The Concept Map as a Cognitive Tool for Specialized Information Recall

The present article discusses some aspects related to the process of text analysis with a concept map aiming at structuring textual knowledge and achieving a better recall of information in the context of teaching technical translation. The concept map is considered not as a system for representing knowledge structures of domains, but as a cognitive means used as a method for text analysis in specialized fields. The paper reports data from a research project in which the author carried out an experiment on two groups: the 1 group analyzed the text by extracting its data in the form of a concept map, whereas the 2 group proceeded using the traditional tool of text analysis. The two groups were later subjected to recall tests; free recall and recall by questionnaire. One very consistent finding shows that the use of the concept map as a tool of text analysis helped not only in retaining the main information units of the text, but also in recalling textual units in defined semantic categories.