Versatile Method of Modeling Content and Structure of a Terminological Field

The paper introduces a new method for modeling a terminological field with its content and structure. The method is a foundation for a computer program able to evaluate students’ professional knowledge both in qualitative and quantitative aspects. The method includes several stages: processing the lexical content of a terminological field, revealing elements that structure this content, and graphical representation of the terminological field model. The list of methods included the thesaurus approach and the componential analysis of lexical meaning. The thesaurus approach detects the basic types of semantic relationships between lexical units within a terminological field. The componential analysis explicates elements that arrange these units. The model is represented as a tree graph structure, which is ideal for visualizing multi-level hierarchic structures. This graph consists of two types of elements: terms and structure units. The method is designed to be flexible and versatile so that it can be effectively applied to any terminological field. The method can be applied to a specific terminological field in order to build its model with particular regard to all characteristic features of its content and structure