wa1lbp@n3dmc.svr.md.us (David Cowhig) (05/25/91)
JOHO KAGAKU JITEN "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Computer Science" edited by NAGAO Makoto et al. Review by David Cowhig for the ATA Japanese Language Division Newsletter The JOHO KAGAKU JITEN "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Computer Science" is the newest addition to the Iwanami series of encyclopedic dictionaries of science and mathematics. Like the RIKAGAKU JITEN and other dictionaries in this series, the JOHO KAGAKU JITEN is a Japanese-Japanese dictionary which gives the English term corresponding to the main entry. The one paragraph to half page long articles in the JOHO KAGAKU JITEN improve your understanding as well as your knowledge of Japanese technical terms. Japanese language translators will recognize the name of chief editor Kyoto University Professor NAGAO Makoto for his work on Japanese-English machine translation and talk at the October 1989 Washington, DC ATA convention. Nagao led the 181 contributors to the JOHO KAGAKU JITEN. The JOHO KAGAKU JITEN contains 4500 main entries and another 8500 terms or so which appear in the body of the main entries which can be found using an index. Many of these additional terms are defined in Japanese without indicating the English equivalent. Terms are arranged in the main body of the dictionary in kana order and in alphabetical order in English in indices. The major innovation of the JOHO KAGAKU JITEN is the 48 page terminology tree which groups terms by category and subcategory. The main categories of fundamentals, hardware, software, knowledge systems and computers and society are broken down into subcategories. For example, you can work your way down from Fundamentals through a hierarchy of categories and subcategories through Mathematics, Discrete Mathematics, Graph Theory, Graphs, Planar Graphs, and finally to Euler's formula. Euler's formula in graph theory gives the relationship between the number of vertices and branches on a planar graph. Each entry has a number associated with a category and subcategory. The entry for Euler's formula A12-29 tells us that this term belongs in the category Fundamentals (A) - Discrete Mathematics (12) - (23) Planar Graphs. When working on a text in a certain field you can easily find related terms by locating one term on the terminology tree. Technical terms in a given field form a kind of ecology or word gene pool. No one term is entire unto itself; its meaning coevolves with other terms in the same field and is defined by its relationship to them. Similarly, a translator comparing a source language - source language dictionary vs. a bilingual source language - target language dictionary might find the source language definition often situates the word better relative to the other words in the source language semantic net than does the bilingual dictionary. As Makoto Nagao explains in his introduction to the JOHO KAGAKU JITEN, the terminology tree is an antidote to the overspecialization which forgets how the meaning of a particular term is embedded in a larger field. The number accompanying each main entry leads us back to the larger field to which the term belongs. The JOHO KAGAKU JITEN does not replace but complements another outstanding computer dictionary, the WAEI COMPYUTA YOGO DAI JITEN "Japanese-English Dictionary of Computer" (ISBN 4-8169-0830-7) published by Nichigai Associates in 1989. The WAEI has 27,000 Japanese language computer and computer-related communications terms along with their English language equivalents. The WAEI follows JIS standard information processing terminology. I have found the WAEI invaluable when translating Japanese computer manuals into English and expect that it will remain my main dictionary for finding just the right technical term. You will find nuts and bolts words such as I/O subroutine and initial parameter in the WAEI but not in the JOHO KAGAKU JITEN. The JOHO KAGAKU JITEN selects the concepts, theory, and more general technical terms of computer science and explains them in some detail. The short articles of the JOHO KAGAKU JITEN will help improve your understanding of Japanese computer science material and supplement your reading of target language materials (English language computer articles and books) related to the Japanese books and articles you translate. You will find the JOHO KAGAKU JITEN very helpful when translating Japanese language computer science books and articles. JOHO KAGAKU JITEN (ISBN 4-00-080074-4) costs 7000 Yen and can be had from Kinokuniya in Los Angeles Kinokuniya, 123 Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka St., Suite 205, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Tel: (213)687-4480 for $71.00 each.