Frame knowledge structuring: combination of corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics methodology in Terminology studies

Abstract

This study of Russian-Spanish environmental terminology combined corpus analysis with psycholinguistic methods (word association data) and shows that both are compatible and useful for the knowledge-based Terminology since one can be used to validate the other. The environmental concept wave was analyzed as a seed term in a bilingual corpus to detect basic concepts and conceptual relations typical of this knowledge area. This was done with a view to elaborating a rich knowledge prototypical, dynamic and supralinguistic frame, based on conceptualizations in different languages and to obtain the mostly exact description of the specialized concept. The results obtained were compared with data obtained from free word association tests given to native speakers of Russian and Spanish. The main objective of this research was to show the effectiveness of combining corpus analysis methods and psycholinguistic methods in the representation and transmission of specialized knowledge.