Why read when you can watch? Video articles and knowledge representation within the medical domain

Non-verbal forms of knowledge representation have become increasingly important in Terminology, both from a theoretical and methodological perspective. Examples of non-verbal knowledge representations have been abundantly present in medicine, the subject feld under analysis, for centuries. However, due to the current – and impressive – technological progress in healthcare, resources that combine text, high-resolution video, as well as 2D and 3D animation, are now an integral part of modern medicine and play a pivotal role, especially in medical procedures. In this respect, this paper will focus on one of the most recent and promising of such multimedia resources, namely the video article, a peer-reviewed and indexed article which comprises both verbal and non-verbal elements (e.g. narration by experts and videos of surgeries including external and internal footage) and, therefore, verbal and non-verbal forms of knowledge representation. Such features make video articles an interesting resource to consider in the light of Terminology’s double dimension approach. This will be illustrated in the paper through the analysis of a video article focusing on a surgical procedure, i.e. a laparoscopy for gynecological purposes.