Cognitive Approaches to Specialist Languages

Cluster Equivalence, General Language, Language for Specific Purposes

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status of terms, are used to refer to an area of the outside world, well-known
to all the interactants in the same or identical communication act. Term
concepts are often shared by interactants and appear in identical domains
both in mono- and bi-lingual communication types (Temmerman 2000,
Cabré 2003). In order to identify the terminological pools in a certain
domain and compare it both with the data from general language on the
one hand and with the terms as used in another language, studies of the
terms’ textual environment, i.e., context, must be performed.
Furthermore, as proposed by traditional terminology researchers, terms
are considered to refer to unambiguously delineated concepts and
meanings and their scope is rather prescribed than described (e.g., Wüster
1979), as noted in Keeremans (2016). And yet, even in such contexts, the
possibility of cross-linguistic asymmetry is very strong and the
communication has an approximate character, notwithstanding the
presence of the contextual domain shared by the interactants.
What takes place in such contexts is the activation and use of clusters
of meanings of one domain in one language and clusters of meanings in
the same/equivalent domain in another one, whose forms are recognized as
equivalent. One such example includes formulaic expressions and terms
typical of a particular domain such as e.g., the term specific weight in
English and its Polish equivalent ciĊĪar wáaĞciwy. Data supporting this can
be identified in parallel corpus materials:

(1) specific weight or weight of one thousand kernels (10 %)

(1a) ciĊĪar wáaĞciwy lub ciĊĪar tysiąca sztuk ziarna (10 %)

(2) one kilogram per hectolitre as regards specific weight, which must not,

however, be less than 64 kg/hl

(2a) 1 kilogram na hektolitr ciĊĪaru wáaĞciwego, który jednak nie moĪe byü

niĪszy niĪ 64 kilogramów na hektolitr

But even here the equivalence patterns are not fully symmetric as
exemplified in (3).

(3) Dane wyjĞciowe mogą obejmowaü na przykáad wagĊ związków, mnoĪniki

przeliczeniowe do okreĞlania wagi pierwiastków, ciĊĪar wáaĞciwy, stĊĪenie

pierwiastków, stosunki izotopowe, związek miĊdzy odczytami objĊtoĞci i

manometru

(3a) Source data may include, for example, weight of compounds, conversion

factors to determine weight of element, specific gravity, element

concentration, isotopic ratios, relationship between volume and

manometer readings and relationship between plutonium.