The evolving relationship between Terminology and Technology

Nicholas CroftsChair ICOM CIDOC

Rio de Janeiro August 2013

Premises

1. Words are a special case of signs or symbols• “any means of expression accepted in a society rests

in principle upon a collective habit, or on convention”Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics

• Signifier (1,n) signifies (0,n) Signified

Premises

1. “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language”Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

• Naming is one type of use • Not all uses involve naming…

– and, but, although, however, usually, therefore…– Functional and performative words

Premises

1. Terms are a subclass of names :– Generic names– Proper names

• Terminology = an organized system of names• A “term” is a name used in a terminology• Term (1,1) signifies (0,n) Signified

Themes

• Historical development of “terminology”• Terms and Concepts• Internal and External representation

(technical view vs end user view)

Phases of terminology

1. Pre terminological2. Terminological3. Automation

a) Codes for conceptsb) Container / contentc) Post-terminology

1. Pre-terminological

• Socrates …– what is beauty?– what is truth?...

• not a terminology debate• not a system of terms• focus is on concepts, the signified• Words have ambiguous relations with concepts…• 1 word means many things, 1 thing represented

by many words

Jacques-Louis David, La mort de Socrate

2. Terminological

• 18th Century …– Enyclopaedias, dictionaries

• Carl von Linné (Linneus)– System of botanical taxonomy– Systematic classification

• Taxon = a class of objects, not an individual.

• Unambiguous representation 1 term means 1 thing

• Term is an identifier

Linnaea borealis (twinflower)

3. Automated terminology

• Data = propositions represented in a machine processable form

Phase 1. Codes = concepts

• Internal representation = external representation

• Non human-readable form• Code book needed for

interpretation• Dewey decimal classification• Totally unambiguous• No misleading connotations• Language neutral

Phase 2: Container/content model

• “it is important that each user employ the same terms to designate the same type of objects, hence the usefulness of creating a standard vocabulary…”Africom Handbook of Standards

• Machine readable and human readable…

• CIDOC terminology standards WG• Getty AAT, TGN, ULAN

Elings, M.W. and Waibel, G. Metadata for all…

Drawbacks

• Developing a terminology is hard work– AAT 15 year period

• Inflexible, when terms evolve• Natural language is polysemic and

ambiguous – Terminology is unnatural language

• Experts’ mind set– Steve project revealed 86% mismatch

http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/files/trantSteveResearchReport2008.pdf

• Barriers to discovery

Phase 3. Post terminology

• Internal representation = codes• User view = words• RDF – SKOS• Multiple discovery paths• Language neutral• Terminology control

unnecessary

Sports reference example

Ontology model

took place at

had durationPeriod

Place

had member

had participantActor Event

Individual Group

52 classes

~500’000 named entities

Still plenty of work…

• Concept management =/= terminology angst