Lexical Knowledge Patterns, Semantic Relations, and Language Varieties: Exploring the Possibilities for Refining Information Retrieval in an International Context

As part of their work, terminologists need to find “knowledge- rich contexts,” which are contexts that provide information about semantic relations between concepts in specialized domains. One way of finding these contexts is to search for lexical patterns that have the potential to reveal underlying semantic relations. Consequently, terminology researchers are in the process of compiling inventories of useful lexical patterns so that these can be programmed into specialized information retrieval tools. However, one factor that has not yet been addressed is the impact that different language varieties can have on these lexical patterns. This paper provides an overview of the research done to date on lexical patterns, presents a pilot study investigating the impact of language varieties, and considers applications of this work outside the discipline of terminology. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]