10 Specialized collocations in specialized dictionaries

1 Introduction Collocations are restricted combinations of two or more lexical units that share some characteristics with lexical compounds and phraseological units, such as their idiomatic nature, their need to be learned or their tendency towards fi xed-ness. Nevertheless, collocations can be distinguished from other types of lexical combinations through compositional meaning, lack of lexicalization and adher-ence to syntax rules.

Linguists are increasingly interested in the study of collocations because these are a key issue in second language learning, fi rst language acquisition, translation, lexicography, text revision and correction, as well as in theoretical and applied studies in lexical representation. Obviously, most studies focus on general collo-cations, i.e. collocations with a general meaning used in all genres; some Spanish examples of collocations are the following: encajar una derrota ‘accept a defeat’, proferir un insulto ‘hurl an insult’, amante despechado ‘angry lover’. 2

This chapter will seek to address some questions about collocations in spe-cialized discourse. These questions are: do specialized collocations exist? Are specialized collocations different from general collocations? How is a specialized collocation like? What relationship exists between a specialized collocation and a terminological unit? What classes of specialized collocations can be identifi ed? Should terminological resources include collocations? If so, what kind of colloca-tions should be included in specialized dictionaries? And how could specialized collocations be represented and indexed in dictionaries?

The fi rst aim of this chapter is to put forward an accurate defi nition of specialized collocation that helps us to answer the above-mentioned questions and to identify this kind of combinations and distinguish them from other combinations also used in specialized discourse. Specialized corpora, specifi c to several domains, will be analyzed with NLP tools to identify the main types of specialized collocations.

The second aim is to discuss about various approaches to collocation representation in dictionaries, and to suggest a new lexicographical model for collocations in special-ized dictionaries and in other terminological resources. Several published specialized dictionaries and databases will be analyzed and described, and the advantages and disadvantages of collocation representation will also be discussed.

Specialized collocations in specialized dictionaries 1

Mercè Lorente and Àngels Martínez-Salom, Isabel Santamaría and Chelo Vargas-Sierra

10

Collocations in specialized dictionaries 201

To address the fi rst objective, we fi nd ourselves at an initially eclectic, cross-theoretical position. Our point of departure is the idea that the models developed so far to describe, represent and explain the collocation phenomenon have done so from different perspectives, which are not exclusive, but complementary. Thus, semantic models (Hausmann 1979, 1998, Mel’čuk 1982, 1998) focus their atten-tion on the selection of the collocate by the base or semantic core, while syntax models focus on restrictive lexical selection imposed by a predicate on its argu-ments (Bosque 2001a, 2001b, 2004a). In the case of applied terminological and lexicographical studies such as this one, both models allow us to design strategies for detecting restrictive combinations or collocations, both in text corpora and in lexicographic resources. In any case, we exclude from our theoretical framework the purely quantitative studies (initiated by Halliday 1966, Sinclair 1966), since they are based on the notion of concordance – which is much broader in scope than the notion of collocation – and on frequency criteria – methodologically insuffi cient for identifying restrictive specialized combinations.

In sections 2 and 3 of this chapter, we discuss the concept of specialized col-location, based on the following assumptions:

a Specialized collocations are a specifi c class within the set of lexical combina-tions that coexist in a specialized discourse.

b The base of a specialized collocation is always a terminological unit. c The structures of specialized collocations correspond to a reduced or pref-

erential set of patterns, when compared with the structural diversity of non-specialized or general collocations.

The second objective of this chapter is twofold. First, our aim is to contribute to the analytical criteria required in the inclusion and representation of specialized collocations in lexicographical resources; our second aim is to suggest some innovations that will improve the representation of these combinations in avail-able resources for translators and language mediators in general. It is important to note at this point that experts in any area of specialization acquire the termi-nology used in their domain progressively and in context. This means that these preferred and restrictive combinations are naturally integrated into their linguistic repertoire as they acquire specialized knowledge. However, linguistic media-tors and teachers of languages for specifi c purposes require specifi c information on the combinations of terminological units in available terminology resources (databases, dictionaries and vocabularies, ontologies and taxonomies, computer-assisted translation systems).

To meet this objective, we will analyze a set of monolingual and multilingual dictionaries from a variety of specialized fi elds (law, economics, medicine, sci-ence and technology, industry, tourism) and some multi-thematic terminology databanks that are consulted regularly by translators and teachers. Additionally, we will carry out research on the existence of dictionaries of specialized collo-cations or, alternatively, if general collocations dictionaries include specialized collocations.

202 Mercè Lorente et al.

The assumptions that guide the analysis of dictionaries and the corresponding proposed representation of collocations are:

a The lexical combinations included in dictionaries do not always correspond to the notion of specialized collocations. They are often mixed with phraseo-logical units and general collocations, and even multi-word terms.

b The location of collocations (and the rest of the represented combinations) in dictionary articles render their recovery or access diffi cult and also their meaning description.

In the fi nal sections, and in view of the limitations identifi ed in the lexicographi-cal selection and representation of specialized collocations, we suggest some future lines of work concerning a representation model suitable for this type of combinations.

2 Lexical combinations and specialized discourse Theoretically, there is no consensus on how to exactly delimit the set of lexical unit combinations that can be considered collocations. In this discussion, we can identify two main groups: the authors who advocate for a broad view of the collocation phenomenon and the ones who support a more restrictive approach. The fi rst group (Church and Hanks 1990, Sinclair 1991, Moon 2008) prioritizes the statistical calculation that shows the level of attraction or mutual association between the components of a combination; this characteristic is shared by gram-matical phrases, lexical units and all kinds of phraseological units. The opposite position is represented by those who reserve the name collocation for lexical com-binations that are not lexicalized and are not idioms (Hausmann 1979, Mel’čuk 1982, Lorente 2006–2007, Vargas-Sierra 2010, Martínez-Salom 2012).

In fact, we are facing the same phenomenon, namely collocability, which helps us explain the preference on the part of speakers to establish repetitive combinations, counter the potential of variation and ensure easier acquisition, under the principle of economy of language. This trend of language, which happens in all languages, appears in different combinations, be they lexical or syntactic in nature. And, because of this, we argue that collocations, strictu senso , have syntactic, semantic and prag-matic characteristics that make them different from other “collocated” combinations.

By specialized discourse we mean a set of oral and written texts, on a specifi c topic, which are produced by experts in that particular fi eld of specialized knowl-edge in professional and/or academic communicative settings. If on the lexical level any specialized text contains terminology units from a given thematic area in addition to general words, when we focus our attention on lexical combinations (generally equivalent to the level of phrase constituents) within specialized texts, we can fi nd sequences as follows:

• free phrases, e.g. escribir un artículo ‘write an article’, caja de madera ‘wooden box’;


• general collocations, for example rigurosamente cierto ‘certainly true’, corre un rumor ‘spread a rumour’;

• specialized collocations, for example dictar [una] sentencia ‘pass judgment’, sintetizar una proteína ‘synthesize a protein’;

• grammatical phrases, for example por debajo de ‘under’, a pesar de que ‘in spite of’;

• determinant phrases, such as un montón de ‘a lot of’, un poco de ‘a little of’; • verbal phrases and support verbs, e.g. dar pie a ‘give rise to’, dar un giro

‘take a turn’; • adjective phrases, e.g. apto para todos los públicos ‘suitable for all ages’; • adverb phrases such as a pie de urna ‘from exit polls’; • general multi-word lexical units or lexicalized: hombre de paja ‘front man’,

caja de caudales ‘strongbox’; • multi-word terminological units: alcohol metílico ‘methyl alcohol’, orden de

detención ‘arrest warrant’; • irreversible binomials: debe y haber ‘debit and credit’, túnidos y otras espe-

cies ‘tuna and other species’; • and even routine formulas of courtesy or protocol: Excelentísimo Minis-

tro ‘Honourable Minister’; como prueba de conformidad ‘as evidence of compliance’.

In short, the importance that collocations have in specialized discourse is clear and is summarized by Gledhill (1995: 249) 3 in the following way:

New science is founded on a system of preferred expressions, and collocation is a fundamental mechanism that allows for new formulations to take place throughout the text.

3 Specialized collocations: An attempt at their defi nition First, it should be mentioned that our study of restrictive lexical combinations takes into account the Communicative Theory of Terminology (Cabré 1999) as its theoretical framework; it should be noted that unlike other theories, one of the characteristics of this theory is that it considers specialized lexicon as a lexical component of language, rather than as a separate and distinct system. Thus, our decision not to use as our point of departure a defi nition of collocation specifi cally formulated for the analysis of specialized texts is fully justifi ed; we prefer using a defi nition provided both for general language and specialized discourse. Accord-ingly, we use the term collocation – either specialized or general – in a sense that does not, in its essence, differ from that used by many authors for the study of this type of restrictive lexical combinations in general language.

More specifi cally, we use the term collocation – specialized or not – to refer to those sequences formed by at least two lexical units joined by a stable link, which is determined by the semantic hierarchy required by one of these units – called base – which lexically selects the other linguistic elements – called collocate – with


which it is combined in a restrictive manner and, in principle, in an unpredictable way. It is also necessary to add that collocations are characterized by being the semantically autonomous core of a sequence not having a single semantic refer-entiality, but whose meaning is compositional, i.e. formed from the meaning of its lexical components.

Accordingly, the defi nition we use considers both the structure and the seman-tics of lexical sequences to differentiate those that are collocational – in line with authors like Hausmann (1979, 1998) or Mel’čuk (1982, 1998), and, at the same time, we distance ourselves from the analysis of combinatorial phenomenon grounded in strictly quantitative data – an option linked to corpus linguistics and authors like Sinclair (1966). In relation to the above, we would like to emphasize the fact that we understand collocations not as totally free or arbitrary combina-tions of words, regulated only by the syntactic and semantic rules of language, but as combinations where a certain stability is detected in the way the particular words that form them are combined to build a given lexical sequence. Some authors measure this stability using the statistical frequency found in the combi-nation of lexical units and, although we agree that collocation stability is related to the repeated and frequent use of said collocations, we prefer to emphasize here that collocations are stable combinations insofar as they are regulated by the rules of use conventionally set by the linguistic community, which prefers certain lin-guistic sequences over others that are equally grammatical (Alonso 1994–1995, Corpas Pastor 1996, Almela 2002, among others).

Based on these rules, the speaker prefers a lexical choice ( inocular un virus ‘inoculate a virus’) before other ( implantar un virus ‘implant a virus’, for exam-ple) to express a certain meaning. In the case of specialized collocations, an expert is someone who follows the established conventions of language, in this case, within the scientifi c community (Heid and Freibott 1991, L’Homme 1997, 2000). Therefore, since collocations are part of the communicative competence of language users who are specialists in a subject fi eld, it is necessary to provide information about this type of conventional and combination restrictions in ter-minology resources and materials for learners, language mediators and, generally, for anyone who requires information on how these lexical items are combined in a particular discipline. Furthermore, regarding the need to include collocations in specialized dictionaries, we need to keep in mind that it is frequently noted that the speech produced by specialists is precisely characterized by the abundance of specifi c collocations (Heid and Freibott 1991, L’Homme 1995, Méndez Cendón 2002).

Moreover, in the context of the Communicative Theory of Terminology (herein-after CTT), we study collocations by situating them within the realm of specialized phraseology , given their syntagmatic composition. In other words, CTT centers on the linguistic description of specialized discourse and in the way language is used for the dissemination of specialized information. Under these assumptions, it deals with all units of specialized meaning that appear in the discourse, includ-ing not only words but also multi-word sequences, both lexicalized phrases and phraseologisms (Cabré et al . 1998). Lexical collocations are found within the


latter group, and are considered to be restrictive and stable syntagmatic sequences, although not fi xed or lexicalized, which may belong to general language or be specifi c to a particular specialized fi eld, that is, specialized collocations .

Thus, apart from the general defi ning characteristics identifi ed above, special-ized collocations have a number of particular features, and of these, as stated earlier, the most important is their use in conveying specialized knowledge. To perform this function, specialized collocations should comply with a strict condi-tion: it must contain one terminological unit, since it is this unit that transmits the information of a given domain of specialty (L’Homme 1998, Lorente 2006–2007).

Unlike other terminology theories, CTT is based on the assumption that vari-ous types of lexical items can be used to transmit the knowledge of a particular specialized fi eld. These include not only nouns ( dictar sentencia ‘pass judgment’), but also other predicative categories that can act as potential terminological units, such as adjectives ( caballo alazán ‘chestnut stallion’), verbs ( inocular un virus ‘inoculate a virus’) and adverbs ( ambientalmente negativo ‘environmentally neg-ative’). Consequently, it is possible to fi nd specialized collocations that involve at least one of these components with a terminological value, together with other lexical units that are either specialized or general. In any case, in specialized col-locations the base – as a semantically nuclear element, cognitively more promi-nent, and having the ability to restrictively select other lexical units with which it collocates – will always be a terminology unit, while the collocate must not necessarily meet this condition.

It is often identifi ed as evidence of the selective orientation from the base towards the collocate the fact that it depends on the base, since it is subject to semantic modifi cations when both are together in the discourse. Following Martínez-Salom (2014) and taking as an example the specialized collocations with a verb as a col-locate, we can confi rm that there may be a loss of semantic identity of the verb, which is almost devoid of lexical meaning and, in the text, it essentially provides the properties of tense, aspect, mood, number and conjugation. This is the case of the collocations with a support verb ( efectuar o poner una demanda ‘fi le a law-suit’, realizar un tratamiento ‘apply a treatment’, hacer un diagnóstico ‘make a diagnosis’, poner en servicio ‘put into service’); which were analyzed in relation to specialized texts, among others, in Lorente (2006–2007) and are identifi ed as the predominant collocations in specialized discourse in various thematic areas (Méndez Cendón 2002).

These collocations are characterized by being equivalent to one simple verb, with which it frequently coexists in discourse ( demandar ‘sue’, tratar ‘treat’, diagnosticar ‘diagnose’) and very often represent less specialized variants that are conceptually less accurate than the more typical combinations found in the spe-cialist language. The latter exhibit a higher degree of formality and we interpret them as being more stable in specialized discourse ( interponer una demanda ‘fi le a lawsuit’, administrar un tratamiento ‘administer treatment’).

In other cases, semantic modifi cation takes place when the polysemic collocate, when combined with the base verb, does not denote its primary or more general meaning within the specialized discourse of a specifi c subject area. Instead, in


this context, it is forced to take on a more specifi c and restricted meaning, which often should be interpreted as a metaphorical extension that is strictly dependent on the base verb ( aislar un virus ‘isolate a virus’, administrar o instaurar un trata-miento ‘administer or start a treatment’, interponer una demanda ‘fi le a lawsuit’, estimular la demanda ‘stimulate demand’); we interpret this type of collocations as being the most prototypical.

Additionally, there are collocations in which the terminological base is com-bined with collocates, and these are clearly terminological as well; that is, they are units that serve to convey specialized knowledge in the discourse. These are not used in general language and if they are, they maintain their inherent terminologi-cal meaning ( inocular un virus ‘inoculate a virus’, incoar un expediente ‘open a fi le’, promulgar una ley ‘enact a law’). In this case, the directionality of the restrictive lexical choice that the base exerts on its collocate is maintained, but of special relevance is the choice made in the opposite direction. Here, the collocate, as a syntactic predicate, also forces certain options vis-à-vis its argument (Bosque 2001a, 2001b, 2004a). In other words, a terminological unit such as virus can be said to restrictively select the verb inoculate to denote ‘implantation’, but it is also equally important that the syntactical-semantic features that are inherent to this particular verb also restrict the nominal elements that are able to occupy the posi-tion of its internal argument. These are limited to a lexical class of nouns denoting ‘infectious agent’. Therefore, for specialized collocations, the conceptual restric-tions of the subject area in which they are inserted may have a decisive infl uence on the restrictive selection of a given collocation. That is, the bi-directionality of the selection between the base verb and the collocate reinforces the degree of attraction, as is shown by the results of the statistical analysis of association.

In virtue of these conceptual restrictions, specialized collocations show a marked tendency for a given collocate (e.g. aislar ‘isolate’ or inocular ‘inoculate’) to appear with different terminological bases that belong to the same semantic class ( aislar ‘isolate’ and inocular un virus ‘inoculate a virus’, but also both verbs used with un cultivo ‘a culture’ or un antígeno ‘an antigen’), that are well-delimited by the fi eld of specialty. L’Homme and Bertrand (2000) refer to this phe-nomenon, distinguishing between what they call lexical collocations – where one collocate appears in combination with a single terminological unit that functions as a base ( caballo alazán ) – and conceptual collocations – where a single collo-cate can combine with multiple bases –, with the latter being more productive in specialized discourses in their analysis. They conclude that this type of collocation is not a true collocation, as it is less restrictive. It is our belief that the chief feature of collocations is the semantic hierarchy resulting from the restriction forced by the base onto the collocate, and in this type of collocations we can clearly see a restriction imposed in the opposite direction, from the collocate acting as syntactic predicate – towards the base, or its argument. Therefore, we believe that these are stable combinations in specialized discourse, with characteristics that are fully collocational in nature.

Additionally, with respect to the conceptual restrictions linked to a specifi c fi eld, it should be noted that the terminological bases condition the selection of


collocates according to the specialty fi eld in question (Martínez-Salom 2014). That is, in contrast to other theoretical frameworks, CTT does not consider termi-nological units as exclusively belonging to a specifi c specialized fi eld; only when it is used in a specialized text does a given unit acquire a specifi c and unambiguous meaning in the context. Therefore, a single lexical unit may function as a term in a number of diverse fi elds and their respective discourses, taking on a distinct, spe-cialized meaning in each one (compare, for example, demanda ‘lawsuit/demand’ in legal and economics texts). To this we should add that in specialized colloca-tional combinations, there is a strong dependence on the collocate base, which can be seen in the way it varies as a function of terminological semantic considerations (e.g. law texts feature collocations such as interponer ‘fi le’ or desestimar una demanda ‘dismiss a lawsuit’, as opposed to collocations such as estimular ‘stimu-late’ or absorber la demanda ‘absorb demand’, which can be found in economics texts). This also shows how specialized collocations, insofar as they carry specifi c restrictions in a given fi eld of knowledge, provide useful information that helps users build upon the knowledge and description of the conceptual system of this specifi c fi eld (Heid 1992, Meyer and Mackintosh 1996).

Furthermore, according to the defi nition outlined above, collocations share certain characteristics with lexicalized phrases ( palanca de control ‘control lever’, números rojos ‘in the red’), as well as with other types of phrases situated within the fi eld of specialized phraseology, such as expressions ( de cúbito supino ‘dorsal decubitus’), irreversible binomials ( bandos y acuerdos ‘proclamations and agree-ments’) or routine formulaic expressions ( expedimos el presente certifi cado a petición del interesado ‘this certifi cate is issued at the request of the interested party’), among others (Méndez Cendón 2002, Lorente 2006–2007). All of these cases represent idiomatic combinations that are unpredictable for the speaker who is unfamiliar with them, and therefore, they must be learned. They all have a tendency to be fi xed, by virtue of their reiteration in the discourse in a particular form. Still, collocations differ from other types of sequences in their composi-tional meaning, their lack of lexicalization, and their conformity to morphological and syntactic rules.

In the fi eld of terminology, we can contrast collocations with lexicalized phrases that hold terminological value, that is, phraseological terms or complex terminological units with other units with which they share formal features and with which they are often confused in the literature on lexical combinations in spe-cialized languages. In this case, the main difference between both types lies in the fact that collocations, in contrast to lexicalized terms, are not lexicalized phrase sequences and, as a result, do not constitute lexical units that hold referential or designative value.

In formal terms, terminological lexicalized phrases often appear as noun phrases that designate a referent that is conceptually well-defi ned, occupying a delimited area in the conceptual domain of the specialized fi eld in which it is situated, and differentiated from its noun nucleus without its complement ( bomba de calor ‘heat pump’, propiedad intelectual ‘intellectual property’, pistola laser ‘laser gun’). In fact, according to the hypothesis on the relational nature of the nucleus


(Lorente et al. 2002), while noun phrases tend towards lexicalization, phrases whose nucleus is a single word of another grammatical category – verb, adverb, adjective – are not normally lexicalized, but are good candidates to becoming phraseologisms. Therefore, we should add that these latter phrase types can also be characterized as lexical collocations, although collocations in the form of a noun phrase are also possible, as has been stated earlier.

With respect to these collocations, it is important to highlight those combina-tions found within specialized discourse that are formed by a noun derived from a verb base followed by a nominal unit with a terminological value ( realización del tratamiento ‘application of treatment’, interposición de una demanda ‘fi ling a lawsuit’, inoculación del virus ‘inoculation of the virus’). On occasion this type of pattern is confused with syntagmatic terms, although they actually are colloca-tions derived from nominalized verbs. The resulting deverbal noun usually com-bines in the same way as the original verb, and the combination is semantically identical to the collocation in its verb phrase form.

To summarize, specialized collocations do not differ from general or non- specialized collocations either in their confi guration or their semantic composi-tion. Therefore, all the structures that are detected as possible constituent elements of collocations are available both to general discourse and specialized discourse. At any rate, the analyzes performed on texts and dictionaries lead us to conclude a priori that there are certain structures that predominate among specialized col-locations, namely, verb + noun combinations.

4 Specialized dictionaries and terminological data banks analyzed

If we take a look at the literature on this subject (DECFC 1984–1999, BBI 1986, Bergenholtz and Tarp 1995, Koike 2002, L’Homme 2009, Vargas-Sierra 2010), all authors agree on the necessity and usefulness of including collocations in both general and specialized dictionaries.

The access to collocations – especially if some form of explanation of their meaning is provided – can help solve problems related to the production of correct lexical units to be used in combination with a specifi c term or another lexical unit.

(L’Homme 2009: 237)

Yet at the same time many stress the defi cient and unsystematic treatment of collo-cations. Despite the progress made in the last thirty years, we still have not addressed how to describe collocations, and what kind of information this description should contain (defi nition, examples, etc.) or how they should be organized within the dictionary article. In this section we will focus our attention on the presence of col-locations in terminology resources, which are understood as being both specialized dictionaries and terminology databases, either in printed format or online.


At present, this type of word combination, despite what has been said in lexicographical and terminology theory, is still underrepresented in specialized dictionaries. It is clear that collocation information is a fundamental part of any language and should be included in dictionaries, not only the more general tomes but also those that are geared towards specialized terminology, a consideration that has been recommended by many authors on the subject (Benson 1995, Moon 2008, L’Homme 2009). Yet when it comes to specialized fi elds, this type of word combination is even more important, for every fi eld or domain has its own char-acteristic phraseological units and the unpredictability of collocations means that even native speakers may fi nd it diffi cult to know how to form collocations in their own fi eld. Nevertheless, other language professionals – especially translators, terminologists, lexicographers, LSP learners and science writers and technicians – require this lexical information most of all when producing or translating a text within a specifi c domain. This is especially true if their goal is to produce naturally sounding texts in the specialist language, written in the same way an expert would in that particular domain.

With the advent of globalization and greater specialization in knowledge of the last third of the twentieth century, the practice of lexicography has focused on the preparation of specialized or terminology dictionaries. These are the resources that we will examine in this study, in order to gain some insight onto the phenom-enon of phraseology and collocation in particular.

From a methodological standpoint, we will analyze the presence of colloca-tion units under study in terminological resources that exist today in the market. This will allow us to evaluate the way in which collocations are coded in works published in different languages and specialized fi elds. To obtain our samples, we have analyzed a broad spectrum of fi elds of knowledge, ranging from biomedi-cine, technology, law and economics to marketing, advertising and the environ-ment. These are spheres of knowledge whose current relevance is indisputable, both for their spectacular growth and development in the purely scientifi c realm, and also for their present social repercussion. In addition, for our study, we have tried to select specialized fi elds of knowledge that are interesting insofar as they represent fi elds in opposition to each other due to the variety of traditions that defi ne them. Some of these fi elds, such as medicine, law or science and tech-nology, are disciplines that are fully consolidated and represent long-standing scientifi c and academic traditions. At the same time, their associated scientifi c knowledge is under constant expansion and transformation. Other fi elds such as tourism or marketing and the environment represent fi elds of knowledge that have only recently been implanted in the academic sphere but which are undergoing rapid development and gaining increasing acceptance. These too, are character-ized by being multi- and cross-disciplinary fi elds.

Accordingly, the corpus of study comprises a number of dictionaries of dif-fering degrees of specialization, subject matter, purposes and users. Our aim being to determine to what extent collocations are coded in current terminologi-cal resources. Information gathered through the analysis of these resources was


compiled in a data sheet, which allowed us to evaluate the analyzed works both quantitatively and qualitatively. This sheet was divided into four main sections:

a Bibliographic information: Name of work, author, publishing company, year, etc.

b Dictionary type: Collocations or lexical combination, terminology, phrase dictionaries.

c Hyperstructure: information on collocations in the introduction of the work. d Macrostructure: whether collocations are included as entries, types, tags,

defi nitions, etc. e Microstructure: types, place, defi nition, examples, tags, etc. f User evaluation.

To undertake our analysis, a number of existing terminology resources were selected, which were categorized as follows:

• Specialized monolingual dictionaries • Specialized bilingual dictionaries • Terminology data banks • Specialized collocations dictionaries

4.1 Specialized monolingual dictionaries

Specialized dictionaries were selected for our study, each focusing on one particu-lar subject. We observed that no grammatical information or examples of usage were included except in some instances where grammatical information such as syntactic category was offered. The aim of these works is to provide and clarify conceptual meanings, and therefore, they usually do not include linguistic infor-mation, let alone information concerning possible associated combinations. The dictionaries analyzed were as follows:

• Diccionario de términos médicos [DTM] • Diccionario español de la energía, con vocabulario inglés-español [DEE] • Diccionario enciclopédico de tecnología [DET] • Medical dictionary and encyclopedia of Medicine: MedlinePlus [DEMED]

4.2 Specialized bilingual dictionaries

In specialized bilingual dictionaries, entries are usually in the form of simple lexi-cal units, with associated lexical combinations contained within. Equivalents for each are provided in list form to help the user decide on the most appropriate item for the context in question, a method that is not always satisfactory for the user.

The dictionaries chosen in our study do not follow this structure. We ana-lyzed three specialized bilingual Spanish–English and English–Spanish diction-aries published by Ariel and another dictionary published by Editorial LID, a


monolingual Spanish dictionary with equivalent terms in English, French and Portuguese. These are as follows:

• Diccionario de términos de derechos humanos [DDH] • Diccionario de términos de marketing, publicidad y medios de comunicación

[DMYPUB] • Diccionario de términos de la piedra natural e industrias afi nes [DPNIA] • Diccionario LID Inteligencia y seguridad [LID]

4.3 Terminology data banks

We analyzed some of the most commonly used data banks in Spanish. These data banks are multi-disciplinary in nature, covering a variety of fi elds and are also multi-lingual, offering terms and their equivalents in a number of languages. These are as follows:

• Cercaterm: <http://www.termcat.cat> (last access: March 2, 2015). Online terminology resource created by Termcat, the centre for terminology in the Catalan language, that was established in 1985 by the Government of Cata-lonia and the Institute of Catalan Studies. Its online data bank allows users to look up Catalan terms in a number of fi elds of knowledge, along with their equivalents in different languages.

• Termium: <http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca> (last access: March 2, 2015). Terminology and linguistic data bank provided by the Government of Canada. It contains nearly four million general and specialized terms, along with their equivalents in French, English and occasionally in Spanish and Portuguese. As indicated in the Termium description, it includes phraseological units and examples of usage.

• IATE (Inter-Active Terminology for Europe): <http://iate.europa.eu> (last access: March 2, 2015). Terminology database of the European Union, which contains around seven million entries in 23 offi cial languages. The IATE is an interactive terminology tool designed for multilingual writers, translators and interpreters working in the European Union.

4.4 Specialized collocations dictionaries

This section will focus on monolingual or multi-lingual dictionaries that exclu-sively contain combinatorial items in a specialized domain. We searched for this sort of dictionaries in Spanish, French, English and Catalan, which are the languages we know and use in different contexts. Nevertheless, we only found monolingual resources in French, bilingual in English–French, English– Spanish, English–German, English–Romanian, Russian–English, and multi-lingual in English–French–Spanish–Portuguese. Collocations dictionaries for general pur-poses were not considered in this study, since this chapter focuses in domain specifi c resources.

http://iate.europa.eu

http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca

http://www.termcat.cat


We have noticed that specialized collocation dictionaries have still a limited presence and availability in the market, in spite of their usefulness and validity for coding specialized texts. There are still fewer in bilingual or multi-lingual versions, which we consider essential for translators and other linguistic media-tors. Most of the studied dictionaries of this kind were elaborated in 2007–2009, although the fi rst ones were made from 1986 onwards. The most recent one is, precisely, the reviewed and enlarged version of the fi rst one (Cohen 1986).

Next, we will only list the dictionaries that are already available in paper or in electronic version, and not those which may be the object of a research project ( see Vargas-Sierra 2010) but are not available for general public in the market.

The dictionaries analyzed are:

• Dictionary of Business Collocations. With Romanian Translation and Prac-tice Section [DBC]

• DiCoEnviro. Le dictionnaire fondamental de l’environnement [DiCoEnviro] • DiCoInfo. Le dictionnaire fondamental de l’informatique et de l’Internet

[DiCoInfo] • Internet. Répertoire bilingue de combinaisons léxicales spécialisées

(français-anglais) [IRBC] • KWiC Web Guide to Medical English for German-Speaking Health Profes-

sionals / Fachwortschatz Medizin Englisch. Sprachtrainer und Fachwörter-buch in einem [KWG]

• Lexique de cooccurrents. Bourse et conjuncture économique (2 e édition revue et augmenté) [LDC]

• A Russian-English Collocational Dictionary of the Human Body [RECD] • Vocabulaire et cooccurrents de la comptabilité [VCC]

5 Results of the analyses

5.1 Specialized monolingual dictionaries

In the case of specialized monolingual dictionaries, there is a little or no mention of lexical combinations, both as entries proper or within the article. All of the resources analyzed include a prologue indicating the type of users it is oriented to, generally professionals or experts in the fi eld, but also a broad range of users such as language learners, writers, translators, journalists or related specialists. All of the dictionaries studied provide an instruction guide that includes a description of the information contained within the dictionary (defi nition, synonyms, antonyms, examples of usage, etc.). None of the dictionaries offers phraseological or combi-natorial information.

After reviewing these works we found lexical combinations in the form of phrases in the nomenclature, mainly noun phrases consisting of noun + noun or noun + adj. Of these, there were some that were not terminological units but represented other types of combinatorial restrictions. For instance, the nomen-clature of the DTM includes a series of combinations formed by a term plus a


phrase related to a part of the human body, as in the following: abductor corto del primer dedo de la mano ‘short abductor muscle of the fi rst fi nger’, abductor corto del pulgar ‘ short abductor muscle of the thumb’, abductor del dedo gordo ‘abductor muscle of the big toe’, abductor del dedo pequeño ‘abductor muscle of the little fi nger’, abductor largo del pulgar ‘long abductor muscle of the thumb’, abductor del meñique ‘abductor muscle of the little fi nger’, abductor del primer dedo ‘abductor muscle of the fi rst fi nger’, abductor del quinto dedo ‘abductor muscle of the fi fth digit’, etc. 4 Similarly, aberración esférica ‘spherical aberra-tion’ and aberración de esfericidad ‘aberration of sphericity’ are given separate entries, as are ablación del clitoris ‘clitoral ablation’, ablación genital femenina ‘female genital ablation’, ablación femenina ‘female ablation’, ablación sexual femenina ‘female sexual ablation’, all of which listed as denominative variations of the same concept.

The DEE also includes terminology in the form of phrases in its nomenclature, such as cámara limpia ‘clean room’, cámara magmática ‘magma chamber’, cámara en miniature ‘miniature camera’ or adverbial phrases such as en cadena ‘chain’, en caliente ‘hot’ or en frío ‘cold’. This dictionary also contains units as part of its macrostructure, such as ceniza de alta temperature ‘high temperature ash’, ceniza de baja temperatura ‘low temperature ash’, ceniza refractaria ‘refrac-tory ash’, ceniza muy refractaria ‘very refractory ash’, accidente grave ‘serious accident’, accidente muy grave ‘very serious accident’, in which the adjectives alto ‘high’ bajo ‘low’ or the presence or absence of the adverb muy ‘very’ results in a change of meaning.

None of the dictionaries analyzed include explicit information on collocations, but the DEE includes a passing reference to this concept when it states:

No han de confundirse los enlaces – introducidos por VID. – con los envíos – introducidos por V. Estos últimos, como se ha advertido y hecho notar, responden exclusivamente a criterios lingüísticos de construcción y muestran la entrada léxica en la que se encuentra un vocablo dentro de una forma compleja. 5

For example, under the entry combinado-da V. ciclo combinado. In ciclo com-binado V. central de gas de ciclo combinado, gasifi cación integrada de ciclo combinado , users are directed to other entries, which helps and facilitates the combination of the main term.

5.2 Specialized bilingual dictionaries

The dictionaries published by Ariel feature specialized vocabulary in a profes-sional fi eld. They are bilingual: English to Spanish and Spanish to English, offer-ing the same information in both language pairs. As explained in the introduction, these dictionaries were mainly designed for translators and other users such as students of those particular fi elds, and therefore they include linguistic informa-tion related to spelling, morphology and how they combine with other words.


There are few compound words in the macrostructure of the dictionaries, and where they exist, there is no set defi ned criteria in their inclusion: in some instances the terms appear in their regular order: bache económico , busto parlante or buena marcha , and in others this order is reversed: bambalinas, entre ; abay-ance, in ; brillo, con.

Collocation or combination information was found within articles, as explained in the introduction:

b) La ilustración. En muchos casos, para servir de orientación contextual del signifi cado que se ofrece, hemos añadido, bien un breve ejemplo precedido del símbolo ◊, bien algunas expresiones en que puede aparecer la palabra. 6

Inherent adj: GENERAL inherente; en contextos como inherent right – derecho inherente –, o inherent dignity – dignidad inherente –, se aplica a algo que pertenece a la naturaleza – nature – de la persona.

[DDH: X]

A signifi cant number of lexical combinations appear within articles in the form of subentries. These are good candidates for collocations, which appear in the structures listed below:

a VP (V + NPobject): abarrotar el mercado ‘fl ood the market’, abrir el diafragma ‘open the diaphragm’, atenuar el brillo ‘decrease brightness’, bajar el volume ‘lower the volume’, atenuar la pena ‘lighten the sentence’, activar una alarma ‘set an alarm’; acercar la cámara al objetivo ‘bring the camera closer to the subject’.

b VP (V + NPcompl): recurrir a la fuerza ‘resort to force’, entrar en un ordenador / sistema electrónico ‘enter a computer / electronic system’, bombardear a pre-guntas ‘bombard with questions’, abrir/arrancar/rasgar/romper por la línea de puntos ‘open/tear/rip along the dotted line’, poner en servicio ‘put into service’.

c NP (EventiveN + PPargument): acumulación de tensión ‘accumulation of tension’, aceptación de pedido ‘acceptance of order’, actualización de fi che-ros ‘updating of fi les’, promoción de nuevos productos ‘promotion of new products’, validación de datos data validation’, bloqueo de memoria ‘mem-ory block’, administrador de webs ‘administrator of websites’, peticionario de asilo ‘asylum applicant’, privación de sueño ‘sleep deprivation’, etc.

d NP (N + ADJ): acción positiva ‘positive action’, buena marcha ‘smooth run-ning’, actuación estelar ‘stellar performance’, adopción plena ‘full adoption’.

e ADJP (ADV + ADJ): políticamente correcto ‘politically correct’, ambiental-mente negativo ‘environmentally negative’.

Combinations are also found with explanations in Spanish: back (used in expres-sions such as back issue / number – previously published issue); ábside (usually followed by words such as rules ).

This indicates that there is no specifi c fi eld for collocations, for they were found as subentries or within articles as part of the explanatory text or in examples


offering contextual information, providing formal or semantic restrictions that aid in the understanding of the concept. Nevertheless, it continues to be quite insuf-fi cient as far as the end user is concerned, and even though this type of information is not provided in a systematic way, we must point out that specialized bilingual dictionaries are the ones that are most likely to include such information. In the case of the dictionaries published by Ariel, the combination appears both in Span-ish and English, showing the collocation equivalent between both languages, which is quite productive for the typical user.

The LID dictionary that was analyzed was compiled by experts and is oriented to specialists in the fi eld. Conceptual information is preference over linguistic information such as formal considerations. In fact there are no combinations given in the articles or subentries as explanations or examples of usage. Some appear in the nomenclature as entries: actuación policial basada en la inteligencia ‘intelligence-based police action’, actualización crítica ‘critical update’, acuerdo sobre la protección de la información clasifi cada ‘agreement on protection of classifi ed information’, amenaza a la seguridad nacional ‘threat to national secu-rity’, aplicación de la ley ‘law enforcement’, atributo de calidad de la inteligencia ‘intelligence quality attribute’, etc.

In summary, and as indicated by other authors (Bargalló et al. 1999, Ferrando 2013), we have observed increased presence of this combination type in special-ized bilingual dictionaries studied as part of our work. In general, they employ the following procedures when compiling collocations:

a Collocations appearing as subentries, indicated via typographical means, as are expressions:

alimentar a la fuerza sv. alimentación [DDH] b Collocations included as examples: adinerado Solo las clases adineradas pueden acceder a una educación de

calidad: other synonyms are acaudalado , and the more usual rico . [DDH] c The noun used in the collocation appears under the entry of the verb or adjec-

tive that collocates with it: abrir el diafragma sv. abrir (IMAGE open up) [DTMYPUB] acabado mate sv acabado (GRAPHICS matt/English/dull fi nish, dead matte) d Collocations are given to exemplify the use of certain expressions: acceso sv. acceder (GENERAL access; used in the expressions de fácil

acceso – accessible – or negar el acceso a algo – deny access to something). [DDH]

5.3 Terminology data banks

After analyzing these data banks, and although there were just a few, we found that collocation information was, on the whole, absent from this resource. Where a lexical combination does appear, it does so in the form of an entry and may be identifi ed as a collocation. For instance, the IATE includes terms such as activar una alarma ‘set an alarm’, parámetro para activar una alarma ‘alarm activation


parameter’ or activar transbordador ‘activate shuttle’; poner en servicio ‘put into service’; dinero negro ‘dirty money’. The Cercaterm data bank also includes col-locations as entries: administrador de webs ‘website administrator’, validación de datos ‘data validation’, bajada en un solo clic ‘single click download’, bloqueo de memoria ‘memory block’.

5.4 Specialized collocation dictionaries

LDC dictionary is the fi rst publications of this kind. Its language is French and collects the lexical co-occurrence of fi nancial and market fi elds. The lexical co-occurrence is classifi ed according to the phases of the economic cycle, namely beginning, growth, decline and end, plus a category for indeterminate or neutral movements. Collocations that are not in the cyclical movements are included in the “Others” section. Each entry is presented in a table divided into rows that con-tain the different stages of the economic cycle. Under these rows, we found nouns, verbs (when they are a subject or an object), and adjectives. Therefore, a user that looks for achat (purchase) will fi nd a defi nition, observations and/or cross- references and then the table divided into cycles; below the row “Croissance” and in “Noms” the collocates of this category are found: “( accroissement , augmenta-tion , progression , redressement , reprise courant d’-s , poussée d’-s , vague d’-s décollage , envolée )”. After the table, the entry contains one or more examples of use, in which we can see the term with one of its collocates functioning in a context.

RECD is a small Russian–English dictionary in the fi eld of human body and it is available in paper and online. Each entry contains a headword with equivalents and examples. Other sections of the entry are: style, semantics, morphology, syntax, lexical relationships and sample texts in parallel (Russian–English). The section “Lexical relationships” contains synonyms, diminutives, augmentatives, syntactic derivatives, generic terms, etc., but it also collects collocations, which are grouped together semantically under various headings (appearance, sensations, movements, among many others), often with further subdivisions (shape, size, color, etc.). The way to access to collocations is from the Russian indexed term.

IRBC had the aim to compiling a specialized repertoire of the more commonly used combinations of terms used in the fi eld of Internet. This French–English bilingual dictionary is geared towards translators, technical writers and termi-nology experts. It provides a non-exhaustive description of English and French usage in this particular fi eld of knowledge and is structured around key words (base terms). It offers equivalents to combinations associated with these terms, along with co-occurring verbs, nouns and adjectives. It also includes defi nitions to explain the different senses of the base terms. The patterns of collocations are:

a Collocate noun + Base noun: e.g. confi guration (collocate noun) of a page (base noun);

b Collocate verb + Base noun: when the base noun is the object of the verb, e.g. format a window ;


c Base noun + Collocate verb: when the base noun is the subject of the verb, e.g. the server fulfi lls ;

d Collocate adjective + Base noun: e.g. navigational (collocate adjective) link (base noun).

VCC is a French dictionary with English equivalents on accounting. Each entry has its part of speech information followed by a brief defi nition, synonyms, abbreviations, English equivalent terms, some of them with a diatopic label (E.U.; G.B.), and linguistic and/or encyclopedic information. After the title “Coocur-rents” collocates are listed and classifi ed according to their part of speech (nouns, verbs [subject and object], adjectives, adverbs and others). This last category includes phraseology and prepositional phrases.

KWG is geared towards specialized language learners and contains terms from the fi eld of medicine and dentistry in English with equivalents in German. The contents of this dictionary are grouped into subfi elds (basic medical and health terms related to dentistry, medical science, general clinical terms, etc.) English keywords, illustrative contexts and collocations were obtained from a corpus of more than 20 million words containing medical texts from authentic, professional sources written by native authors. KWG contains more than 100,000 entries including term collocations, defi nition, context of usage, usage information (Brit-ish or American English), pronunciation, abbreviations, grammatical information, synonyms, antonyms, related terms, notes and equivalent information in German. Collocations of the headword (that can be a noun, a verb or an adjective) are listed in the section “Use”.

DiCoInfo offers English, French and Spanish terms in the fi eld of computer sci-ence and the Internet. The aim of this resource is to provide a lexical database that includes lexico-semantic information on these terms. The database contains the actantial structure of the terms – which can be either nouns, verbs and adjectives – highly detailed semantic distinctions and lists of lexical relations shared between the term in question and other lexical units. Entries include up to ten types of information: grammatical category, status, defi nition, synonyms, administrative information (date of last update and name of terminologist), actantial structure, contexts, lexical relationships and linguistic forms of actants. Collocations appear in the “lexical relations” fi eld and are those that are associated to the base term, which represents the entry in the terminology database.

DiCoEnviro is an online dictionary in French, English, Portuguese and Span-ish about climate change and environment. It has the same structure as DiCoInfo, so its aim is to describe the actantial structure of each term, the paradigmatic links a term shares with other terms in the subject-fi eld (synonyms, antonyms, morpho-semantic links, etc.), as well as the syntagmatic links a term establishes with collocates.

DBC contains 1,228 headwords and approximately 68,000 collocations in the fi eld of business. Headwords can be nouns, verbs and adjectives. Each one has one or several defi nitions in English (from the most general to the most specifi c), the entry part of speech, and its Romanian equivalent(s). Collocates come next and


they are ordered according to the entry meaning (an entry can have more than one) and, within each meaning, in part-of-speech categories ( V: for the verbs that come before the noun, V: ~ for the verbs that come after the noun, A: for adjectives, and P: for phrases that contain the noun).

6 Conclusions

6.1 The inclusion of specialized collocations in terminology resources

Although our analysis of these resources was somewhat limited by the reduced number of works, this study yielded the following signifi cant results:

• Specialized monolingual dictionaries include lexical combinations repre-sented by noun phrases almost exclusively.

• Specialized bilingual dictionaries, in addition to including a greater number of lexical combinations, also feature a greater variety of collocation types than specialized monolingual dictionaries and terminology data banks. This has been noted by other authors.

• As can be seen in descriptive and theoretical works on collocations, lexical resources usually provide relevant combinations such as multi-word terms, adverbial expressions and free phrases, in addition to specialized collocations.

Noun phrases, introduced in monolingual, bilingual dictionaries and data banks in a variety of locations throughout the resources, are of the following types:

1 Formally and semantically lexicalized terms, as these are hyponyms of their nuclei: ceniza refractaria ‘refractory ash’, cámara magmática ‘magma chamber’.

2 Multi-word terminological units with deverbal nuclei that are lexicalized through frequent use: ablación femenina ‘female ablation’, ablación del cli-toris ‘clitoral ablation’.

3 Noun phrases featuring specialized content and with a deverbal nucleus that are not lexicalized (may be considered specialized collocations): bloqueo de memoria ‘memory block’, aceptación de pedido ‘acceptance of order’.

4 General-use noun phrases with a deverbal nucleus that are not lexicalized: acumulación de tension ‘accumulation of tension’, validación de datos ‘data validation’.

5 Combinations formed by a terminological unit from the medical fi eld and a phrase denoting a part of the human body: 7 abductor corto del pulgar ‘short abductor muscle of the thumb’, radiografía del pie derecho ‘X-ray of the right foot’.

6 Noun expressions that are idiomatic in nature and of general use: busto par-lante ‘talking head’, bache economic ‘economic slump’.

7 Free phrases of general use: acción positive ‘positive action’.


As can be seen in the summary above, specialized collocations falling under the category of noun other than those described in (3), namely, deverbal nouns with an internal argument were not found in the lexical resources analyzed. This confi rms a tendency already observed in specialized texts. The majority of noun phrases containing terminological core usually become lexicalized due to denotational and taxonomic reasons.

In contrast, the types of verbal phrases that we have found in the resources under study are fewer in number. These are mainly of the VERB + COMPLEMENT type, divided into three main groups:

a Specialized collocations: atenuar la pena ‘lighten the sentence’, dictar sen-tencia ‘pass judgement’.

b General collocations: recurrir a la fuerza ‘resort to force’, bombardear a preguntas ‘bombard with questions’.

c Free combinations: bajar el volumen ‘lower the volume’.

We did not observe any combinations of the subject + verb type, at least in this particular set of works, nor could we fi nd other kinds of phraseological units with a predicative or clause base.

As far as prepositional phrases are concerned, the dictionaries and data banks analyzed in this study only offer expressions that function as adverbs or adjectives, depending on whether they are being combined with a verb or a noun respectively: entre bambalinas ‘behind the scenes’, de bajo rendimiento ‘low performance’. It should be noted that these types of expressions are usually general in meaning and can only take on a specialized sense if they are combined with terminological units.

6.2 How collocation information is represented in current dictionaries and data banks

Upon completion of the analysis, the treatment of collocations was found to be quite defi cient in the works that were studied, for we found fewer lexical combina-tions than expected. When they are provided within the article, there seemed to be little in the way of systematic criteria as to their inclusion: sometimes they were included as examples and at other times they are part of the defi nition, or they resort to peripheral elements to show collocation information.

Little or no attention is paid to collocations in the works’ preliminary sections and the way they are presented within entries. Generally speaking, more attention should be paid to these expressions, especially in those terminological repertoires oriented to linguistic mediators who continue to demand more information related to lexical combinations (phrases and collocations) that would facilitate their work in translation, technical writing or teaching language for specifi c purposes.

The location of collocation information also remains unclear. At times they appear below the collocate, and others, under the base. If included under the collo-cate, this information will only be useful in decoding tasks. For dictionaries to be useful in text production, collocations must also appear under the base word entry.


Nor could we identify the use of any homogeneous criteria in the way colloca-tion information is presented. At times this information is highlighted within the entries through the use of bold print and is sometimes followed by an example; others appear as examples printed in italics and still others as explanations. More uniformity and greater homogeneity in criteria is required when including and presenting these lexical combinations in terminological resources.

Most of the specialized dictionaries, both in printed and online versions, offer defi nitions and encyclopedic explanations that are clearly insuffi cient for users who normally consult these types of works.

Online terminological data banks, while offering a compilation of specialized terms in several languages, did not include phrases. Those that include phrases do not do so in a systematic manner.

6.3 New models of lexicographical representation of specialized collocations

To conclude this study, we would like to suggest a number of innovations in the representation of specialized collocations in lexicographical resources.

Clearly, the fi rst issue that requires attention is the selection of lexical combina-tions that should be included in the information offered by specialized dictionaries and terminology data banks. In this sense, our analysis has highlighted the need to identify and distinguish between specialized collocations and other combinations that exist in a given fi eld of discourse but that do not contain terminological units. Only a systematic representation of specialized collocations can provide profes-sionals who mediate between languages with collocational information that they would otherwise be unable to acquire via their knowledge of the language; that is, that specialized information learned by experts as part of their specifi c training – the natural habitat of terminological units in their fi eld of work.

The second issue is related to variation. Specialized collocations are combina-tions, not always contiguous, that show formal variation in context (infl ected forms, in structures made up of varied components). Therefore, their represen-tation in lexicographic resources should take this variation into consideration: instaurar un tratamiento ‘apply a treatment’, tratamiento instaurado ‘applied treatment’, instauración de un tratamiento ‘treatment application’, for example.

The third aspect that requires attention is locating collocation information related to all of its constituent parts. In the case of dictionaries or terminology data banks whose nomenclature is represented by terminological units, if the lexical combina-tion in question is only made up of one terminological unit, the specialized col-location should be included as part of the information associated to the dictionary or data bank entry, be it the base or the collocate. And if both parts of the lexical combination possess a specialized meaning, the collocation should appear in each of the corresponding entries. For dictionaries whose nomenclature is made up of collocations, it is not their location that should be addressed per se, but the options available to users in terms of accessibility of collocation information.


In this sense, access to information associated to specialized collocations can-not nor must be reduced to alphabetical access to its lexical components, be they base or collocates. We would like to suggest, on a provisional basis, the following indexible information fi elds:

• The base lemma. • The collocate lemma. • The base structure of the collocation. • The documented variants. • Its compositional meaning. • The level of restriction (a lexical unit that exclusively selects another lexical

unit; or a lexical unit that selects a reduced set of lexical units). • Other grammatical information. • Pragmatic (association to register) or discursive information (association to

genre).

In short, the representation of specialized collocations in current terminology resources has been affected by the lack of specifi city in the very notion of special-ized collocation . In addition, the dictionary entries for specialized collocations have been limited to some noun phrases that are included in a broader set of concordances (lexical compounds, general collocations or free phrases). There-fore, our future research challenges are arranged into one broad area, i.e., new terminology resources (monolingual or multi-lingual dictionaries and data banks) that will clearly distinguish the information about concordances containing a term (controlled and restricted information of expert’s knowledge) from other con-cordances useful for natural language mediators. Moreover, current technologies already allow users not to be limited to access dictionary entries through the tra-ditional alphabetical order (monoaccessible), and instead specialized collocations can be located using different criteria (formal, semantic, thematic or functional approaches) in new electronic resources.

Notes 1 This work is part of the research project RICOTERM-4: Processing of specialized

corpora for extracting terminologically relevant multiword expressions (FFI2010–21365-C03–01) , funded by the Ministry of Economy Affairs.

2 The English translation is only a functional translation and its pattern is not equivalent to the one that is being illustrated. Nevertheless, in some cases, English translation is also considered an English collocation.

3 Extracted from Montero Martínez (2002). 4 In our analysis of the print version of this dictionary, only the term abductor and its

defi nition were found; in the case of aberración esférica , the term aberración de esferi-cidad is included under Observation. In the digital version, the fact that certain concepts contain numerous entries each differing only slightly from the other is probably owing to the unlimited space offered by this format. Nevertheless, it is our opinion that this is not the most systematic or coherent way to increase the nomenclature of the dictionary. This


can also be seen in the DEMED, which includes just abductor , aberración cromática and aberración esférica.

5 ‘Do not confuse cross-references to complementary information – introduced by VID. – with entries – which are indicated by a V. The latter, as explained and highlighted above, respond to purely linguistic criteria pertaining to the construction of the term itself and indicate the lexical entry where the user will be able to fi nd that same term as part of a complex form.’

6 ‘To illustrate. In many instances, to provide some context for the meaning of the term, we have included, either a brief example preceded by the symbol ◊, or some expressions in which the word may appear.’

7 There is no consensus on the collocational nature of this combination type. Whereas Estopà (1999) considers them to be collocations owing to their frequent use in medical discourse, Martínez-Salom (2012) rejects them in keeping with her theoretical approach, which limits collocations to combinations whose components restrictively select other lexical units.

Documents

10 Specialized collocations in specialized dictionaries