In Search of Terms: An Empirical Approach to Lexicography

In the framework of a more general research project on the place and role of terms (i.e. lexical items belonging to languages for special purposes) in general dictionaries, an empirical study was undertaken with different categories of users of such dictionaries - language experts, scientists and the general public. The purpose of the study was to investigate the use they make of documentary and dictionary resources to find the terms they need. This paper will present some of the results of the survey conducted and examine the impact that these results could have on the practice of lexicography.Dans le cadre d’un travail portant plus largement sur la place et le rôle des termes (c’est-à-dire des mots appartenant aux langues de spécialité) dans les dictionnaires généraux, une étude empirique a été menée auprès de diverses catégories d’utilisateurs de ce type de dictionnaires, parmi lesquelles des scientifiques, des langagiers et des utilisateurs du grand public, pour analyser leur pratique actuelle en matière d’utilisation des ressources documentaires et dictionnairiques pour la recherche des termes. Nous nous proposons ici d’exposer les résultats de cette enquête, et de voir quel impact ceux-ci pourraient avoir sur la pratique lexicographique actuelle

The phraseology of the language of wine in English and Spanish

According to Sinclair (2000: 197), about 80% of the words in discourse are chosen according to the co-selection principle rather than for purely syntactic or grammatical reasons. Thus, the analysis of how words co-select or combine with other words is a necessary focus of study for any linguist. In other words, the study of phraseology is an essential part of the study of language. This is especially true of specialized languages, where it is not enough to know the terminology of a discipline, but where one also needs to know their contextualised use in order to produce technically stylistic texts either in the original language or in translation. In this paper, after defining what we mean by phraseological units, we will examine the phraseology of the language of wine in English and Spanish, using a comparable corpus of wine tasting notes. We will analyze phraseological units for key wine tasting terms from the point of view of form and meaning, comparing and contrasting our findings for the two languages under study

How specific wine tasting descriptors are?

Producción CientíficaAlthough wine tasting notes are a specialized genre in the field of Oenology, with their own rhetoric and language, some of the elements describing the language of wine are by no means as specialized as that of most other specialized genres such as technical notes, auditor reports or abstracts. In this study, we will explore how wine literature attempts to analyze such adjectives used in wine tasting notes. We will then, based on a comparable corpus of 700 tasting notes per language, study a number of common wine descriptors in English and Spanish in the context of the nouns that they collocate. Our purpose is to determine their specificity or generality in their use and meaning. On the basis of their collocability, we will categorize the descriptors and analyze the meaning components of the descriptors falling in the most general category.Junta de Castilla y León (project LE227413)Ministry of Education (project FFI2013-42994-R

A corpus-based writing aid for Spanish language authors: the scientific abstract generator prototype

Producción CientíficaAbstracts are a secondary genre based on the Research Paper (RP) that have often been analyzed in English for insights into rhetorical structure and information distribution. However, this wealth of descriptive research has not produced particularly useful results for scientists who are not native speakers of English nor has it been “directly amenable to applied endeavours”. The aim of this paper is to describe the methodology and the tools devised by the ACTRES research group to bridge the transition between the descriptive and the procedural approach. The findings obtained will feed into a writing application for Spanish-speaking scientists who need to report their work in English to the global research community: it is called the Scientific_Abstract_Generator. A custom-made comparable corpus, BioABSTRACTS_C-ACTRES, has been compiled and analyzed for rhetorical and lexico-grammatical features of this genre in both English and Spanish. Then, crosslinguistic similarities and differences relevant for our intended users have been identified and will be used to build a writing prototype available as a useful and usable computer interface

Determination of propofol by GC/MS and fast GC/MS-TOF in two cases of poisoning

Two cases of suspected acute and lethal intoxication caused by propofol were delivered by the judicial authority to the Department of Sciences for Health Promotion and Mother-Child Care in Palermo, Sicily. In the first case a female nurse was found in a hotel room, where she lived with her mother; four 10 mg/mL vials and two 20 mg/mL vials of propofol were found near the decedent along with syringes and needles. In the second case a male nurse was found in the operating room of a hospital, along with a used syringe. In both cases a preliminary systematic and toxicological analysis indicated the presence of propofol in the blood and urine. As a result, a method for the quantitative determination of propofol in biological fluids was optimized and validated using a liquid-liquid extraction protocol followed by GC/MS and fast GC/MS-TOF. In the first case, the concentration of propofol in blood was determined to be 8.1 \u3bcg/mL while the concentration of propofol in the second case was calculated at 1.2 \u3bcg/mL. Additionally, the tissue distribution of propofol was determined for both cases. Brain and liver concentrations of propofol were, respectively, 31.1 and 52.2 \u3bcg/g in Case 1 and 4.7 and 49.1 \u3bcg/g in Case 2. Data emerging from the autopsy findings, histopathological exams as well as the toxicological results aided in establishing that the deaths were due to poisoning, however, the manner of death in each were different: homicide in Case 1 and suicide in Case 2