Extralinguistic Factors of Terms Coining

Abstract

The article deals with the analysis of the principles of the technical terms coining process. The hypothesis is that some common and particular linguistic features of technical terms such as term formation types, peculiarities of structure and semantics, the choice of specific term elements to coin new technical terms in certain cases for some terminologies may stem from and be a result of causes that have extralinguistic nature. The latter presumes the specificity of various sciences that makes them unique in their historical development and the adjacency to certain spheres of academic knowledge, as well as the peculiarities of objects that are studied or produced and types of notions that predominate, etc. Consequently the main goal of the study is to detect and describe the most common extralinguistic factors that have a strong potential to influence the technical terms coining process. To define the extralinguistic factors a comparative analysis of contemporary developing terminologies and the spheres of academic knowledge they express that are among the most promising fields of contemporary science is carried out. These include space research, information technology, nanotechnology, military science, ecology, genetics and some others from which the author draws most of the examples to illustrate and support his point of view. The study helped to define 8 extralinguistic factors. Among them are the place of origin and active development of science in the course of history, unique peculiarities such as size when objects under study have small dimensions, the degree of novelty and uniqueness of newly defined notions, theoretical or applied character of a science, cataloging and serial production, principles and methods of dealing with objects including observation and production, the adjacency and interaction of certain sciences that results in borrowing of technical terms as term elements. The article discusses the correlations between the extralinguistic factors and linguistic aspects of technical terms formation.