Theoretical Problems of Terminology

Anotation

Terminology appears spontaneously as a result of knowledge accumulation and appearance of special notions and concepts. The importance of our investigation is determined by the necessity to study the semantics of medical terms. The aim of our year paper is to define the main semantic peculiarities of English and Ukrainian medical terms and their interaction with the words of general language.

The achievement of the aim provides accomplishment of the following tasks:

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1. to study theoretical literature on the problems investigated;
2. to study medical terms and their meanings on the basis of explanatory and special dictionaries;
3. to apply the methods of formalized analysis of semantics for building the matrix of semantic space of the English and Ukrainian medical terminology on the background of general language;
4. to define the correlation of terminological and general semantics of lexemes under study.

The object of our year paper is 50 English and Ukrainian medical terms with the explanation of their medical and general meanings. The subject of our investigation – semantic peculiarities of the English and Ukrainian medical terms. The language material for the year paper was taken from four dictionaries. The lexical material for our research presents 50 English medical terms the semantics of which we have analyzed from medical vocabulary (Mondofacto) and explanatory (Longman) dictionary, we also used Ukrainian medical and explanatory dictionaries.

We separated the semes from the meanings of the terms that have been studied in order to the basis of English and Ukrainian terminological and explanatory dictionaries. We analyzed the peculiarities of their special and general semantics. The year paper consists of the introduction, two chapters, conclusions, the list of literature used and supplement. Chapter I. Theoretical problems of terminology Modern life of society is characterized by steep development of science and technology that’s why it leads to improvement of languages of these branches, especially scientific and technical terminology.

The term “terminology” is assigned to several concepts:

• Terminology 1: Terminology science. Inter-and-Trans disciplinary field of knowledge dealing with concepts and their representations (terms, symbols, etc. )
• Terminology 2: Aggregate of terms, which represent the system of concept of an individual subject field.
• Terminology 3: Publication in which the system of concepts of a subject field is represented by terms. [6;18] The functions of terminology: the ordering of knowledge on grounds of the relationships of concepts.

1. the transfer of knowledge, skills and technology (education, training, reading of scientific and technical texts, etc.)
2. the formulation and dissemination of scientific and technical texts into their information.
3. the translation of scientific and technical texts into their languages.
4. the abstracting and condensing of subject information.
5. the storage and retrieval of scientific and technical information. 6;18]

Theories of terminology as they have developed over at least six decades, consider that concepts are: 1) units of thought, focusing on the psychological aspect of recognizing objects as part of reality; 2) units of knowledge, focusing on the epistemological aspect of information gathered on the object in question; 3) units of communication, stressing the fact that concepts are the prerequisite for knowledge transfer in specialized discourse.

The development of terminologies as a crucial part of special purpose languages reflects scientific, technical and economic progress in the subject fields concerned. Due to different speeds in this dynamic co-evolution of knowledge in the individual domains, specialized discourse continues to differentiate into more and more sectorized special languages and terminologies. 18; 7] But these communication tools become increasingly ambiguous due to the sheer number of concepts to be designated and the limited linguistic resources of every natural language: terms are taken over from one domain into another, usually with varying meanings in the form of metaphors or analogies; new homonyms, and terminological meanings, synonyms arise, motivating or even forcing subject specialists to standardize their terminology and harmonize them on the multilingual level in order to reduce and manage the constantly rising communicative complexity that faces their discourse communities.

Terminology research is not limited to semiotic and linguistic studies of term formation and the epistemological dimension of the evolution of scientific knowledge. The agenda of terminology science also includes socio-terminological studies of the acceptance of neologisms proposed by terminology and language planners, case studies on terminology development by standardization and harmonization efforts, research and development concerning the establishment and use of terminology databases for various user groups and purposes and concerning controlled vocabularies for documentation and information retrieval purposes.

Terminology displays the notions that were created, and spontaneously exist in every branch. Terminology is the study of and the field of activity concerned with the collection, description, processing and presentations of terms. The field of terminology is not independent as a discipline. Terminology though traced back for some decades got a more theoretical and methodological background in the past years. Terminology is an inter disciplinary field of research because it is highly influenced by the activities and methods of the areas if serves. Earlier terminology was a problem of engineers needing concepts for naming new technical items.

Now linguists claim it to be another dimension of lexicology and lexicography. Terminology has become a specialized aspect of computational linguistics and information science[17;10]. Terminology is the study of terms and their use. Terms are words and compound words that in specific contexts are given specific meanings, meanings that may deviate from the meaning the same words have in other contexts and in everyday language. The discipline Terminology studies among other things how such terms of art come to be and their interrelationships within a culture.

Terminology differs from lexicography n studying concepts, conceptual systems, and their labels (terms), whereas lexicography study words and their meanings. Terminology thus denotes a discipline which systematically studies the labelling or designating of concepts particular to one or more subject fields or domains of human activity, through research and analysis of terms in context, for the purpose of documenting and promoting consistent usage. This study can be limited to one language or can cover more than one language at the same time (multilingual terminology, bilingual terminology, and so forth) or may focus on studies of terms across fields [26;45].

Terminology is a science whose aim is to study terms, which are lexical elements used in specialized fields (subjects or their branches) and generated in such fields or modified from elements already existing in other fields. In Terminology, the “term” or “terminological unit” is the meaning unit made up of one single word (simple term) or several words (complex term) and represents a concept in an univocal way in a specific semantic field (Office of the French Language of Quebec). From this definition, we can understand that a term is a specialized word in relation to its meaning and the field in which it is used.

It is considered in that way when used in a certain context in which it takes the function of a “term”. Terms are elements of natural languages, as are other lexical units too. As far as terminologies reflect rapid development of science, they are opened to language planning, systematic management and different kinds of manipulation more than other lexical subsystems or strata. This causes terminologists to fulfill three comprehensive projects 1) the standardization of existing terminologies; 2) the creation of new national terminologies as well as 3) their international unification. 18; 8]

A definition is description of a concept by means of other known concepts, mostly in the form of words and terms. It determines the position of this concept in a system of other related concepts. Definitions can be categorized according to their purpose into descriptive prescriptive definitions. A descriptive definition states which meaning a term has. A prescriptive definition states which meaning a term should have. [15;11] In the seventies of the xx century the peak of interest towards system character of terminology could be observed and that was connected with the popularity of the biologist Bertalanffy.

This scientist suggested the programme of building general theory of systems, which contained general principles and laws of the systems behaviour no matter what elements and the relationships between were. The difference between terminology system and terminology is, first of all, in the way they come into being. Terminology appears spontaneously as a result of knowledge accumulation and appearance of special notions and concepts. Terminology enters the mental world far from being accomplished and crowned; its lexical units are very far from systematic.

Terminological system is completely isomorphic to the system of concepts and terminology is not. [23;17] Terminology-is the section of vocabulary which covers the terms of different spheres of science, art, social life, and technics. [9;23] Terminology is closely related to such sciences as ontology, logics, linguistics, communication theory, information and documentation science, computer science, etc. In the GTT the notion ‘‘concept’’ and its relationship to other concepts have a central position. They are cornerstones of the GTT and the starting point of any terminology work.

The conceptology which is a basic discipline of logic is closely connected in this respect with terminology. The most important link of terminology to linguistics is that the term is a linguistic symbol, which is formed by words or word elements. [18; 7] Terminology is not connected to information retrieval in any way but focused on the meaning and conveyance of concepts. “Terms” used in an information retrieval context are not the same as “terms” used in the context of terminology, as they are not always technical terms of art. 9;20] The problems of terminology were investigated by such linguists as:L. A. Kapanadze [10], V. I. Malcey [11], V. P. Danulenko [9;9], O . S. Achmanova [5;58], A. A. Reformatskuj [11;27], H. O. Vinokur [7;11] and others. Semantic aspect of English and Ukrainian medical terminology was studied by such linguists as:Balyshyn S. I[3], Chabirova Z. P,[11], Orlova A. S, Philipova Y. B. [21;22], Skinner H. A[23], Dorian A. F[54;20]. and others The English language began creation of modern terminology from Choser’s time.

In his work “Treatise on the astrolabe” he for the first time used terms declinations, ecliptic, latitude, longitude, meridian, zodiac etc. Term (lat. Terminus - boundary, limit) is alexico -nominative unit that needs definitions( V. P. Danylenko[11;20], T. L. Kandelaki[25] and others). Definition is a necessary dependency of term which has a meaning for its selection from the vocabulary stock of language(S. V. Novak)[15;23]. Term is considered to be a nominative sign that operates in the language with a special purpose (V. M. Leychik).

Term is determined as a language unit, correlated with conceptions of special professional spheres ( V. A. Tatarynov) [14;27]. It is understandable that a large number of terminological definitions as a conception of a word and scientific term do not lead to distinct and simple solution of their theoretically linguistic essence. The study of early works in terminology shows that linguistic essence of term is not enough researched. Mainly researchers were interested in lexicographical aspect of terminology and not in definition and uncovering semantic peculiarities of term .

A term is a word or a certain word- combination that distinctly and definitely designates scientific or special notion. The term does not designate the notion like an ordinary word, but inversely, the concept is attached to a term. Thus, a specific concept determined by a term is understandable only due to its definition-laconic, logical, which points out essential indications of a subject and denotes its notion and matter. According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, a term is “a word or expression that has a precise meaning in some uses or is peculiar to a science, art, profession or subject. [18; 10]

One more definition of a term explains as “any conventional symbol for a concept which consists of articulated sounds or of their written representations. A term may be a word or a phrase. ”[20; 10] As it is vivid from the definition the term always stands for a concept and it should preferably stand for a single concept. This concept has a meaning that is fixed, abstract and general. Only features that are considered to be relevant are retained in the meaning, other features are rejected. Concepts are mental representations of individual object or comprise a set of individual objects having certain qualities in common.

Concepts are mental representations of individual object or comprise a set of individual objects having certain qualities in common. A term is defined by the content it stands for and not by any peculiarities in its linguistic structure. [15; 11]. An expression is a term within the framework of a conceptual system in which it is defined as a term. Membership of a terminological system thus gives an expression terminological status. Ancient Greek philosophers said that a term has two meanings: In broad definition a term-is a word or word-combination, which denotes real or abstract subjects.

In this case the word term coincide with the meaning of a “name”, it means that a term the same as name. In narrow definition, as we already know the term- is a word or word-combinations introduced into a science as the designation of subjects, appearances that are studied by the science. [12;272]. To descriptive terms belong: a)set-expressions, which name or denote empirical and abstract objects. They designate a “term”-as proper and general names. b)predicative expression-is a word or word-combination which denotes properties and qualities of subjects and relations between the subjects. )objective functional expressions, which denote objective functions and operations, to which special mathematical and logical signs and words denoting scope, weight, growth, colour belong. [14; 30] Terms can be more or less complex lexical units that are generated following several processes:

• The extension of the meaning of a word in the standard language (for instance, “mouse” in computing terminology is a device that allows the user to interact with the computer).
• Generation of a phrase that functions as a whole with one specialized meaning (superconducting magnet). Symbolic expressions, as chemical element symbols (Na) or chemical and mathematical formulas (H2SO4).
• Abbreviations (PVC) and acronyms (NATO, from North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
• Names of post (Prime Minister), organizations or administrations (United Nations, Prime Minister). The border line between word and term is drawn by the use of the lexical unit in a specialised field of knowledge with a specialised meaning or not. That is why a certain level of specialised knowledge is needed to recognise a term (we will only know that mouse is a term if we know the computing terminology).
• The characteristics of a text –communicative purpose, subject, specialisation grade– are also helpful to recognise the presence of terms.
• The extension of the meaning of a word in the standard language (for instance, “mouse” in computing terminology is a device that allows the user to interact with the computer).
• Generation of a phrase that functions as a whole with one specialized meaning (superconducting magnet).
• Symbolic expressions, as chemical element symbols (Na) or chemical and mathematical formulas (H2SO4).
• Abbreviations (PVC) and acronyms (NATO, from North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

Names of post (Prime Minister), organizations or administrations (United Nations, Prime Minister). The border line between word and term is drawn by the use of the lexical unit in a specialised field of knowledge with a specialised meaning or not. That is why a certain level of specialised knowledge is needed to recognise a term (we will only know that mouse is a term if we know the computing terminology). The characteristics of a text –communicative purpose, subject, specialisation grade– are also helpful to recognise the presence of terms.

In order to establish the limit between term and word, it is important to know the characteristics of terms in a specialised language. According to Gutierrez Rodilla (1998: 88-94) the characteristics of terms are precision, emotional neutrality and stability over time. For instance, “aplasia” is a medical term meaning incomplete or faulty development of an organ; it is monosemic which implies precision; it is neutral emotionally; and finally, it is stable over time since it has been used without any variation in use, form and meaning for a long period of time in scientific documents.

A concept can be described either by the definition or explanation. If it is not possible in a certain case to provide a definition at least an explanation should be given. The definition is the key to any scientific work. A definition is description of a concept by means of other known concepts, mostly in the form of words and terms. It determines the position of this concept in a system of other related concepts. Most foreign linguists pay more attention to semantic character of the term.

They discover universal theoretical cases concerning terminological science, but not language facts are estimated by them superficially, without proper argumentation, unconvincingly. Terminological principles and methods are the basis for the unification of terminology work. They concern the analysis of concepts, the determination of their intension, the investigation of relationships of concepts, the design of systems of concepts, the description of concepts(definition), the assignment concept- designation(terms, symbols, etc. or vice versa, selection of adequate words or word elements for the formation of terms, creation of correct new terms etc. [23;25].

Characteristics of terms The reality around us is made up of a wide variety of objects that are observed or simply seen. The human mind is able to perceive every objects and generate a conceptual image that allows recreating the object even if it is not within our senses’ reach. In human communication, it is necessary to represent an objectconcept with a material and recognisable with the means available for humans.

In a verbal language such representation is the word –oral or written– and the term in specialised communication. Thus, the term, as with any other word, is a sign with a triple dimension:

• Linguistic: the signifier (the formal aspect of the term).
• Cognitive: the meaning of the concept represented by a term.
• Ontological: the referent, the object from reality to be named. The three dimensions give three different, but related, aspects of terms:
• Linguistic dimension – symbolic aspect: this refers to a term as a symbol representing an object, a referent. Cognitive dimension – conceptual aspect: in relation to the concept that allows the human mind to keep the referent.
• Ontological dimension – referential aspect: the referent itself to be named and understood. Dimensions of a term cognitive linguistic ontological concept term referent conceptual symbolic referential aspects. To the three dimensions already explained, it is possible to add a fourth one that is implicit at the beginning of this section, the communicative dimension (associated with a discursive aspect).

According to this dimension, the terms are inserted in a discourse with the purpose of taking part in the message produced in a communicative event. From this communicative point of view, the sender of the message, the author of the text, uses each term with a sole meaning, regardless of whether it is the term’s meaning, one chosen among the different concepts and referents represented by a single polysemic term, or an altered, modified or adulterated meaning that the author assigns to a term accidentally (perhaps due to a lack of competence in a specialised knowledge) or intentionally (a personal use of language and terminology).

The balance in the relations between the different dimensions and aspects defines the characteristics of each term, but not all the terms share the same level of relations, that is why the features of terms as a whole are more of a trend, desired by their producers and users, than a reality. According to Gutierrez Rodilla (1998: 88-94) the features of terms are precision, emotional neutrality and stability. A term has to meet a number of requirements:

1. The term must be well motivated. The motivation of a term should be self-evident.
2. The term should be systematic. That means that it must be a member of terminological system.
3. The formation of the term must be in accordance with the syntactic rules of the language.
4. The term must be potentially productive of derivations.
5. The term must avoid pleonasm. This part of pleonastic formation generally occurs through a lack of linguistic knowledge.
6. The term should not contain superfluous elements. This may occur when the generic term and the specific term form a new term.
7. The term should preferably not have synonymous, homonymous or polysemous terms.
8. The term should be as short as possible without affecting its clarity.
9. The term should preferably not present orthographical or morphological variations. 18; 11]

At the present stage of language development society influences all language terminological processes such as term formation , interaction of generally used lexics and terminology, borrowing of terms from other languages and subsystems, development of polysemy, synonymy, antonymy, standardization and unification of terms, etc. In this chapter we observed theoretical problems of terminology, functions of terminology, requirements of a term, terms, their definition and classification, terminology and terminological system, the principles of terminology and methods.

Also we named famous linguists who studied the problems of terminology. We observed the term as an indivisible unit of mentality that arises the smallest segment of concrete mentality process. By this segment in our year paper is a scientific concept of linguistic that indicates term- word which we receive on the basis of imagination about practical and theoretical activity of a person. We consider that linguistic term as a word is a part of vocabulary and is not isolated from the laws that influence on the lexical system in general.

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