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48DIFFERENT APPROACHES OF TERMS AND TERMINOLOGY
Kamila Ergashevna Askarova
Teacher of Gulistan State University, Uzbekistan
ABSTRACT
This article is about different views of term and terminology. Various approaches to the concept "term" and its definitions are discussed. An attempt is made to formulate the relevant comprehensive definition generalizing the existing ones. It is shown that there exist grounds to treat terminology not only as a set of professional terms or a linguistic field or a teaching but also as a science operating with statistical and analytical methods in combination.
Key words: terminology, lexical units, concepts, science, functional approach, special words, approaches.
INTRODUCTION
The main objects of terminological studies are special lexical units (or special lexemes), first of all terms. They are analysed from the point of view of their origin, formal structure, their meanings and also functional features. Terms are used to denote concepts, therefore terminology science also concerns itself with the formation and development of concepts, as well as with the principles of exposing the existing relations between concepts and classifying concepts; also, with the principles of defining concepts and appraising the existing definitions. Considering the fact that characteristics and functioning of term depend heavily on its lexical surrounding nowadays it is common to view as the main object of terminology science not separate terms, but rather the whole terminology used in some particular field of knowledge (also called subject field).
Terminological research started seventy years ago and was especially fruitful at the last forty years. At that time the main types of special lexical units, such as terms proper, nomens, terminoids, prototerms, preterms and quasiterms were singled out and studied.
The process of establishing the concept of a term is long and diverse. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that this concept is quite complicated. On the other, the concept of "concept" itself is one of the hardest to define and take to mean.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Obviously, it is impossible to formulate a comprehensive overview of all existing definitions of a term. Therefore, it is appropriate to limit with the most important ones. In its historical evolution, the concept of "term" was interpreted as:
- "a word that is a name of a strictly defined concept" (Volin and Ushakov
1940);
- "a word that shows strictly defined philosophical, scientific, technical, etc. concept" (Vvedenskiy 1955);
- "a word or a collocation that expresses a concept of some special science, technology, art, social life, etc." (Bazhan (14) 1959-1965);
- "a word or a collocation of special (scientific, technical, etc.) language that is created (received or borrowed) for accurate expression of specific concepts and notations of specific objects" (Akhmanova 1966, 95-96);
- "a specially cultivated word being artificially invented or taken from natural language" (Superanskaya 1976, 74);
- "a word or a collocation being the exact name of a special concept for any field of science, technology, production, social political life, culture, etc." (Zhovtobrjukh 1984, 70).
The above definitions cannot be considered as successful. Firstly, one should be aware that the Latin word terminus is not the etymon of a term, as far as the latter is derived from the Greek xsp^a „end, boundary'. Secondly, the qualification "special" is not quite correct, because the terms are normally classified as belonging to the groups of the common ones (distance, light, section, speed, star, water), general (analysis, analogy, category, synthesis), cross-disciplinary (electricity, osmosis, proton, weight), field terms (bosons, gluons, quarks), etc.
The question to what extent terms remain "special," is still open. For example, since physics is a natural science considering everything in the world as its subject, it does not require a separate artificial language (although there are certain reserving remarks for terms denoting objects that do not play a significant role in the daily occurrence: atom, quasar, quark, molecule, etc.). The most natural way to develop this specialized language is a continuation of a literary language - of course, with necessary special features. Physics has been widely enjoying words of general use, including polysemantic ones which, after having narrowed their semantics, acquired a specific meaning: degeneration (levels), field (electromagnetic), body (physical), noble (gas), hole (black), current, image, level, power, run, space, star, time, water, weight. However, in
their non-terminological meaning, such lexemes are often emotionally biased or qualified as conversational ones.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
According to the functional (descriptive) approach, terms are not special words but the words in a "special function" Within this approach, the opposition "term - word" proved to be very productive in the term theory creation [11] However, most of these "special" functions are inherent to ordinary words [3]. In addition, "there is no clear boundary line between terms and common vocabulary. The process of interchange between trivial language and terminology in the form of terminologization and determinologization, never stops" [5]. These processes have many interesting practical aspects that will be discussed in detail elsewhere.
In the twenty first century, there appeared many author definitions of a term, although it was claimed in 1959 that special works providing term definition and its particularities, "are almost absent in the linguistic literature" in particular, such definitions include those describing terms as:
- "a lingual sign expressing special scientific concept and reflecting its position in an appropriate scientific notions system, in the system of lore. Scientific terminology is a system of terms that always corresponds to a system of concepts being implemented in their definitions. It is system and concept character that distinguishes a term from a non-term and grants special vocabulary the status of scientific terminology" (Tabanakova 2001, 37);
- "a unit of a historically formed terminological system that expresses a concept and its place among other concepts, is denoted by a word or a collocation, serves for communication between people interconnected by unity of specialization, belongs to the language vocabulary and pertains to all its laws. The term is used for precise definition in a particular field of knowledge" (Ponomariv 2001, 72);
- "a linguistic unit (word or collocation) of a special area of use that is a verbal denotation of a scientific concept, has a meaning fixed by a definition that is the semantic basis of corresponding concept, and is implemented within a certain terminological field" (Sergeyeva 2002, 4);
- "a word or a collocation denoting a concept of science, technology and art, the main features of which are consistency, conformity with the concept defined, presence of definitions, a tendency to monosemy within its terminological field, i.e. terminology of a specific area of knowledge,
conciseness, stylistic neutrality, exactness, high information content"(Simonenko 2007, 21);
- "a word or a collocation being created, borrowed or copied from the popular language, that expresses a concept of science, special fields of knowledge and human activities, is designed to nominate objects and processes and simultaneously serves as a tool of cognition of the world, has clear semantic boundaries and is incorporated into a terminological system"(0vcharenko2010. p173)
- "a word or a collocation that is coordinated with a clearly defined concept of a science, technology, art, social and political life and enters a systemic relationship with other similar units of language, forming with them a particular system, or terminology" (Voznyuk et al. 2010, 8).
According to Theodore Savory, "terms are symbols designed to transfer a certain amount of encoded information that is understood only by those who know the appropriate key or code" [7]. It turns out then that a term does not denote the concept but, on the contrary, rather isolates it from those "not initiated enough." Russian terminologists Vladimir Lejchik and Sergey Shelov define a term as a lexical unit of a language for special purposes that indicates the general, specific or abstract concept of a theory of a particular domain of knowledge or activity [4]. However, there are so many terminological lexemes representing concepts of practical human activity, namely technical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and agricultural and other terms.
ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
There are many generic concepts through which a term is defined: verbal complex; special object, specific concept, language sign, word, special word, verbal complex motivated sign, lexicalized combination, reduction, function, terminological element, integrity of sign and concept, lexical unit [11]. Despite this, none of the current definitions can fully satisfy the scientists that tend to invent their own ones [3]. Moreover, such a high number of grasps and definitions of the concept of a term confirms an impossibility to create its universal definition [11] . However, this does not mean that a striving towards the most successful definition of a term is without interest.
The lexical layer of language is continuously updated with new terms that form their specific subsystem. Furthermore, the relevant units need to be processed and systematized. All these facts clearly demonstrate a necessity for a separate
discipline, the object of study of which would be very terms. It can be noted that there is an urgent need to treat terminology as a full-fledged science.
CONCLUSION
The conclusion was made that there exist sufficient grounds to treat terminology as not only a vocabulary, part of lexicology or a teaching but also as a separate independent science about term formation and operation, that uses statistical and analytical methods. Investigation methods of terminology as a science were proposed and discussed concerning the general scientific and traditional linguistic methods. In combination, the systemic application of both statistical and analytical methods, taking into account the natural features of the objects of study, recognizes terminology as a full science.
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