Terminology

This article provides an overview of the state of terminology as a discipline and field of work. Firstly, its precedents are presented: the origin of the terminological theory and the justification of its epistemology in the European context of the thirties. The present is then addressed: the step taken by terminology from a conception restricted to a single context of communication and a normalizing purpose, to the achievement of a scientific status. The multiple responses that specialists in terminology, mainly from linguistic training, together with the expansion of functional and cognitive theoretical approaches to language and the development of corpus linguistics, have called into question many of the limitations of the original theory and have given way to partial or global alternatives in the way of a theoretical formulation for the terminological units. Among these approaches, the communicative theory of terminology is presented, an approach that, respecting multidisciplinarity through a multi-entry model for the analysis of terms, proposes a cognitive-based linguistic theory with a communicative purpose, including the variation of meaning transfer contexts. specialized information. Finally, some paths that the future seems to hold for terminological theory are suggested, in view of the characteristics of the information and communication society.

Theories of terminology

Traditional theory

• General theory of terminology

The father of modern terminology as an autonomous and independent discipline was Eugen Wüster, an Austrian industrialist, who is considered the founder of the so-called Vienna school or Viennese school of that discipline (not to be confused with the Vienna Circle). He wrote, in the 1930s, a doctoral thesis on international technical standards in electrical engineering and published in 1968 a dictionary called The Machine Tool, where he recorded the findings and conclusions of his doctoral thesis. His Introduction to the general theory of terminology was published posthumously in 1968. In it he says that terminology should be an autonomous and self-sufficient discipline, which can use lexicology and linguistics, but always claiming their self-sufficiency and autonomy.

Although Wüster's theories have been thoroughly questioned and debated, the truth is that, without him, terminology as a discipline would not have been able to advance and develop to the point it is today. Although since then his postulates have been reformed, no one questions that it is an autonomous subject.

According to Wüster, terminology belongs to the specialists, the experts, who are the ones who understand, organize and structure this domain. Once specialists structure their field of terminology as they see fit, other users have to adapt to it. To understand this traditional view of the terminology, a comparison with television can be drawn: most people don't know how it works, but still use it.

It is, therefore, a normative approach, which seeks to impose the use, seeks to establish the univocity of the terms in order to avoid possible ambiguities and communication problems. For this, the term is treated as uniform and static in time, space and social group; there are no affective-social nuances or connotations. The term is unpolluted, it is perfect for its use. Logically this is so because its function is to normalize.

Wüster claims that the concept exists "a priori", regardless of usage. That concept is in the mind of the specialist. This specialized knowledge is described by the experts, who are in charge of promoting the correct use of terminology. This traditional approach is called "onomasiological" (from the Greek onoma, "name"), which means that what prevails is the concept and from it the name is reached.

Therefore, the conceptual system is previous and of greater importance than the terminological one. What is sought is terminological universality, so it is necessary to start from the concept and not from the text. According to Wüster, starting from the text is incorrect. It could be said that Wüster's vision of "concept" is similar to the notion of "idea" of Plato. Both systems, conceptual and terminological, are independent. The terms are independent of the concept and the context, mere labels of the elements of reality, and only provide the nominative function. Without variation, without culture, without affective-social tone, etc. They are therefore arbitrarily assigned linguistic symbols.

The problem with Wüster's theory is that the assignment, use and meaning of terms is not nearly as simple as he would have you believe.

First of all, TGT obviates the complexity surrounding terminological units. The use goes beyond what is normalized, it is always ahead of what is normalized. By the time it is standardized, a term is already obsolete, because usage always precedes standardization.

In addition, it is an idealized model ("what should be"), which silences diversity and variation, which does not take into account the social dimension and restricts its communicative dimension to that produced between specialists and professionals. This communicative dimension is, in reality, much broader: not only specialists or professionals make use of Terminology. There are many more users than those described by Wüster, and they are also the majority, whose use of the terminology is no less valid, but it does increase the complexity of the study of the discipline enormously. This means that, in reality, the meaning given to the concept is determined by the communicative situation.

An example that shows that a concept cannot be universal is the case of "mama": the concept "mama" it is not the same for an oncologist as it is, for example, for a plastic surgeon. The communicative situation in which the term is used in both cases is different. The mental structures that appear in the mind of the oncologist, when he hears the term "breast", are not the same as for the plastic surgeon. The oncologist will probably think of related terms such as "tumor", "neoplasm", "metastasis" or "remove," while the plastic surgeon will resort to terms like "implant" or "silicone". As we can see, the same term can refer to very different concepts depending on the communicative situation, sender, receiver, field of specialty, purpose, etc.

As a unifying conclusion, it can be said that, although normalization is necessary in terminology, it does not mean that it is everything.

Social and communication theories

• Socioterminology
• Communicative theory of terminology

Cognitive-Based Theories

• Sociocognitive theory of terminology
• Terminology based on frames

Technical Terminology

It implies a specialized vocabulary of a profession or some other activity to which some group dedicates a significant part of their lives. Sometimes this term is called slang. Technical terminology evolves out of the need for experts in a field to communicate accurately and concisely, and is therefore inevitable and desirable. This allows professionals to communicate without having to exhaustively describe each concept, but occasionally has the unintended effect of excluding those unfamiliar with the specialized language of that group. This can cause difficulties when, for example, a patient is unable to follow the doctors' discussions and therefore cannot understand the disease itself or its treatment. It also causes problems when professionals from different but related fields use different sets of specialized language and therefore cannot understand each other's work. For example, there is duplicate development between cognitive psychology and human-computer interaction, partly for this reason.