Opening talk 2026 (in English)
Thursday 4 June 2026 at 9 a.m. (UTC+2)
Title: On the 20th Anniversary of the TOTh Conference
Dr Danielle Candel, CNRS group HTL (Histoire des théories linguistiques), Université Paris Cité (France)
Abstract: In this brief overview of the TOTh conference and its twenty-year history we intend to show how TOTh has innovated in highlighting a field that can be described as « multifaceted, » « multi-phenomenal, » and constantly evolving, that of ontology. To do this, it is informative to examine the specialized areas that have been covered, along with their main characteristics, and also to consider the tools that have been used. It is also enlightening to discuss the languages that were used to extract the elements analyzed in the TOTh published chapters to show how they enrich the analysis. The selected data are useful for illustrating the definitions of ontology, ontoterminology, and terminology. It is of course important to first deal with these definitions and more specifically consider the term « ontoterminology », that deserves to be understood. One may look at the definition provided at https://www.lalanguefrancaise.com in 2024, but it is also fit to refer to Christophe Roche’s definition given below. An attempt will be made to characterize specificities of ontoterminology and terminology, whether by language or by specialty. Terminology itself also needs to be defined. In these fields, the growing role of artificial intelligence has to be highlighted. This retrospective, covering a period of twenty years – a relatively short timeframe – will allow, among other things, to highlight progress in a field as rich as ontology, while also emphasizing the difficulty of defining this concept. The study will revisit links between language and knowledge and the conceptual advances in this area. It will make extensive use of some reported experiences, highlighting lessons learned, problems described, and solutions developed. One type of analysis will be invaluable in this synthesis: that of the opening lectures of the TOTh conferences and in this respect it is logical to begin with the first one (given by Christophe Roche in 2007) which sets the ground for TOTh « basics »: « The term ontoterminology reflects this need to place the concept and its name at the center of terminology (…) » (Ch. Roche). As for the disciplines associated with terminology and ontology, they include translation, lexicology, knowledge engineering, information science. All of which are both long-established concepts and more recent items.
Biography: Danielle Candel (danielle.candel@u-paris.fr – https://htl.cnrs.fr/equipe/danielle-candel/) is now an Associate Member at the CNRS group HTL (Histoire des théories linguistiques), Université Paris Cité. She was first a lexicographer at the Trésor de la langue française dictionary, CNRS. Then she was asked to create and lead a team which worked for all domains covered by the French official Terminology framework (“Délégation Générale à la langue française et aux langues de France”), for about fifteen years, with an outcome published in the “FranceTerme” database. She is still engaged in official Terminology as a linguist expert. Her research is mostly connected with terminological and lexicographical issues described in two recent chapters: “Terminology in France: evolution of its Official framework”, Benjamins 2025; “General principles of Wüster’s general Theory of terminology”, Benjamins 2022. She codirected or cosigned for instance « Eugen Wüster et la terminologie de l’École de Vienne », HEL Livres 2023 ; « Prescriptions en langue », HEL XL1,2, 2019; « La prescription linguistique : applications et réactions », ELA 191, 2018.