Analysis of Early Aspects in Requirements Goal Models: A Concept-Driven Approach - Transactions on Aspect-Oriented Software Development - page 47

Terminology

Same Different

Consensus Correspondence

conceptual Stakeholders use

terminology and concepts
in the same way

Stakeholders use
different terminology
for the same concepts

Stakeholder1 system1

Problem

overlap

Situation

Conflict Contrast

conceptual

system2

Stakeholders use
same terminology for
different concepts

Stakeholders differ
in terminology and
concepts

Stakeholder2

(a) (b)

Fig. 4. Conceptual and terminological interference. a Overlap in two conceptual sys-
tems. b Relations between terminology and concepts.

to adapt or invent new terms to describe situations that they have not previously
needed to articulate.
In a well-established scientific domain, experts develop a consensus over rele-
vant distinctions and terms. Over time, they identify and test objective knowl-
edge independent of individuals [34]. However, such objective knowledge is not
yet available for most RE problem domains. If there is no pre-existing consensus
over terminology, it is important to be able to compare the conceptual structures
among multiple experts [11].
Figure 4a illustrates the situation. Two stakeholders, or more accurately, peo-
ple playing particular stakeholder roles , have developed overlapping conceptual
systems that they use to make sense of a problem situation. When these two
stakeholders attach terms to their concepts, there are four possible conditions for
the relationship between their concepts and terms, as summarized in Fig. 4b [43].
The challenge in knowledge elicitation is to discover which of the situations
in Fig. 4b apply for a given set of stakeholder terms:

- Consensus is a desirable situation, since stakeholders then have a basis for
communication using shared concepts and terminologies.
- Conflict (also known as terminological inconsistency [16]) can cause signifi-
cant communication problems throughout the requirements process.
- Discovering correspondence is important because it lays the grounds for mu-
tual understanding of differing terms through the availability of common
concepts.

- Strictly speaking, contrast does not involve terminological interference, but

the lack of shared concepts could make communication and understanding
among stakeholders very dicult.

We interpret both conflict and correspondence as instances of terminological
interference . Both have the potential to cause communication problems, if they
are not identified and managed. We believe that terminological interference is
both inevitable and useful in RE. It is inevitable because stakeholders have
complementary perspectives, and are unlikely to have evolved a well-defined
terminology for describing the problem situation. It is useful because it provides