Helping language professionals relate to terms: Terminological relations and termbases

Abstract

Terminological relations constitute critical elements of knowledge in specialised fields and their expression is important for language professionals working in these fields to master. Relations can be expressed using a wide variety of lexical relation markers representing a broad range of relation types and sub-types, as well as additional elements that help to identify the nuances of the relations and the participation of elements in them that must be distinguished for full comprehension. Nevertheless, humans can generally interpret these expressions of relations relatively easily and use them to build their understanding of subject fields. Unfortunately, conventional termbases rarely include examples of these relations, and computer tools are not able to comprehensively and reliably identify them in all cases. We argue that storing examples of terminological relations in (translation-oriented) termbases can benefit language professionals by enhancing both comprehension and expression in specialised fields.