2.5.2. Recognition of Terminological Units

In specialized languages, the term is a linguistic unit made of a single word or of a word combination, and is usually associated with the same conventional definition when used by speakers of a given specialized language. A terminological unit may also be a symbol, a chemical or mathematical formula, a scientific name in Latin, an acronym, an initialism, or the official title of an organization, an administrative entity or an individual's workingtitle (see also GORODETSKY 1990: 117).

Examples

Single word: proliferation
Word combination: nonproliferation treaty
Acronym: UNESCO
Symbol: JMP (an instruction in assembly language programming)
Chemical/Mathematical formula: H₂O

Here are some clues that may help you identify a term:

• The word or combination of words is consistently associated with the same concept.
• The word or combination of words is consistently used within a particular subject field.
• The combination of words is relatively lexicalized.
• The word or combination of words recurs in your documentation.
• The word or combination of words is set off by typographical devices such as italics, boldface print, or quotation marks.
• 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.
• The word seems to have a specific meaning within the subject field and is not part of general vocabulary.
• The word or combination of words may have synonyms or abbreviations.
• 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.

Intensive textual analysis of the documentation available in a given subject field will help you observe what terminology is used. Over time, your ability to recognize terminological units will gradually improve. Eventually, you will notice that simple terms have a tendency to expand into complex ones in order to designate more and more subordinated concepts (for example, control, controller, graphics controller, AGP30-compliant graphics controller), until finally the complex terms contract into abbreviations (for example, AGP30 means Advanced Graphic Port-30; KBMS means Knowledge-Based Management System), some of which become simple terms (for example, radar).