X. Feedback
The ISO standard defines feedback as "the act of changing the form or structure of a term in a source language in order to achieve an easier or a more useful solution to a problem encountered in a target language.[18]" In practice, this means that the source vocabulary can be expanded as a result of equivalency work, because the target vocabulary includes terminology not yet available in the source vocabulary. It is up to each institution whether, and to what extent, feedback will be allowed. For example, the AAT is interested in feedback insofar as the process improves or expands the structure of the thesaurus, provided that the logic and/or meaning of its structure are not compromised in order to accommodate the structure of another language.The first step in resolving a problem that requires feedback is to establish the degree of equivalence among the terms under consideration (see Section VI above). The next step is to switch the status of target and source languages. An example is provided by some of the English/French work done in the 1980s with a research team at the University of Montreal. Working with the existing AAT hierarchy, the researcher in Montreal observed that the AAT's scope note for ribbed vault (based on a majority of English sources) matched the meaning of voûte d'ogive (a vault with diagonal ribs), but the hierarchical placement of the English term matched the meaning of voûte à nervures (any vault with ribs). The AAT agreed that voûte d'ogives was a narrower concept to voûte à nervures. With this in mind, the roles of target and source language were switched, and the new hierarchy looked like this:
voûte à nervures ribbed vault
voûte d'ogives ribbed vault [?]
The Canadian collaborator pointed out that voûte d'ogives is usually translated into English as cross-ribbed vault or diagonal-ribbed vault. She had found this equivalence given in major French/English language dictionaries, but not in English-only sources. In English-language sources, as the AAT staff before her had discovered, the term ribbed vault is used to describe both vaults with ribs in general and vaults with diagonal ribs. It was clear that further research on these terms was necessary, and the term cross-ribbed vaults/diagonal-ribbed vaults was submitted to the AAT staff as a candidate term. (Through the candidate term process, a user submits a new term to the AAT staff for further research. If sufficient literary warrant exists for the term, that is, if it is actively used in the field, then it is added to the AAT. ) The AAT staff agreed that their scope note for ribbed vault was too narrow for its hierarchical placement, and it was rewritten to mean essentially any vault with ribs. Preliminary research on cross-ribbed/diagonal-ribbed vault suggests that the concept may perhaps be added to the AAT.
Throughout all the residencies, discrepancies are resolved through discussion, which often entails consulting dictionaries, encyclopedias, or other reference works, and illustrations. This type of "brainstorming" has proved crucial for resolving differences, both linguistic and semantic. Again, one cannot stress enough how important it is to be certain of the definitions and scope of the terms in each language.
18. ISO 5964, pp. 2-3.
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