Author’s name:
Iuliia A. Ivashkina – National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Abstract:
The article presents the results of a study of the processes of terminologization, determinologization, and reterminologization in German shipbuilding terminology. Terminologies constitute sub-systems of the lexical system of a national language and, like the language system as a whole, ex-hibit openness and dynamic development through the continuous exchange of lexical units. Since terms, as specialized nominative units, possess distinctive characteristics of their own, the aim of the study is to analyze the changes that lexical units undergo when they acquire the status of a term and, subsequently, when they lose their terminological status — for example, when they function outside their specialized domain of knowledge — as well as to identify the factors that condition these changes. The application of etymological, definitional, and contextual analysis leads to the conclusion that terminologization, as a process of term formation, makes active use of such mechanisms of secondary nomination as metaphor and metonymy. Determinologization, by contrast, pro-ceeds through varying degrees of semantic modification, ranging from complete semantic shift resulting from figurative reinterpretation of terminological units to context-dependent semantic modification leading to the narrowing, broadening, or enrichment of meaning through evaluative and emotive connotations. At the same time, despite the simplified definitions of terminological units found in general dictionaries, compared with the more precise definitions provided in specialized lexicographic sources, terms may nevertheless retain and exhibit their characteristic semantic properties and their place within a terminological system even when used in non-specialist texts. Secondary nomination assumes a distinct form in reterminologization, which occurs when terminological units are borrowed into another terminological system. In such cases, semantic transfer is based on technical analogy and thus constitutes a transfer by similarity. Unlike the metaphorization of general-language vocabulary, however, it is not figurative in nature; instead, it results in the semantic generalization of a terminological unit and its potential transition into the category of general scientific terms. Although the processes of terminologization, determinologization, and reterminologization are not directly interconnected, each contributes in its own way both to the formation of terminological systems and to the development of the lexical system of the language as a whole.
| Section | LANGUAGE AND CULTURE |
| DOI: | 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2026-74-2-47-62 |
| Downloads | 10 |
| Key words | term; the dynamic nature of the language system; terminologization; determinologization; reterminologization. |