Chapter 19
Diachronic variation
The use of the diachronic perspective to study specialised terms and concepts is a research area which has long been under-exploited in Terminology. Until very recently, studies on specialised terminologies were carried out only from a synchronic perspective, which is still predominant, although the use of the diachronic perspective is now less marginal. Specialised diachrony, i.e., the many changes occurring in terms and concepts over time should be considered as an integral part of term variation. Moreover, it gives access to terminological knowledge which is not often described when studied in synchrony, and it also provides knowledge about the conceptual structuring of specialised fields.
Article outline
- 1.The slow emergence of an interest in diachronic variation
- 1.1The predominance of the synchronic perspective in early research work
- 1.2The late legitimization of the diachronic perspective
- 2.The nature of specialised diachrony
- 3.The corpus-based study of diachronic variation, a new territory to explore
- 3.1The use of dictionaries to explore diachronic variation
- 3.2The pitfalls and limits of exploring diachronic variation in specialised corpora
- 4.Conclusion
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Notes