SUBLANGUAGE TERMS - DICTIONARIES, USAGE, AND AUTOMATIC CLASSIFICATION

The use of terms from natural and social scientific titles and abstrac ts is studied from the perspective of sublanguages and their specializ ed dictionaries. Different notions of sublanguage distinctiveness are explored. Objective methods for separating hard and soft sciences are suggested based on measures of sublanguage use, dictionary characteris tics, and sublanguage distinctiveness. Abstracts were automatically cl assified with a high degree of accuracy by using a formula that consid ers the degree of uniqueness of terms in each sublanguage. This may pr ove useful for text filtering or information retrieval systems.