1.2.2. What is Terminology?

You are probably already familiar with one of the meanings of the term terminology, which is "the set of special words belonging to a science, an art, an author, or a social entity," as in, "the terminology of medicine" or "the terminology used by computer specialists."

In this tutorial, you will be learning mainly about another sense of the term, that is "the language discipline dedicated to the scientific study of the concepts and terms used in specialized languages."

While general language is that used in daily life, a specialized language is used by subject-matter specialists to facilitate unambiguous communication in a particular area of knowledge, based on the terminology and phraseology specific to that area. The terminologist is a specialist in this discipline, just as a lexicographer is a specialist in lexicography, the "discipline dedicated to the collection and study of the forms and meanings of the words of a given language."

Specialized languages target the ideal of monosemy (each term designates only one concept), but they are nonetheless a set of evolving social conventions. Consequently, they include linguistic variants and exhibit different levels (formal, technical jargon, popular), just as general language does. As a rule, terminologists do not work in general language, but they must have a very good knowledge of its semantics, grammar and word-formation rules in order to be able to distinguish between such variants.

Terminology is part of applied linguistics, a branch of linguistics that includes work in specialized lexicography, specialized translation, technical writing, and language teaching. In fact, these four professional applications of linguistics are closely related:

• specialized translation requires mastery of specialized bilingual or multilingual terminologies;
• technical writing consists of using these terminologies in monolingual discourse;
• the teaching of specialized languages focuses on the acquisition of special vocabularies by the student; and
• the institutional practice of comparative terminology and of its phraseological component takes place in a translation environment.