1.3.3. Term Extraction

term extraction (or scanning for terms) is that part of terminology work that involves going through a corpus (a text or group of texts) in order to identify concepts and their designations (terms, abbreviations) and noting any relevant information about a concept (such as definitions and contexts), and about the usage of terms.

term extraction is an important step in the systematic examination of the terminology of a subject field. Reading the corpus is an excellent way to acquire knowledge about the subject field and its specialized language. term extraction may also be performed regularly in order to stay abreast of recent terminological developments in the subject field.

term identification is the part of term extraction that involves the recognition and selection of designations. Basically, this means going over texts and choosing the terms that will be retained for study and possible dissemination.

After candidate terms have been identified in a text, and conceptual and usage information has been retained, further research is generally required to ascertain that the candidate terms are indeed part of the specialized language, and the concepts they designate are indeed part of the subject field under study. Some of the candidate terms may be set aside once concept analysis has been performed.