Abstract
The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the term definition modelling by means of information blocks, as well as singling out key words and expressions as key language units for their construction drawing on the example of the Russian-language nanotechnology, political and ecological terms and their definitions in specialized (terminological) dictionaries. There are main and additional information blocks in term definitions. The authors consider the structure of definition of each term from the selected corpus of 350 units from Nanotechnology, Political and Ecological spheres, determine the key language units which verbalize the systemic relations between related notions realized in the corresponding term definitions. As a result of the analysis some of the most productive Russian key language units for definition construction were defined. The authors come to the conclusion that the specificity of each type of information blocks is correlated with the systemic relations that exist between terms of a certain field of knowledge, regardless of its scientific-technical, socio-political or ecological nature. The lexical composition of an information block can vary and include both terms, conceptually connected with the defining lexeme (directly or indirectly), and general lexis units. All main information blocks are commonly used in Nanotechnology, Political Science and Ecology definitions.
Keywords: Definitionecologyinformation blocknanotechnologypolitical science,term
Introduction
Nowadays the language of science plays an important role in the study of different academic and professional disciplines, for example, Political Science and Ecology. According to the opinion of a number of researchers, it is the definition that is a specific obligatory feature of a term (Danilenko, 1977; Kandelaki, 1977; Popova, 2011). Definition reflects specific features of the described notion, which makes it possible to differentiate this or that particular notion from the others, it contains a minimal volume of information necessary for delimitation of one notion from the other. “A technical term is considered to be “the name” of a notion while a definition is the extended comprehensive interpretation of this name” (Superanskaya, Podol’skaya, & Vassil’eva, 2012, p. 14; Razduev, Latu, & Mironenko, 2015). One of the mechanisms for the study of the content of a notion presented in the definition of the term is definition modelling (Smirnova, 2011).
Problem Statement
The definitions of Nanotechnology, Political Science and Ecology terms have not yet been studied thoroughly enough from the viewpoint of the presence of main and additional information blocks. Their key language units in nanotechnology, political and ecological term definitions have not been identified and described.
Research Questions
The first question is to identify the specificity of main and additional information blocks in such fields of knowledge, as Nanotechnology, Political Science and Ecology and determine the frequency of use of these blocks. The second question is to analyze the lexical composition of each type of information block and identify the most productive language units that are frequently used for the construction of the information blocks in Nanotechnology, Political Science and Ecology term definitions.
Purpose of the Study
The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of definition modeling by means of the prototypic information blocks of different types. The analysis is aimed at defining the information blocks in the definitions of nanotechnology, political and ecological terms and the most productive key language units that are used to build them. The study and modelling of definitions of nanotechnology, political and ecological terms will help to eliminate uncertainty in the use of terms, minimize any misunderstanding between scientists by means of constructing “right” definitions and standardization, bring mutual understanding, unity and cooperation in the corresponding spheres, improve the efficiency of studying the phenomena of these fields of knowledge and communication between scientists around the world.
Research Methods
At the first stage nanotechnology, political and ecological terms and their definitions were selected. Then the structural and component analysis and modelling of the definitions have been carried out that helped to identify the main and additional semantic definition blocks in their structure. At the second stage, more or less frequently used key language units of these definition blocks have been singled out. The comparative analysis has been used to see if there are some common and different features of definition construction by means of prototypic information blocks in the spheres of Nanotechnology, Political Science and Ecology.
Each mental category of academic concepts predetermines the specificity of its definition. The definition can be structured and divided into prototypical information blocks according to the transmitted data. All information blocks in definition can be subdivided into 1)
Findings
Information block of
Information block of
Main information block of
Information block of
Information block of
Main information block of
The
Main information block of
Information block of
Information block of
Information block of
Information block of
The block of
Conclusion
Thus, the specificity of each type of information blocks is correlated with the systemic relations that exist between terms of a certain field of knowledge. The lexical composition of an information block can vary and include both terms, conceptually connected with the defining lexeme (directly or indirectly), and general lexis units. The structural and component analysis and modelling of the definitions of the selected terms helped to identify the most productive language units that are frequently used for the construction of each type of information blocks. These linguistic markers coincide in the spheres of Nanotechnology, Political Science and Ecology. All main information blocks are commonly used in Nanotechnology, Political Science and Ecology definitions. Additional information blocks are usually represented in all three spheres by the blocks of examples and of additional information. Less common definition blocks are of opposition, of analogy, of subsumming concepts.
Acknowledgments
The authors express their gratitude to the Russian Federation Ministry of science and higher education (project No. 075-02-2018-713) and the Russian Federation President Council on Grants for governmental support for young Russian scientists that financially supported the study.
References
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Publication Date
20 April 2020
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978-1-80296-082-2
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European Publisher
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83
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1st Edition
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Discourse analysis, translation, linguistics, interpretation, cognition, cognitive psychology
Cite this article as:
Latu, M. N., Razduyev, A. V., & Konovalova, M. V. (2020). Information Blocks And Their Key Language Units In Term Definitions. In A. Pavlova (Ed.), Philological Readings, vol 83. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 406-412). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.04.02.45