Curs 7 - 13.11.

2013

Subject fields are special, the types of users are special and a special type of situation.

Academic knowledge or special subjects are not part of our general knowledge; special
subjects express subject (or special) knowledge; they are the object of training.
People who have this type of knowledge are experts - in particular originators of special
communication.

Communication in special languages is specialized communication - always involves

knowledge transfer, which in turn requires knowledge representation.

The problem of knowledge representation

Human knowledge is mainly structured in the form of concepts.
Concepts: primitives
complex.
Each individual acquires through education the general structure of the knowledge space if
his/her society. There is a distinction between passive understanding and full understanding.
Passive understanding --> vague idea of the place of a concept in the knowledge space. We
understand fully when we know the exact place in relation with others.
Concepts are not isolated entities. They are always related and they can only be
understood as systems. Any knowledge domain only becomes accessible if the domain is
structured as a concept.
There is also a degree of social norms that operate - e.g. social norms indicate when a
table as an object can no longer indicate a table.
In the different subject fields, there is always a very large number of concepts. There is
a great need to differentiate this object.
Concepts in general knowledge are fuzzier whereas concepts is special fields are
well defined. Special subjects are different from general knowledge by the nature of reference
and also by the fact that they contain additional subjects.
This distinction between special (terms) and general (words) is reflected in the
existence of terms. Human knowledge is structured as objects.

Definition of concepts - they are mental constructs.

ISO 7 04 (International Standard Organization) - refers to concepts as thought
units which link objects or definition to their names.

There are theories - one theory of concepts is known as "the criteria feature theory"
which says that each concept consists of a set of features which are necessary and
sufficient for something to count as an example of that concept.
e.g. the concept "bird" would consist of a set of features referring to wings, feathers, being
animate etc.
There are a number of problems with this theory - it is impossible to decide which are
necessary and sufficient conditions.
 A number of psychologists (E. Rosch) have proposed an alternative theory known as
"the prototype theory" - says that a concept is not a set of necessary and sufficient concepts
but a prototype (a description of a typical insistence of that particular concept)
e.g. "bird" - description of a typical bird ( such as sparrow) as a set of features or a visual
image.
On this theory, an object is not simply either a bird or not a bird, it is a bird to a certain
degree, according to how similar it is to the prototype.
Concepts can be learnt on the base of a small no. of instances without any formal definition.
To learn this concepts, they need to be structured by sets. Concepts can be analysed as
they are according to intension and extension.
intension = a set of characteristics that make up the concept
extension = is the actual set of objects or class of objects which make up concepts.

e.g. pencil
intension - an object made up by a long piece of graphite, introduced into a holder,
used to write.
extension - includes all the pencils (colour pencils, eraser pencils etc.)

Relations between concepts

e.g. PLANT ("kind of")

Concepts are the smallest units of communication in the special languages.

Concepts, in this case, refer to special knowledge or special reference. For highly specific
reference, there are proper names. Concepts are related to terms in the special languages and
the relationship looks like a triangle: