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ISO 1951: a revised standard for lexicography
André Le Meur and Marie-Jeanne Derouin
 André Le Meur has been teaching computer
science to translators and librarians since 1993 at the University of Rennes 2, France. He serves as an
expert on data-modelling for terminology at the French standards organisation
AFNOR and in numerous European projects including Publishnet, Inesterm and
Gema. Dr Le Meur is a member of the editorial board of the ISO standards: ISO
16642, ISO 12615 and the revised ISO 1951.
andre.lemeur@termbridge.net
 Marie-Jeanne Derouin is
the managing
director of the specialist dictionary company Langenscheidt Fachverlag in Munich, Germany. She is a partner
publisher in the European project Publishnet, an expert for lexicography at
the German standards organisation DIN, and the project leader of the revised
ISO Standard 1951: Presentation and representation of entries in
dictionaries.
marie-jeanne.derouin@langenscheidt.de
ISO 1951 was first published in 1973 and revised in 1997 under the title
“Lexicographical symbols and typographical conventions for use in
terminography”. It focused on harmonizing the presentation of specialized
dictionaries, without any concern for the structure, re-usability and
exchange of data. A market survey carried out on behalf of the ISO Technical
Committee 37: Subcommittee 2 (Terminography and Lexicography, [ISO TC37
SC2]), among dictionary specialists and user groups in over 20 countries has
shown that there is a genuine requirement for new standards in the field of
lexicography. Thus, in 2001 it was decided to launch an entirely revised
version called “Presentation/representation of entries in dictionaries”. The
aim of this document was to facilitate the production, exchange and
management procedures for the creation and reuse of any dictionary content.
The forthcoming revised ISO 1951 addresses every kind of dictionary. It
specifies a formal generic structure, independent of the publishing media,
and an extensible list of constituants (“data elements”) based on ISO 12620.
Informative annexes propose means of presentation of entries in printed and electronic
dictionaries, numbering systems, tables of functions of lexicographic
symbols, and examples of XML encoding.
Why a revision of this
standard?
Times are changing,
also in matters of dictionary making. Lexicographical methods are well
established, both on the publisher and the user’s side. For centuries, paper
was the only media for which publishers had developed an impressive know-how.
But as everything is now going digital, new methods for data management are
being found.
Although everyone is
aware of the growing importance of electronic devices that are full of
promises, few are ready – in spite of the numerous prophecies of recent years
– to get rid of the well-established traditional methods of handling large
printed data collections.
With the introduction
of digital support and networking, the dictionary lifecycle has been
considerably extended. The original manuscript has now become a unique source
that can be accessed many times in order to be reused and even integrated
into other language applications. For data manipulations such as merging
dictionaries, inverting language directions, extracting and merging
nomenclatures, integrating lexicographic data in terminological tools or
lexical databases, etc, dictionary publishers and individual compilers are
increasingly aware of the necessity to structure their contents according to
standards recognized by other professionals in order to avoid time-consuming
and expensive data manipulations.
In the past decade,
different proposals have either used existing printed dictionaries as a
basis, including their “fuzzy” aspects and inconsistencies (TEI1,
for instance), or have deliberately chosen compatibility with strictly
structured computer-based lexical databases that don’t allow for well-established
habits of lexicographers. Therefore, there is a need for a method that takes
into account both of these aspects: tradition and strictness, lexicography
and computational linguistics. Thus, within ISO TC37 SC2, publishers,
researchers, lexicographical and terminological experts have merged their
experience to propose a revision of the ISO 1951 standard
“Presentation/representation of entries in dictionaries”, which aims to
bridge the above-mentioned traditional methods of dictionary-making with future
oriented ones. This revision is due for publication in 2007.
XmLex: a generic model
for dictionaries
XmLex (previously called LEXml2) is the formal model proposed in
this new standard, and applies to any type of dictionary. It aims at finding
a balance between strict formal structures (which allow automation) and user
friendliness for the human editor, while preserving conformity to traditional
lexicographic methods. It satisfies four requirements which enable data that
conform to this model to be independent from both the tools (free or
commercial) and the media (paper, internet, CD-ROM).
·
Complete separation between
logical structure and display: all the punctuation and other structure
markers can be automatically generated at the display stage, which means that
data are independent from the media used for display.
·
Non ambiguity: all the relations
between elements can be computed so that XmLex data can be interfaced with
any lexical database (e.g. the ISO Lexical Markup Framework project3)
or other linguistic applications relying on a clearly specified model.
·
Flexibility: the XmLex model is
generic. By applying XML rules of subsetting, as defined in ISO 16642 annex C4,
it is possible to specify subsets corresponding to specific needs. The subset
accepts any order of elements, so that the editing
structure can be strictly parallel to the display order (e.g. XSL stylesheets
for transforming dictionary entries can be written in pure “push style” OR in
pure “pull style”).
·
Compatibility with currently
available XML tools: it is now widely accepted that linguistic applications
should not use proprietary formats and tools. XML and its associated
specifications have become industrial standards. XmLex can be implemented as
an XML schema and operated by commonly available XML editors and by XSL
stylesheets.
XmLex uses data
elements defined in ISO 126205, if they already exist. Moreover,
it defines data elements specific to lexicography that have been observed in existing
dictionaries. These new data elements will be proposed for inclusion in the
forthcoming ISO TC 37 Data Category Registry.
First applications: an
XML model, a subset for bilingual dictionaries
XmLex is an abstract model that can be applied to any type of dictionary
(monolingual, bilingual, general, specialized, etc). For informative purposes
only, an XML implementation has been specified, including a subset that
represents currently available bilingual dictionaries. The XmLexIntro document6 describes the
‘XmLexWorkbench’, which contains:
·
The generic DTD (XmLex_V00.dtd),
corresponding to the generic XmLex model.
·
A subset corresponding to
bilingual dictionaries (XmLexForBilingualDictionaries_V00.dtd).
·
Examples
of bilingual entries.
·
The following
tools for transforming XML entries:
·
XmLexDisplayer.XSL transforms entries
into HTML with a print-like preview. This XSL stylesheet and its CSS must be adapted for
specific needs. Their major role is to show that, although the XmLex model
deals only with content, presentational issues (such as numeration and
punctuation) can be solved automatically.
·
XmLexInverter.XSL shows how to
“invert” lexicographical entries (i.e. to find for any linguistic unit in the
target language all related information in the source language). It
illustrates the fact that since XmLex structures are non-ambiguous, methods
like backtracking can be used for exploring any path in any direction when
data have to be reused in a different context.
·
NomenclatureLib is a set of XSL
stylesheets that extracts and lists the nomenclature (the list of the
linguistic units in the source language of a dictionary) in bilingual
dictionaries.
·
LexTermLib is a set of XSL
stylsesheets used to transform XmLex entries into terminological entries
compatible with ISO TC37 terminological model and with concept-oriented tools
like translation memory systems.7
Note that this
library is given “as is”. Its aim is only to illustrate the use of XmLex and
to initiate a public “open source” collection of useful and reusable
algorithms for lexicographic data management that may help newcomers to
evaluate the potential of XmLex.
Perspectives
The revised ISO 1951
document, with its specific model based on current professional practices, is
intended to allow all possible lexicographic production, exchange and
management procedures. Some publishers have already modified their editorial
work-flow accordingly. The first integration of dictionaries using this model
for providing Translation Memory tools, in parallel with traditional
dictionary production, will be put on the market this year.
Particular
acknowledgment is due to the other members of the
editorial board of the revised ISO 1951: Elisabeth Blanchon, Oliver
Schweiberer and Christine Tauchmann, ans well as to Mariusz
Idzikowski, Elena Mantzari, Claude Nimmo and Yuka Sasaki who assisted us with very
useful comments. Last but not least, we thank Ilan Kernerman for his
contribution in coining the term XmLex.
7 See André
Le Meur, Marie-Jeanne Derouin, “Lemma-oriented dictionaries, concept-oriented
terminology and translation memories”. In LREC 2006 proceedings. http://www.xmlex.net/lexicography/lextermlrec2006.pdf
K Dictionaries Ltd
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