Филологические науки/3. Теоретические и методологические проблемы  исследования языка

Петрова Т.А.

Национальный технический университет Украины «КПИ»

TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Terminology is a discipline which systematically studies the labelling or designating of concepts particular to one or more subject fields or domains of human activity. A term is the result of the process of termination and by «term» we denote the unit of termination — a word or a combination of words that expresses a definite scientific conception in the terminological system of the respective branch of science.

The basic principle of terminology formation is to consider the requirements placed upon the scientific term: the precision of meaning, the brevity of form, monosemy, mononimity, contextual independence and emotional neutrality. The term is not always a word or word collocation of a natural language, since it can be occasionally a non-language sign as an element of a special symbolic system. However the conceptual content of this sign requires a special explanation (interpretation or definition) in a natural language.

Concept is a mental representation, which the brain uses to denote a class of things in the world. This is to say that it is literally, a symbol or group of symbols together made from the physical material of the brain. They allow us to draw appropriate inferences about the type of entities we encounter in our everyday lives. They do not encompass all mental representations, but are merely a subset of them. The use of concepts is necessary to cognitive processes such as categorization, memory, decision making, learning, and inference.

So, nowadays terminology is recognized as an independent branch of science, its close links with linguistics determine the dominating role of lingual principles in formation of terminology. The lexical aspect of those principles supposes to respect the specifies of the terminological stratum in the general lexical system of language, the interrelations of terms and non-terms, terminological and general vocabulary, the connections between terminology and concepts.