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Part of
Theoretical Perspectives on Terminology: Explaining terms, concepts and specialized knowledge
Edited by Pamela Faber and Marie-Claude L'Homme
[Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice 23] 2022
► pp. 197–216

Chapter 9
Cultural Terminology

An introduction to theory and method

| Académie Africaine des Langues

The aim of Cultural Terminology is not the international harmonization of multilingual terminologies but the appropriation of knowledge and know-how by a specific speaker community rooted in its culture. Cultural Terminology puts the human being at the center of the terminological process. The human being, both as an individual and a community, is a cultural being who constantly creates culture through a mechanism of appropriation of the new as they learn and explore their environment. An in-depth analysis of this mechanism reveals the concept as an idealized mental representation, culturally motivated in its perception. Each concept can be perceived from several viewpoints called percepts. A precise methodology is outlined for terminology works and finally some examples of application are mentioned.

Keywords: Cultural Terminology, appropriation, culture, language planning, concept, percept, denomination
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Origin and purpose of Cultural Terminology
    • 1.1A Terminology for development
    • 1.2The dynamic process of appropriation
    • 1.3From reconceptualization to naming
  • 2.Basic principles of Cultural Terminology
    • 2.1Historicity
    • 2.2Base of experiences and knowledges
    • 2.3Memory
    • 2.4Appropriation of the new
    • 2.5Growth of the culture
    • 2.6Culture
  • 3.Conceptualization, naming, and cultural perception
    • 3.1Meaning and concept in denomination
    • 3.2Concept and object class
    • 3.3Denomination and cultural perceptions
      • 3.3.1Diversity in the observation of reality
      • 3.3.2Polysemy and prototypical organization of meaning
      • 3.3.3Concepts and the signified or percepts
  • 4.Methodology in Cultural Terminology
    • 4.1The socio-professional framework
      • 4.1.1The scale
      • 4.1.2The sector
      • 4.1.3The target
    • 4.2Data collection
      • 4.2.1Establishing the source
      • 4.2.2Establishing the target
      • 4.2.3Sources of information and documentation
    • 4.3Establishing the equivalents
      • 4.3.1Perfect equivalents and quasi-equivalents
      • 4.3.2Identification of concepts without equivalents
      • 4.3.3Processing variants
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
Published online: 14 June 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tlrp.23.09dik
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Elbaz, Pascale & Elpida Loupaki
2023. Terminologie collaborative: analyse d'un projet inter-universitaire outillé en contexte européen. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 38:Supplement_1 ► pp. i48 ff. DOI logo
L’Homme, Marie-Claude
2023. Managing polysemy in terminological resources*. Terminology. International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Issues in Specialized Communication DOI logo

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