The term: definition; term formation (processes, principles)

Definitions: a (conventional) symbol that represents a concept defined within a particular field of
knowledge (M. T. Cabré, 1999, Terminology. Theory, methods and applications)
Objects – perceived or conceived, concrete or abstract abstracted or conceptualized into concepts.
Designation – the formal side of the sign is a phonological representation is a structure of
constituent morphemes; it may have graphemic particularities (spelling).

Terms as linguistic signs:

- acronyms only exceptionally give derivatives (in French, BDphile).
- chemical symbols, which are considered as terms – completely frozen CH4 methane
Terms – associated with a domain and its concepts.
FORM: a word (simple term), multiword expression (complex term), symbol or formula, a
scientific name in Latin, that designates a particular concept within a given subject field. Also
terminology unit (TU).
Examples
single word: proliferation
word combination: nonproliferation treaty
acronyms: Amex (American stock exchange), UNESCO
initialisms: CIA, UFO
abbreviations: vol (for volume), pp for pages
formula (chemical, mathematical): H2O, π r2

Clues to identify a term:

- the word / combination of words – consistently associated with the same concept.
- the word / combination of words – consistently used within a particular subject field.
- the combination of words – relatively lexicalized.
- the word / combination of words – recurrent in your documentation.
- the word / combination of words – often set off by typographical devices such as italics,
boldface print, quotation marks etc.
- the word or combination of words is preceded by words like known as, called.
- terms are generally nouns, but may be adjectives, verbs, adverbs, or derived phrasal
compounds.
- terms have a specific meaning within the subject field and are not part of the general
vocabulary.
- the word or combination of words is used in opposition to or in contrast to another term.
- the word or combination of words tends to co-occur repeatedly with the same noun, verb,
or adjective.
- high frequency
- elliptic syntax – main means of creating terms = deletion of determiners and/or
prepositions. E.g. many terms – sequences of two words without preposition or
determiner: in French: contrôle commande, banc simulation; in Romanian: mașini-unelte,
adresa (de) web, piețe spot
- the compound is well known but it occurs in deviant contexts

Types of terms: simple / complex terms

- simple terms - a tendency to expand into complex terms in order to designate more and
more subordinated concepts (for ex. control, controller, graphics controller, AGP30-
compliant graphics controller)
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 - complex terms – abbreviations (for ex., AGP30 means Advanced Graphic Port-30; KBMS
means Knowledge-Based Management System), some of which become simple terms (for
example radar).

Designations – terms, names (appellations) or symbols designate or represent a concept attributed

to a concept by consensus within a special language community.
Objects – perceived or conceived, concrete or abstract abstracted or conceptualized into concepts
Concepts – depict or correspond to a set of objects based on a defined set of characteristics
represented or expressed in language by designations or by definitions organized into concept
systems.
Concepts are related to one another on the basis of their characteristics.
Concept relations can be hierarchical (generic and partitive relations) or non-hierarchical.

Identifying concepts and concept relations;

- analyzing and modeling concept systems on the basis of identified concepts and concept
relations;
- establishing representations of concept systems through concept diagrams;
- crafting concept-oriented definitions;
- attributing designations (predominantly terms) to each concept in one or more languages;
- recording and presenting terminological data, principally in terminological entries stored
in print and electronic media (terminography).

The three dimensions of the term (ap. Sager, 1990)

Cognitive (the domain/field)
Linguistic (the designation)
Communicative/pragmatic
Pragmatic aspects in term formation: changes in the way we live and work.

Primary term formation

 Monolingual
 No pre-existing linguistic entity
 Spontaneous, no rules, not planned
 The formation of a concept + the term
 The scientist / inventor (not a linguist)
 Examples: quark
Secondary term formation
A new term is created for an existing concept
 The term is revised (in the same language)
 Transfer of knowledge to another linguistic community
- A pre-existing basis / term
- This can be in another language
- Created by a linguist / terminologist
- Rules/principles (to be found in language)

Term formation. Methods, principles

Methods:

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  creating new forms: derivation, compounding, blends, abbreviations, initialisms,
acronyms, clipping, aphaeresis/foreclipping, syncope/midclipping, apocope/hindclipping,
mixed
 using existing forms: conversion, terminologization, transdisciplinary borrowing, semantic
transfer (metaphor, simile, synecdoche), eponymy
 translingual borrowings (loan words): direct borrowing, loan translation

Derivation – an operation which creates a new lexical unit (a derived word) from one existing
word through addition of affixes to lexical bases.
Types:
 suffixation
 prefixation
 mixed preffixation + suffixation (aka “parasynthetic derivation”)
Compounding – combining two or more otherwise free morphemes or series of morphemes (=
words) to form a compound. (Bussmann 1996: 84)
An endocentric compound – a dependency relation composed of a head and a modifier (aka the
“headedness rule”)
Three types of combination are used:
- combination of native contemporary forms
- combination of neoclassical forms
- combination of contemporary and neoclassical forms aka morphological compounds
Neoclassical elements can appear in different positions of the compound:
- at initial position
- at final position
- both: initial position + final position
Native compounds – ordinary compounds (Amiot and Dal, 2008). = composed of lexical
elements of the language they belong to
- they are autonomous and occur freely in a text.
Form:
- hyphen -
- fusion/block
- no join
Specialization in meaning
Truncation - a formal device consisting of reducing a unit to one of its parts. It includes the
formation of initialisms, acronyms, and clippings.
abbreviations: full form Court of Justice of the European Communities, abbreviation Court
initialisms - abbreviated complex terms made up of the first letters of the term element ex. PC =
personal computer
acronyms - the variant formed from the initial letters of the elements of the complex term
respects their order

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Blends
Clipping:
- aphaeresis (foreclipping)
- syncope (midclipping)
- apocope (hindclipping)
- combined
Reduction – applies to syntagmatic compounds.
- morphological
Conversion aka zero-derivation, recategorisation
Back-affixation (aka regressive derivation) forms a new word by removing an affix
Terminologization GL => LSP
Transdisciplinary borrowing LSP 1 => LSP 2
extending the meaning of the base form
narrowing the meaning of the base form
changing the meaning of the base form
Semantic transfer within a special language
- simile
- synecdoche (very productive)
- metaphor
Eponymy – a proper name into a common noun
frequently used in physics (units of measure commonly named after the inventor)
Borrowing - the result of the transfer of a linguistic phenomenon from one language for use in
another.
- characterised by a source language, a target language and a category.
 entirely - the source term is taken as such to the target language
 partly (or in a hybrid manner) - only one element of the source term is adapted in the
target language
direct borrowing = full adoption of terms from contemporary languages
loan translation: The morphological elements of a term are translated literally in order to form a
new term in the target language
Syntagmatic compounds aka nominal multiword terms – the most prototypical and the most
frequent units in specialised texts.
Principles for term formation
Transparency – the concept it designates can be inferred, at least partially, without a
definition (meaning is visible in its morphology.)
Consistency – the terminology of any subject field should not be an arbitrary and random
collection of terms, but rather a coherent terminological system corresponding to the
concept system. Existing terms and new terms must integrate into and be consistent with
the concept system.
Linguistic economy – a term shall be as concise as possible.
Derivability – productive term formations that allow derivatives (according to whatever
conventions prevail in an individual language), should be favoured.
Preference for native language – native language expressions should be given preference
over direct loans.
Linguistic correctness – conformity to the morphological, morphosyntactic and
phonological norms of the language in question
The “Analogue Rule” with regard to naming in Greek – The processes operated during primary term
formation in a source language can provide valuable guidance for the creation of terms on a secondary
level. The processes of designating a concept in a target language must take account of the corresponding

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processes operated in the source language just as these are reflected in the form of the primary term. The
systematization of these processes within an integrated naming mechanism in the target language is called
the “analogue rule”.