El campo semántico de los sustantivos que expresan maldad conductual en la lengua inglesa

A lo largo de las líneas siguientes sólo hemos pretendido desarrollar prácticamente presupuestos y fórmulas teóricas esbozadas por algunas de las figuras más relevantes de la moderna semántica estructural. Para ello, hemos confeccionado un campo semántico representativo de los sustantivos que expresan la maldad conductual en la lengua inglesa. La aportación de este trabajo podría definirse como la contrastación práctica de las grandes ventajas que nos ofrece esta línea metodológica para resolver algunos de los intrincados problemas en un estudio científico del significado. El aspecto más complejo de este estudio ha consistido en hallar las precisiones y matizaciones necesarias para diferenciar entre sí los lexemas en base a las dimensiones, subdimensiones, subgrupos, semas y clasemas correspondientes y, de este modo, proceder a la gestación de nuestro campo

Book Review

Obra ressenyada: Leocadio MARTÍN MINGORANCE, El modelo lexemáticofuncional. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 1998

The process of constructing ontological meaning based on criminal law verbs

This study intends to account for the process involved in the construction of the conceptual meaning of verbs (#EVENTS) directly related to legal aspects of terrorism and organized crime based on the evidence provided by the Globalcrimeterm Corpus and the consistent application of specific criteria for term extraction. The selected 49 concepts have eventually been integrated in the Core Ontology of FunGramKB (Functional Grammar Knowledge Base), a knowledge base which is founded on the principles of deep semantics and is also aimed at the computational development of the Lexical Constructional Model (www.fungramkb.com). To achieve this purpose, key phases of the COHERENT methodology (Periñán Pascual & Mairal Usón 2011) are followed, particularly those which involve the modelling, subsumption and hierarchisation of the aforementioned verbal concepts. The final outcome of this research shows that most of the apparently specialised conceptual units should eventually be included in the Core Ontology instead of the specific Globalcrimeterm Subontology, due to the fact that the semantic content of their corresponding lexical units can be found in widely used learner`s dictionaries and, consequently, this conceptual information is not only shared by the experts in the field but also by the layperson and the average speaker of the language

Reformulation of the domain-level semantic pattern of axiological evaluation in the lexicon of English verbs

The three-level hierarchy of values in Faber and Mairal‘s work (Constructing a Lexicon of English Verbs, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999) is based on the scales of values given by Max Scheler or Józef Tischner, which are deeply rooted in the theory of the Great Chain of Being  (employed by Aristotle in his scala naturae). Faber and Mairal also provide an account of the relationship between lexical structure and cognition. A key issue was the introduction of a cognitive axis and a typology of predicate schemas in the lexicon (at lexeme, sub-domain and domain level). Among the four domain-level semantic patterns proposed, axiology is considered to appear in many domains. How-ever, in this article it is claimed that the axiological parameter needs further clarification and decomposition. Its structure is multidimensional, internally hierarchical and ca-nonical. In consequence, the three-level hierarchy of values in the lexicon of English verbs is reformulated and the axiological parameter is divided into multilevel categories crossed by two layers of canonical axes. It is also claimed that the axiological formula incorporating this might improve the understanding of this parameter within the lexical architecture of the verbal lexicon

Páginas web turísticas en inglés como recurso para el aprendizaje autónomo de la terminología especializada: Una aplicación ALAC/CALL

For years now, it has been an unquestioned fact that a large majority of textbooks available in English for Tourism, either in book format, CD-Rom or web site access are based on situations and professional contexts connected with the Anglo-Saxon environment, even though the vast majority of graduates in Tourism in Spain (and other countries) end up working in the region (autonomous community) of origin or in the province of reference for studies. There is, therefore, a clear dysfunction between the textbooks available in the market and the materials and situations that the students will face in their professional future. However, the Internet now allows us to exploit the availability of vast quantities of local resources (websites, blogs, etc.) with their corresponding versions in English, which include tourist information referring to, for example, hotels, restaurants, historical and artistic heritage sites, tour operators, travel agencies, trade fairs or specialized services at the national, regional or communal levels. All these sites offer a special showcase of all the linguistic resources available (be they lexical, syntactic or terminological ) that the learners must acquire for their professional development. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to offer the results of the computer-assisted language learning (CALL) project entitled Autonomous Learning of Specialized Vocabulary in English for Tourism (http://wdb.ugr.es/~afelices/), which takes into consideration the previous premises in order to promote, as its title indicates, autonomous learning in a more realistic professional context and to serve as a model for the development of similar e-learning platforms in other regions or countries.Durante muchos años no se ha cuestionado el hecho de que una gran mayoría de los manuales de inglés turístico disponibles, ya sea en formato libro, CD-Rom o página web, se basen en situaciones y contextos profesionales vinculados al entorno cultural anglosajón, aun cuando una amplísimo número de titulados en Turismo en España (y otros países) desempeñen su actividad profesional en su región o comunidad autónoma de origen o en la provincia donde culminaron sus estudios. Por lo tanto, existe una evidente disfunción entre los manuales disponibles en el mercado y los contenidos o situaciones en las que los estudiantes tendrán que afrontar su futuro profesional. Sin embargo, Internet nos permite actualmente aprovechar la disponibilidad de ingentes cantidades de recursos del entorno próximo (portales, blogs, etc.) con sus correspondientes versiones en inglés, que incluyen información turística sobre, por ejemplo, hoteles, restaurantes, lugares de interés histórico o artístico, operadores turísticos, agencias de viaje, ferias comerciales o servicios especializados. Estos medios en la Red sirven para mostrar claramente todos los recursos lingüísticos disponibles (ya sean estos léxicos, sintácticos o terminológicos que los aprendices deben adquirir para su desarrollo profesional. En consecuencia, el objetivo de este estudio es ofrecer los resultados del proyecto CALL titulado Aprendizaje autónomo de vocabulario especializado en inglés turístico (http:// wdb.ugr.es/~afelices/), que parte de las premisas expuestas anteriormente y, como su título indica, promueve el aprendizaje autónomo en un contexto profesional más realista para servir como modelo de plataformas similares de elearning en otras regiones o países.This article is based on research carried out within the framework of the Project FFI2014-53788-C3-1-P, which is funded by the Spanish ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

The process of building the upper-level hierarchy for the aircraft structure ontology to be integrated in FunGramKB

In this article we collect a corpus of texts which operate with a controlled language (ASD Simplified Technical English) in order to facilitate the development of a new domain-specific ontology (the aircraft structure) based on a technical discipline (aeronautical engineering) included in the so called “hard” sciences. This new repository should be compatible with the Core Ontology and the corresponding English Lexicon in FunGramKB (a multipurpose lexico-conceptual knowledge base for natural language processing (NLP)), and, in the same vein, should eventually give support to aircraft maintenance management systems. By contrast, in previous approaches we applied a stepwise methodology for the construction of a domain-specific subontology compatible with FunGramKB systems in criminal law, but the high occurrence of terminological banalisation and the scarce number of specific terms, due to the social nature of the discipline, were added problems to the most common NLP difficulties (polysemy and ambiguity). Taking into consideration previous results and the complexity of this task, here we only intend to take the first step towards the modelling of the aircraft ontology: the development of its taxonomic hierarchy. Consequently, the hierarchy starts with the whole system (i.e., an aircraft) and follows the traditional decomposition of the system down to the elementary components (top-down approach). At the same time, we have collected a corpus of 2,480 files of aircraft maintenance instructions, courtesy of Airbus in Seville. For the bottom-up approach (under construction), we consult specialised references end explore the corpus through the identification and extraction of term candidates with DEXTER, an online multilingual workbench especially designed for the discovery and extraction of terms

Personal qualities of applicants in job advertisements: axiological and lexical analysis of samples in English from the Spanish press

Previous axiological analyses in the area of business language and terminology (brand names, financial and investment terms, etc.) have already proved the complex relations among values and their hierarchical and scalar relations. However, in this paper we intend to map out the dominant values in the area of job advertisements from a different perspective: It is very common for multinational companies operating in Spain to insert advertisements in English in the Spanish press for job seekers. The percentage of English ads could be as high as 10% of the total number of advertisements. In these, each company refers to its main fields of activity, the type of degree holders they need, the skills required, the opportunities offered and how the selection process is arranged. Obviously, a special mention is made of the highly valued personal qualities of potential job applicants. Therefore, in this study we analyse the qualities and values explicitly requested in specific job advertisements, the way in which they are introduced (syntactically and semantically) and their relationship with the general classifications of values codified in language and collected by axiologists, linguists and publicists. To this end, we have selected a corpus of job offers published in the best-selling Spanish business newspaper El País Negocios at different periods throughout the year 2000. The analysis gives us a more reliable estimate of qualities in job advertisements as well as an account of the linguistic means used to denote axiological items

A COGNITIVE-AXIOLOGICAL APPROACH TO PRINT ECO-ADVERTISEMENTS IN THE ECONOMIST: THE ENERGY SECTOR UNDER SCRUTINY

[EN] In this paper we intend to map out some of the dominant values in print advertisements announcing different types of environmentally friendly products and services from energy (oil, electricity, etc.) and heavy industry corporations. We will analyse the qualities and values explicitly linked to ecological samples through metaphors, metonymies and image schemas and the way in which they are introduced in advertising discourse. To this end, we have selected a corpus of sample advertisements published in 12 editions of The Economist, a well-known, prestigious business magazine. The Lakoffian semantics analysis will be used in order to give us a more reliable estimate of values and metaphorical processes linked to environmental topics as well as an account of the cognitive and discursive means used to denote them.Felices Lago, Á.; Cortés De Los Ríos, ME. (2009). A COGNITIVE-AXIOLOGICAL APPROACH TO PRINT ECO-ADVERTISEMENTS IN THE ECONOMIST: THE ENERGY SECTOR UNDER SCRUTINY. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas. 4:59-78. doi:10.4995/rlyla.2009.735SWORD5978