The 2nd International Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Symposium on History of Science in Islam Proceedings Book
Semantical Study: An Innovative Methodical Approach for Teaching the History of Science
Fatima SaadatmandThis semantical evidence-based study into the history of science attempts to elucidate the lexical relationship among sources by establishing vast and detailed networks in order to discover the transition of associative meanings throughout history. The present research explains with a large variety of examples how this approach can enrich the field of source criticism in the case of lexical relationships. It leads historical sources into diagrams that depict the connections, gradual alterations, and etymology of technical terms in very rare cases. The study is conducted on two definite levels. In the first step, data is collected for pragmatic goals, extracting as many senses as possible and then classifying and producing a widespread semantic network after validating the findings. By placing data in that network as a next step, a timeline is automatically performed, which illustrates the arrivals of sources by anteriority in chronological order. With that insight, semantics as a motivational method in teaching the history of science is designed to help students think more clearly, discover subtle relations among various sources, and track/trace changes in order to find and affirm the original works. Moreover, it presents a general introduction to each topic through helpful classified contexts (in the form of a mind map), and makes it easy and accessible for students to obtain plenty of data by searching among senses and sources. It is worth noting that the method presented here can be applied at different levels of education depending on the diagram parameters as well as the network scales.