Structures

1. Vocabulary and Expressions

2. Pronoun Agreement

3. Grammatical Cohesion

The list of features was subdivided into categories on the macro- and micro-levels. This model takes into account the functional/pragmatic aspects as well as the linguisitic aspects of the text. The macro-level views the whole text. The micro-level is subdivided into the utterance level and the word level.

Utterances are said to have both propositional content and communicative function or illocutionary force (Blum-Kulka, 1982; Widdowson, 1978; Searle, 1969; Austin, 1962). The propositional content of an utterance is the information contained in it (Searle, 1969), or in other words, the explicit content of the discourse. The term "communicative function" is used here to mean the illocutionary force (Searle, 1969; Widdowson, 1979) or social purpose (Wilkins, 1976, p. 23) of an utterance. In this study, whenever there are two levels of communicative function, we distinguish between the explicit or clearly stated intention, and the implicit or additional, simultaneously implied intent. Although every utterance has

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an explicit communicative function, not all utterances have an implicit communicative function.

Included in the category of word-level structures were vocabulary and expressions, pronoun agreement, and grammatical cohesion ⁴. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the category of grammatical cohesion includes pronoun reference, demonstrative pronouns, sentence connectors, substitution, and ellipsis. In this study, we separated pronoun agreement from the rest of the cohesion category because pronouns occurred more frequently than other items of cohesion. See Tables 1 and 2 (Appendix). For each category, the number of (micro-level) mistranslations was correlated with the number of (macro-level) misinterpretations.

Findings

Text Analysis

Applying the list of discourse features to each of the two texts, the researchers noted differences in the relative frequency of the mistranslations in different categories. The narrative text contained more instances of propositional content, illocutionary force (explicit and implicit), vocabulary and expressions, and pronoun agreement. However, the feature that appeared more frequently in the expository text than in the narrative was grammatical cohesion. Table 3 (Appendix)⁵ and Table 4 (Appendix), respectively, give the frequencies in each text. In the expository text the greater number of cohesive items was accompanied by a greater number of items of contrast (e.g., however, on the contrary), indicating shifts in logical argument.

Micro-level Mistranslations and Macro-level Misinterpretations

Expository Text Applying the list of discourse features to the student mistranslations of the expository text, the researchers found certain trends (see Table 5, Appendix). Pearson correlations were calculated between each category of mistranslation and frequency macro-level translations showed high positive correlations between the number of macro-level incorrect translations and the word level categories of pronoun agreement (r=.82, p<.01) and cohesion (r=.91, p<.0005). These are categories that Halliday and Hasan (1976) termed "grammatical cohesion." That is, a high incidence of mistranslations in these categories was likely to be associated with a low macro-level translation score.

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Furthermore, high negative correlations were found between the number of correct macro-level translations and the mistranslation categories of (utterance-level) propositional content (r=-.81, p<.005) and (word-level) vocabulary and expressions (r=-.77, p<.05) and (word-level) pronoun agreement (r=.67, p<.05). That is, the higher the frequency of mistranslations in these categories, the lower the macro-level scores.

Narrative Text For the narrative text, results appear in Tables 1 and 2, Appendix. The most frequent types of mistranslations per student per sentence were mistranslations of vocabulary and expressions (Hebrew = 526, Arabic = 931) and propositional content (Hebrew = 455, Arabic = 898). Most of the errors affected the explicit content or information in the text. The next highest categories, implicit and explicit communicative function, were much less frequent (implicit: Hebrew = 93, Arabic = 122; explicit: Hebrew = 200, Arabic = 456) ⁶.

Contrary to our experience with the most frequent categories, we found inter-group differences among mistranslations in word-level structures. For example, pronoun agreement errors were fewest among the Hebrew translations (92 occurrences), whereas among translations into Arabic, pronoun agreement errors were most frequent (259 occurrences). Although there were differences in translation according to native language, Arabic and Hebrew responses differed qualitaively only in explicit illocutionary force and pronoun agreement. Thus, we found differences between languages in number of mistranslations on the micro-level that did not appear to reflect differences in comprehension on the macro-level⁷.

Conclusions

This study was based on the assumption that students' comprehension of the rhetorical structure of a text was reflected in their mistranslations. Analyzing the original texts, the researchers were able to determine which textual features characterized each text. Applying the same list of discourse features to student transaltions, the researchers found certain general trends (see Table 6, Appendix). In both texts, mistranslations of propositional content, vocabulary and expressions, and pronoun agreement often occurred together with lack of comprehension. Communicative functions and pronoun agreement, however, were problematic in the narrative text but not in the expository text. Grammatical

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cohesion, the only feature more frequent in the expository text, was more frequently mistranslated when there were items of contrasting relations or shift in the logical argument. Additive conjunctions, however, were not likely to be mistranslated.

This study indicated that for these two texts, problems in reading comprehension were multi-dimensional. Reading difficulty appeared to result from the interaction between text type (macro-level schema) and micro-structures. To detect these problems, researchers examined the respective texts as whole entities. Mistranslations were viewed in context, in relation to the rest of the text, not merely as distinct lexical items. Since it is not possible to draw valid generalizations simply on the basis of the two texts, it is hoped that this experiment will be replicated for other texts, other text types, and other languages.

Notes

1. Subjects reading the expository text were 105 students in the course of advanced English as a foreign language (EFL) reading comprehension at Haifa University. They were all asked to translate the English text into Hebrew.
Subjects reading the narrative text were 60 first-year students studying English as a foreign language at Haifa University. They were asked to translate from English (L2) to their native language, Hebrew (30 students) or Arabic (30 students).

2. The expository text was a 551-word text, Paranoia, which compared the condition of the paranoiac with that of the average person. The writer of the expository text explored the concept of paranoia as seen through the eyes of the average person.
The narrative text was a 530-word excerpt from Bernice Bobs Her Hair, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The passage was chosen because it contained, on the one hand, a clear story line (i.e. boast and challenge, resulting in defeat), and on the other, difficult vocabulary found in idiomatic dialogue and informal narration and description.

3. This model was designed by S. Blum-Kulka and M. Bensoussan.

4. Although cohesion is basically a macro-level phenomenon, in this study cohesive items were evidenced by students' translations of words and phrases, and were therefore termed micro-level items. It was not possible for the researchers to make assumptions about macro-level comprehension on the basis of translations or

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mistranslations of individual cohesive text.

5. It must be borne in mind, however, that in general, one communicative act is likely to span a greater number of words than a word-level unit: that is, in any text, the number of items of vocabulary and expressions is likely to outnumber the communicative acts. Therefore, the smaller number of mistranslations of communicativce functions may be misleading.

6. Judges for the expository text were M. Bensoussan and Joan Abarbanel (Department of Foreign Languages, Tel Aviv University). The scoring method was agreed upon by five EFL teachers at Haifa University who administered the test to their classes.

7. Judges for the Hebrew translation of the narrative text: M. Bensoussan, Hanna Amit-Kochavi (Institute of Communications, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), and Batia Laufer (Department of Foreign Languages, Haifa University). Judges for Arabic: Judith Rosenhouse, H. Amit-Kochavi, and Sami Abu-Rabie (student of EFL, Haifa University).

References

Auble, P. and Franks, J. (1983) Sentence Comprehension Processes. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 22, 395-405.

Austin, J. (1962) How to Do Things With Words. Harvard and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Beaugrande, R. de (1982) The Story of Grammars and the Grammar of Stories. Journal of Pragmatics, 6 (5), 383-422.

Bensoussan, M. and Abarbanel, J. (1986) A Comparison of Translation, Short-Answer Questions, and Summary as Methods of Evaluating Reading Comprehension in English as a Foreign Language. Paper presented at ILASH (Israeli Association of Applied Linguists) Conference. Haifa University. Israel.

Bensoussan, M. and Rosenhouse, J. (1987) Discourse Analysis in Diagnosing Dofficulty in EFL Reading Comprehension. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 8 (4), 323-343.

Blum-Kulka, S. (1982) Learning to say what you mean in a second language: A study of the speech act performance of learners of Hebrew as a second language. Applied Linguistics 3(1), 29-59.

Carrell, P. (1984) Evidence of a Formal Schema in Second Language Comprehension. Language Learning, 34 (2), 87-112.

(1985) Faciliating ESL Reading by Teaching Text Structure

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TESOL Quarterly, 19 (4), 727-752.

Corrigan, A. and Upshu, J.A. (1982) Text method and linguistic factors in language tests. IRAL, 20(4), 313-321.

Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan, R. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.

Meyer, B. (1975) The Organization of Prose and its Effects on Memory. van Dijk, T.A. and Hendricks, W.O. (eds) North-Holland Studies in Theoretical Poetics. Vol. 1. Amsterdam and Oxford: North-Holland Publishing Co.

Searle, J. (1969) Speech acts. London: Cambridge University Press.

van Dijk, T.A. (1980) Macrostructures. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

van Dijk, T.A. and Kintsch, W. (1983) Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. New York: Academic Press.

Vipond, D. (1980) Micro- and Macroprocesses in Text Comprehension. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal behaviour, 19, 276-296.

Widdowson, H.G. (1979) The deep structure of discourse and the use of translation. Widdowson, H.G. (ed) Explorations in applied linguistics, 101-111. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(1978) Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Table 1. Categorization of Mistranslations (Narrative) [Hebrew]

MACRO-STRUCTURES

MICRO-STRUCTURES

S

# ERR

PC

ECF

ICF

VOC & EXP

PA

COH

1

11

14

4

-

21

5

2

2

19

8

19

-

16

7

-

I1
3

2

2

-

-

2

-

-

4

13

7

10

-

11

3

-

5

26

25

21

-

39

10

-

6

14

15

6

-

19

-

4

7

14

10

8

-

13

-

-

8

25

30

2

-

31

2

-

I2
9

13

12

4

-

11

2

-

10

25

26

5

-

23

7

-

11

23

32

11

-

59

5

6

12

17

22

12

-

25

-

10

II
15

26

46

8

20

45

-

34

III
30

25

65

48

40

68

11

2

37

18

48

12

11

53

5

8

38

14

22

6

3

20

3

1

V
39

9

4

3

1

4

2

-

40

15

45

3

-

45

9

3

41

18

22

18

18

21

21

-

Total number of occurrences

455

200

93

526

92

70

Total number of sentences

19

18

6

19

14

9

Error per student per sentence

.77

.36

.50

.89

.21

.25

Pearson Correlation (r) (No. Errors with Mistranslation Category)

.66

.44

.84

.69

.31

.58

S = Sentence
# ERR = Number of Errors
PC = Propositional Content
ECF = Explicit Communicative Function
ICF = Implicit Communicative Function
VOC & EXP = Vocabulary & Expressions
PA = Pronoun Agreement
COH = Cohesion

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Table 2. Categorization of Mistranslations (Narrative) [Arabic]

MACRO-STRUCTURES

MICRO-STRUCTURES

S

# ERR

PC

ECF

ICF

VOC & EXP

PA

COH

1

11

39

4

-

41

7

-

2

15

31

28

-

32

8

1

I1
3

2

3

1

-

3

-

-

4

10

24

4

-

16

11

-

5

20

55

26

-

50

29

2

6

11

18

13

-

28

6

3

7

19

24

16

-

23

1

-

8

17

76

20

-

78

1

1

I2
9

20

46

1

-

25

25

-

10

26

47

11

-

53

10

-

11

17

54

25

-

57

8

1

12

18

81

61

-

80

2

17

II
15

17

41

31

13

42

24

-

III
30

23

101

41

26

71

29

19

37

26

83

83

44

144

15

3

38

25

52

20

-

71

16

1

V
39

16

23

8

-

30

7

-

40

18

66

24

-

75

23

2

41

26

34

39

39

12

37

9

Total number of occurrences

898

456

122

931

259

59

Total number of sentences

19

19

4

19

18

11

Error per student per sentence

1.52

.77

.98

1.58

.46

.17

Pearson Correlation (r) (No. Errors with Mistranslation Category)

.59

.53

.96

.52

.48

.25

S = Sentence
# ERR = Number of Errors
PC = Propositional Content
ECF = Explicit Communicative Function
ICF = Implicit Communicative Function
VOC & EXP = Vocabulary & Expressions
PA = Pronoun Agreement
COH = Cohesion

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Utterance
Original text
Mistranslation

1
from
and, because

2
for (conj.)
for (prep.), as for, from, to, according to

2
moreover
more or less, thus

6
therefore
before, sometimes, moreover

7
because
that

8
although
and, also, even if, now

9
and
or

Table 3. Mistranslations of grammatical cohesion

Utterance
Original text
Mistranslation

15

Yet
did neither

Until now, Now, And, Therefore
did both, didn't do anything

37
another
and then
omitted
and even

Table 4. Mistranslations of grammatical cohesion

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Table 5. Categorization of Mistranslations (Expository) MISTRANSLATIONS [MICRO-LEVEL]

Utterance-Level Structures

Word-Level Structures

UNIT

PC

ECF

ICF

VOC & EXP

PA

COH

1

76

21

-

119

14

20

2

164

38

4

433

60

87

3

30

11

11

71

8

-

4

21

8

8

65

2

1

5

59

10

3

148

-

3

6

68

4

-

154

-

11

7

53

5

-

164

3

1

8

89

14

2

198

40

36

9

165

26

1

482

2

6

10

87

-

-

394

40

4

11

116

57

-

275

1

1

TOTAL

928

194

29

2503

170

170

Pearson correlations: Mistranslation Category with Wrong Answers:

r:

.55

.41

-.18

.47

.82

.92

p:

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

.01

.0005

with Right Answers:

r:

-.81

-.61

.76

-.77

-.67

-.54

p:

.005

n.s.

n.s.

.005

.05

n.s.

PC = Propositional Content
ECF = Explicit Communicative Function
ICF = Implicit Communicative Function
VOC & EXP = Vocabulary & Expressions
PA = Pronoun Agreement
COH = Cohesion

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NARRATIVE TEXT

EXPOSITORY TEXT

Mistranslation

Original

Mistranslation

Original

Translated from English to:

Arabic

Hebrew

Hebrew

Propositional Content

+

+

104

+

55

Explicit Illocutionary Force

+

-

63

-

44

Implicit Illocutionary Force

+

+

23

-

1

Expressions

+

+

71

+

28

Pronoun Agreement

+

-

52

+

25

Cohesion (contrasts)

-

-

24

+

37

(2)

+

(7)

Table 6. Frequencies of discourse features in expository and narrative texts and significance of mistranslations for comprehension

Pearson correlation between mistranslations and misinterpretations
+ significant
- non-significant

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27
Can Gaps Measure Comprehension? Modifications of Cloze as Tests of Reading

Anna Mauranen
University of Helsinki

The ideal FL reading test should tap many, possibly all, subskills and components of reading. Presumably no single test or test type can do this, but a test battery is required where different subtests do different jobs. In this way, meaningful diagnostic information can be obtained from the subtest scores and the bias from text idiosyncrasies can be neutralised somewhat. This is particularly important in LSP testing, where the problem of field specificity prevails both in text selection and task setting. It is against this background that I consider the possibilities of two cloze modifications as EAP reading tests as measuring one kind of reading.

The testing problem to be solved by the tests discussed here is screening the English reading proficiency of a large number of first-year undergraduates in different fields. The test should be very fast to mark and adaptable to different academic fields, but not necessarily very fast to write, nor producing detailed diagnostic information on its own. It should also be short enough for testers to include several tests in a battery. The purpose is to divide the students into two groups: those considered proficient, so that they can be expected to read academic texts in English with sufficient fluency to manage their studies and later professional career needs, and those who need teaching to reach that level. There is thus a demand for a performance test in the sense that we want to predict certain behaviour, not assess linguistic competence as such.

Test 1

The first attempt to produce a test for the above purpose, supplementing a set of traditional standardised multiple-choice tests and open answer L1 tests, was a standard cloze, with the addition of answer alternatives for each blank. The multiple-choice solution was considered necessary to avoid productive skills in the test and to ensure quick, objective marking.

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In practice, the cloze seemed to work reasonably well but different testers interpreted the test writing task each in their own way and some questions were raised: are all the items relevant from the point of view of reading comprehension? What is the role of distractors in producing good items? What are the features that determine item difficulty?

Study 1

To answer the questions above, three 50-item tests with a deletion rate of 10, based on roughly 700-word extracts from Scientific American (Scott, 1982), New Scientist (Tipler, 1982) and Encyclopaedia Britannica (1981) were administered to students of social sciences, natural sciences and humanities, respectively, as part of their initial language examination.

The tests were analysed item-by-item from the point of view of the skills required from testees. The skills were defined in terms of the linguistic knowledge type (syntactic or semantic) involved in the item, and the item range, i.e. the amount of textual context to be taken into account for filling the blank (examples in Appendix 1). The linguistic material available to the reader was taken to be what was left in the text after the deletions had been made, with the answer alternatives as a secondary source. Analysing cloze items in terms of the deleted words (e.g. Lee, 1985) was thought pointless, since these are precisely the elements not available to the reader. The item range was divided into three levels: phrase, sentence and above sentence. It was felt to be more meaningful to work with linguistically marked information units rather than just by counting the number of words around the blanks, as some earlier studies have done (see e.g. Chihara et al., 1977, Chavez-Oller et al., 1985). Skills were thus considered from the point of view of the content to be manipulated. In this way, individual variation in processing modes was bypassed, and the analysis could be performed by the author.

A quantitative data analysis was also performed from student responses, utilizing an item analysis program.

Results and Discussion

The results of the analysis show that item range does influence item difficulty: while phrase and sentence levels showed no systematic distinction, there was a significant difference between items ranging up to a sentence (`micro

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level items') and items ranging above sentence level (`macro level') (see table 1).

This gives support to the view that utilization of wider text contexts increases with higher L2 proficiency. The total cloze score can be seen as a rough guide to general proficiency, since the items vary so much in type and range, as expected.

test

students
N

micro
IF

n

macro
IF

n

social sci.A

135

69.38

38

62.36

11

social sci.B

158

83.02

41

70.89

8

humanities

195

74.38

39

65.78

11

natural sci.

493

74.71

29

66.05

18

all

981

75.56

147

65.95

48

Table 1. Distribution of items and average item facilities at micro and macro levels in four multiple-choice standard cloze tests. t= 3.325, p< .01

Type, again, was no indicator of difficulty, since there the item facility figures for syntactic, semantic, or mixed items failed to show consistent differences. More important difficulty indicators were the location of cues for the item, relevant cues coming after the item in the text tended to make the item difficult and the frequency of the correct alternative, i.e. the deleted word. If the original word was an infrequent one, the item was difficult.

It was clearly possible to manipulate item range, difficulty as well as type with distractor choice, but only unidirectionally in each case. Item range could only be downgraded, that is the distractors could vary at a lower level than the deletion's potential range. Items could be made easier by very obviously deviant answer alternatives, and it was also possible to add syntactic features to the item by producing ungrammatical distractors.

None of these directions seemed desirable from the point of view of item improvement, but attempts to change items in the opposite directions resulted in very low response rates. This was obvious in a readministration of the social sciences test with all distractors changed so that they were made to vary in terms of meaning rather than form, no matter what the blank was like. The result was a marked drop in test difficulty, which in practice made the test unusable, although the testees were a highly comparable group to the previous one. The average IF rose from 67.08 to 81.03, with all blanks

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intact. Rather than taking this as an indication of a relatively greater facility of semantic choices, which interpretation is not confirmed by the IF figures from the other tests (see above), I believe it shows that good distractors conform to the type and range of the deletion, and if we want to improve items, we shall have to change the deletions. This, again, cannot be done if the original idea of the cloze (deleting every nth word) is to be maintained.

Apart from the fact that you cannot much improve items in a standard cloze, the tests was felt to be unsatisfactory on the grounds that only about 1/5 of the items in each test could be classified as functioning above sentence level, while over 1/4 were phrase level items. This meant measuring predominantly lower-order reading skills. Moreover, certain item types unavoidable in a standard cloze such as items directly measuring grammatical knowledge, interdependent item pairs, and deletions which were either rare words or trivial from the point of view of text meaning were considered unnecessary.

Test 2

To improve the test, a shorter, 35-item test was devised, with the general idea that the emphasis should be put on direct measurement of the comprehension of meaning and higher range (macro level) items. The new test was named the `semantic cloze', with `semantic' understood as covering different kinds and levels of meaning, including text coherence. It has many things in common with other tests developed for similar purposes (see e.g. Bachman, 1982; Bensoussan et al., 1984; Levenston et al., 1984), but among other differences which I cannot go into here, it operates on a more advanced level of English and uses more academically oriented texts. Further, unlike Bensoussan et al. (1984), this test seeks to avoid direct testing of pragmatic skills and phrase level items, and unlike Levenston et al. (1984), avoids concentrating on a single type of deletion. The following instructions were devised for writing a semantic cloze:

(1) delete lexical items of different word classes, so that the meanings are recoverable from the text

(2) produce only items that function at least at sentence level, and above it where possible

(3) include items which require the recognition of cohesive relations and textual patterning (both formal and

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semantic)

(4) select distractors which provide alternatives to the deleted word in meaning but not in form, and which conform to the range level of the deletion and the difficulty level of the text. Avoid unusual words and fine semantic distinctions.

Study 2

To see whether the semantic cloze was a viable testing solution, two texts (the social science and the natural science texts) from study 1 were used to construct tests following the above guidelines, and administered to target population groups as before. Items were classified according to range on micro and macro levels (examples in Appendix 2) and an item analysis was carried out on student response frequencies.

Results and Discussion

The reliability figures and correlations with criterion tests are seen in table 2.

test
alpha
criterion
r

social science
.78
2 mc tests
.60

natural sciences
.83
1 L1 open test
.68

Table 2. Reliability coefficients (alpha) for two semantic cloze tests and their correlations with criterion tests

The correlations with the criterion tests could be higher if the tests were assumed to measure exactly the same reading skills. This is unlikely to be the case, since open questions in the L1 favour students good and quick a expressing themselves, and the m-c questions require the student to compare his or her interpretation with that of the tester. Moreover, the m-c test was very easy for the population (average score 82.6%), which reduces the status of the correlation figure.

In order to establish the pragmatic validity more securely, the tests were readministered to the same students after a term's (52 h) English reading course. The scores improved significantly (social sciences: t=6.67, d.f.=17, p<.001; natural

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sciences: t=6.87, d.f.=27, p<.001), as did those on the other subtests, indicating that the semantic cloze is sensitive to a change in reading proficiency, thus possessing reasonable pragmatic validity.

The proportion of macro level items exceeded that of micro level items. This tendency appeared even more pronounced in two other semantic clozes analysed later, which had twice as many macro items as micro level items.

The difference in item facility found between micro and macro level items in the standard cloze had disappeared. The absence of phrase level items may play a role in this, although these were not systematically easier than sentence level items in the standard cloze. More likely the focusing on meaning directs the examinees' attention away from formal details, thus allowing more processing capacity to meaning, and facilitating comprehension of longer units. However, the tendency of item facilities to increase or decrease towards higher item ranges was markedly text dependent (table 3).

Item difficulty is probably explainable here in terms of the item's position in the text, with respect to text topic or sentence theme. The semantic cloze then appears to be more text sensitive than the standard cloze, opening new possibilities for differentiation. By exploring the interaction of text features and item characteristics, it may be possible to develop test construction principles specific to different text types.

items
natural
s.
n
social
1
n
social
2
n
hum.
n

micro
73.77

13

62.07

18

77.58

12

72.78

15

macro 1
73.07

10

60.13

4

72.16

11

65.82

11

macro 2
78.45

6

66.58

7

71.90

4

79.66

7

macro 3
80.66

6

63.45

5

67.31

6

86.64

2

Table 3. Item facilities of four semantic clozes at four levels of item range: (1) micro items at sentence level, (2) macro 1 items ranging over two adjacent sentences, (3) macro 2 items: two non-adjacent sentences within a paragraph, (4) macro 3 items ranging over paragraph boundaries

This would be a step towards differentiating test tasks for different academic fields, which is a problem area: we tend to appreciate text differences, at least as regards the subject area, but set very similar comprehension tasks irrespective of the discipline in question (this is also true of teaching materials, cf. Mauranen, 1987).

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From a practical point of view, the semantic cloze is about as difficult to prepare as a multiple-choice standard cloze and somewhat easier than a traditional multiple-choice test. Providing distractors is less frustrating than for a standard cloze, since all deletions are meaningful, and statistical analyses can benefit individual items and distractors. The basic advantage over a traditional multiple-choice test is that the correct answer does not reflect the tester's interpretation of the text, but is part of the original text.

In a test battery, the semantic cloze should ideally be combined with at least one test measuring what the cloze cannot: reader's independent and critical interpretation of the main points of a text. Tests of this kind, such as summary writing, tend to be overwhelming to mark in a short time with a large number of students. They also favour good writers. The cloze can complement these by giving a chance to students who find it hard to express themselves but understand texts, and by bringing in another text so as to reduce text bias.

In all, the semantic cloze seems a good alternative among tests which seek to measure reading comprehension at a relatively literal level of meaning. It is suitable for proficiency or achievement testing, but hardly ideal as a diagnostic device on its own, since the text determines possible deletions rather closely. To improve the test further, more research is needed on source texts so as to guide their selection and also to explore the interaction of text features and item characteristics.

References

Bachman, L.F. (1982) The Trait Structure of Cloze Test Scores. TESOL Quarterly, 16, 1, 61-69.

Bensoussan, M. and Ramraz, R. (1984) Testing English Reading Comprehension Using a Multiple-choice Rational Cloze. The Modern Language Journal, 68, ii, 230-239.

Chavez-Oller, M-A., Chihara, T., Weaver, K.A. and Oller, J. Jr. (1985) When are Cloze Items Sensitive to Constraints across Sentences? Language Learning, 35, 2, 181-206.

Chihara, T., Oller, J., Weaver, K. and Chavez-Oller, M. (1977) Are Cloze Items Sensitive to Constraints across Sentences? Language Learning, 27, 1, 63-73.

Communication: Language. (1981) Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Lee, Y.P. (1985) Investigating the Validity of the Cloze Score. Lee, Y.P., Fok., A., Lord, R. and Low., G. (eds) New Directions in Language Testing. Oxford etc: Pergamon

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Press.

Levenston, E.A., Nir, R. and Blum-Kulka, S. (1984) Discourse Analysis and the Testing of Reading Comprehension by Cloze Techniques. Pugh, A.K. and Ulijn, J.M. (eds) Reading for Professional Purposes. London: Heinemann.

Mauranen, A. (1987) Miten tieteellisten tekstien lukemista harjoitellaan. Hirvonen, P. (ed) AFinLA Yearbook 1987. Joensuu: Publications de l'Association Finlandaise de Linguistique Appliquee.

Scott, J.W. (1982) The Mechanization of Women's Work. Scientific American, September 1982.

Tipler, F.J. (1982) We are alone in our Galaxy. New Scientist, 17 October 1982.

Appendices

Appendix 1. Standard Cloze.

Examples of item types and ranges in study 1:

(a) syntactic, sentence level: no. 1

(b) mixed: no. 2

(c) semantic: no. 3

(d) phrase level: no. 10

(e) macro level: no. 12

The Mechanization of Women's Work

Joan Wallach Scott

Scientific American September 1982

It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced. For example, it has been suggested 1 the employment of women in industry took them out 2 the household, their traditional sphere, and fundamentally altered their 3 in society. Both advocates and critics of mechanization have 4 the assumption. As women began to enter factories in 5 numbers in the 19th century, Jules Simon, a French politician, 6 that ''a woman who becomes a worker is no longer a 7 ." Friedrich Engels, on the other hand, thought women could be liberated 8 "social, legal and economic subordination" of the family 9 technological developments that made possible the recruitment of "the 10 female sex... into public industry." Thus two observers could 11 diametrically opposed views of the value of mechanization for 12 without either one doubting that mechanization would transform women's 13 .

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1.
a. where
b. that
c. how
d. to
5.
a. such
b. several
c. many
d. increasing
9.
a. by
b. and
c. of
d. from
13.
a. follies
b. doubts
c. nature
d. lives

2.
a. with
b. of
c. from
d. for
6.
a. warned
b. persuaded
c. denied
d. foresaw
10.
a. most
b. all
c. only
d. whole

3.
a. position
b. household
c. basis
d. appearance
7.
a. politician
b. girl
c. woman
d. man
11.
a. bear
b. deal
c. have
d. prove

4.
a. delivered
b. shared
c. dicided
d. misunderstood
8.
a. for
b. towards
c. in
d. from
12.
a. them
b. women
c. family
d. both

Appendix 2. Semantic Cloze.

Examples of item ranges in study 2.

(a) micro level: no. 1

(b) macro (1) level: no. 2

(c) macro (2) level: no. 4

(d) macro (3) level: no. 9

The Mechanization of Women's Work

Joan Wallach Scott

Scientific American September 1982

It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced. For example, it has been suggested that the employment of women in industry took them out of the 1 , their traditional sphere, and fundamentally 2 their position in society. Both advocates and 3 of mechanization have shared the 4 . As women began to enter factories in increasing numbers in the 19th century, Jules Simon, a French politician, warned that "a woman who 5 a worker is no longer a woman." Friedrich Engels, on the other hand, thought women could be liberated from the "social, legal and economic subordination" of the family by 6 developments that made possible the recruitment of "the whole female sex... into public industry." Thus two observers could have diametrically opposed views of the value of mechanization for 7 without either one 8 that mechanization would transform women's lives.

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Simon and Engels and many others imputed such 9 power to technology partly 10 they thought the capacity of mechanization to alter human relations was inherent in the machines themselves and 11 capable of powerfully affecting the social context in which the 12 was utilized. This hypothesis has now been seriously 13 by historians, particularly those 14 the history of women.

1.
a. country
b. household
c. office
d. workhouse
4.
a. knowledge
b. truth
c. role
d. assumption
7.
a. them
b. society
c. technology
d. women

2.
a. reatined
b. alleviated
c. reinforced
d. altered
5.
a. resembles
b. employs
c. becomes
d. remains
8.
a. knowing
b. doubting
c. foreseeing
d. denying

3.
a. critics
b. proponents
c. victims
d. believers
6.
a. political
b. household
c. technological
d. capitalistic
9.
a. transforming
b. negligible
c. recruiting
d. democratizing

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28
L1 And L2 Syntactic Structuring in ESP Writing: Reading Aspects and an Error Analysis

Judith Strother and Jan Ulijn
Florida Institute of Technology and
Eindhoven University of Technology

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine L1 and L2 syntactic structuring in LSP (languages for specific purposes) writing and to look at reading violated syntax. The following are presented: (1) an analysis of Dutch and American students' reading comprehension of EST (English for Science and Technology) material which is written with violated syntax (words needed to complete sentences are given in alphabetical order) versus material written with nonviolated syntax; (2) an analysis of the syntactic choices of ESP writers depending on their native language and on their background knowledge of the subject being written about; (3) a comparison of syntactic choices of Dutch students writing technical material in French as an L2 versus writing in English as an L2; and (4) an error analysis of technical material written in English by Dutch and American students.

In this experiment, Dutch (Eindhoven University of Technology) and American (Florida Institute of Technology) students half with computer science backgrounds and half without were asked to complete sentences which occurred in the middle of a computer science text where either CL (common language) or ST (science and technology) structures were possible. It was found that, while the computer science students used significantly more ST structures than did the non-computer science students, all students both L1 and L2 preferred the ST syntactic structures. However, when Dutch students wrote ST material in both French (L2) and English (L2), they used significantly more ST structures when writing in English than they did when writing in French.

In previous research (Strother and Ulijn, 1987; Ulijn and Strother, 1987), it was found that syntactic rewriting (transforming ST syntax into CL syntax) does not affect EST reading comprehension. This research determines that there is no significant difference when L1 and L2 students read

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materials with or without violated syntax. Therefore, it can be concluded that a thorough syntactic analysis is not required for reading comprehension.

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to examine the commonalities and differences between L1 and L2 syntactic structuring in LSP writing for those writers who have a strong background knowledge of the subject being written about and those who do not. The relationship between LSP reading and LSP writing and implications for reading LSP writing are also examined. The number and kinds of grammatical and logic errors within each group are also analyzed.

A recent experiment (Strother and Ulijn, 1987) demonstrated that a thorough syntactic analysis is not required for reading comprehension and that therefore syntactic rewriting does not affect EST comprehension. It appears that for readers, the syntax may have hardly any effect on comprehension.

A psycholinguistic model of writing allows for three cognitive strategies: using serial, strictly parallel, or partially parallel processes for conceptualizing (thinking) and formulating (transforming thoughts into written text) (Ulijn, 1987; Ulijn and Gobits, 1986). In either strategy, for LSP/LST writing, syntax is an integral part of the conceptualizing and formulating stages; the writer must choose a particular syntactic structure for the written text.

Previous research on Dutch L2 writers translating French-Dutch (F-D) contrastive structures from French ST instructions without the required technical background knowledge (Ulijn and Kempen, 1976) and Dutch writers having to choose a syntactic structure for given words in CL instructions to find their way in an imaginary French town (Ulijn, 1987) demonstrated that Dutch writers had more problems in translating or using F-D contrastive structures, whereas French L1 writers used F-D parallel type (CL type) or F-D contrastive (ST-type) almost equally.

In another empirical study (Ulijn, forthcoming) of eight Dutch engineering students writing technical information in two different foreign languages, English and French, a Chi-square analysis clearly showed that the same students used significantly more ST structures when writing in English (X₂ = 13.5, p < .001) and significantly more CL structures when writing in French (X₂ = 16.667, p < .001) (See Table 1). Since

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their knowledge of English (advanced) and their exposure to EST materials were greater than their knowledge of French (intermediate), perhaps the more frequent use of ST structures relates to an advanced level of foreign language knowledge.

When analyzing background knowledge in addition to first or second language knowledge, in an empirical study (Ulijn and Strother, 1987) it was found that neither ST knowledge nor language knowledge appeared to affect the choice of ST structures. Even without knowledge of the ST text's content matter, both L1 and L2 technical writers experts (those with a strong CS background) significantly more than novices (those with no CS background) tend to write in the ST register. Selinker (1984) observed the following about a universal interlanguage grammar; in specific purpose (ST) acquisition, language and subject matter are intimately and structurally intertwined. Our data show that background knowledge of the subject being written about contributes significantly more to L1 and interlanguage ST syntactic structuring in writing than language knowledge does. Therefore, reduced special language use differs more for expert and novice writers than for L1 and L2 writers.

Method

Subjects

Four groups of students were tested: 48 American students at Florida Institute of Technology and Valencia Community College in Florida and 48 Dutch students at Eindhoven University of Technology and Eindhoven College of Business Administration in the Netherlands. Approximately half of each nationality were computer science students who were in their third or fourth year of study. The other half were humanities majors with no formal training in computer science. The Dutch students at Eindhoven have English as a second or foreign language with about six years of English study at the secondary school level and considerable exposure to English textbooks and review articles at the university with less exposure at the college (a high intermediate to advanced level) (See Table 2).

Materials, Procedure, and Scoring

For the experiment, a slightly shortened version of a computer science article which had no mathematical formulas or illustrations was chosen. The article, "Mass Storage Systems

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and Evolution of Data Center Architecture" (Miller, 1982) came from the periodical Computer. Within the text, ten sentences were selected for the students to complete. In each of these sentences, it was possible to make either CL or ST syntactic choices. Students were given the words, in alphabetical order, needed to complete each sentence (violated syntax). The instructions told them they could: change the order of the groups of words; change the forms of words (for example, adjective into adverb or verb into noun); conjugate the verb; and add some words if necessary to complete the sentence. Examples were given and, while care was taken to be sure that students understood the task, no specific feedback was given.

The following is an example from the computer science text:

(at higher system level) (current devices with optical data disks) (replace) (...) (...). The programmer must develop considerably more software to take advantage of optical data disks.

Possible student solutions are:

(a) Replacement of current devices with optical data disks will probably occur at a higher system level. The programmer must develop considerably more software to take advantage of optical data disks.

(b) If, at a higher system level, current devices are replaced with optical data disks, the programmer must develop considerably more software to take advantage of optical data disks.

(c) To replace current devices with optical data disks at higher system levels, the programmer must develop considerably more software to take advantage of optical data disks.

(d) We can replace current devices with optical data disks at a higher system level. The programmer must develop considerably more software to take advantage of optical data disks.

(e) At a higher system level, current devices with optical data disks often replace many tapes. The programmer must develop considerably more software to take advantage of optical data disks.

(f) The programmer must develop considerably more software to take advantage of optical data disks when he

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replaces current devices with optical data disks at high system levels.

In this particular study, the criteria for operationalizing the distinction between ST and CL syntactic structuring were determined in the following way. Two independent raters were asked to evaluate the student solutions by analyzing the syntactic structure of the words between brackets and then mark the solutions according to these directions:

1. If the sentence contains a nominalization, a participle, an infinitive or a passive, mark it S (= ST syntax).

2. If not, mark it C (= CL syntax).

3. If the sentence cannot be analyzed, i.e., has no answer, or has an answer that does not include the elements asked for or does not make sense, mark it O.

In the examples given above, the underlined fragments (a), (b), and (c) are examples of S and (d), (e), and (f) are examples of C. In this particular sentence, the interpretation of the verb replace is crucial. If the student tries to make a nominalization, a passive, an infinitive construction or a participle of replace, the score is S. If the student tries to conjugate replace to make an adjective construction, the score is C.

Student answers were also analyzed to decode logic problems. A logic problem occurred when the student wrote a perfectly grammatical sentence which was classified as being in the ST or CL register, but which changed the meaning from that originally given in the article. For example, one of the sentences should have read, "... the problem is separating and clustering sets of files and providing a mechanism..." A few students wrote, "... the problem is separating clustered sets of files..." still in the ST register, but different in meaning from the original. This kind of response was tabulated as a logic problem.

Results and Discussion

In the psycholinguistic model, a partial parallel strategy of reading seems to be confirmed (Strother and Ulijn, 1987; Ulijn and Strother, 1985; Ulijn, 1987). In a previous reading comprehension test, students read the same computer text in either CL or ST syntactic structures and showed no significant differences in reading comprehension scores. In the reading

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part of this writing experiment, students had to read sentences (from the same computer science text) which had a violated syntax. Students were given groups of words needed to complete selected sentences; therefore, they had to base their reading comprehension on figuring out the meaning with incomplete information. The data presented in Table 3 demonstrate to what extent sentences can be understood with and without a violated syntactic structure. While all groups showed some differences between non-violated (both CL and ST) and violated syntax, the Dutch humanities students showed the greatest loss of reading comprehension with violated syntax. However, comprehension of both violated and non-violated syntax is very high and differences are probably not significant.

Reading times for the whole text, not just the selected test sentences, were also compared among the same groups (see Table 4). Not surprisingly, L2 readers always take longer to read the text. A striking finding is that CS (computer science) students tend to take more time than humanities students reading a CS text. This is especially true for the Dutch CS students reading violated syntax. Perhaps specialists in a field work harder at eliciting the real meaning from the text and can process it at a deeper level because they can tie it more easily into their background knowledge, whereas those who do not know the subject skim over the surface level meaning, therefore reading faster.

Overall, it seems that syntactic differences have little significant effect on the time it takes L1 and L2 students to read a text. Background knowledge helps comprehension and slows down reading time. Both L1 and L2 readers do not seem to be greatly hampered by violated syntax in comprehension or reading time. The great extent to which sentences with a violated syntactic structure can be understood by both L1 and L2 readers gives additional evidence for a conceptually guided and partially parallel strategy for processing texts.

In addition, an error analysis was performed to itemize and then compare the types of errors made by both L1 and L2 students. Because of the nature of the task, the number and kinds of errors were limited in each sentence. However, interstudent and intergroup comparisons are striking.

Errors were analyzed in the following categories:

(a) Major error incorrect verb tense, lack of subject/verb agreement, incorrect form of a word, runon, fragment.

(b) Word order errors.

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(c) Nonparallel construction.

(d) Minor errors article or preposition errors.

(e) No answer student did not attempt to complete the sentence or had an uninterpretable answer.

The summary of errors is shown in Table 5. It seems that background knowledge of the subject being written about also seems to have a stronger impact on number of errors than language background of the writer.

An error analysis per group is shown in Table 6. There are several possible explanations for the number and kinds of errors made by each group. Not surprisingly, on average L2 students made more errors than did L1 students; however, when subgroups are examined, the Dutch CS students made the fewest errors.

Any kind of error analysis is difficult for a number of reasons. It is difficult to know why a particular writer makes a particular error in a particular situation. It is also true that error analysis cannot deal with the area of avoidance, which does not lead to errors but rather to underrepresentation of certain words or structures in L2 use (van Els, Bongaerts, Extra, van Os and Janssen-van Dieten, 1984). In our study, perhaps the L2 writers, particularly those writing in their own field, chose only structures they felt sure of and avoided structures they did not, whereas L1 students felt no such inhibitions.

Error analyses, in general, should be based on errors that are both recurrent and systematic so it can be better determined whether they reflect defects in knowledge or inadequate habit formation. Ideally, each error could be traced back to the source of the error for each writer or group of writers. (Duskova, 1983) With a project such as this one, such a detailed analysis is not feasible. It is not possible, therefore, to make a definitive distinction between mistakes, defined as adventitious, random errors in performance of which the student is aware, or systematic errors which reflect a defect in linguistic competence (Corder, 1967). Given enough time, it would be interesting to replicate our study with the additional step of handing back the papers to the students to see whether or not they could spot and correct their own errors. That would help us know if each ungrammatical response was a nonce error or a true error which was part of the student's interlanguage.

L2 writers are more accurate when they have enough time

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and are focused on form (Krashen, 1987). Therefore, in a task like the one given here, students probably focused on content so much that their Monitor, or conscious grammar editor, was seldom evoked.

It is also true that higher motivation tends to produce better L2 writing (Gardner and Lambert, 1972). Perhaps the CS students were more highly motivated to write well about their field of expertise. However, neither of the above points relates to the L1 students in our study. For the American Humanities students, perhaps they were more concerned with form than content in a field in which they had no background knowledge. Certainly, many of their errors seem to stem from a lack of comprehension of the subject. Sometimes learners are compelled to try to express a meaning for which their competence contains no appropriate items or rules at all. In order for them to get the required meaning across, the writer has a much more difficult task when not having background knowledge of the subject being written about. Littlewood (1984) pointed out that ''on occasions such as this, we would scarcely be justified in taking the resulting errors as evidence of an underlying grammatical system. They seem rather to be the outcome of a more general problem-solving strategy, which happens to employ elements from the second language."

The striking differences between our L2 CS and Humanities students may reflect the idea that higher quality output depends on comprehensible input. (Krashen, 1982) For L2 Humanities students, the CS content plus the fact that they were working in a second language may have provided a double hurdle to their producing quality syntactic output.

Implications

Implications are suggested for two fields, that of the technical writer, i.e. anyone writing technical materials (but not necessarily with a technical background), and that of the LST teacher.

Technical Writing

Writing is a process through which meaning is created. To create meaning, the writer must have background knowledge of the content. Concern with the logical organization of a text is as much a reading as a writing problem, and initially there

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may be considerable overlap of these two activities (White, 1987). Reading to acquire background knowledge of the field to be written about may be the most critical task for improving technical writing. On the basis of our data, ST language use does not differ for L1 and L2 writers. If a higher ST syntax score is a criterion for successful technical writing for specialists, and ST knowledge is more important than language knowledge, L2 technical writers with a high ST knowledge can do a good syntactic job and probably do even better than L1 writers with a low ST knowledge.

LST Teaching

If, as some researchers believe (Cohen, Glasman, Rosenbaum-Cohen, Ferrera and Fine, 1979), L2 students in particular have problems with reading texts which include passives, nominalizations, complex sentences, etc., problems may exist for these students when writing within such a text or using such constructions. This is borne out to a degree by some of our results. In some cases, students' use of incorrect structures showed lack of understanding of the text; on the other hand, some students wrote sentences which were grammatical but had incorrect logic or made incorrect conclusions. LST teachers could help writers in the particular problem areas which occur with greater frequency in ST writing and could help them fill in any gaps they have in the grammar of the language so the writers' Monitors (Krashen, 1982) can be properly used.

The similarity of syntactic aspects of ST interlanguage and L1 language use questions the idea that an advanced LST learner, in addition to his/her CL knowledge, really would have to acquire a typical ST register which is syntactically different from the CL. The natural variation and instability of ST interlanguage should not be discouraged, apart from the obvious grammatical errors which deserve the special attention of the LST teacher.

Background knowledge seems to be essential for correct syntactic LST writing by first and second language writers. And, as mentioned above, reading and writing are strongly interrelated, especially in specialist fields. Therefore, as Krashen (1982, 1987) has pointed out, improved reading can improve writing output. Krashen also predicts that the use of specialized reading materials, because they generate high

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reader interest, improve reading comprehension and in general further language acquisition. The LSP/LST teacher, therefore, should make available in the classroom large quantities of interesting reading material in the students' content areas (e.g., Strother, 1987). The teacher could also structure content-based writing courses which would be highly motivating for the student, help strengthen background knowledge, and give writers the skills they will need in academic or other special purpose situations (Shih, 1986). In turn, this material creates a bank of background knowledge which becomes the foundation for the students to write more and better ST materials.

References

Cohen, A., Glasman, H., Rosenbaum-Cohen, P., Ferrera, J. and Fine, J. (1979) Reading English for specialized purposes: Discourse analysis and the use of student informants. TESOL Quarterly, 13, 551-564.

Corder, S.P. (1967) The significance of learners' errors. IRAL 5, 161-70.

Duskova, L. (1983) On sources of errors in foreign language learning. Robinett, B.W. and Schachter, J. (eds) Second Language Learning. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Gardner, R.C. and Lambert, W.E. (1972) Attitude and Motivation in Second Language Learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Krashen, S.D. (1982) Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. New York: Pergamon Press.

(1987) Applications of Psycholinguistic Research to the Classroom. Long, M.H. and Richards, J.C. (eds) Methodology in TESOL: A Book of Readings. New York: Newbury House.

Littlewood, W. (1984) Foreign and Second Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Miller, S.W. (1982) Mass storage systems and evolution of data center architectures. Computer, 15(7), 15-19.

Selinker, L. (1984) The current state of IL studies: an attempted critical summary. Davies, A., Criper, C. and Howatt, A.P.R. (eds) Interlanguage, 332-343. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Shih, M. (1986) Content-based approaches to teaching academic writing. TESOL Quarterly, 20, 617-678.

Strother, J.B. (1987) Kaleidoscope: Academic Readings for ESL Students. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Strother, J.B. and Ulijn, J.M. (1987) Does syntactic rewriting affect EST text comprehension? Devine, J., Carrell, P.L. and

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Eskey, D. (eds) Research in Reading in a Second Language. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Ulijn, J.M. (1987) Cross-language transfer in reading vs. writing: the CAH revisited in a psycholinguistic perspective. LAUD. University of Duisburg: FRG.

(forthcoming) ST syntax in English and French use by Dutch writers: foreign language use differentiated.

Ulijn, J.M. and Gobits, R. (1986) The role of communication for disseminating scientific and technical innovation. Bungarten, T. (ed) Wissenschaftssprache und Gesellschaft, 214-232. Hamburg: Akademion.

Ulijn, J.M. and Kempen, G. (1976) The role of the first language in second language reading comprehension: some experimental evidence. Nickel, G. (ed) Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of Applied Linguistics, 495-587. Stuttgart: Hochschul Verlag.

Ulijn, J.M. and Strother, J.B. (1985) Does syntactic rewriting affect EST text comprehension? LAUD. University of Duisburg: FRG.

(1987) Interlanguage and EST writing: some syntactic evidence. English for Specific Purposes, 6(2).

van Els, T., Bongaerts, T., Extra, G., van Os, C. and Janssen-van Dieten, A. (1984) Applied Linguistics and the Learning and the Teaching of Foreign Languages. London: Edward Arnold Publishers, Ltd.

White, R.V. (1987) Approaches to writing. Long, M.H. and Richards, J.C. (eds) Methodology in TESOL: A Book of Readings. New York: Newbury House.

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ENGLISH
(L2)

FRENCH
(L2)

TOTAL

CL

2

21

23

ST

22

3

25

TOTAL

24

24

48

Table 1. ST syntax in English and French use by Dutch students

BACKGROUND

LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE

KNOWLEDGE

American L1

Dutch L2

TOTAL

Computer Science Majors (Experts)

24

24

48

Humanities Majors (Novices)

24

24

48

TOTALS

48

48

96

Table 2. Number and distribution of 96 students over the experimental conditions

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LANGUAGE

American L1

Dutch L2

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

Comp. Sci.
n = 24

Humanities
n = 24

Comp. Sci.
n = 24

Humanities
n = 24

Nonviolated Syntax
CL

8.58

8.17

9.67

8.75

ST

8.25

7.25

9.33

8.75

Violated Syntax

8.12

8.08

9.46

7.83

Table 3. Comprehension score

LANGUAGE

American L1

Dutch L2

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

Comp. Sci.
n = 24

Humanities
n = 24

Comp. Sci.
n = 24

Humanities
n = 24

Nonviolated Syntax
CL

11.42

9.25

16.42

14.33

ST

9.50

10.83

17.33

13.58

Violated Syntax

10.04

9.79

19.56

14.04

Table 4. Reading times in minutes
Note: Reading times relate to the whole text, not only to the 10 violated or nonviolated sentences.

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BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE

American L1
n = 48

Dutch L2
n = 48

TOTAL

%*

Computer Science Majors (Experts) n = 48

42

32

74

15%

Humanities Majors (Novices) n = 48

35

72

107

22%

TOTALS

77

104

179

PERCENTAGES*

16%

21%

Table 5. Number of errors in syntactic structuring of 10 sentences produced by 96 subjects
* Percentages of sentences containing errors

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American

Dutch

% OF

Comp.Sci. n = 24

Humanit. n = 24

Comp.Sci. n = 24

Humanit. n = 24

TOTAL

TOTAL ERRORS

MAX # OF ERRORS

240

240

240

240

Major Errors

23

21

20

53

117

65%

Word Order

0

0

2

2

4

2%

Non-parallelism

9

2

3

5

19

10%

Minor Error

4

4

4

12

24

13%

No Answer

6

9

3

0

17

9%

TOTAL # OF ERRORS

42

35

32

72

181

100%

% OF SENTENCES CONTAINING ERR'S

18%

15%

13%

30%

Table 6. Error analysis per group specified by nature of error and experimental condition

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29
The Influence of Syntactic Contrastivity on L2-L1 Translation ¹

Rik Smits
Eindhoven Technical University
Tilburg University

1. Introduction

Despite the considerable research that has been done in the field of reading in a second language and translating, much still remains unclear concerning the role of syntax² in these processes. A quite popular view (see, a.o. Ulijn, 1981, and references cited there) is that reading and translating is primarily a concept-governed process. The reader/translator builds up an interpretation on the basis of whatever conceptual information he can gather from the text under scrutiny, combined with his knowledge about both the textual and extratextual context, while making do with all but the shallowest syntactic analysis. Only if he gets into trouble with this strategy, it is claimed, syntactic aspects of the text are taken seriously into account. As a consequence, syntactic properties of the second language, and simplification thereof, should not but marginally influence the degree of difficulty of a text.

Others hold that syntactic features, such as syntactic contrastivity between the grammars of the two languages involved, do matter (e.g., Cowan, 1976).

To a considerable extent, this uncertainty, and the wavering results of experiments conducted in this field, may be attributable to the following two factors: lack of clarity about what we should understand by `syntactic phenomena', and the very strong psychological effect of insufficient mastery of the vocabulary of a second language.

To start off with the latter aspect, readers and translators may succeed quite well in attaining at least partial understanding of a text that they cannot see parts of the syntax of, either because it is distorted or because its precise features are not explicitly known to them. We are all familiar with telegraph-style, and headlines, where much of the syntax is stripped from the actual sentences. Nevertheless, we are quite capable of reconstructing the proper syntactic

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dependencies in such sentences, give or take a few remaining unresolvable ambiguities. Likewise, people confronted with text in a different, but related language can get along fairly well, to some degree, without having had any explicit instruction in the syntax of that language.

Quite differently, conscious knowledge of a very big part of the lexicon of a second language ³ is a sine qua non condition for both reading and translation. Words have to be learned explicitly prior to use, or looked up on the spot in a dictionary, or their meaning must be constructed (with the inevitable pitfalls we are all acquainted with) by consciously trying to relate them to already known words of L2, L1, or another language that the reader/translator happens to know. As a last, and risky, resort, their meaning may be guessed at.

As a result, every one of the literally countless lexical pecularities that one may come up against in a text requires a considerable and often time consuming conscious effort on the part of the reader/translator, accompanied by a keen realization of failure: again a word/phrase/expression I do not know! Syntactic phenomena, on the other hand, often seem to pass unnoticed which is not to say that they are always correctly resolved, and thus they fail many times to make any impression on the reader/translator at all. As a result, one finds the lexical aspect of reading or translating far more difficult than the syntactic aspect. And by the same token teachers, course designers, and researchers tend to consider the lexical aspect to be more important than the syntactic.

This effect is, if anything, reinforced by the other factor I mentioned: lack of clarity about what we mean by syntax. It seems that in many cases, syntax is thought of as a fairly shallow and uninteresting phenomenon having to do with ordering the words in a sentence. Sometimes, also, syntax and morphological matters are being mixed up. This is all the more pitiful, because more sophisticated grammatical theories, which have been available for some time now, may shed considerable amounts of light on otherwise murky matters.

For one thing, the quite striking difference in perception between different aspects of the reading/translating task that we have been discussing can be readily explained from a generative linguistic point of view.

The most fundamental cornerstone of Generative Linguistics is the idea that the grammar of any one language is a specific realization of a general `grammar of human language', usually called UG, short for Universal Grammar. Universal grammar is

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in fact nothing but an underspecified model of any possible grammar of a human language: it contains that which is common to all languages ⁴.It also contains a number of variables or parameters, which are not set to any specific value. UG is a biological endowment of mankind, one is born to it. Essentially, then, all that the newborn member of the language community needs to do is fill in the unspecified parameters of UG in accordance with the input he gets from his environment in order to arrive at the correct actual grammar of what is then called his or her native language⁵.

Thus, there is always quite a lot of implicit knowledge about what the syntax of a language might be structured like present in everyone. And, moreover, quite a lot is readily recognizable or inferable on the basis of fairly little input. Especially, in the case of L2 learning, if the second language in question is sufficiently closely related to L1, as is the case, for instance, with the major languages spoken in western Europe (and elsewhere), the general syntax of L2 is easily recognizable to a very high degree, and only a few adjustments need be made.

Furthermore, as strictly logical rule-driven systems, grammars have a high degree of predictability. This is part of what enables us to interpret distorted language. At any point where we may find that some grammatical information is missing (say, in headlines, or when we mishear a verb form, or when a function word is missing, or part of a sentence drowned in the noise of a passing motorbike), the number of different possibilities for patching things up is only very small, and in the majority of cases a definite and mostly correct choice is easily arrived at.

There is no such bonus where lexical semantics, or, in plainer language, `knowing the words', is involved. The relation of word forms to their referents is in principle completely arbitrary, and may arbitrarily vary from language to language. Thus, in headlines it is never the semantic information that is suppressed for brevity's sake, as, e.g., in: `X to meet Y at Z', instead of `von Weiszacker to meet Gorbatchov at Sunnyvale Summit'. Such information is, other than grammatical information, not reconstructable. When a content word is simply missing, there are an infinite number of possible choices left open. In very many cases, the context does not give enough clues for deciding upon the proper choice.

A second basic hypothesis is that language is modularily organized. That is, the different components (syntax, phonology, semantics, pragmatics, etc.) that together make up

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what we call a language are in principle independent of one another. One of the many consequences of this organization is that approximately the same information may be encoded by different modules simultaneously, creating a redundancy that is at the core of the amazing invulnerability of the linguistic system with respect to distortions. Thus, when information belonging to one of these modules is missing, the information contained in the others may still be intact, narrowing the possible choices for patching up the missing part. An obvious case is printed text, which lacks many of the phonological features of spoken language, such as intonation, as well as all non-verbal pragmatic information (e.g. gestures, suggestive glances). Nevertheless, the completeness of the morphological, syntactic, and semantic information almost always enables us to reconstruct this missing information to an amazing degree of accuracy.

Unfortunately, it is the lexical aspect of language that is most vulnerable here too. If we have the semantic information `kick-kitten-John', we can easily infer on the basis of our semantic and extralinguistic knowledge that syntactically John is likely to be the subject, kick must be the verb, and kitten the object. Syntactically, there is but one other possibility, which is easily taken into account, on the off-chance that we made the wrong choice. On the other hand the syntactic information in `John kicked [. . .] object' gives us no clue whatsoever as to the reference of that syntactic object. The context may help, but in principle, the number of candidates is literally infinite.

If the view of the organization of the language faculty outlined above is at all correct, it makes a clear prediction about the role of syntax in the process of reading/translating a second language: Syntax may pose serious problems in those cases where the syntax of L1 and L2 is different, and the information conveyed syntactically is not doubled by one of the other components. In order to test this hypothesis, a test was devised, comprising of a translation task from English (L2) to Dutch (L1), using 22 different ways of making relative constructions that have no syntactically parallel counterpart in Dutch.

2. Method

2.1 The Sample

So far, our test has been carried out with two types of users of English as a second language. Group 1 consisted of 28 university students of technical sciences or econometry, at

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different stages of their studies. Group 2 consisted of 23 students of the Maastricht School of Translation, all within 1 year from graduation.

The members of Group 1, the Naive Translators, had had no extensive formal training in either English or translating other than the normal Dutch secondary education curriculum. The Trainee Translators had done English to Dutch translating as a side-subject during the first two years of their training, a phase which for every participant had ended 1 or 2 years before the test was administered. Since then, they had been working on their main languages, a combination of two out of German, Spanish and French.

All members of both groups were native speakers of Dutch, and had no exceptional experience with English, such as could be caused by living abroad for a considerable time. Neither were there exceptionally old or otherwise atypical members among the two groups. The level of secondary education was somewhat lower in Group 2 ⁶.

2.2 Experimental Design

2.2.1 Procedure The test comprised of an English-to-Dutch translation task, which was to be carried out on the spot, just like they would do in a normal classroom situation. The tests were made strictly individually, no interaction between participants was allowed. The test form came with an extensive word list, to eliminate the influence of lexical problems. Participants were explicitly instructed to make good use of this list, but were allowed to use alternatives to the suggestions in the list where they thought fit. They were, however, also cautioned against doing so lightly.

Apart from giving a translation into correct Dutch while preserving a complete and accurate rendering of the contents of the English sentences, participants were asked to indicate the degree of difficulty of each sentence on a seven point scale.

Participants were told that the test would take approximately one hour, but that they were allowed to take a little or much time as they needed. On completing the test and handing in the results they could leave.

2.2.2 Testing Material The testing material consisted of 22 contrastive/non-contrastive pairs of sentences. Each of the contrastive sentences contained a different English relative construction which was syntactically contrastive with Dutch. That is: an word-for-word translation would inevitably yield

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an ungrammatical Dutch result. The non-contrastive sentences were identical to the contrastive ones, except for the contrastive relative construction, which had been rephrased in such a way that a syntactically parallel relative construction resulted.

The resulting 44 sentences were distributed over two versions of the test form, in such a way that each of the forms contained 11 contrastive sentences and 11 non-contrastive ones, and just one sentence out of every pair. As a consequence, every participant had to translate 11 contrastive sentences, and 11 non-contrastive ones.

With two exceptions, all the sentences used were explicitly recognizable as belonging to the register of informatics. One sentence came, in its contrastive variant, originally from a text on informatics, but in isolation did not show this. One was a sentence quoted in Quirk et al. (1972) from the Guardian.

Partly the contrastive sentences were taken from actual textbooks on informatics, partly they were made for the occasion. The non-contrastive variants were all derived from the contrastive sentences by rewriting the contrastive part.

2.2.3 Scoring In scoring, five different types of mistakes were distinguished:

First, lexical mistakes that were clearly limited to just one word were not critical for the contrastive/non-contrastive distinction, and didn't clearly influence understanding of the rest of the sentence. Often these were simple misreadings, or maybe slips of the pen. An example is the adjective internal, which once got translated as international, and once as enormous. Or the verb seem, which was translated sometimes as Dutch bli jken (turn out to be) instead of the correct li jken.

Second, some mistakes that were made bore no relation to the English source text, or to translation difficulties, but were just poor Dutch.

Third, there were non-critical omissions: mostly adverbial adjuncts like always, or e.g. the word December in the phrase in December 1985.

All these mistakes were duly noted, but otherwise disregarded.

The fourth type of mistakes were syntactic mistakes in the neutral parts of the sentences. That is: mistakes in the `heads'

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and `tails' of the sentences, which were identical for both variants of a pair.

Next, the two types of mistake that are most central to our investigation: syntactic mistakes in the contrastive constructions, and syntactic mistakes in the complementary part of the non-contrastive variants. A contrastive construction, as well as its non-contrastive counterpart, could either be correctly rendered or not, so that, since there was never more than one relevant construction to a sentence, a simple right or wrong distinction suffices here ⁷.

Seventh, and last, there were two or three instances where the type or cause of a mistake was so unclear, that the mistake could not be attributed to any of the categories mentioned with any confidence. Luckily, these didn't occur in the critical parts of the sentences.

The result thus obtained were then subjected to a Logit analysis⁸.

3. Results

Raw scores were as follows:

group 1:
naive
translators

28

participants

mistakes in:
#

M/part

M/snt.

M/part/snt.

contr. constr.
87

3.11

3.95

.14

complement
23

.82

1.05

.04

neutral parts
56

2.00

1.27

.05

total

166

group 2:
trainee
translators

23

participants

mistakes in:
#

M/part

M/snt.

M/part/snt.

contr. constr.
91

3.96

4.14

.18

complement
32

1.39

1.45

.06

neutral parts
36

1.57

0.82

.04

total

159

Table 1. Raw scores

Scores for both sentences and participants were widely dispersed in both groups, running for the contrastive mistakes

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from 0 to 8 (out of a possible 11) per participant in Group 1, and from 2 to 7 mistakes per participant in Group 2, and from 0 to 10 (out of max. 14) mistakes per sentence in Group 1, and from 0 to 11 (out of max. 12) per sentence in Group 2.

With respect to the Logit Analysis performed on the data, three factors were taken into account: whether a sentence was among the ones containing a contrastive relative construction (C), whether the participant belonged to the group of Trainee translators (T), and whether a syntactic mistake has been made in the neutral part of a sentence (N) ⁹. Thus, we got the following data distribution, giving the number of mistakes found in the contrastive parts and their complements in non-contrastive sentences in relation to the total number of utterances which satisfied the set values of the three parameters¹⁰.

unit

C

T

N

(#)

# mistakes in contr. part or complement

1

+

+

+

14

3

2

+

+

-

239

88

3

+

-

+

30

6

4

+

-

-

278

81

5

-

+

+

21

1

6

-

+

-

232

32

7

-

-

+

25

2

8

-

-

-

283

21

Table 2. Data Distribution w.r.t relevant factors

Fitting the factors gave the results in Table 3. Clearly, the factor contrastivity is very highly significant (p < .001, two-sided). Group membership is just below significance at p < .5, and the N parameter has no significance at all.

Parameter
Ua

Estimate
S.E.

%GM
-1.063
0.3324

C

-1.444
0.1683
8.58

T

-0.4191
0.1537
2.73

N

0.5576

0.3283
1.70

scale parameter taken as 1.000

Table 3: REsults of LOGIT

In other words, Contrastivity turned out to have a high

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predictive value, the other two factors did not. Further analysis showed, moreover, that factors were not correlated: filtering out the N parameter left Ua (C) and Ua (T) virtually unchanged at 8.58 and 2.82 respectively.

Last, there were no patterns to be detected other than those accounted for by our three factors, as can be seen by the low and consistent residual values in Table 4.

unit
observed
out of
fitted
residual

1

3

14

3.593

-0.3630

2

88

239
89.91
-0.2549

3

6

30

5.552

0.2107

4

81

278
78.95

0.2732

5

1

21

1.583

-0.4818

6

32

232
28.91

0.6133

7

2

25

1.272

0.6624

8
21
283
24.23
-0.6863

Table 4. Residual values, all factors fitted

4. Discussion

Since we are discussing only part of the complete experiment here, all conclusions must be tentative. Nevertheless, there is clearly one very dominant factor: contrastivity, which confirms the prediction that we were able to make on the basis of grammatical theory. Syntactic contrastivity between L1 and L2 clearly hampers the reader/translator.

Quite nicely, the results on the neutral part of the translation task had hardly any discriminatory value, indicating, considering the low absolute number of mistakes made, that the members of both groups were sufficiently proficient in English for our purpose.

In fact, what is rather more surprising is that the factor group membership only has such a small impact. One would expect people with a professional training dealing with L2 to L1 translation to do better than naive translators, even if the task at hand concerns a language not identical but closely related to the one they are actually studying. But actually, as can be seen from the raw scores, they did somewhat worse. Partly this effect might be attributable to their greater training indeed: it might be the case that they simply spot more problems, without, however, knowing how to solve

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them, and as a consequence go off on a tangent more easily.

Here, I think, we are touching the heart of the issue. When looking at the actual wrong solutions chosen we see that the strategy is the same in both groups: translate until you sink, and then just swim on as best you can (mostly by adding something of your own invention, e.g. a coordinating conjunction, or by leaving out whatever you do not know how to deal with). What members of neither group did, in general, was look back, and reconsider the structure of the sentence. In many cases that strategy would have gotten them the right solution. Obviously, the idea to look back and actually analyse the structure did not occur to them. They saw a problem, were in difficulty, but did not have the tools to deal with it. Since the problem could only be solved by considering the syntactic structure, we must conclude that they simply didn't know enough about grammar to be able to analyse a sentence to any extent.

This might seem to be a contradiction with what was said earlier on about knowledge of syntax being implicitly present in all speakers, but isn't really. A learner of a language closely related to his own can more or less pretend that the syntax of his L1 and L2 are identical. In due course he may even learn the complete syntax of L2, including those parts that differ from that of L1 without conscious effort or explicit instruction, as often happens to immigrants. A characteristic of this process is that one in some way ignores what one does not understand. However, our participants were faced with a different task. They were not allowed to ignore or start learning anything. They had to interpret sentences involving parts of the English syntax that they did not know here and now. What they needed was conscious, explicit knowledge about the structure of sentences in general (at least), in order to be able to pinpoint and isolate problems. A good understanding of the precise locus, extent, and character of the problem would have given confidence about what parts of the sentence they could depend on. Instead, it seems that the lack thereof left them emptyhanded.

Notes

1. My thanks go to all who contributed to this paper by their enthusiastic cooperation, especially to the Maastricht School of Translation, in the person of Fieke Vos.

2. In fact the term syntax, when used in a general way, might be read as grammar, since it is not just the syntactic information proper that is involved here, but

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rather the whole complex of syntactic, morphological, and, where applicable, phonological information contained in linguistic expressions. However, the test at hand focusses solely on the syntactic aspect, which is why I chose to use the term syntax throughout.

3. Or, at least, of the vocabulary of the register relevant to the reading or translating task at hand.

4. Implicit in this view is the assumption that the set of possible human languages is a proper subset of the set of all systems that might be thought to be describable by means of a grammar or rule system. That is: not everything that can be called a language is a possible human language. One might, as an illustration, perhaps think of computer languages as being languages outside the set of possible human languages. Don't forget, however, that a definition of the set of possible human languages is precisely the most basic research goal in present day theoretical linguistic research.

5. Of course, any grammar will also contain a number of unpredictable features, for instance by fossilization of constructions that are no longer part of the actual grammar, and in the choice of specific phonological forms for grammatical morphemes. The latter entail a learning task like the lexicon. Here, I will abstract away from these peripheral aspects of grammar.

6. All of the members of group 1 had a 6-year VWO (preparatory academic) background, whereas about half of the members of group 2 had done the 5-year HAVO. In terms of the English language curriculum there isn't all that much difference. In fact, the possible disadvantage for the translators in group 2 ought to be more than compensated for by their English training in the first two years of their education as translators.

7. This is not the case with the previous kinds of mistakes. Of these, there could be more than one of each type to a sentence.

8. Using GLIM 3.11, Royal Statistical Society London.

9. Since there was only one instance of two syntactic mistakes occuring in the neutral part of a sentence, the results w.r.t. the neutral part could safely be handled as binary: ok or wrong.

10. Thus, the first line of the table means that there were 14 cases found where in a contrastive sentence a mistake had been made in the neutral part by a trainee-translator, and that of those 14, 3 had a mistake in the contrastive construction as well. Line six tells us that there were 232 cases found where there was no mistake in the neutral part of a non-contrastive sentence by a trainee translator, and that of these 32 showed a mistake in the part corresponding to the contrastive part of the

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contrastive partner sentence.

References

Cowan, J.R. (1976) Reading, Perceptual Strategies and Contrastive Analysis. Language Learning, 26/1, 95-109.

Quirk et al. (1972) A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman.

Ulijn, J.M. (1981) Conceptual and Syntactic Strategies in Reading a Foreign Language. Hopkins, E. and Grotjahn, R. (eds) Studies in Language Teaching and Language Acquisition. Bochum: Brockmeyer.

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30
Creating Courseware for Teaching LSP on a Multimedia Training System

Janet Atlan
University of Nancy

This paper describes research into the creation of courseware for a multimedia training system which is in the first year of a three-year program. The research is being carried out by the University of Nancy and the University of Birmingham in Great Britain; with the team in Nancy doing most of the pedagogical work for developing courseware and Birmingham doing the research on the multimedia training system. This paper will emphasize the pedagogical side of the research.

The multimedia training system (MTS) is an integrated learning environment which uses the technologies of interactive video-enhanced CAL. That is to say, computer-assisted learning is coupled with such things as video-cassettes, videodiscs, audio-cassettes, printers, etc. and the learner can more or less choose his path through the courseware by telling the computer what to do and having it give him instructions. The possibility for using many of the new teaching technologies in one system allows for maximum creativity during the courseware design phase of the project. The MTS also incorporates a knowledge base which means that the courseware designers will be able to ''teach" it things about the field they are interested in and it will be able to use these things at a later date to help the learner.

The courseware is intended for adults in a continuing education context. In Nancy, it is being developed within the CUCES (Centre Universitaire de Coopération Economique et Sociale) which is the continuing education organism of the University of Nancy. It is intended for people who already have an intermediate level knowledge of English and will eventually meet two needs: that of teaching L2 and that of teaching special content, at least at an elementary level. In the final stage of the project, the focus will shift to the training of teachers in use of this method for teaching LSP.

What is taught using CAL in this method is not necessarily something that can't be taught in a classroom. But the method will free class and teacher time for implementation and reinforcement of what has been learned. The pedagogical team in Nancy assumes computers are a good support for

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teaching languages because they allow interactive, individualized instruction and because of their ability to keep records which means that the learner's work can be followed closely.

The important question therefore is, "Why use CAL for teaching LSP?" First, there is a lack of published material for LSP (mainly because the market often is not wide enough) which leads to the necessity of creating personal materials.

Secondly, the nature and content of LSP lend themselves to CAL for several reasons. The terminology and content needs for learners of a given speciality are much easier to define for teaching purposes than general language content. Furthermore, teaching LSP implies a learning-centred approach which means that the term "Language for Special Purposes" is an approach and not just an end product. Decisions as to the content and method should ideally be based on the learner's reasons for learning; so a CAL approach, which lends itself to individualised, interactive instruction, would seem to be a viable method for teaching LSP ¹. Finally, the teaching of LSP has a social as well as a linguistic aim. We want to improve our students' language skills but we also want them to be able to function and compete in their own special field. The texts used should be about something relevant to the learner, but there often seems to be a conflict between content and form in LSP textbooks with the content being arranged haphazardly or artificially to suit the chosen presentation of form². Here again, a CAL approach can be designed more flexibly than a text book and can meet the need for relevant material from the point of view of both content and form.

The third reason for using CAL for teaching LSP is that the final goal of this project is to use the MTS and courseware for training other teachers. One big problem for teachers of LSP is that they often don't feel qualified to teach what they are expected to teach in the specialist field. A fairly easy to use, content-free method will help such teachers prepare their teaching more confidently. Especially since the system is designed to be used with a minimum of training such as would be needed for learning how to use language labs, VCR's or almost any pedagogical material.

There are two aims to this courseware. The first (Unit 1) is to create courseware which will teach the learner how to approach the study of a technical text autonomously. Learners of LSP are likely to have limited language resources, especially if their only interest in L2 is simply getting through masses of literature on their particular subject. And getting

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through masses of literature means knowing how to go about reading a text efficiently. It is important to help learners maximise their limited language resources by teaching them knowledgeable text-handling. This means learning such things as how to use pictures, graphs, titles, etc. to identify the subject of a text and using such things as grammar and style to understand a technical text. Teaching these techniques is something which is high in time and paper consumption when done in a classroom situation. It is also something which learners could, if given the proper materials, do on their own and at their own rate.

The second goal of this courseware (Unit 2) is to give an introduction to the language used for specialist purposes. In this case, the field of informatics has been chosen with emphasis on two components of this field: information technology and computer assisted production management (CAPM). One section of Unit 2 of the course will be described in this paper.

The material used in the courseware is generic rather than specific. This has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it is quicker and probably more authentic to use generic material (although some of it does come from textbooks written for informatics language teaching as is the case with the examples used in this paper). On the other hand, it is not always easy to find exactly the material needed. For instance, for this courseware a generic videodisc on informatics which could be used for creating exercises has not yet been found.

Unit 2 is divided into chapters and chapters are divided into lessons (Fig. 1). Of course, the different lessons have content related to the chapter headings. The segments also represent a given set of related contents, however these contents are more closely related to each other than those making up the various lessons. Also, even though the contents of the segments are related, their vocabulary might be quite distinct. There is no set path to be followed through the segments within a lesson. Segments are made up of vocabulary blocks, grammar blocks, and text blocks (Fig. 2). Vocabulary blocks within a segment consists of very short texts containing similar vocabulary and similar content. Grammar blocks contain different exercises dealing with a single grammatical point which will help weaker students through the vocabulary text blocks. The text block contains a longer, more difficult text with content similar to the vocabulary blocks and with exercises designed to put into practice what has already been learned about approaching a technical text. This text will be found in the documents accompanying the courseware rather than in the computer program itself since it is not convenient

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to put long texts into the computer. Here again, as the arrows indicate, the pathway followed through the segments is up to the learner.

Fig. 3 shows three examples of vocabulary blocks for a given segment to show what is meant by similar content and similar vocabulary. Here, there is vocabulary which is repeated from one text to another and which is pointed out in the different exercises. The different forms of the answers in the boxes indicate the different forms the computer would be programmed to accept as correct because any of these forms would indicate that the learner has used the structure of the text to localize the answer.

Now let's consider how a learner is meant to make his way through the courseware. First, Units 1 and 2 are considered to be separate entities, which means that a learner would not be required to complete Unit 1 before going on to Unit 2. However, a learner who tried to attack the text blocks in Unit 2 without doing the corresponding chapter in Unit 1 would be reminded that he had not done this chapter and sent back to do it. Especially if data from the knowledge base suggests that such backtracking is necessary for this particular part. Most likely a learner would end up sandwiching chapters of Unit 1 between chapters of Unit 2.

In Unit 2, the first chapter should be done first, but after that it would be up to the learner to choose which order he would do the chapters in. Within a chapter, lessons could be done in any order; and, as we' have already seen, the learner may choose the order in which he does the segments within a lesson. The vocabulary, grammar and text are not graded according to difficulty. The contents are simply arranged topically. And the computer would be watching over what the learner does and suggesting paths to follow according to learner response.

Two other important elements will be incorporated in the courseware and will be at the learner's disposal throughout the course. The first is a "scratch-screen" which will allow him to take notes on important points and will be printed out at the end of a working session. There will also be a French-English, English-French dictionary which will contain all the vocabulary in the courseware and will have a section where the learner may add his own vocabulary as needed.

Interactivity is an important concept in the design of this courseware and although learner interactivity has been the major consideration up to here, it must be remembered that the term "interactivity" should apply to all users of the

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system learners and teachers alike. A very important aspect of this courseware is the type of interactivity which is achieved. There are several approaches to interactivity depending on the type of structure one is aiming for (game, simulation, pedagogical program, etc.) and what type of intervention one expects from the user.

The structure for the multimedia courseware is a pedagogical program, which is the form that lends itself to the subject matter. And the interactivity expected from the user is of the reactive type. This means that the computer program remains in command of the chain of events. But once the user has reacted to a suggestion from the program, the computer takes this action into account in order to create a new context for the following suggestion. This applies at either the level of the teacher creating his course or the learner following the course. Reactive interaction assumes fairly high motivation on the part of the user and actions which may be either reflex or deliberate. A reflex action is a reaction to the computer's request for an answer while a deliberate action means telling the computer which way one wants it to go. Nonetheless, the consequences of an action remain predetermined by the program ³.

Fig. 4 shows an approach to interactivity which illustrates why MTS courseware allows greater possibility for genuine interactivity. This illustration uses three types of pedagogical materials and two levels of interaction. The materials are standard LSP textbooks, standard CAL courseware and MTS courseware. The levels of interactivity are that of interaction between the author of the courseware, the teacher of the course and the learner; and that of interaction between the teacher and the pedagogical materials.

It can be seen at the first level of interactivity that textbook LSP and standard CAL only allow two-way interaction between the teacher and the learner. Indeed, standard CAL may even be more limiting than textbook LSP as it can eliminate the classroom situation. MTS courseware, on the other hand, leaves way for feedback to the author from both the teacher and the learner, thus creating possibility for complete interaction. The second level of interactivity illustrates the teacher's position vis-à-vis standard textbooks and CAL and MTS courseware. Here again it can be seen that the MTS courseware allows a teacher much more flexibility and creativity which are two very important characteristics of quality teaching in LSP.

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Notes

1. See Hutchinson and Waters, chapter 3, for a discussion of a learning-centred approach.

2. See Hutchinson and Waters, chapter 8, for a discussion on the need for relevance in syllabus design.

3. See Rotenberg for more on structure and types of interactivity.

References

Hutchinson, T. and Waters, A. (1987) English for Specific Purposes: A Learning-centered Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mullen, N.D. and Brown, P.C. (1984) English for Computer Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Examples in Fig. 3 used with kind permission of the publisher.

Rotenberg, M-F. (1985) Méthodologie de conception et de réalisation de produits audio-visuels interactifs. Bulletin de `IDATE, no 20 (July 1985), 115-133.

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EXAMPLE OF UNIT STRUCTURE

Figure 1.

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Figure 2.

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Figure 3.

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Figure 4.

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31
The Trojan Horse, or the Terminological Ambush: A Pragmatic Demonstration of the Importance of the Correct Handling of LSP Elements in LGP Translation

Jennifer Draskau
University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen School of Economics

1. Introduction

In this paper it is my intention to demonstrate the importance of the accurate translation of LSP elements, not only, as might be expected, in a technical manual or legal text, but also, and specifically, in a children's novel.

LSP elements regularly occur in works classifiable as ''general fiction", both adult and juvenile, and their occurrence is often deliberate, representing conscious choices on the part of the author; on the translator of literature the presence of such elements makes demands comparable to those made by the translation of "LSP texts" on the specially-trained LSP translator. This implies that the translation of any text type at all may require of the translator an awareness of the mechanisms and problems germane to LSP.

The example selected for study will be examined here for the main types of mistranslation, especially in connection with LSP, and the effect of such errors on the reader. In conclusion, I shall state what I believe to be the reason for the persistence of such errors, and why mistakes in LSP and terminology are so damaging to the T(arget) T(ext) as a whole.

1.1 What Purpose is Served by the Introduction of LSP Elements Into a Work of Fiction?

LSP elements may principally fulfill two purposes in accordance with author's intent:

a) They are used for stylistic effect, to promote interest and variety, and to enhance verisimilitude. They may, moreover as in the examples considered here be employed for purposes of characterization and to illustrate character development.

b) more specifically, they may be used to enhance the appeal

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of the text for the enthusiast or expert, by obtaining his interest and commanding his respect: this encourages readers' identification with the characters and involvement with the plot. Besides ensuring precision and accuracy, the correct use of LSP serves the secondary, didactic or informative purpose, of increasing the understanding and knowledge of less well-informed readers.

1.2 What Strategy Should the Translator Adopt in Order to Find his way in the Terminological Jungle of an Unfamiliar Field?

Three principal courses of action are open to the translator. He will probably require to follow each of them at some stage in his work. These strategies are those habitually followed by any conscientious LSP translator when confronted with either an unfamiliar subject field, or a higher level of specialization than that to which the translator is accustomed. That is, the translator may:

consult experts and (if at all possible) the author, especially in cases where the author is conversant with the T(arget) L(anguage).

consult special dictionaries, thesauri, and (especially illustrated) reference works of all kinds.

immerse himself in the literature pertaining to the special field, just as a good journalist on special assignment does, familiarising himself with its preoccupations, concepts and conditions, so that both terms and attitudes become meaningful to him.

2. The Concrete Examples are taken from "kate FÅr En VÆddelØbshest", 1986

2.1 The Translator's Situation

The translator was a University-trained English-language graduate experienced as both translator and teacher of translation, literary stylistics and translation evaluation to senior students at a commercial high school which trains specialist translators and interpreters. At his disposal he had several bilingual experts. Bibliographical resources were also readily available.

2.2 Text Type of the S(ource) T(ext)

The text-type is common-core narrative fiction, aimed at a juvenile literate non-specialist audience. Its principal aim is to

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entertain, although as with the bulk of fiction written by adults for children it has a secondary didactic purpose relating to ethics and to information. The text is of a type likely to appeal mainly to young girls, the main protagonist (and narrator) being a young girl, and the nature of the hobby described horse-riding appearing generally to hold more appeal for girls than for boys.

There occur throughout the text LSP elements often accompanied by explanations and definitions, and others, not so accompanied, requiring a "hobbyman's" information level.

2.3 Stylistic, Communicative and Didactic Effects of the Deployment Of Lsp Elements in St

The protagonist's psychological and social development run parallel to her growing involvement with the world of horses and her subsequent integration into an initially unfamiliar milieu. The negative, alienated standpoint of the earlier chapters, where no equestrian terms are known or accepted, evolves through dawning consciousness and hesitant appreciation of the subject field and its preoccupations, maturing to concern, awareness and sympathy, and finally to enthusiastic commitment; these developments are expressed partly in the protagonist's increasing ability to handle the newly-acquired conceptual and terminological apparatus. This social integration, typified by the development of enthusiasm for the new hobby, here seen in terms of linguistic production, may be expressed schematically (see Annex).

Initial stage: Hostility, scepsis, insecurity, ignorance of the special field. Linguistic means: Pejoratively loaded language, deliberately clumsy and inept expressions ("their heads tied up with ropes and chains") (see Annex, p. 33. The page numbers refer to pages in the Danish version [Kate får en væddeløbshest]). Contrast effected with the unemotional accuracy of Anita's reply. E.g. "stench" "hit you in the teeth" ''brutes" "slop" "creatures" contrasted with the expert explanation, and the correct use of the terms "loose-box" and "stall". Here Anita's expressions MUST be correct but one is incorrect in the translation...

35 "Dragged it off" should be the derogatory "slæbte afsted med den" instead of the neutral "trak den ud".

In 72, the expert jargon of the veterinary surgeon, "Carla" in the English, "Alice" in the Danish version: "right on form" "full of mettle" "chestnut" and the favourably-loaded eulogistic "beauty" are contrasted with the protagonist's disgruntled ignorance "conker-coloured", "splodge" "daub"

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"romantically" (ironic) and "boring".

Intermediate stage: By 78b, the protagonist, Kate, has assimilated the term "chestnut" in place of her consciously grotesque alternative "conker-coloured". In Danish, the term "fuks" would be required, in place of the amateurish "kastanjebrun hest".

This terminological development missed by the translator is in ST parallelled by the gradual elimination of the alienating inverted commas round proper names of horses ("Lulu" -> Lulu) and pronominal shift from "it" to "he", "she" when describing the animals. In the ST this is systematic and organic, whereas in the TT it is haphazard, chaotic and consequently meaningless.

Final stages: The acquisition of the terminology is almost complete. Thus while in 63 Kate may call a "grey" "en grå hest", by 88, the proper term, "skimmel", should have replaced it. The TT fails to differentiate, and the point is lost. Kate undergoes a development. Other characters in the book possess a higher, though more static, level of information and select more specialized expressions in keeping with their situation. This is essential to the characterization, but the translation omits it. For example, in the interchange between the two veterinary surgeons (129).

horseman's jargon: 35a, 72, 78a, 106, 113, 118a, 118b, 135, 161, 164

racing jargon: 71a, 71b, 80, 81, 88b, 88c, 89, 123, 128, 129, 135, 157

horseman's LSP: 62, 63a, 68, 72, 78b, 82, 88a, 90, 98, 105, 118b, 121, 138, 141, 148, 151, 156, 158, 184, 188

3. Some Principal Types of Error and Possible Strategies for its Elimination

3.1 Terminological Error Ascribable to Ignorance of the Special Field: Contextual Evidence May Assist the Translator at Text Level

e.g. 71a: The racing silks were pretty (= the jockey's clothing)

* "silkebåndene" (translator possibly is misled here by the coloured ribbons or rosettes awarded in other types of equestrian event but in racing solely in special amateur events, thus quite incorrect here. This confusion is borne out by translator's constant use of "stævne" for "race meeting". "Stævne" is never used of races, whether trotting or flat

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racing.)

148 a gaudy figure in pink and purple racing silks "farverige jockeytøj". (Correctly translated. A clear case of contextual disambiguation.)

150 similarly to 148. But the translator should now have been able to back-check and correct 78a, in the light of his newly-acquired hind-sight.

3.2 One-to-one Terms: Dictionaries

Many terms, for instance "chestnut" (of horse) (Da: "fuks") and "nobble" ("lave fiksfakserier med væddeløbshest for at forhindre den i at vinde") are to be found in the most basic school dictionary available to Danish students of English, Gyldendal's "lille røde'', as it is popularly known.

3.3 Borrowed Terms

Unfamiliarity with the concepts of the field, however, means that despite the rather full explanation offered by even this least pretentious of dictionaries, the translator settles for another English borrowing in his translation of Eng: "nobble" Da: "dope" and "doping", Eng: "doping tests" being translated "opiumsprøver" (80). In an "imported" special field such as racing, with its superimposition of an English-oriented system of concepts and terms, the relationship between the English and the local terms is intricate and complex. Da: "dope" so clearly betrays its origins that a Danish translator encountering in an English ST, not "dope", but "nobble", should be on his guard at once. To translate such a term by another term from the semantic set is courting disaster: it should go without saying that the terms are unlikely to be fully synonymous. In the specific case, a cursory reading of the sports section of a Danish daily newspaper would have revealed that whereas the dictionary gives "to nobble" as "to prevent an animal from winning, through sabotage of some kind", "doping" customarily has the aim of winning by unfair (medical) means through the illegal administration of painkillers, stimulants, "speed-up" drugs, etc. The two terms, far from being synonymous, are in fact almost antonyms!

3.4 Over-translation

The translator unfamiliar with the field overtranslates through his anxiety not to adopt false friends, and though his inability to abbreviate. Thus "paddock", "canter" and the calque "brække ned" for "break down", are shunned. Instead, the translator juggles unhappily with "indhegningen",

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"galopere", and the involuntarily comical "bryde sammen" (more usual of machinery and persons prone to hysterical outbursts than of racehorses!). The reluctance to adopt accepted abbreviations leads to over-explicitness, stilted dialogue and even tautology (36a, 118a, 152.)

3.5 Idioms

Idioms bait the classic translator trap, and the examples here are no exception: both the LSP-related (72, 81) and the general (75, 77, 88c, 137) indicate insufficient contact with colloquial SL. In 75 and 88c, the translator has been influenced by the special field to distort a normal idiom, suspecting an LSP application, where, in point of fact, the phrase is simply an LSP-derived expression current in general speech and in informal writing.

3.6 Conceptual Errors

Most serious are, however, the errors which result from a failure to establish a working knowledge of the system of concepts of the special field.

1, 158

or the hierarchical logical system (1)

superordinate term:

subordinate terms:

3.7 LSP Phraseology

LSP phraseology presents problems. Background reading on

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the subject of racing in Danish would have yielded such useful expressions as "gå løb", "løbe galopløb", and "løbe væddeløb", ''trække til start", etc., instead of the ad hoc inventions which mar the TT.

3.8 False Convergence

"Convergence" in translation describes a situation where the TL has one term for several terms in the SL. "False convergence" arises where a translator fails to differentiate between several terms in the ST and translates them all by the same term in TT,

* this unfortunate neologism, presumably created by analogy with Da: "racekatte" (pedigree cats), is not only inaccurate but is perceived as absurd by horsemen.

3.9 Other Examples of Errors Arising through Ignorance of the Special Field and its LSP

ao, 98 For hacking (n. a hack = a riding horse or a country ride)

* "kørehest". (Thoroughbred racehorses have very little aptitude to pull carts.) Correct translation: "ridehest", "skovturshest", "motionshest". Term could have been easily acquired by reading small ads under "Ridning" in local newspaper.

88c a length * "en banelængde" instead of "en hestelængde". (Considered hilarious by jockeys who read the translation. This would mean a horse won while the rest of the field were still at the starting gate!)

90 the going was hard * "det gik hårdt til" instead of "banen var hård", i.e. the ground was dry and hard for the horses to run on.

116a I squeezed Sheik with my legs and sent him on.

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"You walk him now," said Joe. = * "sporede ham til at løbe videre" Nu kan Du godt slå over i gang" sagde Joe.

"Spordre" is quite out of place. Kate is not yet experienced enough to ride with spurs. The term for "walk" should be "skridt", and the phrase "tage ned i skridte'' should be used.

134 The horse pointed his toe. * "hesten stod med det beskadigede ben let bøjet" instead of "strakt frem". (In cases of injury to the leg, a horse avoids bending the injured limb, unlike a dog. It stretches it out to take the weight off it. The image conjured up by TT is the exact opposite and to a horseman, incomprehensible.)

4. Is This Kind of Mistranslation of LSP Perceived as Undesirable by Readers?

Feedback on the TT from two groups of readers, a) experts and b) non-experts (each group comprising approximately 25 persons), indicated that group a) (experts) had a low tolerance level towards mistranslations of LSP, which they perceived as irritating, distracting and at times absurd. They were exasperated at having to redo the translator's job and substitute correct terms for mistranslations. Although, in the case of LSP elements, it was fairly easy for them to do this, it destroyed their concentration on the book as reading matter and became a rather irritating brain teaser, on a par with the modern family parlour game "spot the howlers in TV subtitles", which are often less damaging, as the visual element reinforces the verbal content. A recent interchange in the television series "Makepeace and Dempsey" gave the Danish translator problems. Dempsey, the New York cop and Makepeace, the very-British upper-crust policewoman, who have been forced to work together, are discussing haggis.

Dempsey: What IS haggis? Makepeace: It's offal.

Dempsey: I asked you what it IS, not how it tastes.

Makepeace (indignant and uncomprehending): I just told you. It's offal.

Now, this intercultural, intralingual mini-joke hangs on the differences between British and American pronunciation. The New Yorker pronounces as "offal" what Makepeace would pronounce "awful". The Danish translator panicked, threw in his hand and wrote "rædsomt" in both cases; resulting in complete inanity.

Now, this kind of capitulation is at times inevitable and the

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interchange was not organic in the sense that the LSP elements in our examples are, although it did serve a communicative purpose in the source dialogue by pointing up the differences between British and American which constitute a recurring leitmotif in this television series. In our examples, the damage done by mistranslation is much more far-reaching: it destroys part of the fabric from which the novel seeks to create its particular cosmos, banishing the illusion and disrupting the inner organization.

This deficiency was perceived by the experts in group a). The non-experts in group b), with their lower level of specialized information, did not perceive the mistranslations as damaging to the same extent. Yet this is scarcely reassuring, since the inference is that where such readers might have acquired correct terminology and information about the special field, through their uncritical acceptance of the distortions occurring in TT they have stored inaccurate information.

5. If Translators have at their Disposal all the Types of Resources Mentioned Above (1.2) Consultants, Reference Works, Background Literature Pertaining to the Specialism Why Does the Mistranslation of LSP Elements Nonetheless Persist?

The point of view expressed by the translator in the specific case, taxed with the feedback from group a), is typical: he had not consulted specialists or background literature because he was unaware that he had a problem! (checking proved that basic tools such as a simple bilingual dictionary had not been consulted either, as the examples with "chestnut" and "nobble", quoted above, clearly indicate.)

That "literary" translators may regard terminological accuracy as unimportant and the impatience of the well-informed reader with LSP errors as pernickety, is clearly expressed by the translator's dismissive concluding remark: "All these horsey terms are really only important to fanatics. I'm just interested in translating. . ."

6. Why "The Trojan Horse or the Terminological Ambush"?

All translation, like all original work, is creative and therefore subjective. However, mistranslation of LSP elements is

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insidious and damaging, on two counts:

Firstly, LSP, unlike LGP, is to a high degree empirically assessable, and capable of providing conceptual equivalence in translation.

Secondly, the hobbyman is not to be fobbed off with the slap-dash technique of the "inspired guess". The "near-miss" is fatal in LSP and it can, moreover, be detected without difficulty by the reader with only a basic knowledge of the special field. The readers of the example here were typically 10 year-old girls whose equestrian knowledge is derived from one hour a week at a local riding school. Even these young readers could pinpoint mistranslations and suggest improvements, whereas they could not have evaluated LGP elements with anything like the same degree of accuracy.

7. Conclusion

This experience suggests to me that a greater respect for LSP is required from all who translate. Its absence is easily detected by even relatively "naive" audiences, and such errors cast suspicion on the TT as a whole. It might be an excellent idea to demand that all professional translators, whatever their special areas of operation, should undergo a broad-spectrum training in LSP and contrastive terminology, to equip them better for the tasks which their careers may lay upon their shoulders.

References

Draskau, J.K. The Reluctant Rider. Unpublished manuscript.

(1986) Kate får en Væddeløbshest. Translated by lektor, cand. mag. Finn Messell (Handelshøjskolen i København, Institut for Engelsk). Copenhagen: Schønberg.

Annex

For reasons of space, this annex has been reduced by some 80%. The remaining 20% featured here is intended to serve as an illustration only of the quality of the translation, with particular regard to LSP-related elements.

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Development of Character of Protagonist

1.

(p. 33)

Hostility, scepsis towards the special field:
- pejoratively loaded language,
contrasted with hobbyman's
terminologically correct, controlled
statements.

2.

(p. 78a)

Dawning consciousness and increased
involvement:
- Has acquired some terms, e.g. chestnut
- Pronouns: It -> he, she (of horses)
- Inverted commas removed, e.g. "Lulu" ->
Lulu

3.

(p. 88 on)

Involvement and commitment, correct
terminology, favourable loading, etc.

Examples of Mistranslation

We found ourselves at the Woodhead Riding Stables. The stench hit you in the teeth as soon as you opened the door. Inside there were lots of horses standing in rows. I saw they had their heads tied up with ropes and chains, which I thought was sensible, instead of letting the brutes slop about all over the place and nip people when and where they chose. I'd have felt even better about things if the creatures had had leg irons, too.

"Now, that's the right way to keep horses," I remarked to Anita.

"Why don't you tie Sheik up like that?"

"A horse has a much better time in a loose-box," Anita replied.

"The Riding School has some of its horses in stalls because it saves work and space, that's all."

33 Man kunne næsten smage stanken så snart man åbnede døren. Inde i stalden stod der masser af heste på række. Jeg så, at deres hoveder var bundet med reb og kæder, hvad jeg fandt fornuftig nok, i stedet for at lade dem gå løst rundt og bide folk når og hvor de havde lyst. Jeg ville have følt mig endnu bedre tilpas, hvis de også havde haft benlænker på! "Ja, se det er den rigtige måde at have heste på," bemærkede jeg til Anita. "Hvorfor binder du ikke Sheik på den måde?" "En hest har det meget morsommere i en boks", svarede Anita, ''rideskolen har nogle af sine rideheste i stald, fordi det sparer arbejde og plads, det er det hele."

35b Then she untied the pony and dragged it off to the ring in the paddock.

Så løsnede hun ponyen og trak den ud på ridebanen i indhegningen.

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71a There were some nice flowers, and the racing silks were pretty, but I thought the horses were badly behaved.

. . . silkebåndene var kønne. . .

72 "They're right on form, and full of mettle," added Carla. "Look at that one, isn't he a beauty that chestnut?" She pointed at a big conker-coloured horse with a little splodge of white hairs on his forehead, what horsey people romantically call a star, more like a daub of white paint. Anita and Carla were studying the catalogue, arguing about boring pedigrees.

"Og de fleste af dem er i topform, og parate til at gøre deres bedste", tilføjede Alice. "Se på den der, er den ikke smuk den kastanjebrune?" Hun pegede på en kastanjefarvet hest med en lille klat hvide hår i panden, det man blandt hestefolk romantisk kalder en stjerne, selvom det egentlig ikke ligner en stjerne meget mere en klat maling. Anita og Alice stod bare og studerede kataloget og diskuterede kedelige raceheste.

78b The chestnut scrambled to his feet

Med en kraftanstrengelse kom den kastanjebrune hest på benene.

80 Carla was called for several times, to carry out doping tests

Alice blev tilkaldt flere gange for at tage opiumsprøver

88c "They put lead in the saddlecloth flaps to slow up a good horse so everyone gets a fair crack of the whip. A couple of pounds of lead means a handicap of a whole length."

"De anbringer blyvægte i saddelklapperne for at gøre en hurtig hest langsommere, så alle får et pænt rap af pisken. Et par pund bly betyder en handicap på en hel banelængde."

90 "Bearcat broke down during exercise. If they'd given him time, his leg might have mended if not for racing, at least for hacking. He knew he'd break down, especially if the going was hard."

"Bearcat brød sammen engang under en træning. Hvis de havde givet den tid, så ville dens ben nok være kommet sig

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måske ikke så den kunne bruges som væddeløbshest, men i det mindste som kørehest. Han vidste den ville bryde sammen, særligt hvis det det gik hårdt til."

106 "Nobody paid me to nobble your horse. I just led him into the paddock."

"Der er ikke nogen, der har betalt mig for at dope Deres hest. Jeg førte ham bare ud på sadelpladsen."

116a I squeezed Sheik with my legs and sent him on. "You walk him now," said Joe.

Jeg klemte benene om Sheik og sporede ham til at løbe videre. "Nu kan Du godt slå over i gang," sagde Joe.

b paddock indhegningen (fold)

118 felt filtunderlag (filt)

134 The horse pointed his toe, taking his weight on the other three legs.

Hesten stod med det beskadige ben let bøjet. . . 137 "There are no guarantees in medicine. He may never get better."

"Der er ingen garanti for, at medicinen virker, det kan være, at han aldrig bliver bedre..."

158 We bandaged Morning Sun's legs for the box ride. Although he was impatient and charged up the ramp, he was no problem to box. I rode in the back of the horsebox with him.

Vi viklede bandager om M.S.'s ben, før han skulle med transportvognen. Selvom han var uålmodig og for op ad rampen, var det ikke noget problem at få ham i boksen. Jeg kørte sammen med ham bag i transportvognen.

Note: han den, pronominal discrepancy illogically alternated in TT.

184 The horse rolled in the paddock

han rullede rund i indhegningen

(rullede sig. . .folden)

IV. COMPUTERS AND LSP

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32
Machine Translation and a Typology of Texts

Juan C. Sager
The University of Manchester Institute of Science and
Technology

A basic requirement of a conference paper is that it should contain at least one new idea. This idea should then, hopefully, provide an impetus for new developments in teaching, research or industrial applications. In our field this is unlikely to be a spectacular invention, a new cure, or a patentable industrial process; in linguistics we have to content ourselves with new insights, a reinterpretation of a theory, or even a reclassification of known elements which throw new light on our work.

The central idea of my paper is that I hold machine translation to be a process of conversion of natural language texts into texts expressed in an artificial language, i.e. the kind of language only a machine can produce. This, I contend, is neither a truism nor necessarily a negative conclusion on the possible success of machine translation. Quite the contrary, I want to explore the consequence of this assertion for the design of machine translation systems and in the process indicate new areas of research for LSP.

Introduction

The creation of Computational Linguistics (CL) as a separate discipline has upset the existing balance between theoretical and applied linguistics, introduced an industrial dimension into applied linguistics, and obliged us to re-examine our attitudes to a number of issues in research, teaching and training.

In its beginning CL responded to two trends in modern linguistics. On the one hand there was the effort to introduce more scientific rigor into the conventional philologies. On the other there was the irresistible attraction of the computer which invades all aspects of our lives, parallelled by the search of computer science for ever new fields of application. These two motivations, one internal to linguistics, and the other external, combined to produce the new discipline of CL and innovations of such range and impact that we can already

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speak of a whole new industry which develops language and linguistic tools together with computing services.

These two motivations also show the direction in which CL is moving. At the outset, CL was considered purely in terms of theoretical linguistics. (CL helped to formalise linguistic facts into a rule system for the generation of linguistic units which would confirm the correctness of the linguistic rules which had been postulated.) This tendency continues with ever new and more complex grammatical theories. At the same time CL techniques which had been evolved for theoretical purposes found industrial applications. The first applications were made in information science with bibliographical databases, library catalogues, indexing of articles from scientific journals, etc. In all these cases one was dealing with isolated natural language forms, as, e.g. keywords in indices or titles of articles which required minimal linguistic operations in the computer. In the last ten years we advanced in the formalisation of linguistic description to enable us to analyse full natural language texts, which, after all, is the very basis of using the computer as a tool in our handling of natural language. In order to advance in applied CL we have to exploit existing research in applied linguistics especially in pragmatics and linguistics of special languages. Simultaneously we are witnessing a re-orientation of traditional applied linguistics to include techniques now available from CL.

While CL is advancing as a discipline, we can already see the results of this research being applied to everyday problems which so far have escaped the attention of traditional academic linguistics. The language industries are developing at such a pace that academies may be hard to put to keep abreast in research. In Europe industry is more advanced than universities, and there are few universities, at least in Europe which have kept pace with the progress made by software firms. Most universities are now consumers of lingware, not producers and it needed government intervention to provide for basis research facilities in universities.

We can demonstrate this development of CL which has changed so many habits and traditional divisions in linguistics by the example of machine translation. For this demonstration I adopt the role of a linguistic engineer who identifies, defines and solves linguistic communication or information problems. For this task the engineer needs a solid theoretical foundation, a deep understanding of the different ways of tackling problems and above all a great flexibility in applying a variety and combination of methods and techniques in order to produce solutions to the identified problems. He also needs

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regular contacts with the industrial world which is faced with linguistic problems. This engineer is different from the traditional linguistic in that he does not work in isolation. He needs a team of collaborators because the complexity of the problems is such that in most cases they require a thorough analysis and a series of combined solutions which can affect the psychology of the people involved, their formation, the creation of new skills, modes of communication, methods of working and even trade union conflicts.

Examples

A few examples from our working environment will illustrate the function and work of linguistic engineering.

1. Canada is a bilingual country and therefore needs a bilingual official dictionary of the languages spoken and officially acknowledged in the country. But who is to produce this dictionary? and by what methodology? when the existing lexicographical centres for French and English respectively are geographically a few thousand miles apart and ideologically perhaps just as remote. The solution we proposed was based on the principle of a common lexical database which could be accessed and worked on by both linguistic communities independently, and by a third, coordinating team. Since at the same time Canadian English and Canadian French have to maintain contact with the rest of the French and English speaking world, there is also a need for control of what is exclusive Canadian usage which can be carried out by yet other teams.

2. European Community legislation provides for equal competition in public works and services contracts. But how can a Spanish building contractor successfully bid for a contract in Belgium if he does not know local building regulations. Even if he can get them he cannot read them. The fact that the tenders are published in all Community languages is therefore of only limited use. Our Spanish builder needs access to multilingual factual databases in which he can read about materials available locally, particular requirements about test procedures and other forms of quality control. Most existing databases have one language, sometimes a second. It is therefore important to create multilingual access to databases and multilingual replies to queries. How this is to be done is currently being investigated at our Centre.

3. Europe wants to export to Japan. One of the obstacles is the lack of translators into Japanese. Most machine translation systems need a translator to control the machine output. Such

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systems do not really solve the problems since there are not enough translators even for this work. What is called for is therefore a translation system that does not need a human translator. Since human intervention is still considered indispensable, a system can be designed which instead of relying on a translator relies on the `writer' of a text, who should know better than anybody else what he wants to say, and should therefore be in the best position to disambiguate the parts of the text the machine cannot interpret unequivocally. The writer can then be prompted by the machine to modify his text to such an extent that it can be analysed without ambiguitites. A very clear text, in fact a text which a machine can interpret, is also a technically optimal text and in this way two problems are solved at one stroke. The original text is clear and comprehensible. If the Japanese target language text needs adjustments, this can be carried out by a native Japanese speaker, who is easier to find than a translator. We have designed such a system, created a prototype and are now engaged in the commercialisation of the system together with our industrial partner.

Machine Translation and text Production

Natural Language Artificial Language

Machine translation in its turn has revolutionised translation and even more our approach to the production of texts. Until now translation was a human activity: the verb `translate' was marked for human agent. Now we have to say huiman translation in order to distinguish it from the other mode, i.e. machine translation. By accepting the existence of machine translation we also accept for the first time in human experience that we can design a machine which can produce sentences and complete texts which, in many cases, cannot be distinguished from texts produced by human beings. But we must not be deceived by such similarities, in the same way as we would be ill advised to mistake a robot for a human being. Machines which can produce sentences, and now also spoken language, clearly represent a major achievement of human ingenuity but contain at the same time the source of a serious fallacy. The antropomorphism which tempts us to speak of the computer as if it were a human being, is likely to entrap us here too.

Faced with this new way of producing texts, we must now distinguish between natural language texts as something that only human beings can produce on the basis of grammars and lexicons developed by the speech community over a period of time, and artificial language texts which result from the

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deliberately constructed grammars and lexicons human beings have devised in order to restrict and thereby to sharpen some of the functions of natural language. The traditional concept of artificial language which described such different artefacts as medical nomenclature or Esperanto now has to be extended to include systems designed for the generation of texts by computers. In terms of their functions, however, artificial languages are still considered simply an extension of the role of natural languages in the direction of greater efficiency of their classificatory and communicative role.

It is important to stress that computers can only produce texts in a variety of artificial languages consisting of the rules and meanings that we as human beings have declared and programmed. These languages are more or less accessible to direct human understanding, just like the artificial languages for direct human use, e.g. the language of botany with its fixed rules for naming objects which reveal certain relationships between the objects so named. Artificial languages are constructed to resemble natural languages which still have a metalinguistic function in the design, interpretation and the teaching of the understanding of artificial language texts.

Accepting machine translated texts as an artificial product of an artificial language which in each case resembles the natural language from which it is derived, does not, however, mean that we therefore accept a lower quality of translation; quite the contrary, the demands we normally make on artificial language texts are very high, though different from those made on natural language texts. Instead we accept that we are here dealing with a totally new form of producing texts: the conversion of a text written in a natural languages, or even another artificial languages, in to an artificial language text generated by machine. By carefully selecting the texts we submit to machine translation and by constructing machine translation systems, i.e. the grammar and dictionary of the artificial language, according to the optimal communication of the texts to be translated, we can achieve more purpose-specific texts and thus in a general manner of speaking `better translations' than human beings can produce.

The position which requires us to consider MT as a totally different product, finds an interesting echo in some new approaches to translation theory.

In order to determine the basic pragmatic condition of a source text we create the concept of primary reader to

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designate the person who is addressed by the monolingual text in the first instance. Any other reader of the text is then by definition a secondary reader, who is separated from the text by pragmatic, cultural, linguistic or other barriers. Except in the few instances where a text is only written with a view to its translation, the reader of a translation is always a secondary reader with respect to the original. The degree of adjustment required of the translation, so that the reader is considered a primary addressee, lies at the root of the distinctions of methods in classical translation theory and also informs the choice of MT techniques that can be applied in particular communicative situations.

By postulating the creation of a totally new product, we can now say that MT texts are produced for a new category of primary reader; with respect to the use of machine-produced translations, this category of reader has yet to be fully defined. A the same time readers have to be trained in ways of reading the new artificial machine translation languages that MT designers are creating.

At the beginning of MT research, people had the ambition of producing a universal machine, i.e. a machine which would translate all manner of texts. More recently people are realising that this is neither realistic nor even desirable. The reason is clear: artificial languages, whether designed for humans or computers, are purpose-specific (i.e. restricted and controlled); they are modelled on limited sets of existing texts and are therefore planned to give optimal results only with similar types of texts. Natural language is too complex for any one group of people to fully describe and concentrate into a machine. The very fact of freezing language in time, which the machine does, removes its main feature of naturalness, i.e. organic growth. Serious MT system designers now recognize that we can design purpose-specific and text-type specific systems of considerable sophistication but that we cannot design universal machines. Few are also honest enough to admit that the extension of the range of successfully translated texts is still more fortuitous than planned, because we still do not know enough about the characteristics of the special languages that represent distinct problems to the machine.

Recent translation theory has questioned the usefulness of the concept of equivalence in comparative translation studies. This view coincides with and may have been influenced by reflections on machine translation where it is more appropriate to speak of text conversion. There is little linguistic value in the contrastive comparison of a humanly produced natural language text in one language with an

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artificial language text in another produced by a machine translation system.

Even on the levels of communicative or pragmatic equivalences there is little scope for comparison because it must be assumed that the machine-produced text will have another communicative impact and therefore function. When a text is considered appropriate to a particular communicative situation and is constructed to fit such a situation, a text that has to be translated is by definition unsuitable for this new situation and therefore needs converting into a suitable form.

Types of Translation

The moment we accept the coexistence of machine and human translation we also affirm that there can be different legitimate and functionally valid types of translation for the same text. These different types of texts we globally call translations are in practice distinguished by the communicative situations in which they arise and for which the translations are required. In order to determine their usefulness for MT processing we first differentiate them according to the status they have with respect to the original.

1. Parallel texts The first situation arises when the translated text becomes a fully equal text with the original, i.e. when the text is no longer considered a dependent text and both texts become originals and co-exist in status side by side. The clearest example for this type of translated text is multilingual legislation which is published in all the official languages of a community. During the process of production translation intervenes at various stages according to the knowledge of the drafters and also according to the circumstances of the linguistic situation pertaining during drafting.

Machine translation can at best play a very subservient role in this type of work. We can, however, envisage monolingual control over the vocabulary and phrasing used in order to check conformity with existing documents. With time it may be possible to extend such control to multilingual documents, but clearly legal experts will have to give the final approval of such texts.

2. Independent texts The opposite situation arises when a text is written only for being translated into another language. The original text does not acquire the full status of a message, in fact it disappears after translation. It is only a message to the translator, a draft or an instruction on the content of the text to be re-produced. The writer can

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therefore specify whether he wants a human or a machine translation. Drafts only lend themselves to human processing. This applies to such texts as publicity brochures, product descriptions for export or letters, i.e. all texts which for cultural or situational reasons cannot be directly translated in the conventional manner.

Machine translation may be applied in such cases, but in practice is of little use since existing MT techniques concentrate on creating linguistic equivalents which this type of translation deliberately eschews. Where the original must be considered an inadequate draft, machine translation can at best be used for simple dictionary equivalent search, or phraseological control.

3. Dependent texts The third case of status is the best known but not necessarily the most common one. It is the textbook case of translation where the original coexists side by side with the translation, the translation being a dependent text that can at any stage be compared with the original. In fact it is the only case where it makes sense and where there is a justification for speaking of original and translation, or source and target language text. In practice even this type is not straightforward and has many variants. The distinction between them can be of relevance to MT. On the one hand there are the multilingual texts of instruction leaflets and labels, on the other there is the full translation of existing books, reports and scientific articles. This kind of work is already assisted by machine translation and most of the existing systems purport to be designed for this type of work. Here the computer simply assists the human translator who has the final control over the end-product through post-editing the output.

This type of translation also includes the large volume of translation which changes the function of the translated text and converts it into a different message.

In this category there are, however, also various sub-types of texts thet exist only in translation, such as various forms of translingual abstracts, the human translator performing the functions of summarizing content and translating it, or the gist-translation and on-sight reporting in which the translator selects the essence of a message and presents it in another language in written or spoken form.

The availability of the computer makes us re-assess the value of some of this work and permits us to explore other ways of making available large amounts of literature in foreign languages. It is now, for example, unnecessary to abstract and

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translate at the same time into many languages. Abstracts can be written in a controlled and restricted language which is optimally suited for MT processing. Equally, MT now makes it possible to translate large quantities of scientific and technical literature without any time delay and at low cost, so that it may turn out to be cheaper and faster to scan full-lenght MT-processed and converted texts than to wait for the next issue of the abstract journal. It has been established that readers readily accept the artificial language produced by machine provided the initially, at least greater reading effort is compensated by faster availability, and lower price.

4. MT texts We now have to add MT-produced texts as a fourth type of translation situation because we can now commission such texts. In this case the reader knows clearly that he is reading a machine-produced text and he adjusts his form of reading to this condition. This type of work is wrongly called `raw' MT output; it is only raw in the sense of ''unfinished" when seen against a human edition of such a `raw' translation. If it is acceptable to readers and serves the purpose for which they read it, this type of translation is as good and complete as any other. We are witnessing here the belated arrival of full industrialisation and automation in the field of translation. Only now has the reader a genuine choice between the fully hand-crafted, the hand-finished and the fully machine-produced translation. As in other form of industrialisation, the machine product is being improved and diversified all the time, so that the purely human effort is preserved for particular types of products for specific purposes.

Mt and text Types

With the availability of MT-produced translations we need to differentiate between texts which are suitable for MT and texts suitable for human translation. Since there are different MT systems with different claims to quality and function, we must also be able to determine which texts are suitable for which type of MT system. (It is futile to ask which text should be translated by which human translator because this is a matter of professional practice which does not yield theoretical insights.) We arrive thus at the possibility of relating MT to a typology of texts which has yet to be established definitively, when there is a greater consolidation of MT techniques. All we can do here is to indicate the nature of this typology which will be quite different from existing ones.

There are several forms of establishing categories of texts. Conventional stylistics has established a long list of text types

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which are widely known; such types as letters, reports, textbooks, reviews, contracts could be put through MT in order to see the result. Some existing and commercially available systems are already claiming to be particularly suitable for such texts as instructions or technical manuals. What is, however, not revealed are the characteristic features of these texts that make them particularly suitable for treatment by this or that system. Nor is there even a statement of the type of linguistic analysis that underlies the system design which would permit us to draw conclusions regarding the text type relevance of a system. We are fully justified in being suspicious of the scientific foundation of such claims.

We know, on the other hand, that systems have been designed for such specific cases and types of texts such as weather reports to be translated from English to French; scientific articles in Englsih on mathematical topics translated from Chinese; abstracts of articles in the field of textile technology in any one of four European languages to be translated into any of the other. In each case the starting point was not only a text type but a very concrete communicative situation, and well-defined and controlled production circumstances of the original and the translation. On the basis of these three elements of specification, viz. text type, communicative situation and production conditions, three highly functional systems were created under the names of METEO, CULT, and TITUS, which we cite here as examples of precise design specifications, rather than as particularly successful enterprises.

Examples

1. METEO In the case of METEO, the translation service of the Canadian television weather reports, it was a case of being able to produce on the screen simultaneously and without the delay caused by human translations the English and the translated French version. An additional requirement was that these texts and translations had to change as many times a day or night as new reports were being received. There was thus a design specification of the following characteristics:

Temporal factors: Instant translation, i.e. translation has to operate without any human intervention before, during or after translation. Translation has to be continuous and simultaneous and function day and night in the absence of supervisors.

Quality factors: In a bilingual country the distinction between source and target texts is unacceptable; translation has to be

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so good that there is no qualitative difference. Also, in a bilingual country there is a highly critical readership who will scrutinise both texts in order to find faults.

Text factors: The texts are highly predictable and conventional with a limited vocabulary and little stylistic variation. Words are used in their denotative meaning only and connotations do not interfere with understanding.

With these specifications it was possible to construct an efficient system that is still in operation. While this may be considered an unrepeatable textbook case, there are many such situations which can be handled in a similar manner. What is needed is a thorough analysis of such situations and an examination of the possible solutions.

2. TITUS Our second example is more interesting from the point of view of the communicative situation out of which it arose than from the purely computational linguistic point of view because its technical design dates from the early seventies.

The Institut Textile de France which issued an abstract journal for its members had the idea of setting up a cooperative scheme with three sister organisations in other European countries whereby each organisation would collect and abstract articles in its own language. The Institut Textile then commissioned a machine translation scheme which would work from any one language into all the other three, thus making the abstracts produced by one group simultaneously available to the others. The system works on the basis of an interlingua which is constructed from the intersection of all the languages involved. Since our knowledge of interlinguas is still very limited, the abstracts have to be written in a highly restricted language and even the output was for many years not very reader-friendly.

The important point about all this is that here we have approximately ten years experience of abstract writing according to the requirements of machine translation. We also have the evidence of a quadrilingual abstracting journal in a rather difficult machine language which must have found some acceptance among readers by now, or else the experience would have been abandoned.

In these well-tried and tested examples of MT we can ask which of the design criteria was the dominant: the text type, the pragmatic situation of text production or the conditions surrounding the actual translation. A clear answer is not available because there is no documentation on this aspect of

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between whether a system is designed for post-editing or direct reading. It would be interesting to observe the differences in the system if they were permitted to be maximised in each of these two functions.

3. MT of restricted and controlled texts If the previous application was appropriate for already existing texts, we can equally design systems that translate newly created texts. This we are at present doing in the form of the project I referred to at the beginning of this paper when I spoke of translator-less translation. In the many cases where a translation can be foreseen, it would appear to be useful to provide a control on the input text so as to guarantee a smooth and unproblematic translation. Texts are edited in interactive mode so that the writer always remains in full control. The machine analyses the text and asks questions concerning areas of uncertainty of interpretation. The author can then adjust the text in the light of suggestions made by the machine or not. Initially questions are asked which tend to improve and clarify the source text. In a second phase questions can be asked which are required by the production possibilities of the target language. The writer will not necessarily understand the nature of these questions, but he can nevertheless provide the information more reliably than a translator. The machine will not translate unless it is sure that it can provide a translation the machine is not instructed to produce some foreign language output at all costs.

In this way we use the computer to produce an artificial language which can then be translated into another linguistic version of the same artificial language.

4. MT of databases In this case we are dealing with an acknowledged fact of modern information technology, i.e. the existence of databases containing linguistically expressed information. These databases represent a considerable commercial asset which can be optimised if they can be made available for interrogation and search in more than one language, and if the answers provided can be given in the language of habitual use of the person making the enquiry. In the past, when all interrogation of databases was carried out by a human specialist, this requirement was less urgent, but now when individuals, from their desk, communicate with databases all over the world, the language barrier of databases represents an unacceptable obstacle. These two reasons combined, the commercial interest of the database owner and the interest of the user, justify the exploration of means of translating databases. At CCL we are currently involved in two such projects; their general specifications are as follows:

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Textual conditions: a text in machine readable form written for the specific purpose of the database and therefore restricted and controllable. The form varies from complex noun phrases describing the scope of activity of a commercial enterprise to precise technical terms designating measurements or physical properties of materials.

We are finding that the input to these databases is not properly controlled, that there is a great deal of redundancy, unwanted synonymy, ambiguity and even misplaced information which can benefit from being tidied up, even monolingually.

Pragmatic conditions: people consulting databases know that they pay either for the time they are connected or the number of queries they are making or both. They are therefore very demanding and expect absolute precision and reliability of information. They are, on the other hand, less concerned with stylistic or idiomatic niceties and quite prepared to make concessions in questions of grammaticality and restrictions of usage as long as they can be assured thet this improves the reliability of the service they receive.

Translation conditions: The translation system must be ever-present since the information in such databases is under constant review. It must therefore act independently without human assistance except in emergencies and must be completely reliable. These are almost contradictory requirements given that databases tend to grow and hence include items not previously planned for, e.g. new words. Such systems therefore require a regular and ongoing maintenance which deals with new cases as they arise, and which also contains controls over existing information as it is modified. Translation systems can be added as modules in the search and query phases, or it is possible to envisage the coexistence of various language versions of the same database which are regularly updated in line with the growth and development of the master database. Which of these solutions is preferred is a question of operational convenience which in turn depends on the type of use of the database and its internal structure.

Conclusion

The work I have here outlined indicates our perception of the development of multilingual communication assisted by computer. In order to succeed in this work a considerable amount of research is required not only in computational linguistics, but also in applied linguistics and in particular in

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LSP.

There is a need for research into the computational linguistic properties of existing and widely recognised text types.

There is a need for research into the properties of artificial languages that can be generated by computer, and consequently into the user acceptance of types of artificial languages.

There is a need for research into the conditions under which texts for databases are produced in different subject areas and in different countries.

There is a great need for research into the lexicon of text types and the sizes of dictionaries required for various types of acknowledged text types.

The list can be continued with more specific examples of research topics. We are now in the fortunate position in which industry is interested in linguistics, but we also find that our research becomes increasingly expensive since it is dependent on computer power and as a consequence on research teams. The days of the individual researcher developing a new theory appear to be definitely over, however much some of us may regret it. As a positive factor we note that we can now get modest sums for research and development. It is important that we use this conjuncture to get the technical means which will advance our research and that we introduce ourselves into the language industry as a significant force for innovation and change.

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33
Knowledge-based Integrated Terminology System (KITES)

Patricia Thomas and Anne Judge
University of Surrey

0. Introduction

We know that the classification and indexing of knowledge became very important in scientific fields in the eighteenth century and gave rise to the concept of classification and structure within certain scientific fields. However, it is only in the twentieth century that this concept, along with that of documentation, became of interest to linguists, mainly because of the new vistas being opened by structural linguistics. As far as communicating this knowledge is concerned, we have in recent years witnessed the development of electronic communication side by side with the traditional printed word. This in turn has led to new approaches in the classification of knowledge.

Since in LSP knowledge may be represented by terms, term banks may be used to regroup terms electronically. Three areas of research relating to the development of our own term bank will be discussed: firstly, the term record format, secondly, the contents of the record and thirdly the application of artificial intelligence techniques so that the knowledge contained in term banks can be elicited as succinctly as possible.

1. The Record Format

Our team of linguists and computer specialists at Surrey has aimed to compile a record format which is capable of providing not only storage space for all the data useful to both translators and subject specialists, but which will contain easily retrievable answers to queries asked by users in natural language. There are basically two types of term bank, those which are word-based, such as EURODICAUTOM, and those which are concept-based, such as DANTERM. Our term bank follows the second model.

Term banks usually include four types of information; this

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information is divided into fields. The first set of fields deals with management, such as the entry date of the term, name of terminologist, etc.; we have ten in all. The second set of fields aims at providing basic linguistic information about each term, i.e. phonetic, grammatical and semantic information. This aspect will be enlarged in part two of the paper. The third set of fields aims at broadening the concept represented by the term and enlarging our knowledge of it. In this is included bibliographic references and comments on usage. Finally, the fourth set of fields deals with the problem of translating the term into other languages such as synonyms, definition and conceptual links with other terms; these will be dealt with in further detail also in part two.

However ideal a record format may be for a particular subject, it will be of little help if it is not usable on an international scale. This means that it must be compatible with other world systems. To this end, the United Nations and INFOTERM have proposed an international standard so that developers of term banks may relate their fields to a common core, to facilitate international exchange of information. This is done by means of a Magnetic Tape Exchange Record, known as MATER. Our record format is compatible with MATER, but we have not included the Reliability Code, since we feel that this may be disputed; in addition, a term may be assessed through consulting other fields such as source and bibliographic references.

2. Some Aspects of the Content of the Record

2.1 Phonetic Information

This is useful in English, particularly to help specialists attending conferences, many of which are held in English. Dictionaries give `standard' or `neutral' RP phonetic transcriptions, but it would perhaps be interesting to give other variations such as certain American pronounciations where these may vary to such an extent that comprehension is impaired.

2.2 Grammatical Information

In a taxonomic domain such as virology, which is the first domain entered on our term bank, nearly all the entry terms are nouns. The only grammatical information considered necessary is number for English terms, and both gender and number for other languages. The various forms adjectives take may need to be included. Subcategorisation (valency) of verbs, and subcategorisation of nouns and adjectives where

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applicable, should also be given. ISO recommends the use of the plural to designate the generic term and the singular for its properties and related processes. However, since it is normal to find nouns given in the singular in dictionaries, we have chosen to adopt the dictionary style except of course in instances where there is a difference in meaning between singular and plural, e.g. in Virology, the French `foyer' in the singular refers to an outbreak of a disease, or the place of an outbreak, whereas `foyers' in the plural may refer to farms, breeding units, or again to `foci' as in `foyers fluorescents'.

The syntax of compound nouns, which are particularly common in LSP, presents problems in such areas as law and engineering. In addition, in French for example, the current trend to omit prepositions creates major translation problems. The following term from a list of spare parts for the Channel Tunnel illustrates this point:

Armat. atelier préfa.: does this stand for:

(a) atelier préfabriqué pour armatures;

(b) atelier pour armatures préfabriquées;

(c) armatures pour atelier préfabriqué?

Compound terms as entry terms also present problems for information retrieval. A term covering a compound concept in German will be written as one word, whereas it will be written as several words in French and probably also in English. ISO 5964 on the establishment of multilingual thesauri, published in 1985, gives the example of the German Lehrerbildungsgesetz translated into French by Loi sur la formation des enseignants. If we want to make a search in German starting from the French term formation, this would only be possible if the German term were entered in the index both as a whole and as Bildung, Gesetz and Lehrer. Such compound nouns are called `post-coordinated' terms. This is in contrast with `pre-coordinated' terms such as trade winds which cannot be broken down into trade and wind and for which therefore there will be only one entry.

Any term can be easily retrieved from a data base, but a query to the data base in natural language, where only the first word in a multiple lexical entry may be picked up, may perhaps direct the search to the wrong term. The following example in Virology illustrates this point: "African green monkey kidney cell"; a search will pick up African but this may lead to "African horse sickness" instead of the term required. We therefore need to parse monkey, kidney and

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horse as both nouns and adjectives, and create a new category which deals with this type of multiple term at the beginning of an entry. These problems are akin to those faced by developers of machine translation systems.

2.3 Semantics

Different term banks may put different contents under the same heading. We have therefore tried to define exactly what information should go into which field, following ISO recommendations.

2.3.1 Synonyms There is a vast literature about synonymy which has had to be redefined for terminological purposes. In LGP, synonyms form an open system and may change, sometimes frequently, in both meaning and register. As far as the thesaural structure used for indexing purposes is concerned, synonyms refer to those terms which are related to others. In documentation retrieval, they have the same `value', allowing all synonymous terms to be extracted.

In LSP, insofar as this concerns our term bank, I shall call absolute synonyms all those which refer to the same concept synchronically but which may nevertheless come from different registers; for example Latin international medical terms, such as rubella and its colloquial equivalent measles. This type of synonym may include other forms of the same term which have appeared in the language at the same time and which for a while may be used concurrently. For example, in French, `knowledge engineer' may be rendered either as ingénieur de la connaissance or ingénieur de la cognoscence. Gradually, through usage, one term, usually the more popular one, supersedes the other.

Abbreviations are placed in a separate field. These may be divided as follows:

acronyms (defined as initials which form a pronounceable word, e.g. UNESCO)

initialisms (which do not, e.g. L.S.P.)

cuttings

Deprecated terms also have a field of their own; these terms may be archaic or slang, while some terms are specific to an enterprise. Changes tend to appear in rapidly evolving areas such as computer science and biotechnology.

2.3.2 Antonyms may help to define a concept or to

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emphasize a point by using a double negative. For example, ''We are not unsympathetic to your cause" has more impact than "We are sympathetic to your cause". Antonyms are sometimes favoured by translators and for this reason, where they exist, are included in our records. However, it is important to note that antonyms exist more frequently in LGP than in LSP; so far none has been encountered in Virology.

2.3.3 Definitions This is the important part for our LSP research and a keystone for artificial intelligence techniques. In general dictionaries, there is variation in the nature of the information given under the heading `definition'. Traditionally definitions contain a description of the meaning of the entry term; they may include a grammatical note; they may also include a phonetic transcription. Generally, because of the ad hoc nature of lexical entries in LGP, the definitions are perforce unstructured.

However, in LSP, where dictionary entries relate to a particular field, definitions may have the same internal structure throughout; this is a great help to the user who then knows how the information is presented. Thus in Virology, a typical description of a virus includes the etymology of the entry term, followed by its intrinsic characteristics, by which is meant its chemical structure, molecular weight, and so on. These are then followed by extrinsic characteristics such as signs or symptoms, treatment of the resultant disease and its epidemiology. This strict ordering in the presentation of information allows for the regrouping of facts, which has important consequences for the retrieval of information, since it helps in the application of the techniques of artificial intelligence and the way knowledge can be built into an expert system. The query mechanism of the term bank is discussed in the third part of the paper.

2.3.4 Conceptual links The final part of this section deals with conceptual links within a thesaural context. The term thesaurus is used by analogy with Roget's Thesaurus although modern thesauri are in fact quite different in structure. These contain hierarchical relationships, where terms are considered broader or narrower than others. For example, Paramyxoviridae refers to the family of viruses to which measles belongs. This is therefore the broader term, represented by BT, (terme général or générique (TG) in French), while measles will be the narrower term, or NT, (terme spécifique (TS) in French).

A modern scientific thesaurus also includes related terms (RT) (in French, terme associé (TA)). For example, measles virus, canine distemper virus and rinderpest virus are

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antigenically related but have different hosts, i.e., measles virus attacks humans and other primates, canine distemper virus attacks dogs and rinderpest virus attacks cattle.

This type of thesaural structure is being used in France, among other countries, by AFNOR (Association française de Normalisation). AFNOR also includes a set of symbols to express these concepts but we have not yet found this necessary. In technological domains, one of the most important thesauri of this kind is the Thesaurus of Engineering Terms set up by the Engineers' Joint Council. Similar thesauri have been set up by the American Society for Metals (ASM), the American Petroleum Institute (API), the Office of Water Resources Research (OWRR) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

2.4 Fields Dealing with Translation

There is always a problem when translating a term which has a broader meaning in one language than in another. `Le maire' in French has a broader meaning than `mayor' in English since `le maire' wields real power. In a different way, in Virology, the English term `by aerosol' covers two concepts which are clearly separated in French: `par aérosol' refers to either a voluntary or involuntary transmission of virus in a laboratory, whereas `par voie aérienne' refers to `natural' windborne transmission. Transmission of virus `par voie aérienne' may be `par aérosol' but transmission `par aérosol' will not be `par voie aérienne'.

Even in a non-ambiguous context, errors are possible particularly at the level of compound nouns made up of a head noun and an adjectival modifier, e.g. `fresh cement' may be `ciment frais' in LGP but is `ciment chaud' in a technical LSP context. Similarly, quick-setting cement is rendered by `ciment prompt'. Another type of problem may occur when in the same context terms are used which belong to several LSPs, for example in the gas and oil industry and in the construction of the Channel tunnel where vocabulary is borrowed from civil engineering and mining.

It is this type of semantic problem which is of major importance to the developers of machine translation systems. It is not so much a problem at the level of setting up the term bank; it is however of major importance when we try to use natural language for our query system.

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3. Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Techniques to Term Banks

The usefulness of a term bank depends on its format, but its success also lies in the degree to which the user feels it is `friendly' and this depends largely on the development of the human-computer interface. The next step therefore is to transpose the term records on to computer. Computers are no longer simply mechanisms for storage and retrieval, but are also a means by which expert systems can be developed and to which an average user can ask questions using natural language.

3.1 Oracle: A Relational Data Base Management System

We have transferred our term bank to ORACLE, a relational data base management system, which has the advantages of being well-known; it is widely available and is capable of being run on any computer. It has a fast search system which is another important advantage.

There are three main types of data model which can be used to store and display data: tree, network and relational. The relational model is by far the easiest to use since it requires no more from the user than an understanding of the construction of a table. ORACLE, as a relational data base management system, presents data in the form of two-dimensional tables made up of `rows', `columns' and `fields'.

Each field may contain one of four data types: number, characters, dates or a `long' field, i.e. text. In contrast, the tree and network models require the user to understand record types, their links and their interrelationships. In a large data base, these can be very complex, rendering the manipulation of data difficult for the naive user.

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3.2 Human-computer Interface: The Query Language

ORACLE provides its own high-level query language, SQL, for accessing the data base. However, it seems unreasonable to expect a user to learn SQL before being able to use our term bank. We are therefore presently working on providing a Natural Language Interface which will accept queries in English and then translate them into SQL. This is one of our research tasks. At present the term bank can easily deal with queries in Virology such as "What is the French for measles?" or "What is the definition of Polydnaviridae?", i.e. those questions which a translator would be likely to pose. Here all ORACLE has to do is search for the requisite field in the relational table. More detailed search queries, however, require more extensive research, such as text analysis of the definition.

By "search queries" we mean queries such as "How is the virus transmitted?" or "How important a disease is it?" This information is not stored in a separate field: all information of this nature is stored in one large piece of text within the Definition field and, while it is perfectly possible to retrieve the whole definition, ORACLE provides no means of sifting through the text and displaying only the relevant parts. Using AI techniques, such as scripts or frames, we hope to be able to build a system which will be capable first of searching through ORACLE's Definition and finding the information requested, and second, "reading" through text to elicit the necessary information. Other problems which have to be resolved are presupposition and inference. This is the very important area in which we are directing our second research task.

4. Conclusion

So far we can make provision for translators on a word-for-word basis and provide conceptual links, plus considerable background data. Our main area of research for the future will be the implementation of AI techniques, first, to provide an adequate user-driven natural language front-end as an alternative to the menu systems used by most other term banks and second, to construct an information retrieval system based on the definition of the term. The two tasks have much in common in that both will depend heavily on linguistic theory. However, the latter task is far more complex: to translate from English to SQL, a natural language interface can rely almost entirely on syntactic information; but to read and `understand' text sufficiently to create a

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record from it, will require not only syntactic information but also semantic and probably pragmatic information. The difference can be seen as that between analysing a sentence and analysing a whole piece of discourse.

Allied problems may be found in analysing text for machine translation and it is hoped that the knowledge we gain through linguistic analysis will be pertinent in this sphere as well.

Acknowledgement

We thank our colleague, Anne Wilson, for the description of AI techniques.

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34
Terminology Within a Machine Translation Project (EUROTRA)

Henrik Selsøe Sørensen
EUROTRA, University of Copenhagen

1. Introduction

That terminology is bound to play an important role also within machine translation (MT) projects is no surprise in itself, it is obvious that results of knowledge engineering frozen in standardised terminologies should be exploited by an MT-system dealing with LSP texts.

This paper looks into the positive impact that developed terminologies may have on MT and how MT-demands on terminological information may call for supplementary information to be stored in terminological databases. The discussion is based on experiences with the ongoing MT-project EUROTRA.

For ease of communication, some of the project-internal terminology has been replaced by neutral and more commonly understandable expressions. `Translation' and `transfer' are used synonymously when designating operations between levels.

2. Overview of the Eurotra Project

The EUROTRA multilingual MT-system is being developed by research groups in each of the 12 EEC Member States and has two major objectives set up by the EEC authorities who are financing the project. One is the creation of a prototype to be finished by the 30th of June 1990; another, more general and abstract, is to prepare research units and individual researchers in Western Europe for the challenge from the USA and Japan in the areas of information technology by giving them an opportunity to experience and investigate MT-methodologies in general.

For the last two and a half years an average of around 10 full-time researchers in each of the EEC Member States have been working on EUROTRA, which is a transfer-based

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MT-system with an architecture tuned for handling multilingual translation as it is being done within the EEC between its nine official languages. It should be remembered that nine languages yield 72 different language pairs.

The Danish analysis module e.g. will produce an internal representation of a Danish sentence which may then be translated into the eight other languages without target-language dependent modifications. The strategy for analysis which is applied has as its main objective to make transfer to another language simple. On the basis of the transferred representation of a sentence, the target language synthesis module must generate just one correct high quality sentence.

When evaluating this ambitious approach, it is important to realise that the EUROTRA prototype is going to become text-type and to certain extent also subject-field dependent. Experience should, however, be gained concerning how to generalise the system or rather how to adjust it for other text types and subject fields; this is a particular interesting perspective of the project, which it will be of great importance to study carefully at a later stage.

The texts which the system is supposed to translate are trivial in the following way. Texts within the EEC are dealing with concepts common to all Member States within the frame of the EEC cooperation which presupposes a good deal of harmonisation. These commonly defined concepts usually are coupled to an EEC terminology which may sometimes conflict with the National terminologies, at least for readers unaware of the different zones of terminological validity, but that is another question.

Altogether, this means however, that problems related to discrepancies of concepts so often found within the so-called soft fields, problems which normally haunt translators and at the same time constitute their most distinguished raison d'etre, generally never occur in the texts to which EUROTRA will apply. The absence of such challenges, which will, no doubt, remain the prerogative of the human translator, gives some hope that the system will turn out to work reasonably well. It is, however, clear already now that the system will be much more voracious than expected as far as machine capacity and linguistic maintenance is concerned. It will certainly also turn out to be slower than human translators, but of course willing to operate more than eight hours a day. . .

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3. Eurotra, a Transfer-based Model

Before looking at the role of terminology, an introduction to the operational strategies adopted by EUROTRA is appropriate.

Figure 1.

After some base level operations where mainly morphological operations are carried out, the strings of words are ready for the parsing at level 1, which results in a representation of the sentence displaying its constituent structure. Fig. 1 shows one out of several parse trees procuced by an experimental grammar. The object is the French sentence `Le déficit commercial de 10 mds de Francs de la France n'est pas satisfaisant' (`The 10 billion Franc trade deficit of France is unsatisfactory').

The tree represents one way of inspecting results of the translation process, but it will be noticed that more information is available. Each node of the parse tree is carrier of information which may be inspected, too. Here we will restrict ourselves to giving an idea about the types of information carried by the nodes at the different levels.

Each level has, at least conceptually, its own dictionary with

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information relevant for that level. The grammar rules use this information while constructing the internal representation which consists of a combination of dictionary information and information computed by the rules during operations.

Figure 1 shows that the main constituents are `np', `vp' and `adjp', and the np-node will be marked for definiteness = definite, gender = masc, number = sing, etc. At level 1 just trivial syntactic information is of relevance. At the present stage of the system development, the term `trade deficit' is not recognized until the interface structure is reached, but it will certainly be more economical to try to identify terms at an earlier stage.

Figure 2.

Figure 2 shows the representation of the sentence after the translation of the level 1 representation into level 2 and after it has been checked by the grammar rules of this level. In reality several level 1 representations are sought translated into level 2, but only one or some of them will survive this process.

At level 2, a canonical order of the constituents is established,

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a relational structure is created (subject, object, modifiers, etc.) and e.g. articles and negations are elevated and replaced by values; thus the first np-node will be marked for definiteness = definite, the vp-node for type of negation, etc., but the surface manifestations, i.e. the article and the negation, have been removed. On the basis of the relational information available at this level, filter rules have reduced the number of representations of the sentence in question.

The interface structure (IS), cf. figure 3, is a semantic representation of the sentence. This means that ambiguities that may have caused the creation of several level 1 representations (not subsequently discarded at level 2), are to be cleared up here thanks to a computation of the semantic information delivered by the IS-dictionary. Ideally, just one representation of the sentence, hopefully the correct one, will survive the translation into the source IS. This representation is then translated into the target IS, and on the basis of this representation to which all the necessary node information has been transferred, a target surface sentence is generated through level 2 and 1 and finally through the base level where inflection, punctuation marks, etc. are put in order.

Figure 3.

The technique of semantic filtering involving terms will be exampled, but first a few problems common to all MT-systems are mentioned briefly as a background.

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4. Problems Recalled

Some problems are recognised as such by most MT-systems; some of these problems are recalled below, more exactly those which may be solved or at least reduced in number by a maximal exploitation of terminological information.

Disambiguation has to take place at various levels and can be done in different ways. As a general rule, the smaller lexical units the system has to translate, the more possible translational equivalents will be at hand and the more ambiguities: this calls for complex disambiguation processes.

Seen from the point of view of terminology, the problem can be put in the following way. If by error a multiword term is not in the transfer dictionary, then a transfer of each element or word has to be carried out. In the sample sentence, the French adjective `commercial' occurs. Considered in isolation it must have at least two equivalents in e.g. English in order to cater for correct translation in any case, namely `commercial' and `trade', and accordingly `déficit commercial' would get translated into English by `commercial deficit' and `trade deficit', the former being a wrong translation.

Another problem is that of pp-attachment. Administrative texts emanating from the EEC are generally characterised by long and complex sentences usually displaying several prepositional phrases whose attachment to vp's or np's may provoke numerous representations differing in structure at level 1, many of which will survive at level 2. They are hard to get right even at IS.

Furthermore, it should be remembered that the correct translation of prepositions is often extremely difficult, since a preposition considered in isolation usually has a large number of possible equivalents. A sound basis for solving this problem is to make sure that the pp-attachment is reliable.

It will be argued that terminology can contribute to an optimalisation of the results aimed at by the general approach already adopted by EUROTRA in order to solve problems of the type described. The part of the general approach to be focussed on here is the featurization of bound prepositions.

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5. The Contributions of Terminology

As far as disambiguation of single words is concerned, it is evident that if a single word is in fact an element in a multiword term, then the term should be identified as soon as possible during analysis, and once this is done, no disambiguation resources have to be spent on it later on. This is well known and a clear argument in favour of exploiting any relevant terminologies and of course also of handling terminological units without decomposition, should anybody not be convinced.

Verbs have frames, not only in EUROTRA, and as in other MT-systems it has proved useful to type the frame slots as to syntactic and semantic characteristics. Along the same lines, frames are also assigned to deverbal nouns and even to adjectives.

Most standardised terminologies are dominated by nouns, some of these are deverbal, but their frames usually have not been investigated in any depth. No attention at all has been paid to frames of non-deverbal terms; drawing attention to the existence of such cases is one of the main concerns of this paper.

Terms represent well-defined concepts which are often interrelated within a concept system. The study of such relations, be they generic, partitive, logic, procedural or cognitive, is carried out by knowledge engineers and is indirectly of great relevance to machine translation.

A certain aspect of possible relations created by concepts is, however, of direct interest to machine translation, i.e. the fact that certain terms, although they are on the one hand capable of representing interrelated concepts, are on the other hand, when occurring in actual text, deemed to co-occur with a few very restricted optional ''satellites" which they govern syntactically and semantically. These satellites are usually part of a semantic network of a dynamic type not discussed further here, but quite different from the relations accounted for by concept systems which could be characterised as being of a stative type.

The description of the dynamic relations and a typing of them in the same way as it is being done for verbal elements will constitute an important progress in the attempts to control chains of pp's especially in long complex sentences. At the same time control over the translation of the prepositions will be gained.

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Returning to the sample sentence that we left in the representation seen in figure 3, we will now see how frames function. The dictionary used for creating the French IS-representation contained the information seen in fig. 4 concerning the term `déficit commercial'; it should be remembered that surface syntactic and inflectional information is already stored in the relevant np-node in the tree.

Entry for `déficit commercial' in the interface structure dictionary:

lexical unit

= déficit_commercial

category

= noun

status

= term

subject field

= economics

semantic features

= aggreagate, abstract,
result of calculation*)

frame

= 4 arguments

frame specifications for argument 1:

category

= np

semantic features

= number, currency

trace of preposition

= `de'

frame specifications for argument 2:

category

= noun

semantic features

= trade_object

trace of preposition

= `en'/'dans_le_
domains_de'

frame specifications for argument 3:

category

= np

semantic features

= national state

trace of preposition

= `de'

frame specifications for argument 4:

category

= np

semantic features

= national state

trace of preposition

= `vis-à-vis_de'

*) These semantic features are my own; for
the moment being (August 1987). EUROTRA
only operates with human/non-human
abstract/concrete and countable/mass.

Figure 4.

The grammar that produced the representations of fig. 1-3 did not recognize `déficit commercial' as a term until the IS, and did it on a preference basis, since it does have of course the two words as single entries, too; however, it presupposes that if they are constituents in the same np, then a preference

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rule lets only the term interpretation survive.

Referring to the IS-dictionary entry for `déficit commercial', cf. figure 4, it is stated that its argument 1 must be an np, that the latter must contain the semantic features `number' and `currency', and that it must have a trace of the preposition `de', i.e. the np candidate for the frame slot must have been governed by `de' at level 2. What happens is the following.

The rules translating from level 2 to IS try to translate pp's both as pp's and np's leaving in the latter case just a trace of the preposition. In order for the np-version to succeed, the resulting np must be accepted as an argument of a governor at IS. This takes place if the np-features and if the trace of the preposition match the condition stated by the frame of the governing verb or noun.

This is exactly what happens to the level 2 pp `de Franc 10_mds' of which the np `Franc 10_mds' carrying the trace `preposition=de' is accepted as argument 1 of `déficit_commercial' at IS. If it had not fitted into a frame slot, it would have remained as a modifying pp at IS. This would have happened e.g. for `d'un coup'; if it had been around in the sentence, it would correctly have remained at IS as a (sentential) modifier of the category pp.

It is foreseen to use a combination of syntactic and semantic typing, but the semantic typing is certainly central. For the moment being, it is stated for argument 3 that the category is np and the semantic feature is `national state'. It could, however, be argued that the semantic feature is sufficient, given that the particular feature can be carried by an adjective, cf. `le déficit commercial francais'. Relaxations of this kind should however get a stylistic blue-print before being implemented.

As can be seen in fig. 3, only argument 1 and argument 3 out of four possible argument slots are filled out; the construction rules allow by default arguments to be optional. However, `déficit commercial' may be related to two more established "satellites", namely an indication of a particular type of goods for which the deficit is calculated, and finally an indication of another nation or group of nations with which the trade deficit has been accumulated. The relevant argument slots 2 and 4 are typed as can be seen in fig. 4. An np with argument 1, 2 and 4 filled out would turn up, if an IS analysis was made of the following np: `le déficit commercial de 10 mds de Francs en technologies de l'information vis-à-vis du Japon' (`the trade deficit of 10 billion Francs in IT with Japan).

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Altogether, these frame based operations give a fairly good possibility of controlling pp's (or constituents of a different category) in the environment of a term, to which it has been possible to assign and type a frame. This enhances the chances of getting a correct attatchment and translation of any remaining pp's.

Let us now look at the transfer of the French IS to the Danish IS. Given the international status of the term which has four arguments in French as well as in Danish and English, transfer of the created representation object into Danish becomes quite simple.

Because of the architecture of the IS level, the tree structure can in most cases be transferred without modifications, cf. fig. 5, which is the result of the translation of the French IS-representation into Danish; the two IS-structures are identical. During transfer, the lexical units of the terminal nodes are replaced by those of the target language.

A lexical transfer rule has replaced `déficit_commercial' by `handelsunderskud', and this leads to further modifications: in parallel to the introduction of the new lexical unit, the information stored for it in the target IS-dictionary is allowed to percolate through the target tree structure.

Figure 5.

It is thus the frame information stored for the Danish IS-entry `handelsunderskud', reproduced as fig. 6, which is allowed to occupy the relevant argument nodes.

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Entry for `handelsunderskud' in the interface structure dictionary:

lexical unit

= handelsunderskud

category

= noun

status

= term

subject field

= economics

semantic features

=aggregate, abstract, result
of calculation

frame

= 4 arguments

frame specifications for argument 1:

category

= np

semantic features

= number, currency

trace of preposition

= `på'

frame specifications for argument 2:

category

= np

semantic features

= trade_object

trace of preposition

= `inden_for'

frame specifications for argument 3:

category

= np

semantic features

= national state

trace of preposition

= `none'

case

= genitive

frame specifications for argument 4:

category

= np

semantic feature

= national state

trace of preposition

= `over_for'

Figure 6.

The IS-dictionaries have been harmonized in order to make sure that the argument 1 will in both languages be reserved for the amount identified by its semantic features `number' and `currency', etc. This is preferrable, although it would be possible to change the ordering of arguments during transfer from source to target IS.

Fig. 6 shows among other things that the Danish frame for `handelsunderskud' has already built-in preposition traces, thus argument 1 contains already information that the preposition `på' must be used in case the argument 1 slot is filled out, etc. This comes down to the following: the French preposition `de' of argument 1 will be turned into `på' at the Danish surface, whereas `de' of argument 3 will turn up as the genitive case in Danish, cf. the frame description in fig. 6. It should be added that for the moment being at least, the French analysis module represents genitives only as pp's because of problems with the distinction between the genitive case and "true" preposition phrases governed by `de'.

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Assigning frames to terms typing them in the way outlined here, will thus be an important contribution to the efforts made in order to control the attachment and translation of prepositions. Especially an investigation of the environment of non-deverbal terms like `trade deficit' seems to yield some promising results.

The further generation of the Danish surface sentence shall not be discussed here, it is quite trivial at least as far as terminology is concerned. The complete Danish IS-representation of the sentence contains the information needed for passing it through level 2 and level 1 (in that order) to the `high quality' surface sentence `Frankrigs handelsunderskud på 10 mia Francs er ikke tilfredsstillende'.

6. Conclusion

The use of reliable multi-lingual terminologies will be of great importance for the success of MT-systems dealing with LSP-texts. It can even be foreseen that text types and subject fields within which recognised multi-lingual terminologies have been established may be the first ones to see multi-lingual MT-systems produce high quality translations.

At the present stage of development, it is certain that machine translation needs input from the fields of knowledge engineering/terminology in the form of concept systems, terms and term frames and information related to the use of terms. These demands may to a certain extent have an impact on the organisation of terminological data bases. As soon as possible, procedure should be started in view of preparing them for complying with MT-requirements. A first step could be an investigation of term frames.

The semantic typing of frame slots will to a large extent be subject field dependent, but any principles and internationally recognised guidelines, would be welcomed. It is, though, a fact that already within EUROTRA many opinions exist about which generalized features and values to use in order to represent semantic information, and so far no decision has been taken.

One out of several linguistic challenges actualized by machine translation. . .

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35
Empty Categories in Documentary Based Thesaurus Constructions

Øivin Andersen
University of Bergen

In this article I will describe the use of so called empty categories in documentary based thesauri seen in the light of the crucial distinction between thematic and conceptual classification systems as described among others in Wüster (1985). Examples will be drawn from the monolingual Norwegian Petroleum Thesaurus Petrus, which was revised and restructured by the Norwegian Term Bank at the University of Bergen in 1986. The total number of terms in Petrus is now 6567, of which 5787 have the status of descriptors. The thesaurus consists of ten large hierarchies based (with some modifications) on the American Exploration and Production Thesaurus, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The term empty category (EC) is borrowed from transformational syntax. ECs in syntax are nominal phrases without lexical material. They are postulated in the surface sentence structures in order to establish a transformational path from underlying to surface structure. The underlying structure is thus postulated in order to account for certain syntactic properties that sentences and elements are claimed to have (such as subcategorisation, morphological case marking, concord selection restrictions, phonological contraction and the syntactic behaviour of reflexive pronouns. A comprehensive description of this is given in Radford (1981) ).

The basic point here is that ECs cannot be postulated ad hoc, but must meet certain correlated empirical principles.

The nature and function of ECs in thesaurus constructions may be seen in the light of the distinction between thematic and conceptual classification systems mentioned. Conceptual and thematic classifications may look similar at the surface, but the basis of classification is quite different. A basic distinction can be made between direct and indirect reference. The concepts of a conceptual classification refer directly to extensional classes in the non-linguistic world (i.e. real world objects, states and events), whereas concepts of a thematic classification (including descriptors of documentary based thesauri) refer to classes of thematic units of a set of

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documents, i.e. to linguistic entities, which I propose to call thesaurus reference. The thematic units, in turn, refer to real world objects, states and events.

Thus, conceptual hierarchies are structured according to man's view of the external world directly, whereas thematic hierarchies represent an analysis of a set of authors' view of the world. Aspects such as thematic weighting and degree of thematic centrality of concepts in documents become crucial in thematic classifications, and irrelevant in conceptual classifications. The principle aspect in thematic classifications is not semantic relateness, but thematic connections between concepts. One of the consequences of this difference is that conceptual classifications tend to be more comprehensive and complete than thematic ones because some concepts are not treated explicitly (or only mentioned shortly) in documents.

ECs have no thesaurus reference, i.e. they are non-indexed descriptors. This means that they cannot be traced back to any of the indexed documents of the thesaurus. They can only be motivated on the basis of a specified underlying conceptual system, like ECs in syntax are based on a specified underlying sentence [structure].

Petrus contains 56 ECs (also called auxiliary concepts). They were introduced by the librarians as mediators between various levels in the hierarchies in places where they were considered desirable in order to obtain more complete and logically structured hierarchies.

Figure 1 (in the appendix) gives an example of a conceptual classification dealing with geological time and the corresponding thematic concepts of Petrus. The illustration represents a unification of the two systems where categories occurring exclusively in the conceptual classification are given in round brackets, categories occurring exclusively in Petrus are given in bold types, and ECs are underlined. The same system is represented as partially overlapping classes in figure 1a.

At a closer look we see that sen kritt (Upper Cretaceous) is an empty category mediating between maastricht (Maestrichian) and cenoman (Cenomanian) on the one hand and kritt (Cretaceous) on the other hand. But we can also read from figure 1 that ECs are inserted as terminal categories (i.e. categories belonging to the lowest level of thematic subcategorisation, as exemplified by sen paleocen) (Upper Paleocene).

One of the reasons for looking into ECs in Petrus was to see if

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it was possible to derive some principles of their distribution and their retrieval function in the hierarchies. Obviously, the basic idea seems to be that the user groups of a thesaurus possess an underlying mental conceptual system to which he relates the thesaurus hierarchies in the search process, i.e. a kind of unification or mapping the two systems. But this unification cannot be ad hoc: it must be subject to some kind of systematic logic. This means that ECs cannot be postulated ad hoc, or everywhere. If we do, the consequences will be like in figure 2. Figure 2 illustrates a classification of various pumps subcategorized according to liquid (væske), form and function (funksjon). Again, the common type categories represent the set of concepts appearing in both systems, whereas the round bracket categories are absent in Petrus. If we incorporate all the round bracket categories in Petrus as ECs in order to obtain a more complete system, we certainly complicate and impede document retrieval. Obviously, this is not what we want.

Figures 3 and 4 give a set theoretical survey of the relationship between the class of descriptors and non-descriptors, and, in relation to this, the presence of LSP and LGP categories in Petrus. The variables x (LSP categories) and y (LGP - categories) of propositions 5 and b of figure 4 represent the set of the potential candidates for ECs in Petrus. This framework enables us to ask the question: Which of the x's and y's (if any) may qualify as ECs in Petrus?

There are three possible solutions to this question:

1. There is no distinction between thematic and conceptual classification. ECs are allowed (but marked as such ) in all x and y positions in 5 and 6 of figure 4.

2. Pure thematic classification. No ECs are allowed.

3. ECs are allowed in some x and y positions, but not in others.

Solution 1 gives a good survey of the underlying conceptual system, and may be both interesting and useful to some users. But it complicates retrieval to a very large extent and increase the possibility of mismatches in documentary search. Moreover, the number of concepts of the lexicon and the number of concepts of technolects of any language are, if not infinite, indeterminably large. In solution 1 there is thus no way to restrict the use of ECs, as the pump examples in figure 2 illustrated.

Solution 2 is the common solution in many documentary

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based thesauri. It is the best solution in cases where the discrepancy between the conceptual and thematic structures is not too large.

Solution 3 may be a good solution if the conceptual hierarchies are very incomplete (e.g. if several levels in the vertical ladder are missing, and if these levels are important in retrieval).

Let us examine the consequences of solution 3. If we choose this solution, we have to answer the question above (Which potential EC position may be permitted in propositions 5 and 6 of figure 4?). A possible answer to this demarcation problem may be found by asking which terms the enquirer is liable to use when beginning his search in an information retrieval system, i.e. his approach terms (Buchanan, 1976). At this point research and insight from modern cognitive psychology may help us to find possible answers.

There are at least two theories dominating modern decompositional conceptual classification: the classical definitional view and the modern prototype or cluster concept view. The definitional view is the more prevalent of the two in concept theory of terminology. It is decompositional in the sense that the intension of a concept is seen as the aggregate of all the characteristics which constitute it (cf. DS/ISO R/1087).

The finite set of characteristics are both necessary and sufficient to pick out all, and only, the referents which are to be subsumed under the concept (i.e. its extension) and no referents which are not to be subsumed under the concept. The characteristics are supposed to be able to pick out for instance the set of dogs from everything else in the world. In other words the set of characteristics determines category membership, and all members (or referents) of a concept have equal status as to membership.

The prototype view dates back to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (1953) and his notion of family resemblance. Rather than postulating a well defined set of category members (the extension of the concept) with equal status to their set of characteristics (the intension of the concept), conceptual membership in prototype theory becomes a question of degree.

A family resemblance relationship can be visualized as in figure 5. It consists of a set of items of the form AB, BC and CD. Each referent has at least one (very often several) characteristics in common with one or more other referents

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of a concept. But very few characteristics common to all referents of the same concept. Thus, a chair for instance, is said to be a better or more prototypical referent of the concept furniture than vase, and vase is more prototypical than ashtray. Generally speaking, the more prototypical a referent is of a concept, the more characteristics it has in common with other members of that category, and the less it has characteristics in common with contrasting categories.

The concepts of family resemblance and prototypicality have been studied rather intensively by E. Rosch and her colleagues (cf. the reference list). Logic and generic hierarchies (taxonomies) are based on the principle of extensional inclusion in the sense that the extension of broader concepts include the extension of narrower concepts which they dominate.

One of the basic ideas of the prototype theory is that there exists a consistent basic hierarchic level of inclusion where referents of a concept have an optimal degree of family resemblance to one another and a minimal degree of family resemblance to referents of other concepts. In figure 6 this basic level is shown for 4 of 9 taxonomies of concrete concepts. In a series of experiments (cf. Rosch et al., 1976) it is shown that basic categories are more image-like than other categories (i.e. we can form a mental picture of a prototypical chair, a basic level category, but not so easily a picture of a prototypical piece of furniture). In identifying objects at a level subordinate to (or more specific than) basic level concepts, like a Chippendale chair, they are first and immediately recognized as basic level categories (i.e. a chair).

The important aspect here is that the basic level seems to be the most useful level of reference in identification of more specific or subordinate level objects.

Moreover, basic level concepts seem to be the first ones learned by the child (e.g. guitar and drum in figure 6 are learned long before musical instrument and folk guitar and kettle drum). (For further details, methods applied and experimental results cf. Rosch et al., 1976).

All this suggests that concepts subordinate to the basic level of classification are too specific and requires more expert knowledge on the part of the user of a thesaurus. When for instance trying to identify a mechanical product with several specific characteristics, we may ask ourselves: What is the most useful and common level of reference of this mechanical product? Perhaps we do not understand the details, but we know that it is most probably a pump. In a retrieval context,

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then, pump should perhaps be represented as an EC if it is not indexed from the documents. Or, if a non-expert, average user of a thesaurus was given the task of finding documentary information on Chippendale chairs: Would his approach term be more likely to be chair than furniture?

To take a final example: In figure 7a we have a pure thematic classification of vehicles, whereas 7b illustrates the same classification with the empty category car. Most people know that Volvos and Nissans are cars. So, car would be a very likely candidate for the approach term here (unless it appears in the alphabetical part as a non-preferred term). By giving it status as a non-indexed descriptor we are lead directly to the relevant hierarchy.

From this it is, of course, not possible to conclude that basic level categories are useful as ECs in a thesaurus. However, numerous experiments in cognitive psychology suggest that there is a consistent correlation between basic level concepts on the one hand and ease of identification, frequency of reference and salience on the other hand.

The question in our context is: Is there also a consistent correlation between basic level concepts on the one hand and storing, retrieval, category searching and the use of approach terms in thesauri on the other hand?

It is very reasonable to assume that man, as a classifying being, actively assigns characteristics to concepts in order to achieve the maximum degree of contrast between them in order to be able to control his environment. The basic level categories seem to mirror this contrast more clearly than other levels of inclusion.

References

Ashcraft, H. (1978) Property Norms for Typical and Atypical Items from 17 Categories: A Description and Discussion.

Memory and Cognition, 6, 227-232.

Armstrong, S.L., Gleitman, L.R., Gleitman, H. (1983) What Concepts might not be. Cognition, 13, 263-308.

Battig, W.F., Montague, W.E. (1969) Category Norms for Verbal Items in 56 Categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology (monograph), 1-46.

Buchanan, B. (1976) A Glossary of Indexing Terms. London.

Dahlgren, K. (1985) The Cognitive Structure of Social Categories. Cognitive science, 9, 377-398.

DS/ISO/R 1087 (1976) Terminologiens Terminologi. Dansk

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Standardiseringsråd. København.

Exploration and Production Thesaurus (E & P Thesaurus) (1986) Oklahoma: University of Tulsa.

Ordliste Gullfaks (1985) Preliminary version. Statoil. Bergen.

Radford, A. (1981) Transformational Syntax. Cambridge.

Reinton, J.E. (1987) Petrus Prosjektet 1985-86. Sluttrapport fra revisjonen av en petroleumstesaurus. Norske Språkdata, 14.

Rosch, E. (1978) Principles of Categorization. Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B.B. (eds) Cognition and Categorization, 27-48. Hillsdale, New Jersey.

Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B.B. (eds) (1978) Cognition and Categorization. Hillsdale, New Jersey.

Rosch, E. and Mervis, C.B. (1975) Family Resemblance: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 573-605.

Rosch, E., Mervis, C.B., Gray, W.D., Johnson, D.M. and Boyes-Braem, P. (1976) Basic Objects in Natural Categories. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 382-439.

Rådet för teknisk terminologi (1976) Ordbok for Petroleumsvirksomhet. Universitetsforlaget. Oslo.

Tversky, A. and Gati, I. (1978) Studies of Similarity. Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B.B. (eds) Cognition and Categorization, 79-95. Hillsdale, New Jersey.

Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations. New York.

Wüster, E. (1985) Einführung in die allgemeine Termoinologielehre und terminologische Lexikographie. Copenhagen.

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figure 1

(figure continued on next page)

Page 440

(figure continued from previous page)

Page 441

common types

: + P + RTT

round brackets

: - P + RTT

bold types

: + P - RTT

underlined types

: EC

P

=
Petrus - The Norwegian Petroleum Thesaurus

RTT

=
Rådet for teknisk terminologi (Norwegian Council for Technical Terminology)

EC

=
empty category

+ P
=
The category is included as a descriptor in Petrus

+ RTT
=
The category is included in the conceptual classification of the Norwegian Council for Technical terminology

- P
=
The category is not included as a descriptor in Petrus

- RTT
=
The category is not included in the conceptual classification of the Norwegian Council for Technical Terminology

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figure 1a
SET THEORETICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN PETRUS
CATEGORIES AND RTT CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

Page 443

figure 2

Page 444

figure 3

A = Conceptual classification

B = Thematic classification

figure 4

A
=
LGP - categories (the total set of the Norwegian lexicon)

B
=
LGP - categories (the total set of the Norwegian conceptual systems in all technolects)

C
=
The total set of entry terms in Petrus

D
=
The total set of descriptors in Petrus

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Propositions

1.
A Ç B = Ø
The intersection between the set A and the set B is empty (disjunct sets)

2.
D Ì C
The set D is properly included in the set C

3.
A Ç C ± Ø
The intersection of the set A and the set C is not empty

4.
B Ç C ± Ø
The intersection of the set B and the set C is not empty

5.
$ x Î B & Î D
There exists a category x which is a member of the set B and not a member of the set D

6.
$ y Î A & Î D
There exists a category y which is a member of the set A and not a member of the set D

Three possible solutions:

1. There is no distinction between thematic and conceptual classification. ECs are allowed (but marked as such) in all x and y positions in 5 and 6.

2. Pure thematic classification. No ECs are allowed.

3. ECs are allowed in some x and y positions, but not in others.

figure 5

A, B, C and D represent the sets of characteristic features of the concepts a, b, c and d.

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figure 6

From Rosch et al (1976)

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figure 7

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36
Propuesta Para Un Analisis Automatico Del Contenido En Documentacion De Est

Félix de Moya, José Manuel Muñoz y Pedro Hípola
University of Cordoba and University of Granada

Las caracteristicas del sistema que presentamos en estas páginas han determinado la participacion en él de un grupo de trabajo con caracter marcadamente interdisciplinar. Se ha tratado de hacer confluir la tarea de estudio sobre materiales de EST para fines docentes con las técnicas usuales en indizacion automática. Los componentes del grupo coinciden en unos intereses de trabajo comunes, encaminados a obtener el aislamiento de términos especialemente relevantes dentro de textos de Ciencia y Tecnologia escritos en inglés, que sirvan en primer lugar para el establecimiento y puesta al día de vocabularios utilizables en la enseñanza del inglés con fines específicos, los cuales a su vez puedan ser utilizados dentro de una aplicación que se encargue de realizar la indizacion documental de forma automática sobre palabras clave extraídas de los textos escritos que se presenten al sistema.

La metodología empleada para cubrir los objectivos definidos se basa en procedimientos usuales dentro del ámbito de la estadística lingüística, especialmente los mas extendidos en el tratamiento del analisis morfográfico necesario. En la base del funcionamiento del istema se encuentra el recurso a la comparación de las frecuencias del léxico empleado en textos ingleses de Ciencia y Tecnologia con las frecuencias del vocabulario de la lengua standard, para efectuar así el aislamiento de los términos que se desea localizar. Establecidos de manera semiautomatica repertorios léxicos pertenecientes a dominios temáticos específicos, los vocabularios obtenidos pueden ser utilizados como objeto de estudio lingüístico, como auxiliar en la enseñanza de ''English for Specific Purposes" y además como término de comparacion ¹ para el siguiente objetivo, el de la indización automática.

Por este tipo de procedimiento se facilita en primer lugar que la selección del vocabulario que se va a usar en la enseñanza de ESP se realiza no solo a través de un criterio de estimacion subjetiva por parte del profesor, sino con la ayuda de un estudio objetivo, que le orienta en la determinacion de qué tipo de material se debe emplear y además le ofrece datos para establecer prioridades en el léxico que se enseña. Por otra parte, desde el punto de vista documental el analisis que

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se produce podria ser clasificado, dentro del esquema que ha señalado Van Slype ², como "indización automática selectiva en lenguaje natural".

Se ha recurrido a algoritmos y criterios de ordenación del material basados en la ley de Zipf y en la fórmula del test de Pearson, ademas de diversos cálculos de probabilidades. Las herramientas informáticas empleadas están constituidas por un sistema de gestión de base de datos relacional. Para preparar las rutinas de tratamiento del material lingüístico se ha utilizado el lenguaje de comandos incorporado en el mismo gestor.

Presentamos en esta communicación el proceso de preparacion de uno de los vocabularios de tema específico, el correspondiente a textos sobre temas informáticos, realizado a partir de un corpus de mas de doscientos cincuenta mil tokens, del que, desechadas fórmulas, nombres de variables, etc., quedaron aproximadamente unas ciento cincuenta mil formas léxicas. El interés de contrar con estudios serios de vocabulario es especialmente patente en el área tematica de la computación, por el alto nivel de especificidad léxica que caracteriza a los textos de este ámbitio, su considerable ritmo en la creación de nuevos vocablos y por la gran cantidad de préstamos que en este dominio científico suelen tomar del inglés otras lenguas, entre ellas el español.

Tras llevar a cabo la recopilación de los textos que componen el corpus, se realizó la carga de los mismos y, previa depuración formal de diversos caracteres, se efectuó el recuento de frecuencias de cada una de las formas léxicas3. Independientemente de esto, se ha procedido a la carga del diccionario de frecuencias elaborado por Kucera y Francis4. Los datos así extraídos fueron incorporados al sistema completo de base de datos. Por otra parte, de forma manual, se ha introducido en cada registro un campo que contiene un puntero que remite, si procede, a la forma canónica correspondiente, o, en caso contrario, una marca que indica que se trata de un término lexical canónico. El sistema de "punteros" no está sólo concebido para agrupar flexiones de un mismo lema, sino también con vistas a compilar grupos de palabras que, generalmente por estar construidas en torno a la misma lexía, constituyen un subconjunto léxicosemántico uniforme cuya reducción simplifica el proceso de indización documental5. Por otra parte, ese mismo campo se ha utilizado para anotar diversas informaciones de tipo gramatical y lexicográfico tales como marcas para identificar acrónimos, palabras "vacías", etc.

En lo que se refiere al establecimiento del antidiccionario de

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palabras vacías, se han seguido diversos criterios. El planteamiento de la cuestión partió de considerar qué tipo de sistema se deseaba implementar. En primer lugar fueron marcadas como vacías las formas habitualmente consideradas como de valor primordialmente gramatical o al menos de escasa relevancia significativa: preposiciones, conjunciones, determinantes, verbos auxiliares y modales, cópulas, etc. Así mismo es ha intentado señalar el mayor número posible de palabras "atemáticas", de sentido impreciso o excesivamente general, utilizando también como punto de referencia criterios estadísticos. Resulta delicado establecer el grupo de términos "omnibus" que deben formar parte del antidiccionario, pues es difícil determinar el grado de generalidad de las palabras. En nuestro caso, cuando se ha planteado una duda sobre si considerar o no vacío algun término, en la mayoria de las ocasiones se ha preferido optar por incluirlo en el antidiccionario, pues el tipo de indización que se pretende alcanzar por ahora es de tipo "indicativo", mas que "informativo". Esto es, se trata de obtener un conjunto de palabras clave lo más reducido posible que consigne los aspectos más esenciales del contenido del documento que se procese, no de hacer una valoración exhaustiva. Asi, se han considerado "atemáticos'' términos como get, go, take, give, make, etc., e incluso otros de caracter polisémico, como even, una de cuyas "acepciones" (even number) puede resultar relevante en el análisis de determinados documentos.

A la hora de evaluar el sistema se han observado determinadas limitaciones, especialmente en lo que se refiere a la gestión de homografías y por tanto a la red de reenvíos entre flexiones y lexicales canónicas -, que son origen de diversos ruidos en el proceso. Otro tipo de probelmas surgen del diccionario de frecuencias que se ha seleccionado como término de comparación, pues por las especiales caracteristicas del corpus procesado no resulta un reflejo exacto del inglés standard. Sin embargo, nos parece que los resultados alcanzados a través de la metodología que hemos empleado se pueden considerar satisfactorios, pues se obtienen unas indizaciones con un grado de ruido no muy elevado y de suficiente exhaustividad, todo ello por procedimientos automáticos, lo que supone una solucion a la falta de coherencia y a la carga economica que suerle caracterizar el análisis de los indizadores humanos. Dadas las caracteristicas del sistema, su actualizacion resulta posible sin excesiva intervencion humana. Y esto aparece tanto más necesario cuanto más se considera cuál es la rapidez con la que se modifica el subsistema lingüístico de la Ciencia y la Tecnología. La creciente disponibilidad de material escrito en soporte legible por ordenador aumenta las facilidades para hacerlo. La opinión de los autores es que la investigacion

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actual, en lo que se refiere a los proyectos de la inteligencia artificial, no debería marginar, a la hora de preparar bases de conocimientos para sistemas intérpretes de lenguaje natural, los avances clásicos de la estadística lingüística.

Notas

1. La utilización de este tipo de técnicas ha sido muy experimentada durante las ultimas cuatro décadas con vistas a desarrollar una "estilística computacional". Puede verse el reciente articulo de Yang Huizhong (1986) A New Technique for Identifying Scientific/Technical Terms and Describing Science Texts. Literary and Linguistic Computing, vol. 1, n. 2. Oxford University Press.

2. Cfr. Van Slype, G. (1987) Les langages d'indexation. Paris. pag. 168 y ss. La indizacion selectiva, bien en lenguaje natural, bien en lenguaje controlado, se caracteriza porque "toma en cuenta sólo ciertos términos, considerados por el algoritmo del sistema como los más representativos del contenido del documento" (pag. 169).

3. Puede encontrarse una información más detallada en "Análisis automático de documentación técnica informática", comunicacion presentada por los mismos autores al V' Congreso de la AESLA, Pamplona, 1987.

4. Kucera, H. y Francis, W.N. (1967) Computional Analysis of Present-day American English. Rhode Island.

5. Deweze utiliza el término "forma semántica" para referirse a este tipo de agrupamientos. Cfr. A. Deweze (1985) Informatique documentaire, pag. 129 y ss. Paris.

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37
The Use Of Concordances In Vocabulary Acquisition

Lut Baten, Anne-marie Cornu and L.K. Engels
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

1. Introduction

A concordance is a list of all the words of a text or a corpus of texts in an alphabetical order, placed in the middle of a line in a computer-listing (node), with a context of four or five words to the left and as many to the right of the node (L.K. Engels, 1986). A further alphabetisation to the words right of the node has been applied (example see appendix 1). At this moment, such concordances can be compiled on Personal Computers. They are now used for the study of the behaviour of words in clusters, in order to detect collocations, idioms and clichés. The concordance can be compiled automatically from any text, and in fact from any language, general or specific.

A concordance of a specific field is a very interesting tool. It offers an out-print of the language used at a given moment of time, in a selected field of some words, with an indication of their actual frequency, in a neutral (because alphabetic) order. For any researcher or teacher this should be the tool to use in selecting a specific vocabulary for a specific target group. Having the learning process of the learner in mind, however, how can the tool be made useful in the hands of the learner?

Advanced students bring their (general) knowledge of the foreign language, their present-day conceptual knowledge of the world and of their interest in their field of study to their learning of the FL. They need to learn to use this newly acquired knowledge, i.e. to be able to use it in actual practice in all kinds of situations, both in study (especially for seminars in other units) and later on in business. This is called transfer. Hence, they need a tool to always being able to tune in on another (sub)field of study or work and to verbalize the newly acquired knowledge in all kinds of communicative situations: from reading to negotiating. Hence, they should acquire the strategies to guide their own language processing.

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2. Hypothesis

Students were explicitly taught how to organize their thoughts through reading strategies, working with semantic networks, writing tasks (from paragraphs to different text formats) and giving presentations. They are not yet ready to accurately communicate freely about a business topic. But any given text in their field of economics can be processed. Accordingly, this is one organizing system students can rely upon for deriving the gist of a communication and overcoming semantic difficulties (Baten and Cornu, 1985).

That target can be reached, if the students acquire the attitude of explicitly paying attention to how concepts are being verbalized in their own field of study so as to be able to gradually internalize and use the specific wording in their daily practice. Hence, in the learning process, the concepts of existing knowledge structure should be initiated (see schema theory) by the target vocabulary, at the moment of processing.

Our hypothesis is that a concordance is the tool to install this attitude with the learner, because working with concordances, the learner can match his own knowledge structures and knowledge acquisition strategies with the semantically and conceptually unorganized compilation of alphabetized keyconcepts in context, which the concordance actually is. In this way, the learner can confront the concepts of his present scripts and schemata with the nodes (and clusters) in the semantically unorganized survey of possible concurrences. Furthermore, the practical format of concordance, with limited (but a traceable larger) context facilitates the recognition of the key-word for the key-concept and its collocates. Moreover, even though, at first sight, the format of the semantic input (not giving any definitions nor explanations in limited contexts), it in fact forces him to activate his prior knowledge and link his present understanding of key-concepts to the concurrences he observes.

The concordance fulfils the indispensable role of the tool which enables the learner to first observe, then to identify the meaning of key-words in their clusters relying on the activated prior knowledge structures of the learner. This is the first hypothesis. The second one is pertaining to the transfer effect. If the student is required to draft blueprints of his own processing (dynamic scripts, Schank, 1982) in which his prior knowledge structures are reprocessed with the input of the concordance, then this leads to a higher level

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of internalization of the target vocabulary, observable in a better transfer skill.

3. The Experiment

Method

A suitable assignment for the students had to be conceived of, which highlights to the students that the strategies of how to tackle the lexicon in view of their own scripts and self-selected (sub)fields of economics are geared at instead of e.g. a description of the linguistic input of the concordance. This assignment should be in function of the learners.

Identification of the Students

We shall first dwell upon the class administration. All students are in the second year of economics, taking the last unit of compulsory business English. They can take optional classes in business conversation the third year. Students will then need to attend lectures and seminars in English and fulfil the reading requirements, which include American and British articles for all other courses.

Most students have studied English for 6 years: 5 years in secondary school and one year of business English at the university (60 hours in total). About 420 students enter the second year taking English in groups of an average of 55 per group, during 30 weeks, at the rate of 1 hour per week. Briefly, the students learn to further practice the basic communicative skills of business English, having to write different kinds of business texts and formats (memo's, forms, letters, reports, evaluations), giving presentations and preparing a dossier, deepening the basic business vocabulary thematically in view of the task.

Identification of the Task

Explanation of the assignment to the students The students received a hand-out in Dutch, explaining the assignment (see appendix 3), early December.

The students got about 4 months to hand in the paper. They were told that an oral exam in the form of a conversation about the chosen topic would follow, in such a way that the

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teacher prepares a specific question for every student on the paper, using the schemes and texts. The students always are allowed some time for preparing the answer at the exam.

One week later, the students got the opportunity to ask further explanations on the task. As it was surmised, they asked to do it together once, by means of an example. We simulated their task as follows:

0. Which topic do we select? When one topic was selected, there was a brainstorming about what we knew about it. Most words appeared on the blackboard, no selection, nor organization.

1. Looking for a text which could give information. We looked at the available texts in our textbooks. We applied reading strategies to find the keyconcepts of the text(s). The relating keywords were matched with those on the board. Wherever possible, the students indicated relations (drawing lines, arrows etc.). The keywords appearing to be organizers were selected and checked in the concordance to

a. find whether they were present at all (as such, it was clear to the students that the list was not extensive at all); ¹

b. make the students acquainted with using such a list. Apparently, they were puzzled by the lay-out: the key-word being in the middle, not displaying full sentences, including all words from various texts, with the same words with different meanings etc. There were not enough copies for such large groups either.

Thereupon, the reasons for using such a list of words were explained. The list displays:

a. the co-occurrence of words in a limited context such that the nodes are directly accessible for whatever purpose;

b. the frequency of certain co-occurrence as to reveal its importance, their productivity of their specificality in a field;

c. the fact that concepts are expressed by strings of words in which one word calls forth the other to express that specific meaning. In this way the notion of cluster towards collocation (see appendix 2) was introduced and stressed.

Here the simulation stopped. The consecutive steps were formulated as follows:

1. Select a topic of your interest. Don't forget to give a title to your paper related to this central topic. Look for 5 current

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texts from different business journals and newspapers (nor earlier than September 1986). Absolute minimum length of the 5 texts: 5 pages. Photocopy these and work on them, applying reading strategies as to select 10 keywords across the texts. These are preferably nouns, as they represent key-concepts of your chosen topic. Think what about goes into your topic with these keyconcepts. Use the information of the text as a help.

2. Consult the concordance in the library and copy all the strings of words in which your key-word is a node. If possible, organize the input.

3. Scan your texts for likely concurrences. Copy and order them too. Keep both lists separately, as the relevance of the concordance should be investigated.

4. Take all the lexical input from 2 and 3. Also pick up what you know about the topic from your own knowledge (not only from the texts but from your reading). Draw schemes which reflect your conception of the topic at this moment and fit in those strings of words that you need in order to very explicitly and logically express that conceptualization. Remember that in the oral exam you should use these schemes having a conversation about the topic.

You can drop 5 keywords for making schemes, if you want that. You can actually express your knowledge whatever way you want: writing coherent short texts or one extensive one, drafting one all inclusive scheme, several ones, different ones of them as it serves your learning purpose to acquire that vocabulary about your target field for communicative purposes (see appendix 3 for the original version in Dutch).

4. Results

All students who had enrolled for the exam sessions submitted the paper and took the exam. Almost all had understood the task quite well. About 20% spontaneously commented upon the kind of task and the usefulness of the concordance, (orally and written) as they knew we were going to study the effectiveness of the approach. Further comments were asked at the time of the exam. The results are based upon these comments and primarily upon the papers, the conversations and the transcripts of samples of the latter. There were about 400 papers and oral exams and about 20 transcripts.

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Type of Assignment

The students were unanimous in their appreciation of the kind of assignment. Individualization with a large number of students is hardly practised beyond the language classes. Most of all, they appreciated being able to do the whole job themselves: selecting topics and texts, being allowed to draft whatever scheme or write texts as it fitted their purpose, and furthermore being able to show what they knew about the topic in a conversation. A very good student stressed the importance of being able to be very creative with the output texts. In most cases, the oral exam was a pleasant conversation with a high content load. As such, teacher and student seemed peers joining an authentic conversation similar to an interview; the teacher really wanted an expert answer on a prepared question of which she did not know the full answer herself. The marks were spread: one on the paper and one on the communicative competence of the student. 334 students succeeded. The 66 students who failed to get an exemption will have to do the assignment again, if they repeat the year.

The learning effect from the assignment, according to the written statements of the students, was that

they were better motivated for reading and look closer at the wording of texts. They could also be more selective in their choice of journals and newspapers as they knew of their existence now. Consequently, they could judge them better, as well.

they better think in English and have learned to use the words. This means that both storage and retrieval of target words are better functioning.

they have enriched the vocabulary about a field of their interest, deepened the knowledge both as to vocabulary and economics itself.

they can use the context of words much better.

These subjective statements from a free introspection, need to be verified against the learning effect as it could be observed from the papers and the subsequent conversation.

The selection of the topic was overall quite interesting (see appendix 4). As to the procedure, all students followed the steps. About 30% from the students discriminated between the input from the concordance and the one from the text (on request of the teacher, for research purposes). From this it was clear that the concordance was not extensive enough for all selected keywords. (e.g. the node `retail' was absent,

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which is a serious lack see note 1) but for those which were present, it was. Most students selected quite general keywords such as investment, bank, protectionism, sector, advertisement (see infra for reasons and discussion).

The specific vocabulary from concordance and the texts was reflected in the copying, the scripts and the texts. It is remarkable that if texts were supplied by students, the clustering was low in the introductory texts, whereas the conclusive ones were very high. Good students discriminated themselves also from weaker ones on this account. The same was revealed in the conversations.

When copying the concurrences, 75% of the students did not order the lexical input at this stage. The others did so on various bases: logical-semantics, (using logical symbols, reading categories: who, what, where, flow charts, tree diagrams), linguistically descriptives (substitution tables, word categories, tables of derivation), writing phrases and sentences. Some students involved in translation. The reasons for this were that they had not understood from the context what the concurrence meant, or they had looked up an additional concurrence they needed in the dictionary, or they wanted to precisely understand and remember what the concurrence meant. Some said they could better remember after having translated.

One error occurred copying strings of words: students tried to find the complete sentence from the concordance to copy. They complained that the task was too encompassing. Some students first copied strings of words from the texts and then from the concordance. It was also very striking that by merely copying the words, so many spelling errors occurred, and so we see evidence of their general weakness with the mastery of the written language.

The Resulting Scripts

About 90% of the students involved in drafting scripts. The others wrote smaller or longer texts in which they tried to use the collocations correctly. Most mistakes were made against the general language (spelling, syntax errors, cohesion) ².

The resulting scripts were quite extensively (one full page or more per key-word) and logically conceived. They are indeed blueprints of their own individual thinking and internalization of words related to concepts. This is evident from those scripts which the students drafted on the same key-concepts. Even though the main key-word may be the same (e.g. a

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script on `price'), no script is exactly the same.

Students involved in various kinds of scripts. If logical relations were to be expressed (e.g. cause, consequence, implication), students drew scenic semantic fields (see appendix 3) and actually verbalized the logic relation by the right collocation. If a display of their conception of a concept with its relations and diversifications was made, the logical relations themselves were not verbalized, but merely iconized ³ (using arrows etc.), even the most frequent collocations (e.g. of increase and decrease) were iconized instead of verbalized. The verbalization was geared at the concept input itself expounded by (i) a number of synonymous expressions under one main heading, (ii) qualifiers, (iii) primarily subdivisions or steps within the complete script.

The better students diverged from the weaker ones by displaying scripts which were self-explanatory as to the verbal entries and logically very clear, not overloaded with terminology. The precise word or collocation was selected for rendering the specific idea. Weaker students tend to overload their scripts with terminology and relations in which it is doubtful whether they have questioned the use of the word or cluster if it is put in that place of the script, in the same block with other words or clusters. E.g. some students had problems with the use of causative verbs such as `raise' and `rise' or they put `solve. . ., face. . ., point out. . ., credit (a) problem', all together in one block without logical, chronological, conceptual distinction. Some of these students tend to add extra relational expressions to their scripts, but not fitting them in, but adding them underneath. These students also tend to translate the collocations in or underneath their scripts. This indicate a lower degree of internalization, as the translation is a helpful step towards identification (at the stage of working with the concordance and text input). Both intelligence and language play a role here. This was confirmed by the grade the students obtained for all courses. Those students who had distinguished themselves, were also the students who had scored very high on the paper. The students who failed, did also for the paper, but in contrast to previous years, more students could now upgrade their score for English to an exemption.

The language problems remain, of course, but with the scripts, as they require a high content level and a lower language editing, the interference of mothertongue structures was lower. Students could immediately show what they knew and how they wanted to express that. The problems with syntax and morphology became more apparent in the oral test.

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The Resulting Conversation

The requirements of the oral exam were twofold. Firstly, students had to show that they possessed their topic on the content level to have an authentic conversation in which both speakers stop, rephrase, interrupt, ask, explain and exemplify, summarize, refer etc. That is also why the teacher and student were seated in comfortable armchairs for the exam and not at tables. Secondly, the students had to formulate their ideas very coherently, cohesively and accurately on the basis of their preparation and paper. It was stressed in class that their language production had to reach the level of their intellectual input.

As we wanted to study the transfer effect for communicative purposes, we decided to administer an extra test with a random number of students. The learning effect of the assignment versus the general language control was the focus of this experiment. We asked about 20 students whether we could raise an extra question, for which the student had no time to prepare and whether we could tape their answer. This question was prepared by the teacher in such a way that it pertained to one of the scripts. First, the student had to discuss the problem unprepared, afterwards the teacher asked whether the answer needed to be adjusted, inviting the student to look at one or more of his scripts.

It was very striking how the level of collocational input and coherence dropped at the unprepared stage versus the prepared one of the first question. The frequency of the keywords was noticeably high. The general language use slightly deteriorated as well. But when the student could have a look at his scripts, the collocational input and especially the coherence shot up, though still underneath the level of the prepared answer. The transcription of the tape gives evidence of this low transfer effect of the assignment.

5. Discussion

It is obvious from the result that if the students get the opportunity to select their own topic and subsequent keywords, they are able to (i) recognize clusters, collocations and terminology, and to (ii) process knowledge in an organized way, displaying good logical thinking, drafting dynamic scripts or texts in which the concepts used are accurately verbalized and their relations correctly expressed ⁴. There are levels of performance here, depending both on

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the intellectual gifts of the students and their prior knowledge of the target language. As a matter of fact, all students had the opportunity to upgrade themselves.

But, taken to a free conversation, in which the students had to function as if in the real world, the level of internalization of the acquired vocabulary and the mastery of the different language and communicative functions becomes very obvious. The level of transfer is very different, depending upon the level of each individual and the level of difficulty of the task. This brings us to our point of departure: the learning process. In the free conversation, the students were able to understand keywords and clusters, they were able to produce most of the keywords but less of the clusters. Their conversation was a clear display of their partial acquisition. There is no doubt that the students had brought the best of their knowledge and language skills, as it was exam time. But they could not reach a skill for which they were not ready: complete transfer. Hence, the second part of our hypothesis whether transfer is accomplished, does not fully hold. We can only say: hopefully, when the students involve in further practice putting their knowledge to use in different communicative situations, transfer can be gradually achieved. But, with the results of Van der Werf (1986) on transfer in mind, we may say that the transfer effect is significant. Indeed, students have fairly mastered the strategies to steer their language production with accurate verbalization from their knowledge structures, certainly for their written production. Therefore, the first part of the hypothesis holds. Students have also acquired the cognitive means as to how to go about enlarging their vocabulary; they have been provided with a new tool for further mastery learning.

Is the concordance an optimal device for doing this? The type of assignment apparently was, in which the concordance occupied an indispensable step. But the concordance itself needs more refinement, as to its input. Basic concepts to the target field should not be absent in it. Therefore, a basic vocabulary list should be checked against the concordance and this total input should be verified with larger corpora. Secondly, the internalization of the collocations from the concordance by means of the scripts should be studied in a quantified way. This experiment should be considered a pilot study. A thorough statistical analysis is necessary as a basis for further research. E.g. the number of clusters used in final scripts should be counted. The same could be done for the recorded conversations as to have a quantified record of the internalization of the new elements and hence have a grip on the transfer effect. This should be done for every individual

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in order to track how and why the transfer effect diverges with every student.

Finally, the concordance as a tool should be further explored for other purposes as well. Students and teachers might very well benefit from it involving in all kinds of tasks for which a direct access from dynamic script processing to the foreign language is required. Writing an article in the FL can be hard with only a dictionary available. The good book does not help because advanced FL users often don't have access to the specific vocabulary of their field in their mothertongue either.

6. Students' Comments

The criticism of the students was both positive and negative.

Positive comments:

It revealed keywords as to their frequency and productivity in other contexts and meanings. As such, it was enlarging the scope of their idea of the usage of the word.

It was indispensable to start the schemes.

It gave the opportunity to find associations and combinations they had never thought of. It helps to better understand the system of typical clusters and collocations.

It revealed the different meanings of words when used with other prepositions, verbs or adjectives. In this way they can dig a little deeper into the language than with a dictionary.

It listed service-words helping to verbalize what they wanted to say with they key-words. They could make links between service-words.

The contexts of the concordance is not long enough.

It takes some time to get used to working with the list. Perhaps we should work with it in class, as well to get used to it. A written help and introduction to the concordance would be very welcome.

Negative comments were:

The concordance should be more easily available and they should have it at home. Too few copies were put on reserve in the library.

It must be more extensive. A number of keywords did not occur as nodes ⁵.

A concordance per subfield should be available next to a

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more basic one.

It still needs to be used together with a dictionary.

It took a lot of time to go to the library and copy.

"I don't know whether I even understand all that is in the concordance".

The contexts of the concordance are not long enough.

It takes some time to get used to working with the list. A written help to the concordance would be very welcome.

Most of these objections have been discussed above. The fact that contexts are too limited and too much time is needed for consultation can readily be solved by automating the use of the concordance. The students should be able to consult the concordance on a PC with a printing device so that they can make an outprint of what they need. These PC's should be connected to a main frame to enable the students to get access to the KWIC-indices of the studied keywords.

Notes

1. We did not draw up a list of keywords which a computer (mainframe) should have put into a suitable context drawn from large language corpora (Brown and LOB). This was a weakness in this experiment.

2. At the exam, one student who treated his topic very well on the content level in various 300 word texts, was not able to correct his language errors, even when the teacher indicated the lines in the margin. This student tried to correct his collocation system, which was perfect. Hence, he remarked the correction was not doable, which was correct from his point of view, as he was not trained on transfering from the corrections the teacher had made in his first two texts. Hence, the learning effect is on the collocational system and not on transfer from general language use.

3. The students iconize their thoughts using graphs because they presume that their receiver will understand the sign they use. They generally use the icons used in class. Most of them clarify the signs they further invent.

4. Organizing the clusters with a selection of the key-concepts is actually involving in schema formation, both bottom-up and top-down. Students apply strategies of selection, diversification, adding and generalization (see rules Van Dijk, 1982).

5. One student wrote "Even though, I knew I could also refer to the texts, I thought it was a pity. So I selected other key-words which turned out to be very hard for making my schemes and not interesting."

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References

Baten, L. (1981) Text Comprehension: The Parameters of Text Difficulty in Narrative and Expository Prose Texts: A re-definition of Readability. PhD Thesis. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Baten, L. and Cornu, A.M. (1985) Overcoming the Semantic Paradox. Paper presented at the International Conference on Applied Psycholinguistics. Barcelona.

Brown Corpus.

Collins Co Build (1987). Collins. London.

Cornu, A.M., Binon, J., Delahaye, M. and Baten, L. (1987) Looking at Collocation from the Point of View of Terminology. Unpublished paper.

Engels, L.K. (1986) Linguistic Exploration of Concordances Produced on Personal Computers. Interface, 1.1.1986, 29-42.

LOB Corpus.

Schank, R.C. (1982) Dynamic Memory: A Theory of Reminding and Learning in Computers and People. Cambridge University Press.

Van Dijk, T. (1977) Semantic Macro-Structures and Knowledge Frames in Discourse Processing. Carpenter, M.A. and Just, P.A. (eds) Cognitive Processes in Comprehension. Hillsdale, N.J.

Van der Werff, W.A. (1986) Vocabulary Acquisition and Vocabulary Control at the University Level, Frequencies, Cross-Sectional Longitudial Studies. 5 vol. Unpublished PhD Thesis. K.U. Leuven.

Willey, M. (1986) A Study of Script Theory in relation to Consumer Behaviour with a Practical Application to Meat Purchasing. MBA Thesis. K.U. Leuven.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Example Of A Concordance

WILL BE LESS INCENTIVE FOR SINGLE PEOPLE  BOTH THE YOUNG AND THE RETIRED
ISE AND SO PUSH UP HOUSE PRICES: PEOPLE WILL DEMAND BIGGER HOUSES, SINCE
AS SECOND-BEST A REAL RETURN OF 3 PER CENT (THE SAME AS THE LONG-RUN RETU
PRICES  ALTHOUGH IT GUESSED BY 5 PER CENT, NOT 15 PER CENT. $ ONE OF TH
F HOUSING SERVICES) IS ALMOST 33 PER CENT  MORE THAN TWICE THE HIGHER RA
IT GUESSED BY 5 PER CENT, NOT 15 PER CENT. $ ONE OF THE GOVENMENT'S FAVO
 . $ >SCOTLAND'S RATE WAS ONLY 25 PER CENT IN 1974, BUT IT HAS PROBABLY S
 EAST >ENGLAND  AND A MASSIVE 48 PER CENT IN >SCOTLAND (SEE TABLE). $
 THERE WAS A "Q TAX RATE "U OF 26 PER CENT IN >WALES, 30 PER CENT IN SOUT
 "U OF 26 PER CENT IN >WALES, 30 PER CENT IN SOUTH-EAST >ENGLAND  AND A
T IT HAS PROBABLY SOARED ABOVE 50 PER CENT NOW, AS A RESULT OF SUCCESSIVE
G IN >BRITAIN (I.E., RATES AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE ANNUAL VALUE OF HOUSIN
D GIVE IT AN IDEAL OPPORTUNITY TO PHASE OUT MORTGAGE-INTEREST RELIEF AT TH
AY NOT INCREASE MUCH, BECAUSE OF PLANNING RESTRICTIONS AND RESISTANCE TO
N THE CAPITAL VALUE OF PROPERTY, PLUS MAINTENANCE COSTS. $ FROM THIS EXE
 , THE BIGGER THE RATE BILL. $ A POLL TAX, BY CONTRAST, IS NOT PART OF
$ IMPOSITION OF THE PRICE-RAISING POLL TAX COULD GIVE IT AN IDEAL OPPORTUN
ES, SINCE THEY WILL PAY THE SAME POLL TAX WHETHER THEY LIVE IN A PALACE O
                             HOW POLL TAX WILL RAISE HOUSE PRICES. $2 MO

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 >WESTERN >EUROPE AND A TAX  SHY POPULATION THAT SHIFTS SOME 3  BILLION
VE IN A PALACE OR A SHED. $1 THE PRECISE EFFECT ON HOUSE PRICES DEPENDS U
UT SCEPTICAL >BELGIANS WILL GO ON PREFERRING >LUXEMBOURG. $
EXTRA DEMAND WILL SPILL OVER INTO PRICE. $ LATER, HIGHER PRICES WILL ENC
 DEMAND FOR HOUSING TO CHANGES IN PRICE; AND THE RESPONSE OF SUPPLY TO DE
DEPENDENTLY, THUS PUSHING UP THE PRICE OF CHEAPER HOUSING. $ LAST YEAR'S
D THAT ABOLITION WILL BOOST HOUSE PRICES  ALTHOUGH IT GUESSED BY 5 PER CE
HOUSEHOLDS WILL ALSO AFFECT HOUSE PRICES. $ ONE-PERSON HOUSEHOLDS WILL GA
    HOW POLL TAX WILL RAISE HOUSE PRICES. $2 MOST TALK ABOUT THE EFFECT O
NG WILL RISE AND SO PUSH UP HOUSE PRICES: PEOPLE WILL DEMAND BIGGER HOUSE
 . $1 THE PRECISE EFFECT ON HOUSE PRICES DEPENDS UPON TWO THINGS: THE RES
MENTS IS THAT IT WOULD PUSH HOUSE PRICES DOWN. $ IMPOSITION OF THE PRICE-
O, HE NEEDED FIRST TO TURN HOUSE PRICES INTO AN ANNUAL SUM WITH WHICH THE
T >ENGLAND. $ HOW FAR WILL HOUSE PRICES RISE ? $ PROFESSOR >GORDON >HUGHE
VER INTO PRICE. $ LATER, HIGHER PRICES WILL ENCOURAGE HOUSE BUILDING OR
AS BEEN ALMOST OVERLOOKED: HOUSE PRICES WILL GO UP. $1 RATES ARE, IN EF

 25 PER CENT IN 1974, BUT IT HAS PROBABLY SOARED ABOVE 50 PER CENT NOW
OW FAR WILL HOUSE PRICES RISE? $ PROFESSOR >GORDON >HUGHES OF >EDINBURG'H

Appendix 2: Clusters and Collocations

A collocation is defined as the co-occurrence of two lexical units, each refering to one ontological category of the projected world and to one constituent at the level of conceptual structure. E.g. (1) a hard job is different from (2) a part time job. Hard is restrictive. Therefore (1) is considered a collocation. (2) is not as it refers to one single lexical unit. It is one ontological thing, one type of work. (Cornu, Binon, Delahaye and Baten, 1987). For English, collocations can be found in dictionaries such as co-build. Clusters of words, which have not been registered as collocations, as they might belong to the idiolect of one author, are defined in this article in the above concordance, irrespective of the fact whether they are registered collocations or not, have been called clusters.

Appendix 3: Handout of the Assignment in Dutch

Instructies voor het individuele werk

1. Kies 1 topic uit de lijst. Binnen 1 topic kan natuurlijk gespecificeerd worden. Bv. Privatisation kan evengoed ook aan bod komen onder "public sector" als onder "small business" als onder "management restructuring"

2. Kies 5 courante teksten uit de Amerikaanse en de Britse literatuur. Geen selectie uit materiaal dat dateert van voor juli 86. Zeker geen teksten uit handboeken of syllabi. Ook geen vertalingen, zoals bv. de KB weekberichten.

3. Check de teksten op hun kernwoorden (zie titel, ondertitels, tussentitels, inleidende alinea's). Selecteer 10 kernwoorden naar jouw keuze. (over de 5 teksten verspreid)

4. Check deze kernwoorden met een concordantie van economische teksten op de aangegeven topics. (zie lijst)

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Schrijf alle collocaties met: adjectieven, werkwoorden en preposities over.

5. Organiseer de kernwoorden en de aanvullingen uit de concordantie in een semantisch schema. Pas het aan en/of vul het aan met woorden uit je teksten.

Semantisch schema:

Beslis welke woorden op welk niveau horen. Reorganiseer dus. Bepaal welke werkwoorden een relatie uitdrukken tussen welke naamwoorden. Maak van deze relaties een scenish semantisch veld. Dat kan onder vorm van een flow-chart, onder vorm van een schema (zie voorbeelden in het basisvocabularium) of onder een logisch veld met als entries: x: actor, z: object, y: recipient op grond van cause, consequence relatie. Voorbeeld:

Je kan ook één globaal schema maken voor 5 kernwoorden, of je kan er aparte maken. Je kan ook geen enkel schema maken maar de kernwoorden met de nodige collocaties in samenhangende context zetten. Je kan 5 kleinere contexten schrijven, of 1 langere tekst, of je maakt een mengvorm: schema's en teksten, zolang als het je maar erg bruikbaar lijkt om op basis hiervan een conversatie te kunnen voeren.

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Appendix 4: Topics Selected by the Students

Most topics were selected on the basis of individual inclination, as all students considered the assignment very individually. Bases for selection were: previous training, family-owned business, topic of the presentation on a paper they had prepared before, hobbies or future specialization. Some students selected a topic they did not know much about and which had not been covered in their program (e.g. Big Bang in London, October 1986). Most popular were: marketing, advertising, high tech, investment, finance and banking, automobile and airline industry, protectionism, international trade and politics, Japan, the NIC's (Newly Industrialized Countries), the E.E.C.

Appendix 5: Example of Scripts

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38
A Terminological Data Bank as a Management Tool

Christian Galinski and Wolfgang Nedobity
Infoterm

1. Information, Knowledge and Documentation

Information is a unit that is difficult to define. In general one can state that information is what can be said about an object or a fact. Furthermore it may be observed that the quantity of available information is constantly increasing and this increase is an exponential one. There is a flood of information which is difficult to cope with despite the immense storage capacities of modern information technology. Nevertheless it is not the overabundance of information which is the real problem, but rather the lack of order and accessibility. An effective management of information is needed. Storable information units, so-called data, must be managed in a meaningful way and be made easily available.

Notwithstanding the fact that superchips and compact disks can store a wealth of information in a tiny space, the information which is urgently required at a certain point in time is sometimes not on hand. This is connected with the fact that the area of "brainware", in particular in the field of database management systems is trailing far behind in its development.

Individual items of information must be linked in meaningful ways to produce useful knowledge. As is the case with hardware and software, the combination of divergent units of information and knowledge also requires so-called interfaces. This is where terminology plays an important role: it may be called the interface for the brainware and makes possible the conceptual connection of individual elements necessary for producing knowledge. That a certain amount of standardisation is necessary for the functioning of the interfaces will be obvious to anyone with practical experience in the field of information.

In order to cope with the problems of the world our present knowledge must no doubt be expanded. The same is also true of the varied problems facing the management of a company. Due to the successes of the research in articifial intelligence

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there will be computers in the future which can by themselves generate new knowledge. So far it has always been assumed that one can only obtain from the computer that which one has put in before. The intellectual potential of mankind will thereby be expanded and problem-solving can be done by the machine. This expansion of knowledge will, however, only be successful if the conceptual and terminological developments can keep pace with it.

The knowledge of the world has traditionally been recorded in documents; usually with much duplication and in a disguised form. Genuine and especially new knowledge is often hard to track down. Moreover, the flood of documentation can hardly be managed by the individual expert any longer. Thus, for example, the number of scientific journals tripled between 1920 and 1970. In 1982 alone, for example, 3.245,000 documents were published in the field of natural science; of these 600,000 were journal articles published in the U.S. The bibliographical data to go with it are stored in 150 data banks the world over. For the user, however, in most cases such bibliographical data are insufficient, since he must have direct access to the individual data contained in the documents. New methods of contents analysis, which are based on terminological principles, can be of help there, in particular in the acquisition of data for storing in data banks. Such data banks are at present the most suitable instruments for controlling the flow of information from the producer to the user.

2. The Functions of Terminology

Terminologies, i.e. the specialised vocabularies of specific subject fields recorded in their conceptual classifications, form one of the bases of

the ordering of knowledge (conceptual classification of every subject field)

the communication of knowledge and skills (teaching of the subject field, transfer of technology)

the transfer of the contents of knowledge from one language to another (interpreting, translating)

the formulation of subject field information

the condensing of subject field information (abstracting)

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the search for stored subject field information (indexing, classification, thesaurus construction)

the development of knowledge banks and other knowledge-based systems.

Concepts can become multifunctional when they are presented in their conceptual systematic order. If enough categories of data are recorded, the concepts can be applied to all the abovementioned uses at the same time. The kind and number of data categories of the terminological record, pertaining to a concept and its surrounding conceptual field, far exceed lexicographic requirements. About one third of the data categories necessary for terminological purposes are, for example, not contained in the International Standard MATER (ISO 6156) and have therefore been laid down in specific TermNet guidelines for the recording of terminological data.

Terminology (systematically arranged systems of concepts and the methodology to be applied in this process) is considered an essential element of the intellectual infrastructure of science and technology. Its functions (especially its ordering function) go far beyond its role in subject field communication. Therefore, the idea suggests itself of taking advantage of the key role of terminology when taking infrastructural measures and thereby gain a methodical and structural grasp of the problems to be solved.

3. Terminology and Language

The terminologies of the different subject fields have many of the characteristics of artificial languages. Their special role within the language of the subject field, which goes far beyond the communicative function, is usually difficult to recognise by language specialists (linguists, specialists in LSP etc.). For the subject specialists, on the other hand (in particular the scientists and engineers) the non-linguistic components are very obvious. As on the surface terminologies resemble the natural language, one may easily be misled into treating them methodologically like a natural language, especially like the common language.

In terminology (as a subject field in its own right), however, the conceptual relationships are as important as carriers of knowledge and information as are the concepts themselves as specific units of knowledge and thought. Concepts can be equally well represented by any kind of non-linguistic signs

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as by linguistic ones. Quite on the contrary owing to the relative shortage of term elements (roots) in the natural languages, the trend is towards representing concepts by codes i.e. by non-linguistic signs and symbols.

Due to the rapid increase in artificial languages in the area of software development, we will soon have the same terminological difficulties in this area as we do in the natural languages.

Therefore foresightful experts demand `terminological' approaches in order to decrease the number of variants, homonyms etc. which threaten to make communication between computers even more difficult than the natural-language communication between experts in the same subject field. Different language backgrounds and different company affiliations already have become quite an obstacle for communication nowadays.

4. Terminology and Lexicography

In strict terminology work every concept is clearly differentiated from neighbouring concepts as well as from concepts represented by homonyms of its term. The description of the concepts is done by means of a definition of the concept (definition according to the logical system of concepts of a description of its extension), an enumeration of existing objects and/or the description of other relevant (ontological) conceptual relationships. It is possible that logical and ontological conceptual relationships occur together, whereby strictly speaking only the logical conceptual relationships form a system of concepts. The ontological relationships, however, reflect the relationships between `objects'.

In lexicography there is not usually any sharp differentiation of the individual concept from neighbouring concepts. In addition to characteristics that belong to the strict definition, a lexicographic entry contains also the characteristics of the homonyms occurring in a horizontal or vertical series of concepts, additional linguistic and subject matter information etc. which do not belong to a terminological entry. Therefore, it is usually impossible to construct systems of concepts from lexicographic entries (let alone those differentiated by logical and ontological systems). The lexicographic approach is therefore not suitable for the ordering of knowledge, which is one of the main issues in the development of new knowledge-based systems. The preferred form of

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presentation in lexicography is therefore the alphabetical file of terms.

5. The Multifunctionality of Terminology

Terminologies (including thesauri and classification schedules) on the one hand represent information and are thus part of the total flow of information. On the other hand they fulfill ordering functions on the basis of the system of concepts. As recorded concepts (including the concepts of thesauri and of the classifications) are documentary units, so-called concept entries may therefore be treated as a type of subject documentation.

The idea suggests itself of using the concepts by means of a suitable methodology for the linking of data (in the most comprehensive sense of the word) to systems of concepts beyond the area of terminology documentation in order to solve problems

in specialised subject field communication

in information and documentation

in the area of knowledge engineering as well as

in machine translation.

In view of the

large number of concepts

low linguistic motivation in the formation of terms

possibility of the existence of the same concepts in entirely different systems of concepts in a given subject

no system is able to reliably differentiate between terms (and thus fulfill one of the preconditions for recognising concepts) on the basis of linguistic and lexicographic methods alone.

The rigorous methodology of the General Theory of Terminology might offer a key to the solution of many problems.

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6. Knowledge-based Systems and Terminological Data Banks

Knowledge-based systems use various software configurations which can manage the expert knowledge of a certain subject field and which are able to make intelligent decisions within that field or to simulate certain situations arising from it. They are particularly suitable for those fields where a lot of systematic knowledge accrues, and therefore also for matters of business administration.

The knowledge engineering has abandoned the traditional software design where data + algorithms make up the programme and has turned to new approaches whereby knowledge + inference strategy result in a coherent system. In addition, a conceptual interface is needed which is appropriate to the thought structures of the users and operates with familiar concepts.

Knowledge-based systems are only useful if they are conceived as interactive advisory systems. Therefore the idea of using terminologically processed systems of concepts as convenient access systems for data banks needs further exploration.

A further aspect where terminology plays an important role is the development of methods for the collection of data and the derivation of facts from data. The tendency so far has mostly been in the direction of developing `system shells' based on a methodology which is strongly influenced by computer linguistics. These `system shells' are then to be `filled' by the users. As regards their contents, experts are usually at a loss. Anyway, these `system shells' cannot be better than the quality of the data with which they are filled. Furthermore, there is a danger that such `system shells' filled with inadequate data may function normally, but produce `faulty' or distorted images of the world.

In any case the reliability of the results of such systems with somewhat wider applications will probably be too poor and in the case of certain subject fields (safety of nuclear power plants, surgery etc.) even dangerously insufficient. A way must therefore be found of making available the relevant data of the same high quality standard. In the processing of knowledge, terminology as an essential element of the intellectual infrastructure of science and technology plays an outstanding role in coping with the problem of quality.

According to new findings, the areas of documentation

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(information and documentation) and subject field communication can be dovetailed by means of good terminology documentation.

This terminology documentation becomes necessary and becomes an automatic side product of practical terminology work by subject specialists who are again supported by documentation units geared towards this terminology work.

Below, a schematic representation of the role of terminology in specialised subject field communication as well as in information and documentation is given:

The methodology for this terminology work aided by documentation and terminography, as well as for terminology documentation has been developed by Infoterm, but must be adapted to the needs of the individual users.

7. An Approach to the Solution of Problems of Knowledge Processing and the Universal Availability of Information

Within the framework of a large institution or organisation the following types of information, stored in written form or otherwise, might be regarded as documents:

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bibliographic entries

(about books, articles, and other publications)

factographic entries

(about specific items of information)

sections of texts

(containing specific statements)

planning elements

(in written or stored form)

software elements or modules

(which may be made available also in written form e.g. as printouts)

object information

(information on one object = individual concept; or on a class of objects = general concept)

concept entry

(containing information on the thesaurus concept and its conceptual relationships)

class

(of a classification with the appropriate conceptual definition)

Because of the multifunctional character of terminology an approach may be imagined which can solve the problems due to

the wealth of information

the many forms in which the available information occurs

the different access systems

the diversity of information systems

the communication and dissemination of the information contents to the various experts (managers, marketing specialists, engineers, researchers, development specialists etc.)

Terminological data banks of a higher order, i.e. terminological data banks in which concepts and systems of concepts are made accessible above all for the sake of ordering knowledge,

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suggest themselves as a solution.

A high-quality terminological data bank can fulfill the functions of

an interface linking an organisation's different management information systems (e.g. product and component parts information, working processes etc.) which at present are usually either insufficiently or not at all connected with one another,

a tool for accessing an organisation's international documentation in all its various forms,

a communication aid in co-operating with partners at home and abroad,

a translation aid for preparing foreign-language texts,

a tool for in-house training programmes, the training of customers or partners etc.

In its further development it can be used in machine-aided translation systems, as the core element of knowledge banks and expert systems and as interface and connecting module between different information systems.

8. Practical Realisation

(1) For a high-quality, multifunctional terminological data bank a combination of data bank management systems (DBMS) and text editing systems is necessary.

(2) The extraction, acquisition and maintenance of high-quality terminological data is expensive and time-consuming and with regard to knowledge-relevant data can only be done by experts (with the support of terminographers, i.e. specialists in terminology documentation). The in-house experts are the most `economical' and reliable suppliers, expecially since they are hereby given a tool to facilitate their work.

(3) A high-quality multifunctional terminological data bank (with a volume e.g. in a larger industrial enterprise of about 5,000 to 20,000 terminological entries) is by no means an expensive `partial solution' for one of the abovementioned functions, but fulfills all the functions simultaneously.

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(4) This type of terminological data bank offers (together with modern `user-friendly' software) relatively problem-free access to the various internal and external sources of information and is an aid in practically all areas of business management.

(5) Frictional losses due to non-existent or poor flow of information and communication, inconsistency of linguistic usage etc. are diminished, which facilitates the development of an institutional or organisational corporate identity, both externally and internally.

(6) The use of foreign languages in marketing, sales export, in co-operative projects or joint ventures, in customer training etc. entails considerable difficulties. On the other hand more and more nations expect their own national languages to be used.

The high-quality terminology data bank contains all foreign-language tools that make possible

high-quality translations

consistency of terminology in all documents

effective and reliable communication (e.g. avoidance of safety problems!)

selective and systematic marketing abroad.

This results in a considerable competitive edge on international markets.

(7) As a `portable' (e.g. hardware-independent and software-compatible) `system shell' this type of terminological data bank has multiple applications and marketing possibilities (without permitting inferences to the internal knowledge of the company, the know-how and the information of the system developer).

9. Conclusions

Applications (in the form of projects) have shown that by means of well-organised terminology documentation, which makes possible tightly organised, thorough terminology work by experts, the multifunctionality of terminology can be used successfully as a management tool.

The methodology referred to in this paper is accepted by the

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experts since they themselves have terminological difficulties in specialised communication in their subject fields and are therefore interested in fundamental solutions of this kind. International terminology work (e.g. in compiling the International Dictionary of Electrical Engineering by the International Electrotechnical Commission) have led to considerable successes. The experience gained so far should therefore be of great benefit also for the establishment of high-quality, multifunctional terminological data banks as a management instrument e.g. in large enterprises.

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39
LSP and Computer Application: New Fields of Activity for LSP Research and Development

Walther v. Hahn
University of Hamburg

It sounds very fashionable to talk about computer applications in any field. LSP is relevant enough in itself not to follow these lines in any case, but, as a matter of fact, computers have a determining influence on nearly every working environment. So LSP research must investigate this new environment.

1. Overview

LSP research has to react to a rapidly changing situation in nearly every working environment within modern industrialized society: Computers have made information and documentation processes easier and faster; however,

man-machine-interaction is not yet sufficiently adapted to that same method through which humans communicate in their highly flexible and efficient way: natural language.

if at all available, natural language interaction software (just like natural language parts of traditional user surfaces of programs) is not adapted to the specific needs of all of the different types of professions.

new job profiles in high level computer application (e.g. expert systems) rely on LSP expertise which must be provided by universities.

LSP research is by definition specialized in these fields but neither really attacked these problems nor cooperated with computer industry in order to make full use of LSP research.

the new methodology of computer simulation using the tools of Artificial Intelligence research should be used by LSP research in order to create more complex and more coherent models of LSP performance and task-oriented information processes.

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All of these facts must influence the LSP research of today because society needs the expertise of this research. Development in computer industry must be guided by the results of LSP research and new research in these specific fields is necessary.

Otherwise language communication with computers and language-sensitive parts of software in general will be handled by computer science as a mere engineering task. Software products which have recently appeared on the market, demonstrate their developer's lack of natural language expertise.

If LSP research and education do not immediately begin to cope aggressively with these problems, natural language software will develop independently and, at least for the next several years, in a very machine-oriented way. LSP will not be able to contribute to the specific modern working environment of most types of jobs. Computers will remain alien to their users or even tease them systematically with their strange and irritating behaviour.

Therefore my paper deals with several concrete fields of activity in LSP research which are defined by their respective aims:

for the user, esp. for the casual user of computer facilities to make task oriented computer access easier,

for the developer, to include LSP in his design considerations,

for the knowledge engineer, to obtain the knowledge from the expert and to isolate expertise for disposal by computers,

for the researcher, to get better hypotheses on LSP.

Surely, it is an exaggeration to say that so far no one has reacted to the challenge of natural language interaction with computers. Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence have done so, and their work can be a starting point for LSP research and development.

2. The User's View

Most casual users today use computers for very elementary tasks such as word processing or simple data base access.

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With these applications there seem to be no problems, but let's have a closer look:

I will omit here the discussion about quality and style of computer manuals. Users are justified in complaining about cryptic texts and the lack of user-oriented explanations in most manuals.

I will concentrate on those subjects in which the use, the design and the development of computers will profit enormously from LSP research.

2.1 Word Processing

Meanwhile, word processors even on home computers have reached a high quality standard and can be used for very specific application types. The same holds true for editors such as EMACS or Formatting Systems like TEX. However, there is an urgent need for field-specific versions. A specific user would expect

that only a subset of the facilities of the system needs to be loaded (e.g. no automatic footnotes or index) to speed up the performance,

that some complex functions within the word processor are extremely fast and flexible (e.g. database access, numerical computing),

field-specific standard text fragments and application-dependent input forms (not only for business and office),

field-specific abbreviation lists for expansion in texts, etc.

2.2 Command Languages

Obviously command languages are the opposite of natural languages, they are unambiguos and abstract; so why mention them here?

The reason is that the user normally expects self-explaining names and understandable error messages. The descriptors and error texts should be field-dependent to exclude misunderstandings or tacit misinterpretations by the user. The user always relies on his associations in the task environment. In the next paragraph I will give some examples which also apply for comman languages.

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2.3 Data Base Access

Formal language access systems to data bases have well-known disadvantages:

If you use a data base (even a one-relational one) with a formal query language (e.g. SQL) and the query has failed (ending up with ''No"), then you are never sure, whether

the query was faulty but the information is in the data base,

the query is o.k., but it does not represent the question you have in mind, or

the result is really "no".

The necessary consequence is: There is a need for explanations, or even better: overanswering ("no, but. . ."). These explanations and further comments have to be field-specific, because the presuppositions and the user's misinterpretations (e.g. in case -2- above) are field-dependent.

See also 2.6 and 2.8.

2.4 Information and Documentation Software

I am now considering systems for abstracting, summarizing, indexing, thesaurus work, document retrieval etc. There are virtually no machine-readable lists of technical terms, no "shell systems" for tailoring field-specific versions. Every user compiles his own data without any opportunity to compare his set with others.

LSP research and development has not offered its expertise. The failings in the last decade caused long-term deficiencies in this application area: Once a user applies an I&D software package he will use it for at least ten years, because every replacement of software requires the reorganisation of the old data. This consumes a lot of time, is extremely expensive and produces faulty data.

2.5 Lexicographical Tools

There exist no general lexicographic tools to gather, order, maintain or update lexical material, not even of a very elementary and general standard about how to compile technical lexical material for computer access. Several institutes (among them the Institute for Communication

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Science and Phonetics at Bonn University and some groups at Bergen University) gathered machine-readable lexica but without lexicographic aims and without special consideration for LSP and for concrete practical application.

The application areas mentioned so far in this chapter are more or less bound to computer use with an implicit influence of natural language. I will now consider those applications which explicitly require natural language interaction with the user and are sensible to LSP.

Though there are only a few products on the market, there is an urgent need for more general shell-systems which can be adapted to specific application areas. The most prominent natural language computer applications are:

2.6 Natural Language Interfaces

By this we mean software systems which accept natural language input and map it onto a formal command or query language. These interfaces normally work with a subset of natural language.

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The best known systems are data base access systems as NLMENUE, Language Craft and Q&A. But there are other types under work, e.g.

presentation systems (to present the results of another software system to the user, e.g. for image analysis, robotics, or inference machines)

explanation components (as mentioned in 2.3, these modules in Artificial Intelligence software can explain to the user how the program found the solution. A user only with these means can estimate the reliability of solutions)

controlling systems for robots or other machinery

With all of these natural language systems, problems do arise whenever a developer designs the functional specifications of the system and builds up the performance. This process, up until now, is called "software engineering" and has been done by software experts.

But the real work necessary for such a functional specification is an advance modeling of the later application. This application consists of a natural language communication process between the user and the system. Who knows better about the use of language in technical fields than LSP research?

And there is another difficulty, of which engineers are often not aware: For theoretical reasons an exhaustive specification (enumeration) of the performance of a natural language interface is impossible. Not only is a complete definition of the natural language syntax impossible, but the semantics and pragmatics (the user's "understanding") even in special fields or subfields of application cannot be formally defined, either. Consequently, software engineering in natural language systems development is not applicable at all.

2.7 Machine Translation

The MT systems nowadays handle only simpler texts and produce only a raw translation. But have LSP people ever made proposals for field-dependent adjustments of these systems or have they ever cooperated with MT people? Not to my knowledge.

Let me mention here a more hidden problem:

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2.8 Interpretation of Natural Language Questions and Answers

This is a very interesting point for both linguists and engineers because in this case the user has to interpret the system's utterances. However, this point comes up only in very sophisticated systems which are able to communicate with the user in unrestricted natural language.

You may be of the opinion that a natural language system should do what it is told and that further reaction from the natural language system is not necessary. But the practical use of these systems shows that there is so much ambiguity, vagueness and underspecification in natural dialogues that efficient interaction requires follow-up questions of the system. Again you may object that this is the reason why people like to use formal languages. Instead of a detailed discussion let me give an example:

Try to conduct the following data base query dialogue in a formal language:

USER:

Is this the data base on cars?

IMPOSSIBLE WITH FORMAL LANGUAGES

SYSTEM:

(. . .)

USER:

What do you know about 4-wheel drive cars?

VERY DIFFICULT, BUT POSSIBLE

SYSTEM:

(. . .)

USER:

From Japan?

NO ELLIPSES ALLOWED, REPEAT QUESTION WITH ADDITIONAL PARAMETERS

SYSTEM:

(. . .)

USER:

All this year's models?

NO ELLIPSES ALLOWED, REPEAT QUESTION AGAIN WITH ADDITIONAL PARAMETERS

SYSTEM:

(. . .)

USER:

Are they also available in Europe?

NO ANAPHORA, REPEAT AGAIN

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YOUR QUERY WITH ALL THE PARAMETERS OF THE PRECEDING TURNS. DIFFICULTIES WITH SUPERSET "EUROPE"

SYSTEM:

(. . .)

USER:

In Japan, are there other types at all?

NO ANAPHORA, NO REFERENT FOR "TYPES"

SYSTEM:

(. . .)

USER:

Can I get a list?

NO INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS, YOU WILL GET THE WRONG ANSWER ("YES")

SYSTEM:

(. . .)

USER:

Is all this information classified?

QUERY ABOUT THE STATUS OF THE USER IS IMPOSSIBLE

Obviously we need natural language interaction with data bases for flexible and natureal use of computers. All these dialogues are carried out in LSP, but until now the discussion about natural language data base interaction takes place without any contribution from LSP research. Computer scientists try to figure out what LSP might look like and do not even know about LSP work.

2.9 Speech Control

In some situations you need to control a device while being occupied with both hands. Speech control systems, or so called "Third-hand-systems" provide another channel.

Some already existing examples:

control of a laser scalpel in surgery

semi-automatic sorting of parcels in the post office according to their ZIP codes

telephone dialing for handicapped people

In all of these applications it is necessary to investigate which commands are the most approriate, which misleading

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situational contexts may interfere etc. Who knows better than LSP research?

3. The Developer's View

3.1 The Software Developer

3.1.1 Natural Language Descriptors Even in very traditional data processing the developer has to name variables, functions, items in menus etc. As some of you certainly know, these names often are misleading, not self-explaining and, above all, not fitting to the working environment. Moreover, there exists some sort of ideology, that one and only one version of a software package fits to all working environments and all types of users. Why not tailor specific versions with specificly adopted names from a standardized version?

3.1.2 Human Factors This leads to a more general topic. We assume that human factors in software development differ from field to field and from one user class to another, What is approriate for a frequent user may not be so for the casual user or the novice. What is user-friendly in jurisdiction will not be so in ship building. Mainly, because the basic features of interaction differ in many ways. This again is one of the fields of special expertise in LSP research.

3.1.3 Formal (Query) Languages In my view the design of query languages e.g. for data base queries or command languages in general, also requires specific expertise in LSP because the associative interpretation and the mnemotechnical value of function names depends highly on the technical or scientific field in which the language will be applied.

(See also 2.3 and 2.8)

3.1.4 Cognitive Modelling and User Modelling In the long run every sophisticated software product will use at least some techniques of Artificial Intelligence. It is typical of Artificial Intelligence programs that they rely heavily on a general knowledge of the field of application. The method by which these programs use their knowledge follows the rules applied by humans. Consequently, cognitive models and (at least static) standard user models must be part of the programs. The developer has to provide techniques which allow for field-dependent models. We all know that the way mathematicians discuss their problems is completely different from the way lawyers handle their cases. This is due to

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different cognitive and pragmatic paradigms.

LSP research knows best about these differences.

3.2 The Linguistic Developer

3.2.1 Morphological analysis, parsing, and pragmatics The linguistic developer is responsible for all natural language software. Software houses increasingly employ linguists for all man-machine-interface problems. This software must analyse input with respect to morphology, syntax (parsing) and pragmatic features (as speech acts, anaphorics, ellipses or deictic expressions and concurrent actions). In paragraph 2.8 I showed the necessity of pragmatic features for a flexible interaction with computers on different layers of generality. Again, in my opinion we should not leave it to linguistic developers to model linguistic behaviour in task-oriented interaction.

Natural language software must be developed in various versions for specific tasks. There is not one German, English or Polish language interface handling poetry as well as ship building texts and mathematical formulae. Human speakers also need time to switch from one foeld to another, so why not switch a system from one "sublanguage" to another by loading different field-specific versions?

3.2.2 Spelling Correction and Hyphenation As I pointed out in paragraph 2.1. even in very traditional text-processing software there is a need for LSP expertise: I have never heard of field-specific spelling correction or field-specific hyphenation lexica. And there are specific problems e.g. with lots of Greek stems. If it is left up to the user to type endless lists of words or to improve the system by trial and error, he will never do it.

3.2.3 Natural Language Generation Generation is a point of much more linguistic interest. There exists nearly no research on task-specific generation of natural language. It is interesting in two ways:

First, because the procedural aspect of language in general is a blank area on the linguistic map. We are all used to thinking in a very declarative paradigm: Language is an object, linguistics is, oversimplified, manipulation of strings.

Designing a computer system that exhibits verbal reactions requires the design of processes which may end up in strings. The linguistics of the future will need to think in a much more procedural paradigm to enable them to model language

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generation at all. Such a linguistic model basically describes the processes which are necessary to lead from a "need to cooperate" to an adequate and efficient verbal utterances. Producing syntactically correct sentences is only a marginal task.

The second reason is that even if work on LSP speech acts, on dialogue strategies or anaphorics does exist, nobody in LSP theory has so far cared about generation.

Why, when, and how do people produce a "request", a "question" or a ''statement" in a given LSP-situation? What do they presuppose as given and mutually known? In which order do they present the propositional arguments and the pragmatic steps?

4. The Knowledge Engineer's View

Knowledge engineering is a new type of profession in the Artificial Intelligence software industry. Especially in the field of Expert Systems, industry develops so-called shell systems, that means: application-independent raw systems which must be filled with the field-specific knowledge before being used.

The software developer (the programmer) builds up the shell system, whereas the knowledge engineer fills in the application-oriented knowledge. The knowledge consists of formal entries or expressions of a representation language and rules about how to use the knowledge.

4.1 Knowledge Elicitation and Knowledge Formalisation

The main tasks of a knowledge engineer are

(1) to get the information from an expert (knowledge elicitation), and

(2) to formalize it, writing it down in the formalism required by the shell system.

The first task of knowledge elicitation will be performed by LSP dialogues, for which LSP researcher are experts. The second task is also very much influenced by LSP insofar as the knowledge, even in the formalized version, includes all the terminology and the logical relationship between terms: the whole terminological system.

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4.2 Terminological Check and Terminological Generators

Until now there exist no field-dependent tools to check the consistency and, to a certain degree, the completeness of the knowledge entries. There is no check for terminological entries, and there is no help for the correct generation of terminology etc.

4.3 Data Base Schemata

To a certain degree the same task exists when a data base is built up, because the organisation of the data base, the so called "data base scheme" is a model of the user's view of reality. Which DB-fields have which names, and which relationships are established etc., are all the result of LSP dialogues or of interviews with potential users.

The budget deficit of the United States

Meanwhile in several countries commercial institutes for the education and training of knowledge engineers have been

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founded. In Germany there are at least four of them. Did any of us offer his or her LSP expertise?

5. The Researcher's View

The last section of my paper is only a short summary of what I have already explained in other publications, namely the use of computers for LSP research itself.

5.1 Statistics and Linguistic Tools

It is obvious, that computers can help doing statistical work and that even simple linguitsic tools can perform text manipulations, which cannot be done by paper and pencil work with the same correctness, at least not within the same time. Syntactic and morphological analysis, word indexes, or context checks are only some examples.

5.2 Linguistic Workbench

But we should envision a much better computer environment for linguistic work. Artificial Intelligence will produce something like a linguistic workbench in which you specify parameters of syntactic or morphological algorithms and test the linguistic outcomes. Very limited versions (e.g. an LFG-workbench) are already available.

However, all this remains on the linguistic, the structural layer.

5.3 "verification" and Simulation

Artificial Intelligence allows also for natural language performance models. That means you can test procedural models of language behaviour at least on the level of input/output simulation. In this limited sense we can speak of "verification" of linguistic procedural hypotheses by computer processes. LSP should take a specific interest in this method because these Artificial Intelligence models include descriptions of the field and the tasks combined with linguistic knowledge. So, language in AI programs is always embedded in

the situation,

the task at hand,

the user's knowledge (including his view of the machine), and

the facts and rules of the field.

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Working with such simulation systems is not only rewarding in terms of complex modeling, but also ends the fruitless discussion about what "language" is and about the "purpose" in "LSP". On the contrary, language knowledge and ontological knowledge must be modeled together, so they can be seen as the sides of one coin.

6. Summary

I tried to compile some recent developments in our subject area, which is: people doing their work, talking and writing about it. All of the reported developments concern the computer as a new tool. LSP research must rise to the challenge of computer science, computer industry and knowledge engineering.

If we observe who, at present, decides about the design of these new communication tools and how people use them, we will discover that we being the experts have not even been able to realize the development, let alone to give advice or to provide approriate material.

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Articles based on papers given at the European symposia on LSP have been published in the following volumes:

Fachsprache (1979) Sonderheft 1: "Zweites Europäisches Fachsprachensymposium, Bielefeld 1979". Wien.

Høedt, Jørgen, Lundquist, Lita, Picht, Heribert and Qvistgaard, Jacques (eds) (1982) Pragmatics and LSP. Proceedings of the 3rd European Symposium on LSP. Copenhagen, August 1981. Copenhagen.

Perrin, Michel P. (ed) (1985) Pratiques d'aujourd'hui et besoins de demain. Actes du 4ème symposium Européen sur les langues de spécialité. Bordeaux.

Cornu, A-m., Vanparijs, J., Delahaye, M. and Baten, L. (eds) (1986) Beads or Bracelet? How do we approach LSP. Selected papers from the Fifth European Symposium on LSP. Leuven.

Laurén, Christer and Nordman, Marianne (eds) (1988) Special language. From humans thinking to thinking machines. Multilingual Matters. Clevedon. A selection of papers from the 6th European Symposium on LSP, Vaasa/Vasa 1987.

Laurén, Ch. and Nordman, M. (eds) (1988) From office to school. Special language and internationalization. Multilingual Matters. Clevedon. A selection of papers from the 6th European Symposium on LSP, Vaasa/Vasa 1987.

Laurén, Ch. and Nordman, M. (eds) (1988) From office to school. Special language and internationalization. Multilingual Matters. Clevedon. A selection of papers from the 6th European Symposium on LSP, Vaasa/Vasa 1987.

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INDEX

A

Abstracts, journal 291-307, 407

Acronyms 124, 281, 414

Active clauses 194, 195, 197-9

AFNOR 416

Alienation 30-52, 172

`answerhood' 67-8

Antonyms 415-16

Articles, journal 72, 73-5, 291-307, 407

Artificial intelligence 415, 417-18, 468-9, 479, 487-8 see also knowledge (engineering)

Artificial language 7, 181

machine 400-3, 470-1

Author-reader communication 124-5, 172, 234, 312

translation and 173-4, 401-2

B

Background

author's 173-4, 198, 234

reader's 234, 313

Banking, language of 43, 240-41

Behaviourism 12-13

Bergen University 253-64, 483

Bible, language of 288-9

Bilingualism 399

Business, language of 275-82

C

Canada x, 138-49, 399, 406-7

Change, linguistic 243-52

`charity, principle of' 66-9

Classification systems 411-19, 433-43

Cloze 337-46

Cognitive content 243, 244, 247-50

Cognitive modelling 487-8

Cohesion

grammatical 326, 327-8, 328-9, 332-6

lexical 268-9

Communication

non-linguistic 203, 470-1

universal model of 203

see also author-reader; communicative; cultures; visual

Communicative function 8, 151-8, 196, 386-7, 472, 473-4

Compounds 110, 123, 225-7, 278-9

Comprehension 16

lexis and 316-23, 353, 360-61, 362, 363

and production 309-15

scientific texts 309-15

syntax and 347-61

tests of reading 337-46

text type and 324-36

theme as aid to 234-42

and translation 173-4, 183-4, 324-36

Computational linguistics 397-8

Computers x, 397-493

content analysis 448-51

concordances 452-67

development 487-9

interaction 479, 485-7

languages 400-3, 417, 418, 470-1, 481, 482, 485-8

machine readable text 253-64

and natural language 479, 480, 485-8

R & D required, LSP 479-92

simulation 491-2

software development 398, 482, 487-8

speech control 486-7

and stylistics 6

and teaching methods 375

and terminology 470-31, 490

thesauri 432-47

verification 491-2

see also artificial intelligence; term banks; translation (machine)

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Concepts and conceptualization

analysis 271-2

auxiliary see empty categories

and classification 435-7

and translation 53, 389

and terminology 415-16, 471

and text processing 53, 316, 348, 352

Concordances 452-67

Content 190-202, 236-7, 304, 448-51

propositional 326, 327, 328, 332-3, 335-6

Context 86, 97, 124-5, 243, 244-7, 262, 387-8

Contrastive analysis 203-24

Contrastivity, syntactic 362-73

Control 10-11, 12, 15, 16

Conversation 7, 24, 162-3, 310

in lexis tests 454-5, 457, 460, 461

Copula predictions 194, 195, 199-200

Cultures

barriers 66-9, 203-24

communication between 173-7, 214-15, 227, 234

Czechoslovakia 81-3, 85, 86

D

DANTERM 412

Data bases 399, 408-9, 482

see also term banks

Definition 40, 111

Deixis 191, 194-7

Descriptors 434-7, 444-6

Determinacy 11, 13-14, 17, 22

Diachrony 80-81, 86, 203-24, 243-52

Dictionaries 18, 23, 117, 388, 399

computer 377, 422-3

Didactics ix, x, 287, 309-95

genre and 158-9

individual study 375, 457

interaction 309, 310, 377-8, 383

phraseology research and 106

reading comprehension 337-46, 355-6

syntax 355-6, 362-73

teacher training 253, 374, 375

teaching materials 158-9, 263, 309, 355-6, 374-83, 452

theme study and 239-40

translation 362-73

vocabulary;

ideal size 316-23

Dimensionality 11, 12, 17

Discourse

analysis 161-70, 324-36

patterns 72-3

scientific 35-52, 180-89, 203-24, 312-13

Documentation 472-4, 482

E

Economic language 43, 275-82

Editing of texts 225-33

Effect 173, 174, 176-7, 262, 276

Embedding, textual 204, 205-6, 220-23

Empty categories 432-47

Engineering

knowledge x, 472, 473, 489-91

linguistic 398-400

English language 313-15

American 276

influence of 204-5, 206-14, 224, 276

Equivalence 101-2, 174, 177, 402-3

Estonia 119-37

EURODICAUTOM 411

European Economic Community 399, 411, 420-31

EUROTRA 420-31

Expository texts 324-36

F

Fiction, general 384-96

Finnish Institute of Occupational Health 228-9

Finnish language 174-6, 225-33

Fluency 309-10

Focus, pragmatics of 191-2

Folk-lore 84-85

Form 190-202, 269-70

Formulaic expressions 284-5, 286

French language 138-49

Frequency analysis 152

relative 191-2, 193-5

Function and form 190-202

see also communicative function

Functional stylistics ix, 120

G

General purpose language

LSP elements in 384-96

phraseology 90, 93-4

relationship with LSP 3, 6-9, 121, 180-9, 347-61, 384-96

syntax 347-61

words used in LSP 311-12

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Genre 72-9, 151-8, 240-41, 295, 304, 324-36

German language 173, 176-7, 207

Germany ix, 80-87

Gerund 158, 188

Grammar 23-5

in machine translation 422-4

and text comprehension 319, 326, 327-8, 328-9, 332-6, 364

and term banks 412-14

universal 363-4

variations 151-8

see also cohesion; morphology; syntax

H

Hedging 171-9

Hermeneutics 53-71

Historicity of language 80-88

Homonymy and phraseology 101-2

I

Iconicity 190

Idioms;

translation 389

Illocutionary acts 312

Impersonality 7, 175-6, 285

scientific 43-5, 46, 198-9

Indeterminacy 11

Indicative/informative 300, 304

Indirect speech 45

Industry 265-74, 399, 468-78

Infinitive constructions 41, 45

Information

organization 468-9

retrieval 413, 474-7

software;

R & D needs 482

technology see computers

terminology and 472, 473-4

transfer 107

INFOTERM 412

Interaction

and computers 479, 485-6

reading 234, 236-7

teaching 309, 310, 377-8, 383

Interlanguage 313-14, 349, 407

Internationalization 6-7, 85, 130-31, 184

Interpretation 53, 55, 57, 61-9

Interpreter training 106

IUPAC 112

J

Jargons, professional 89

K

KITES 411-19

Knowledge

based systems 411-19, 473-4

classification of 411-19

engineering x, 472, 473, 489-91

processing 474-7

structures, prior 313, 453-4

systems 63-6

transfer 8

L

Language see individual aspects

Law;

language 8, 180, 183, 283-90

Lexicography 85, 96, 105-6, 471-2, 482-3

Lexicon see: dictionary;

vocabulary

Lexis see vocabulary

Linguistics

computational 397-8

generative 15, 18-20, 21, 363-5

language of 23-5, 172-3, 183, 190-202

as LSP 3-5, 16-23

structural 15, 16-18, 21

text 53, 55, 58-9, 61

Literature 85-6, 288-9, 384-96

Lithuanian language 122

M

Macro-level structures 324

and comprehension 325, 326, 327-8, 329, 332-3, 338-9, 342

text content 243, 244, 251

Marxism 32-3

MATER 412, 470

Meaning, objective 59-61

Medical language 183, 225-33

cognitive text content 248-9

cross-cultural 226-7, 214-15

diachronic study 43, 203-24

genre analysis 151-8

message and medium in 190-202

nomenclature 112

theme 240-41

Meetings, technical 161-70

Metaphors, technical 111

METEO 406-7

Micro-level structures 324

and comprehension 325, 326-8, 329, 332-6, 338-9, 342

semantic 243, 244, 251

syntactic 244

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Mining, language of 80-88

Modals 45, 155-6, 285

Morphology 17, 20, 266-7, 488

Multimedia training system 374-83

N

Narrative texts 324-36

National language policies 122-3, 138-49

Natural language 7, 181

and computers 479, 480, 483-9

LSP as a 135

terminology and 470-1

Neologisms 125-7, 277, 279-80, 281

Nomenclatures 111-13, 115, 117

Nominalization 40, 41, 153, 181, 194, 268, 303

Non-lexical compounds 270-71

Norway 265-74, 432-47

Noun phrases 21, 40, 45, 265-74

Nouns

compound 413

proper 110-18

verbal 127, 188

O

Objectification 10

Obsessions of scientific discourse 30-52

Oil and gas industry 265-74

Onomasiology 271-2

Onomastics 97-9, 114-15, 115-17

Onymic units 110-18

ORACLE 417-18

Oral language see spoken

P

Participle constructions 43, 45

Passive voice 7, 156, 175-6

frequency 40-41, 45, 181, 302-3, 304

in oral presentations 194, 195, 197-9

Perspectivism 10, 11

Persuasiveness 153-4

Petrus thesaurus 432-47

Philosophy 57, 61-3, 66-7, 172-3

Phonetics 412

Phonology 17, 20

Phraseology x, 89-111, 268, 389-90

Pragmatics

of abstracts, journal 303-4

BEST corpus 260-62

computers and 398, 484, 488

of focus 191-2

of onymic units 114

of scientific discourse 203

of text content 243, 244, 250-51

Prague school ix, 120

Prepositional phrases 303, 425, 426-9, 430-1

Presentations, oral 190-202

Presuppositions 56, 57-9, 61, 234

see also background

Pronouns 175, 259-60, 303

agreement 326, 327, 328, 332-3, 335-6

Prototype theory 435-6

Psychology 12-13, 30-52, 172

Quebec x, 138-49

Question-theoretical approach 53-71

see also hermeneutics

R

Reading

concept-governed 362

efficiency 352, 359

interaction in 234, 236-7

see also comprehension

Redundancy 295-6, 302, 364-5

Register 7, 276

scientific language 151-8, 180, 182, 183-4, 291, 304

Regression/progression 10, 14

Re-iteration 39-40, 42, 181

Relative-frequency analysis 191-2, 193-5

Relativism 58

Reporting process 292-4

Research, LSP ix-x

and computers 479-92

phraseology and 89-92, 106

question-theoretical 53-71

`restricted language' 81

Rezeptionsästhetik 60

Rheme-Theme 236

Rhetorics 72, 77-8, 173, 288

Role playing 37-8

S

Scientific language 3

abstracts, journal 291-307

characteristics of texts 39-45

and colloquial usage 311-12

comprehension/production 309-15

computer analysis 448-51

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contrastive text analysis 205-14, 219-24

descriptiveness 199-20

German;

structure 207

hedging 171-9

impersonality 43-5, 46, 198-9

stylistics 39-40, 180-84

syntax 347-61

tense 156

terminology 40, 45, 184, 186-8

transitivity 199-200

vocabulary 184-8

written/spoken 312

see also register

Semantics 19-23

asymmetry 129-32

cloze 340-43, 345-6

language of 17-18

of natural language 484

phraseology changes 93-5

of terminology 268

Semasiology 95-6

Sentence

length 255-9, 285-6

simple, expanded 41, 42-3

as term 21, 23

Set theory 9

Social change 120-1, 245-6

Social role relationship 177

Socio-cultural data 84-5, 86, 122

Sociolinguistics 243-52

`speech acts' 7

Spoken language 75-6, 161-70, 190-202, 312

Stative clauses 194, 195, 199-200

Structure

`deep' 20

textual 206-14, 219-24

Style and stylistics 6, 7

culture and 203, 206-7

effect 173, 176-7, 262, 276

functional ix, 120

indicative/formative 300, 304

LSP elements in LGP 386-7

national language 129

scientific 39-40, 180-84

Syllabus 161

genre analysis and 156-7

lexicon 316-23, 452

and motivation 355-6

notional 310-12

task-/performance-centred 309

Symbols 181, 470-1

Synchrony 80-81

Synonyms 101-2, 127-35, 275-82, 414

Syntax

abstracts, journal 302-3, 304

computers and 484, 488

contrastivity 362-73

of conversation 24

distortion 316

expressive function 190

generative linguistics 19-20

interlanguage 349

L1 and L2 347-61

legal language 284-5, 285-6

natural language 484

re-iteration 42, 181

and semantics 19-20

teaching materials 263

and theme 235-6

violated 347-61

System, LSP as a complex 3-29

T

Tagalog 191, 197-8, 199, 201

Teaching see didactics

Technolect studies 151-307

Teleology 198-9, 199-200

Tense 154, 181, 302, 304, 313

Term banks 105-6, 411-15, 418, 468-78

Terminography 105-6

Terminol project 265-74

Terminology ix, x, 16

complex noun phrases 265-74

and computers 420-31, 490

conceptual analysis 271-2

data banks 105-6, 411-15, 418, 468-78

delimitation 267

Estonian language 121, 122-4

and form 269-70

functions 101-2, 469-70, 472

grammaticality 269-70

hapax legomena 270-71

historical analysis 83-4

international 184

KITES 411-19

and language 470-1

lexical cohesion 268-9