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8/18/2019 033_2002_V1_Anthony P. Cowie_Harmonising the Vocabulary of Risk
1/6
REPORTS
ON
LEXICOGRAPHICAL
AND
LEXICOLOGICAL PROJECTS
Harmonising the Vocabulary
of isk
Anthony P . Cowie
School ofEnglish
University ofLeeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
United Kingdom
a.p.cowie@btinternet.com
Abstract
At meeting eld n Novembe r 001 ithin he ramework
of
th e Council of Europe's
Major
Hazards
Agreement, th e
need
was
expressed
fo r
an
improved
harmonisation
ofthe
vocabulary
of'risk',
and
specifically
fo r a
dictionary
of
ke y terms within th e
field. he
present
paper argues that an
effective
approach to meeting
these needs would benefit
from
having a basis in frame semantics. he
theory
would
enable
lexicographers
to
indicate recisely
imilarities
nd ifferences etween elated erms, o roduce
n
ntegrated emantico-
syntactic
analysis,
and to
classify
relevant collocates. Th e paper seeks to
demonstrate
th e
applicability offrame
theory,
focusing on
certain 'risk' terms
and
drawing on
data
from th e
BNC.
Introduction
At
th e
Strasbourg
Forum,
organised
from
19-21
November
2001
within
th e
framework
ofthe
Council
of Europe's
EUR-OPA
Major
Hazards
Agreement,
umber
of
environmental
scientists
and other
specialists including
terminologists and lexicographers
were invited
to
address
th e problems of
reducing
scientific
ncertainty'
n
th e
ield
of
environmental
security
nd
mproving
ommunications etween
cientific xperts nd ecision makers.
One
issue
singled
out fo r particular
attention
at th e
Forum
was th e
need
to harmonise th e
terminology
of 'risk' cience. he
resent
aper
im s o et ut ome
of
th e
roblems
entailed
by
such
a task,
and
in particular
to
consider proposals
fo r
a
multilingual
dictionary
ofkey terms
in
th e
vocabulary
ofrisk.
Terminological
dictionary
of
risk
terms
Calls
or
uch
ictionary
ame
rom he
inguist
nd
hraseologist
Gertrud
Gréciano
[2001],
supported by a
group oflexicographers and computational
linguists specialising
in
terminology.
he
ictionary
would
rovide or
ncoding
s
well
s
ecoding,
nclude
references to
semantic
role categories
and
phraseology and take account of differences of
denotation
nd
onnotation
etween
he ses
f
terms
n pecialist
nd
on-specialist
contexts.
Existing
technical eference
works and
(especially)
corpus
data accessible
on th e nternet
were th e resources chiefly considered
as
uitable
y
th e group.
ome
elpful
upport
is
already
provided
by
th e
draft
glossary
Terminology
on
Disaster
Reduction
compiled
by
th e
Secretariat
f
he
nternational
trategy
or
Disaster
Reduction
ISDR).
hough
he
definitions
of key
terms,
which
may
in
any
given
case
be
drawn
from tw o
or
more
different
documents,
re
ot
lways
models of precision,
he upporting ocumentation s
ften
extensive,
and
provides
many
contextual aids
to
defining.
The
entry fo r
vulnerability,
fo r
325
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ElIRALE-X
2002
PROCEEDINGS
example,
ffers etailed omparison
f
three ossible efinitions, ach elating o
specific
scientific
discipline.
he explanations
shown
at
(1) ,
(2 )
and
(3 )
reflect
the
usage
of
natural
and
physical cientists, engineers,
and
social
scientists, respectively.
t
is
arguable
that uch variety-based differences might ll e eflected n he ame dictionary
of
the
vocabulary
ofrisk.
(1 )
natural
andphysical
scientists)
'vulnerability
is
defined
as
proximity
or
exposure
to
natural
hazards, or
the
probability ofadisastrous
occurrence'
(2 ) engineers) vulnerability is
efined]
s
he
nability
of
a
built
tructure and/or
infrastructure) to
resist
the
strain
o r
force
exerted
by
natural
or
other disaster
agents'
(3 )
social
scientists) 'vulnerability
[is
defined] as
the
amount
ofcoping
capacity,
or
the
degree
to which social ,
cultural,
political and economic
factors
influence
the
ability
to
prepare
for,
respond
to ,
or
recover
from disaster'
These examples
lso
llustrate he point hat he accuracy of
a
definition n his domain
depends
in
part
on
the precision
with
which
key
associated terms
are
used
in that
definition.
For
example, the word hazard, a
key
term in
the vocabulary
of
risk, appears (appropriately)
in
the first
definition
oïvulnerability. imilarly, in
one definition
of
hazard
itself,
we find
the
words
'damaging
physical
events
which
...will
lead
to
economic
and social
loss that may
reach
the
scale ofa
disaster
..',
a clear
recognition
that
disasters
are
at
the
end-point
ofa
scale of 'damaging events'.
A
connected point
s
hat
f
terms
uch
s
isk, azard,
anger, ulnerability,
isaster,
damage,
re
ndeed
elated
emantically,
nd f heir
efinitions
re
o e igorously
harmonised, then
damaging
event'
say)
must
be
used
consistently
in all the
definitions n
which
it
appears. The
evidence
of the
SDR
document, drawing
s t
does
n
a
variety
of
specialist
glossaries,
indicates
that
this
is
fa r
from
being
the
case
across
many definitions of
the
vocabulary
of
risk.
We
need
to ask, too ,
whether
precision
n
defining
can
be
achieved
without
the
support
ofa
theoretical
framework.
Defining terms in the
light
of frame theory
In
y
wn ontribution o
he orum, rgued
hat
n nformed pproach o he
harmonisation of
the
ey
terms
nd
he
ruitful
analysis of concordances o r
purposes
of
compiling
a multilingual
dictionary,
would
benefit
from
having
a basis
in
'frame semantics'.
In
such
an
approach, according
to
Fillmore
and
Atkins,
speakers
can
be
aid to
know
the
meaning
of
a
word
nly
by
irst
understanding
he
background
frames o r
knowledge
schemata ]
that motivate
the
concept that
the
word
encodes' Fi l lmore Atkins 992; f.
Atkins
994;
Cowie
998].
ithin
the
theory, semantically
inked
words (such
as
hazard
and
vulnerability, fo r
example)
are
no t
related
to
each other directly
(in
terms of
synonymy
or hyponymy,
say),
but
by
means
oftheir
connections
to
partly shared,
semantic
elements'
in
a
given f rame.
n
the semantics of
the
key
term risk
already the subject of
a
detailed
study
by
Fillmore Atkins
1992 ]
various
choices
and possibilities, and
negative
and
positive outcomes, give rise to elements
in
the
basic
f rame,
including uncertainty about
the
future (the element
CHANCE)
and
a
potential
unwelcome development
(the element HARM).
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REPORTS
O N
LEXICOGRAPHICAL A N 1 > LEXICOLOGICAL
PROJECTS
According
to
th e
study,
these
tw o
categories
alone
make
up
th e
core
of our
understanding
of
several
ther
erms
within
he
ield,
ncluding
peril,
anger,
enture,
azard.
otice
specifically,
as
is
shown
by
th e
elaboration
(at 4) ofa definition
originally found in
th e
ISDR
document,
th e
elements R I S K Y
S IT U A T I O N
( 'event
or
state
of
affairs
threaten[ing]
to
cause
...'),
A R M
'physical
amage r conomic
oss'),
nd O N T E X T
an re a
f nown
settlement,
etc' are crucial to
our understanding
oîhazardas
well
as
risk:
(4 ) azard: a natural
or
man-made
event
or
state ofaffairs
which
threatens to
cause
physical damage
or
economic
loss,
or endangers
human
life
and
well-being
(perhaps
to th e
extent
ofcausing a
disaster),
ifit
occurs
in or
close
to an area
of
human
settlement,
or
agricultural
or
industrial
activity.
Opportunities and
challenges of the approach
Semantic rame heory, elieve, ffers number
of
opportunities
to
terminologists nd
lexicographers in treating th e vocabulary
of'risk'. irst,
as
we
havejust briefly
shown,
th e
theory
nables
s o ndicate ery
recisely
oints of
similarity
etween
losely
elated
terms. f
undoubted
value,
too, s
th e ac t that th e model rings ogether
semantic
nd
syntactic
nsights,
n
that
th e one-to-two
(or
one-to-many) relations
between
elements
and
lexico-syntactic
structures
are
clearly
demonstrated.
In he
ollowing
xamples
ncorporating
he oun
hreat,
or nstance, we an ee
hat
aggressor
is
ealized
irst as
a
grammatical
ubject
and
second
as
a
prepositional
hrase
introduced
by from:
(5 )
ggr
{the
dolphins} were
a
threat
VO {to
th e local
fishing
industry}
(6 ) n
imagined
threat
Aggr
{from
th e few remaining ex-revolutionaries}
One
ofthe
useful
lessons
here
fo r
lexicographers
is
that
many
prepositional
phrases
relate
to
core elements
n
a given
frame,
and are no t
to
be
consigned
to
an
adverbial
waste-paper
basket.
A
third
way
in
which
frame theory
can
benefit
lexicographers is
by throwing
light on
th e
structure
of
various
syntactic
units,
including
complex
noun
phrases,
and
their
relationships
with
other constructions.
Of
th e
tw o
examples
at (7 )
and
(8),
th e
first
is
a complex
NP,
th e
second,
a clause.
espite
th e
superficial differences,
th e
units
are
semantically
inked
by
virtue
ofthe
presence in both ofVALUED OB 3ECT -theplant s
existence:
(7)
he
threat
VO
{to
th e
plant's existence}
(8)
O {the plant's existence}
is
under
threat
3 7
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EURALEX
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PROCEEDINGS
These
comments
form
part
of
a
smal l
exploratory
study.
It s
samples
are
drawn
from
a
broad
range
of BNC
ata,
ot from
pecialized
ub-corpora,
r from
arger
bodies
of scientific
material ccessible n
he
nternet.
ts
onclusions elate o eneral, ncluding
emi-
technical, English
material only.
Semantic
elements
and syntactic structures
Referring
earlier
to hazard and
risk,
I
tried
to show
how
frame
theory
could
bring to
light
close
similarities of meaning. ut equally, it
can
throw
light on fine
differences.
onsider
now
azard
nd hreat.
t
he evel of
semantic
oles,
here
re
ertainly mportant
differences
between
these
nouns.
hile
threat
as
noun occurs freely in contexts in
which
V A L U E D
O B J E C T
is
realized
as
post-modification,
hazard
is
not
found
in
such
a
context.
typical post-modifier fo r
th e latter is one that
realizes th e element
P O T E N T IA L
V I C T IM
(9 )
greater
threat
VO
{to
th e
democratic constitution}
(10) azards
PV
{facing
public
service
workers}.
Let
us
now
turn
to
consider semantic
elements
in
relation
to
syntactic
structures.
e
shall
look
at
threat
and
focus
chiefly
on
th e
first
structural
element
after
it
its
post-modification.
So , a threat to ,
a threat of, a
threatfrom,
and so
on.
The evidence, drawn
from
th e
British National
Corpus,
though no t restricted in
this
study to
any
scientific
domain,
supports
three
major
semantico-syntactic
groupings:
•
ost-modification realises V A L U E D O B J E C T
(VO)
•
ost-modification realises I N T E N D E D viCTlM (iv)
•
ost-modification
realises
H A R M
(
•)
Th e
first
two,
with their
verbal
analogues,
are
shown
at
(11) and
(12),
and
we
can
see
that
only
th e semantic
roles
ofthe prepositional phrases distinguish between
them.
(11)
threat
VO
{to
everything
he
had fought for}
*^
hreaten everything he
had
fought fo r
(12)
he
threat
IV
{to
people who blow
th e
whistle on
their employees}
«^ hreaten people
who
blow
th e whistle on
their
employees.
The
inal
roup
iffers
n
three
espects
rom
th e
irst
two.
s we an
ee,
here s
superficial difference ofpreposition
choice:
(13) hethreat
3 8
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5/6
REPORTS
ON LEXlCOGRAPlHCAl,
A N I >
LEXICOLOGICAL PROJECTS
H
{ofaprice
war}
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EüRALEX
2002
PROCEEDINGS
Conclusion
This
has
been
a
small-scale,
exploratory
study,
expressing
the
response of
one member of
a
discussion
group
to
a
number
of
descriptive
challenges. t
concentrates
on
only
two of the
features
se t
out
in
the
dictionary
blueprint
presented
at the
Strasbourg
meeting,
and
addresses
none
of
its
multi-lingual
concerns. erhaps
enough
as
been aid,
however, o show
that
f rame semantics
has
much
to
offer to
the
designer
ofaterminological dictionary.
Semantic
elements such
as
RISKY
SITUATION
and
HARM
as we saw in
the case
of
hazard
are
powerful
upport when
efining
definitions r distinguishing
between
elated tems .
Then oo, ne
an
ook
o he
odel
o
rovide
n ntegrated escription
f
semantic
categories and syntactic
structures,
such a description being of particular value
for
encoding.
Final ly, s
we
have
just een n
he case
of
threat,
he
approach
can
hrow
ight
on
he
semantic
classification
ofcollocates.
References
[Atkins
1994]
Atkins,
B.
T.
S., 1994.
Analysing th e
Verbs ofSeeing:
a Frame
Semantics Approach
to
Corpus
Lexicography,
in:
S.
Gahl
et al . (eds.) Proceedings
ofthe Twentieth Annual
Meeting
of
the Berkeley Linguistics Society.
University
ofCalifornia,
Berkeley.
[Cowie 998] Cowie,
A. P., 998. Semantic
Frame Theory nd
th e
Analysis
of hraseology,
n:
Moscow
State
University
Bulletin, 9
(1),
Moscow
State
University,
Moscow.
pFillmore
Atkins
1992]
Fillmore,
C.
J.
B.
T.
S.
Atkins,
1992.
Towards
a
Frame-Based
Lexicon:
th e Semantics of RISK and its
Neighbours, in: A. Lehrer
E. F.
Kittay
(eds.)
Frames,
ields
and
Contrasts. Lawrence
Erlbaum
Associates, Hillsdale
NJ.
[Gréciano
2001]
Gréciano,
G., 2001 .
L'harmonisation
de
la terminologie
en
sciences
du
risque,
paper
presented
at th e Strasbourg
Forum
on
Environmental
Security, Council
of Europe,
Strasbourg,
19-21
November .
pSDR
2001]
ISDR Secretariat,
2001 .
UpdatedandExpanded
Terminology
on
Disaster
Reduction.
First
Draft Outline and Compilation. Inter-Agency Task Force
on
Disaster
Reduction,
Geneva.
33
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