The topic of quasi-equivalent concepts in different domains can also affect the correctness of the term translation to different languages. The fact that the term has two or more labels in different languages linked to one class allows replacing labels during translation from one language into another one. However, from a lexical point of view, the meaning behind the label in one language might be different from the meaning of the label in another language.
One can be wider than another one, has a different shade, mood or way, how to use it. In this case, can they be considered equivalent or not?
The concept of Professor as a role associated with a particular position at a university (among others, implying being head of a group) vs. the concept of Professor as being a grade recognized nation-wide and entitled, as such, to executing some responsibility by the law, at whatever academic institution. Both however correspond to a person role requiring university education, implying the right to supervise Ph.D. students, etc. The decision of whether to keep two distinct ‘Professor’ concepts or to merge them into one is hard.
One of the examples is the Class 'Professor' from DBpedia
<http//:dbpedia.org/resource/Professor>. [66] There are multiple labels of the Class in different languages. The label in the English language is 'Professor', the label in Czech is 'Profesor'.
Figure 3. DBpedia_Professor [66]
51 The abstract of the Class is also given by DBpedia in multiple languages. The English abstract states that "Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries.
Literally, a professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Even in the English abstract there is already mention, that not all countries (hence, languages) accept this definition.
Professors are usually experts in their field and teachers of the highest rank. In many systems of academic ranks, "professor" refers only to the most senior academic position, sometimes informally known as "full professor." In some countries and institutions, the word
"professor" is also used in titles of lower ranks such as associate professor and assistant professor; this is particularly the case in the United States. This colloquial usage would be considered incorrect among other academic communities. The usage and the meaning of the term professor would be impacted by a certain country or an institution. It is possible to assume that even within one country, it is possible, that the usage and meaning of the word are different.
However, the unqualified title "Professor" designated with a capital letter nearly always refers to a full professor. Professors often conduct original research and commonly teach undergraduate, professional, or postgraduate courses in their fields of expertise. The statement 'nearly always' in the abstract allows to introduce quasi-equivalent concepts, in this case, to capture this situation when two concepts are equal 'nearly always', but not always.
In universities with graduate schools, professors may mentor and supervise graduate students conducting research for a thesis or dissertation. In many universities, full professors take on senior managerial roles such as leading departments, research teams and institutes, and filling roles such as president, principal or vice-chancellor. That explanation brings differences into the list of possible responsibilities and functionalities of the professors from different countries and universities.
Each university can decide which range of responsibilities the professor would have. In some cases, the role of professor may be more public-facing than that of more junior staff, and professors are expected to be national or international leaders in their field of expertise."@en Appendix B (DBpedia) [66]
In the Czech language abstract states that 'Profesor' is the highest scientific-pedagogical university rank, for example, higher than an associate professor. The word originally comes from the Latin word 'profiteri', which roughly means a person who professes. In comparison
52 with the rest of the world, in Czech Republic 'Profesor' is the lifelong degree, which stays with the owner regardless of belonging to any University workforce. In other countries, a professor can only be a person with an academic position.
Sometimes, "Profesor" is also used as a traditional term for a teacher in Czech grammar schools or other secondary schools, and in the past, the term "high school professor" and
"university professor" have been used as a term for a regular occupation. Research Professor is equivalently referred to as Doctor of Science, who are primarily only a scientist and not part of pedagogical staff. [Appendix B. DBpedia; translated from Czech.]
It is possible to check links within DBpedia for 'Profesor' using a simple query on the SPARQL query editor from http://dbpedia.org. <http://cs.dbpedia.org/resource/Profesor> was placed as ?subject, which had no results. Then <http://cs.dbpedia.org/resource/Profesor> was placed as ?object:
SELECT ?subject ?predicate
WHERE { ?subject ?predicate <http://cs.dbpedia.org/resource/Profesor>
}
Figure 4. DBpedia SPARQL (https://dbpedia.org/sparql)
As a result, there are two subjects that are linked with object
<http://cs.dbpedia.org/resource/Profesor>: <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Professor> and
<http://dbpedia.org/resource/Academic_personnel> by the predicate owl:sameAs.
Figure 5. Object <http://cs.dbpedia.org/resource/Profesor>
53 Based on the abstract analysis in the English and the Czech language, it is possible to say that 'Professor' in English and 'Profesor' in Czech language are not identical. It is not always correct to replace one with another. In some cases, would be valuable to stress the difference between them by introducing quasi-equivalence.
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