Fachsprache und Grammatikographie im 18. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag Zur Geschichte Der Terminologielehre
Summary
The understanding and usage of linguistic terminology in 18th-century grammatical writings on the German language cannot be separated from concepts of technical languages as developed in contemporary logic. No list of existing linguistic terminology during the period will be given here, but the theoretical status of technical language in grammars – as one branch of language-study – and philosophy, especially logic, as well as the relation between both will be discussed. Special attention is paid to the authors’ ideas about the general necessity and aim of technical languages, the characteristics of a given technical language, the relationship of technical terms and their counterparts in every-day language use. According to the teaching of contemporary logicians, technical language constitutes a specific level of language-usage accomodating to the needs of specific scholarly fields and has to be clearly distinguished from every-day usage. Basically three possibilities of establishing technical terms were recognized: introduction of a new term, re-definition of an already existing lexical item, and borrowing of a term from another language.
The grammarians in the period under discussion can be divided into three categories according to their attitude towards linguistic terminology: (1) writers who do not comment upon this topic and who seem to use the traditional terms without further reflection, (2) writers who mention the existence of technical languages without applying this awareness to their works, (3) writers who comment on the characteristics of grammatical terminology, primarily on the role of Latin terminology, and the relationship between every-day language and technical language, and who explicitly or implicitly refer to the logicians’ concepts. One difference between the two fields remains, however: the philosophers justify the necessity of a technical language on a general level with its role in perception, the grammarians deal with specific problems arising directly from problems of linguistic description and its application in language-teaching.