prof. dr. W.J.R. Martin

Personal web page in English
Curriculum Vitae

Research interests

The lexicon, frame-based lexical semantics, terminology, natiolectical lexical variation, frames, lexicography.

Teaching

I have taught several advanced courses in Lexicology, Terminology and Lexicography till my retirement, a.o. Seminars on Lexicology (with stress on the semantic exploration of a corpus) and courses such as Typology of Lexical Databases (with focus on Learner’s Dictionaries), Bilingual Lexicography and Relational Models of the Lexicon.

Research

In lexicology both the data contained in the lexicon and their organization are of prime importance. As to the former (the data), I consider the lexicon as an organized lexical knowledge bank needed by users (humans or machines) to be able to understand and produce language. With regard to the latter (the organization of the data), an own approach in the field of lexical semantics has been developed, called ‘frame-based lexical semantics’, in which the notion ‘frame’ as conceived by Marvin Minsky, takes a central place. This approach has repercussions both on theoretical issues (such as polysemy, connotation/denotation and multi-word units) and on practical aspects such as the description of the lexicon of related languages (the amalgamation model), the development of tools to link lexicons with (OMBI = reversing tool for bilingual dictionaries), the derivation of bilingual lexicons in a multilingual environment (the Hub-and-Spoke Model) etc. At the moment I am the project leader of the ANNA (Afrikaans-Dutch, Dutch-Afrikaans) dictionary project in which most of the above mentioned aspects come to the fore. I am currently also supervising three PhD-projects in which the frame-based approach is used/put to the test in fields such as terminology/translation, language learning (learner’s dictionaries) and combinatorics.

Research projects

Publications

2007

• Martin, W. (in press). Guest editor of The planning of bilingual dictionaries: the ‘Dutch’ approach (thematic issue of IJL (International Journal of Lexicography), Cambridge: CUP.
  Martin, W. (in press). Government policy and the planning and production of bilingual dictionaries: the ‘Dutch’ approach as a case in point. In: W. Martin (Ed.), The planning of bilingual dictionaries, Cambridge: CUP.
• Martin, W. (in press). Epilogue: Back to the future. In: W. Martin (Ed.), The planning of bilingual dictionaries, Cambridge: CUP.
• Martin, W. (in press). A unified approach to semantic frames and ‘collocational’ patterns. In: S. Granger and F. Meunier (Eds.), Phraseology 2005. Selected Papers, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.
• Martin, W. (2007). The lexicon is a (kind of) frame. In: L.R. Miyares e.a. (Eds.), Actas X Simposio Intenacional Communicacion Social. Santiago de Cuba, 410-418.
• Martin, W. (2007). Het Belgisch-Nederlands anders bekeken: het Referentiebestand Belgisch-Nederlands (RBBN). In: F. Moerdijk e.a. (Eds.), Leven met woorden. Leiden, 179-192.

2006

• Martin, W. (2006). Over woordenboeken. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 118 pgs.
• Martin, W. (2006). Een kwestie van frames. Amsterdam: VU, 19 pgs.
• Martin, W. (2006). In quest of a profile: portrait of a terminologist as a young sublanguage expert. In: P. ten Hacken (Ed.), Terminology, Computing and Translation. Tübingen: Narr, 73-94.
• Martin, W. (2006). Kleine talen maken het verschil. In: C. Balint e.a. (Eds.), Het belang van kleine talen in een nieuw Europa. Budapest: Karoli Gaspar University, 88-106.
• Martin, W. (2006). Frame-based Lexicons and the Making of Dictionaries. In: E. Corina e.a. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 12th Euralex International Congress, Alessandria: Editione dell’Orso, 281-293.

Extensive list of publications (2007-2000) 
 

Other Activities

• Since 1984 Editor-in-Chief (together with prof. G. Tops) of the ‘Groot Woordenboek Engels-Nederlands/Nederlands-Engels’ (2 volumes; 1763 and 1703 pages), Utrecht/Antwerpen: Van Dale Lexicografie.
• From 1989 till 2006 leader of the Lexicology/Terminology Research Group of the Vrije Universiteit.
• Since 1993 Chairman of the Dutch- Flemish Committee for Interlingual Resources (CLVV (=Commissie Lexicografische Vertaalvoorzieningen), since 2004 ALVV) of the Dutch Language Union (NTU, The Hague). This committee has launched, subsidized and supervised some 20 bilingual projects Dutch-Foreign Language and vice versa. Languages dealt with include a.o. Arabic, Turkish, Indonesian, Danish, Greek, Portuguese, Norwegian, Russian, Finnish. Several databases and tools have been developed under my supervision in this respect, a.o. the RBN (a Reference Database of Dutch of about 50,000 entries), the RBBN ( a Reference Database of Belgian Dutch), OMBI ( a tool to edit and reverse bilingual dictionaries with). For the final report of this Committee (Woordenboekenbeleid in Nederland en Vlaanderen, Den Haag, 2004) see link Nederlandse Taalunie.
• Member of the Editorial Board of the international journal Lexikos (Stellenbosch, SA).
• Member of the Scientific Board of the Frisian Academy (Leeuwarden).
• Member of the Board of the Kiliaanstichting (Amsterdam).
• Member of the Advisory Committee of the General Dutch Dictionary Project (Leiden).
• Since 2007 Chairman of NL-Term (Association of Dutch Terminology) (The Hague).
• Since 1999 Project leader of the ANNA-project (Afrikaans-Dutch, Dutch-Afrikaans Dictionary Project)
• Since 2006 member of the ‘Erkenningscommissie’ (Ratification Committee of Higher Education in Flanders) (Brussels).
• In 2007 I have been invited as a key-note speaker in the Conference ‘X Simposio Internacional Communicación Social (Santiago de Cuba 22-26 January 2007) with a lecture entitled ‘The lexicon is a (kind of) frame’. I have also been invited to speak on the Colloquium in honour of my colleague Henri Béjoint (Lyon, 27-29 September 2007) with a lecture entitled ‘Words Frames and Collocations: un ménage à trois?’.

Links

• link to the tst
  (= language and speech technology centre which maintains and distributes CLVV/ALVV-materials and tools such as OMBI, RBN, RBBN and bilingual databases)
• link to the Nederlandse Taalunie
  (= Dutch Language Union)