Professional Terminology

Hundreds of thousands of words belong to special scientific, professional or trade terminological systems and are not used or even understood by people outside the particular speciality. Every field of modern activity has its specialised vocabulary. There is a special medical vocabulary, and similarly special terminologies for psychology, botany, music, linguistics, teaching methods and many others.

Term, as traditionally understood, is a word or a word-group which is specifically employed by a particular branch of science, technology, trade or the arts to convey a concept peculiar to this particular activity.

So, bilingual, interdental, labialization, palatalization, glottal stop, descending scale are terms of theoretical phonetics.

There are several controversial problems in the field of terminology. The first is the puzzling question of whether a term loses its terminological status when it comes into common usage. Today this is a frequent occurrence, as various elements of the media of communication (TV, radio, popular magazines, science fiction, etc.) ply people with scraps of knowledge from different scientific fields, technology and the arts. It is quite natural that under the circumstances numerous terms pass into general usage without losing connection with their specific fields.

There are linguists in whose opinion terms are only those words which have retained their exclusiveness and are not known or recognised outside their specific sphere. From this point of view, words associated with the medical sphere, such as unit ("доза лікарського препарату"), theatre ("операційна"), contact ("носій инфекції") are no longer medical terms as they are in more or less common usage. The same is certainly true about names of diseases or medicines, with the exception of some rare or recent ones only known to medical men.

There is yet another point of view, according to which any terminological system is supposed to include all the words and word-groups conveying concept peculiar to a particular branch of knowledge, regardless of their exclusiveness. Modern research of various terminological systems has shown that there is no impenetrable wall between terminology and the general language system. To the contrary, terminologies seem to obey the same rules and laws as other vocabulary strata. Therefore, exchange between terminological systems and the "common" vocabulary is quite normal, and it would be wrong to regard a term as something "special" and standing apart.

Two other controversial problems deal with polysemy and synonymy.

According to some linguists, an "ideal" term should be monosemantic (i. e. it should have only one meaning). Polysemantic terms may lead to misunderstanding, and that is a serious shortcoming in professional communication. This requirement seems quite reasonable, yet facts of the language do not meet it. There are, in actual fact, numerous polysemantic terms. The linguistic term semantics may mean both the meaning of a word and the branch of lexicology studying meanings. In the terminology of painting, the term colour may denote hue ("цвет") and, at the same time, stuff used for colouring ("краска").

The same is true about synonymy in terminological systems. There are scholars who insist that terms should not have synonyms because, consequently, scientists and other specialists would name the same objects and phenomena in their field by different terms and would not be able to come to any agreement. This may be true. But, in fact, terms do possess synonyms. In painting, the same term colour has several synonyms in both its meanings: hue, shade, tint, tinge in the first meaning ("колір") and paint, tint, dye in the second ("краска").

Common in English and Ukrainian are such professionalisms and terms as reaping/harvesting — косовиця (жнива), threashing — молотьба, sowing — сівба, electrician — електрик, electric train — електропоїзд/електричка, school practice — педагогічна практика, tutorial(n) — консультація (зустріч із науковим керівником).

Professionalisms and terms arc also used in the same speech styles. Sometimes, however, they may acquire the same implied meaning in English and Ukrainian. Cf. an equalizer—забитий у відповідь гол/розквитання, a right-hander (boxing) — удар правою рукою / підступний вчинок, to keep one's powder dry — тримали, порох у порохівниці, to heal the wounds/to repair damage — зализати рани.

Identical by nature though not always by their lingual form, as has already been pointed out, are various scientific, social and political terms used in English and Ukrainian in the same speech styles, and representing the same spheres of national economy or state affairs. Cf. politics — політика, finance — фінанси, proton — протон, cyber­netics — кібернетика, morpheme — морфема, suffix — суфікс, bacte­rial — бактеріальний, medical — медичний, etc. The lexicon implies the above-mentioned loan internationalisms (equation—рівняння, iden­tity — тотожність, conductor — провідник, громовідвід, etc).

There are some more common minute groups of stilistically marked words and word-groups in English and Ukrainian lexicons:

Archaisms. These words are moribund, already partly or fully out of circulation, rejected by the living language. Their last refuge is in historical novels (whose authors use them to create a particular period atmosphere) and, of course, in poetry which is rather conservative in its choice of words.

Thou and thy, aye ("yes") and nay ("no") are certainly archaic and long since rejected by common usage, yet poets use them even today.

These old forms of words/word-groups mainly used in poetic works or in solemn speech: algazel (gazelle), avaunt (out), batoon (baton), dicacity (talkativeness, mockery), eke (also), gyves (fetters), mere (pond, lake), a micle (much), parlous (perilous), peradventure (probably, perhaps), well nigh (almost, nearly), bard (Боян, поeт), thee (you sing.), thou (you plur.), thy (your), ye (you), yonder (there), etc. The most frequently used archaisms in Ukrainian are as follows: брань (битва), глас (голос), град (місто), гаківниця (гармата), комоні (коні), пахолок (прислужник), спудей (сту­дент), ланіти (щоки).

Neologisms form an equally common subgroup of lexicon in the contrasted languages and they may sometimes coincide in English and Ukrainian (when they are internationalisms). Among these are, for example, clarifier (the hearing aid), advil (medc, pills), AIDS and respictively СНІД. Borrowings like cosmodrome, glasnost, perestroika, Rukh in English and брокер, котон, бартeр, рекет, маркетинг, рокер, etc. in Ukrainian.

Colloquial newly-formed neologisms are characteristic of a national language only. They designate some new notions formed on the basis of previously existing as well as on the basis of previously non-existing denotata. Cf. in English: chocoholic, i. e., sweet tooth — солодун, spiv (black marketeer), sky-mobile/egg-beater (helicopter), Irangate, Ramboism (violence shown in films/on TV), “wellness”, i.e., health (to return patients to “wellness”), wimp, i.e., nonentity (ніщо, нікчема), yuppy, i. e., young upwardly-mobile professional. Similar neologisms, both colloquial and literary, exist in Ukrainian. Cf. «зе­лені» (амер. долари), «аська» (Інтернет-програма), «шкура» (шкіряна куртка).

Closely related to the last group are also individual artistic neolo­gisms created by poets and authors for the sake of expressiveness, like розкрилено (рости), горіти пожежнo, блискітно-горобино, аркодужні мости дружби (Тичина), пісня сонцебризна (Бажан).

Words in all languages can also be classified on the basis of their informational structure/capacity. Accordingly, two types are distingui­shed:

1. Denotative words, which constitute the bulk of each language's lexicon and include the so-called nomenclature words/word-groups, i. e., various terms and professionalisms of unique meaning (cf. elec­tron, motor, miner, tongs, outer space, specific gravity, bus, tailor, football — електрон, реактор, вертоліт, твід, швець, питома вага, космічний простір).

Denotative are also stylistically neutral words: pronouns (he, she, we), numerals (five, ten, twenty); verbs (be, live, love), nouns (mother, sister, cow, horse); adjectives (blue, white, old, young), adverbs (today, soon, well, slowly).

2. Many words in English and Ukrainian may have both denotative and connotative meanings. Thus, the nouns bear, fox, pig, goose, parrot and some others in their stylistically neutral meaning designate definite animals or birds, but when metonymically reinterpreted, they accquire a vituperative (abusive) connotation (cf. the corresponding Ukrainian свиня, собака, папуга, etc.).

Connotative words/word-groups directly or indirectly correlate with their natural denotata, eg: Albion (poet. for England),the Bard of Avon (Shakespeare); Кобзар (Т. Шевченко), Каменяр (І. Франко), дочка Прометея (Л. Українка).

Connotative may become poetisms and neologisms: foe for enemy, kine for cow, dough (slang) for money, mods for admirer of jazz, know-how for skill, chicken (coll.) for baby (boy or girl). Or in Ukrai­nian: чоло (поет.) —лоб, макітра (прост.) —голова, рокер (неол.) —любитель рок-музики.

Stylistically marked in both languages are three more groups of lexical units: 1) ameliorative words: daddy, mummy, sissie, chivalrous, gentleman; матуся, татуньо, козаченько, серденько, голівонька; 2) pejorative (лайливі) words:: blackguard, clown, knave; нікчема, негідник, покидьок, головоріз тощо; 3) constantly neutral words: locksmith, geometry, teacher, love; гімнастика/фізкультура, історія, вчи­тель, коваль, любити i ненавидіти тощо.

The following table sums up the description of the stylistic strata of the contrasted languages

Stylistically-neutral words	Stylistically-marked words
	Informal	Formal
Basic vocabulary	I. Colloquial words	I. Learned words
	A. literary,	A. literary,
	B. familiar,	B. words of scientific prose,
	C. low.	C. officialese,
	II. Slang words.	D. modes of poetic diction.
	III. Dialect words.	II. Archaic and obsolete words.
		III. Professional
		terminology.