Terminologijos istorijos ir dabarties problemos

REVIEWS, SURVEYS, INFORMATION, BIBLIOGRAPHY PROBLEMS IN THE HISTORY AND PRESENT OF TERMINOLOGY In memory of Kazimieras Gaivenis Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla, 2004, 380 p. This substantial book on terminology presents itself in a serious yet also lively, engaging guise (artist Alfonsas Žvilius), with a neat layout (Neda Marcinkienė and Audronė Stanislovaitienė)—in publishing scholarly literature, the publishing house of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language stands apart with a distinctive character: it bears a humanistic spirit. Reflections of that spirit shimmer beneath the cover, most of all in Part I—like aged paper—Kazimieras Gaivenis: Man and Scholar (13–82). It was occasioned by the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the birth of the linguist and terminologist (1934–2003). The in memoriam section opens with the recollections of linguist Jolanta Gaivenytė-Butler, drawn from her Father’s stories and notes—about his birthplace, the village of Stūčiai on the northern shore of Lake Tauragnas, family history, childhood, and school years. They are supplemented by photographs of the family home, his parents, little Kaziukas with his even smaller sister, and the bright seventh-grader. Next, arranged alphabetically—though regrettably not chronologically—are recollections interspersed from schoolmates and colleagues, and at the end, excerpts from a classmate’s diary (1953) and K. Gaivenis’s letters to him (1954–1959). The writings of colleagues and fellow workers in terminology are quite varied: here one finds something close to an article summarizing his work and sketching his portrait; something akin to an official report on their collaboration, elevated by such clichés as deeply furrowing the field (26), a significant contribution (32), rays of light (32), and the like; facts about their shared work in terminology, presented with understanding (sometimes already half-forgotten, unexpectedly brought back to life); and the lovely youthful admiration for an older colleague and mentor, his devotion to scholarship, and his scholarly modesty and humanity. The reviewer, who had been asked merely to speak, was then surprised to learn that the recording of spoken memories and impressions was to be turned into a text—I was ready to speak, but putting it into book form seemed impossible; I apologize to those who enjoy edited recollections… The memories of K. Gaivenis’s fellow students warm one with embers still glowing from a distant youth. Thanks to Jonas Ivonis, Romualdas Šimkūnas, Rytis Trimonis; Stasys Keinys, Palmira Zemlevičiūtė; Kostas Ušpalis, Adelė Trečiokaitė, Nijolė Dudlauskienė. It is unclear why, but in one text, without any editorial mark, the dialect words palutarka, kalnierius, galuląškis (the foot of a bed), pagulonė, vandravoti, skaitliukas (45–46) were left in. 151 The scholarly part, Studies in the History and Present of Terminology, opens with a publication of a chapter from Kazimieras Gaivenis’s dissertation, Compound Terms in Contemporary Lithuanian (1969), namely The Presentation and Explanation of Compound Terms in Terminological Dictionaries (85–115), with an English summary (116–117). The data come from 17 dictionaries (1954–1966), but Chapter 1, A Brief Characterization of Lithuanian Terminological Dictionaries (85–89), shows that the author was also familiar with earlier Lithuanian and foreign terminography (in the author’s words, the lexicography of terminological dictionaries). Chapter 2 is devoted to the structure of dictionary entries and the selection of terms. The least touched by the passage of time is undoubtedly Chapter 3, The Explanation of Compound Terms in Lithuanian Terminological Dictionaries (101–113). To date, no Lithuanian linguist has studied the logical aspects of terminology, and especially definitions, as extensively as K. Gaivenis. It discusses dynamic, real, complete, nominal, synonymic, enumerative, comparative or zero, incomplete, referential-lexicographic definitions, and also mentions encyclopedic definitions. Today, incidentally, these are called definitions in terminology, although the systematic (philological) explanation remains in use; cf. explanatory dictionary (and terminological dictionary). It is also interesting and significant that K. Gaivenis then used the term terminic (rather than terminological) meaning (101–104, 107), as well as terminic concept (105, 107), although, regrettably, terminological system (107). K. Gaivenis’s dissertation publication could certainly serve as a guide and standard for today’s doctoral researchers in terminology, and it unquestionably surpasses more than one article in this collection. Of the book’s 22 articles, 18 were prepared on the basis of papers presented at the 2003 international scholarly conference Terminology at the Beginning of the Third Millennium (Abstracts, 2003, 72 pp.), where 22 papers were delivered; the remaining four were written especially for the collection. One case that should be avoided in future also merits mention: apart from the print run and the Lithuanian summary included in the book, Juris Borzovs and Ilze Ilziņa’s article On the Challenges of Coining Terms for Information and Communication Technologies, About the Challenges of Coining ICT Terms (150–157), is entirely identical to the text of the conference abstract (14–20). This does not detract at all from the text itself, which contains a warning of particular value to Lithuanian terminology as well: “<…> English terms are not always sharply distinguished from professional jargon, and this is considered a shortcoming under the requirements applied to Latvian terms” (157). Arnold Toynbee’s word challenge—an undertaking calling for a response also echoed in this paper and several others, though most often in the abstract plural. Perhaps it suited the beginning of the millennium, but three out of a thousand is still a very small beginning—and, after all, what matters most is each concrete response. 152 Valentina Skujiņa’s article Динамика семантики заимствований в условиях многонациональных контактов современной терминологии (with Lithuanian and English abstracts) is also significant for Lithuanian linguistics. The semantic contradictions of international words, because of which they are often called misleading for users—English false friend (or French faux amis du traducteur, German irreführende Fremdwörter)—are unavoidable, while ever-new semantic shifts constantly call for very precise assessments. Iveta Putelė’s article Некоторые особенности образования названий профессий в современном латышском языке (Kai kurie dabartinės latvių kalbos profesijų pavadinimų darybos bruožai) discusses borrowings and their internationalization, and—least of all—Latvian equivalents, but not their formation. Thus, in Lithuanian the term here should be not the daryba of profession names, nor even darymas, but kūrimas (after all, in English too it is name building, not word-formation). In linguistics, terminology (if linguistic) is often regarded as quite separate. In his article Termini un onīmi: dažas kopīgas iezīmes (Termini ir tikriniai vardai: kai kurie bendri bruožai), Latvian linguist Ojārs Busas attempts to find similarities between terms and proper names (onyms), overlooking the claim made by most specialists in onomastics (and perhaps general semasiology) that names have no lexical meaning. Estonian terminology is represented in the collection by only Maire Raadik, with the article Research of the Situation in the Spheres of Estonian Language Usage as a Means for Mapping the LSP Landscape (Estų kalbos vartosenos sričių situacijos tyrimas kaip specialiosios kalbos būklės nustatymo priemonė). Situation studies and the Estonian Language Development Strategy for 2004–2010—its objectives, factors and influences, the goals of special-language planning, and the following statement: “a study of the state of special language should show how to achieve this goal” (293)!.. When a study of how to achieve a goal is inserted between the goal, formulated over a very long period, and its pursuit, does the goal itself not recede even further? Seventeen articles are devoted to Lithuanian terminology. Of course, the subject of Regina Kvašytė’s article Apie lietuvių ir latvių stilistikos terminiją reduces that number by 0.5, although it actually increases the article’s value. But only Kazimieras Župerka could provide an accurate assessment here—as one of the creators and standardizers of Lithuanian stylistics terminology, and as the author of the idea of a contrastive stylistics of Lithuanian and Latvian. In the book, Lithuanian terminologists cover fairly broad and varied fields of their discipline. Stasys Keinys’s substantial article Terminologijos raida, būklė, vaidmuo ir uždaviniai į XXI amžių įžengus. could be called foundational or programmatic. The author 153 sets aside the millennium (mentioning only the millennial boundary), and does not enumerate the challenges. Perhaps he exaggerates some things somewhat disproportionately, but the main matters—incidentally, already matters of the twentieth century—remain in their proper places: terminology has grown enormously, its use has spread widely, and terms are moving from the peripheries of the language (or perhaps the lexicon?) system toward the center (although, of course, this applies not to all terminology, but to its core). The final phrases—“it remains to believe” and “must preserve” (237)—in current circumstances, of course, have a rather narrow and very gloomy concrete meaning: “terminologists have only themselves to believe in” and “linguists alone must preserve it.” If this most abnormal situation does not change very soon, then the third millennium may, within two or three generations, irretrievably bring an end to the “Lithuanian spirit of the Lithuanian language.” A half-language may remain, but it will be for a half-nation… A second substantial and significant article, though on a different subject—the history of Lithuanian terminology—is Albina Auksoriūtė’s Neaiškios darybos L. Ivinskio Prigimttumenės naujazodžiai. These are neologisms that cannot be considered transparent formations (they were, after all, made somehow, but both the formation and the resulting words are unclear), because they lack clear formal indicators of word formation—a base word and motivation—even though some endings recur and one can discern some obscure, incomprehensible base, for example: bandonis, drūžmas, griedmas, gryntas, krūmlys, lemėtras, lūšvis, svirpstas, skamotis, sunkris, vaiklas, žyblonis. The author’s well-known formulation, “did not form [them], but simply invented [them]” (148), will still face the test, but any prospective examiner will have to study this article of hers carefully. Third, the article by the young terminologist Irma Zeller, Terminų atpažinimo tekstyne galimybės ir ypatumai., should be singled out. The article itself also has its particular features. The first is the considerable difference from the report’s theoretical (?) premises. The report began as follows: “At the turn of the millennium, terminology finds itself at an impasse: on the one hand, the immense surge in new terms makes it impossible to encompass and standardize this object of study by traditional means; on the other, as scientific, economic and political life accelerates and the active transfer of knowledge between disciplines takes place, actual language use outpaces the available lists of terms. Thus, in terminology, what matters is not the creation of terms but their use. Shifting attention from the creation of terms to the use of terms already created fundamentally changes terminological work, since both the sources and methods of terminology change. Large-scale electronic collections of texts—corpora—become the primary source of terminology” (Pranešimų tezės, 58). Thus, what was declared here was… a terminological catastrophe—an impasse, the impossibility of standardizing; even creating terms no longer matters (perhaps it is not even necessary); and if what matters most 154 If usage is taken into account, then the most important figure in terminology is not the creator of terminology, nor its researcher, but… the user? But was the presentation given by a user, or rather by a doctoral candidate? The article either removes or softens this point, but the following remains: “Thus, the actual use of a term often does not correspond to its definition—or, in a broader sense, to the norm” (314). However, what has gone unsaid becomes clear: the subject of that queenly usage is no specialist in any particular field who, together with their subject, is also familiar with its terminology. The subject exists independently of that transfer, too. “The sudden transfer of terms to other fields and their use with different meanings in various contexts of specialist language” is not “an old problem in terminology” (314). Terms have long been transferred—from mathematics to physics, from chemistry to technology, from biology to agriculture, food technology, and so on—not without problems, but without tragic grimaces and without apparatus for automatically recognizing terms. The author’s (genuine) problem is caused by other developments in terminology in modern times, not in its creation but in its use: the broad and rapid flow of the terminologies of various sciences (in her words, their transfer) into everyday life—economics, politics, law—and their translation. Terminology in a specialist field does not change; it is not the primary users who change the terms, but secondary users, such as the authors and translators of legal acts, for whom that terminology is terra incognita. They do not call in specialists or consult terminological dictionaries. We have seen the results!.. And corrected them. Those who cannot recognize terms in a text without a machine—because they cannot make sense of it—try to learn to recognize them… in an even less straightforward way: they compile a corpus, devise some term-recognition program, disparage “traditional terminology,” but… return to it—“by comparison with existing dictionaries, term banks, or data in another language” (326). This is no worshipper, dear colleague; this is the competent arbiter! And what will you compare against if a terminological dictionary for a particular field does not yet exist (not even in another language)? The conclusion is entirely unacceptable: “<…> the process of standardizing, approving, or simply recognizing terms should begin with <…> corpus research using modern (semi-)automatic tools” (328). Render unto Jupiter what is Jupiter’s—focus on “2) the field of translation, 3) information retrieval in electronic texts,” but not on “1) practical and theoretical terminology” (316). Let us descend from the heavens to earth and take a look at more concrete studies. Quite a few of them concern the history of terminology. Angelė Kaulakienė’s article Factors Affecting the Establishment of Physics Terms reflects a desire for modernity: the author even expresses the dependence of the time required for establishment on the number of synonymous and variant forms as a formula. But the factors themselves—linguistic (correctness, precision, clarity), interlinguistic, and extralinguistic—are merely listed, not examined. 155 From the same field is Palmira Zemlevičiūtė’s substantial article “Medical Terms in ‘The Home Doctor’,” as well as Robertas Gedrimas’s Compound Names of Flowering Plants in Jurgis Ambraziejus Pabrėža’s Work “Tayslos augumyynis” (though it is unclear why Pabrėža’s terms that are still used today are called contemporary). The range of topics in this field is broadened by Gita Kazlauskaitė’s short article Features of Antonymy in Phonetic Terminology. In Genovaitė Irtmonienė and Albina Pribušauskaitė’s article Trends in the Coining of Sports Terms and Problems of Their Use, historical aspects are merely mentioned, while the entire analysis is based on the data and subject matter of the Dictionary of Sports Terms (1996 and 2002). There is also a genuine novelty here: Giedrė Čepaitienė and Regina Kvašytė’s article A Dictionary of Livonian Studies: Criteria for Selecting and Defining Terms. The subject is quite new not only to readers, but perhaps to the authors as well: they state that “terms needed in this field are used in works from various scientific disciplines” (179); many have been supplied with definitions, but the content of concepts—the basis of terms—may differ across related sciences. Does this new field not need to establish those contents and define concepts in its own way, rather than criticize those who could not have had such an aim? Several articles in the collection were written by terminologists who are not linguists. In the article Terms in Stasys Dabušis’s Popular Science Publications, physicist Eglė Makariūnienė and linguist Angelė Kaulakienė survey many works by this linguist, editor, and translator, who earned and cultivated a varied reputation; they examine the terms used in them and conclude that of the physics and technology terms he proposed, atšvaitas, mygtukas, kištukas, skaičiuoklis. have become established. The short article Problems in Standardizing Anatomical Terms by three authors—Loreta Alešiūnaitė, Vytautas Gedrimas, and Elena Molyte—begins with a fairly lengthy overview of the creation and standardization of Lithuanian human anatomical nomenclature. Here, too, there are ambiguities and even repetition, for example: “The article aims not only to review changes in anatomical terms, but also to note the principle of stability, <...>” (118, first paragraph). “In this study, we want not only to review changes in anatomical terms, but also to keep the principle of stability in view” (120, second paragraph). The aim of “raising some issues for consideration” (118) is almost confined to raising them. Some claims, moreover, are sorely lacking in precision. The following claim is very strange: “pa- is used when a location along and beneath an object is indicated, e.g.: paausinė liauka, padangtė (smegenėlių), panosės vagelė, pasmakrė, pasmilk­nys, pažandinė liauka, pažandinis mazgas, etc.; po- is used when indicating something located beneath an object’s lower- 156 …in this area, for example: infraorbital suture, infraorbital foramen, infraorbital groove, nucleus of the hypoglossal nerve, hyoid bone, subscapular artery, subcutaneous sac, subclavian muscle, subcortical center, etc.” (120). There are no much-needed definitions here, but the definitions of the meanings of the derivatives proposed by the authors would suggest that the hyoid bone is not beneath the tongue, but at the bottom of the tongue—that is, still within the tongue itself—and that a subcutaneous sac is in the skin!.. It is very strange that the location beneath is expressed by pa- rather than po- (cf. požemis, pagrindis, poodis); pa- also denotes a different location—alongside—although in this case the more usual and clearer form is prie- (priekritūnis, prievartis). The literature is not always cited precisely; for example: “The second volume of the academic Grammar of the Lithuanian Language states that present passive adjectival participles are generally used to form terms in various fields (LKG 1971: 337–343)” (120). The cited section of LKG is entitled Present Passive Participles; the adjectival forms are discussed over several pages, but statements about them occur only on pages 339 and 340. The authors say: “<…> we have observed that this instruction is not always followed” (120), but they already also discuss active participles and, moreover, immediately lump in another issue without any explanation—the distinction or lack of distinction between participle types. There are many examples, but the conclusion is unclear. They discuss the rule governing the linking vowel in compounds and analogy, then conclude with an unclear statement: “Perhaps the principles of term formation also have a historical tradition that is not to be changed” (122). There is much and inconsistent citation, but this criticism is also unnecessary and incorrect: “The literature we have read leads us to conclude that linguists do not agree on when to use -inis, -ė and when to use the genitive case in a multiword term” (123). Perhaps we have read more of that literature and understood it better: linguists have clearly specified when to use one and when the other, and also a third option—when both are possible (grammatical synonymy)—which is not a language error. Of course, a terminologist must make a choice, but this cannot be done without term definitions (the meanings must be distinguished!) and analysis of microsystems. Linguistic phenomena have clear boundaries, but there are also transitional zones (gray areas). Not understanding this, the three authors get lost in them and express their dissatisfaction with linguists… Jurgita Mikelionienė’s short article The Variety of Synonyms and Word-Formation Devices in Contemporary Lithuanian Philosophy may be no more than exploratory work and practice, important perhaps only to the author, in the well-trodden field of corpus linguistics. Stasys Zajankauskas’s article Let Us Manage Terms Responsibly, Not Haphazardly or Recklessly lives up to its title: it contains many commands and exhortations, many negations and bare assertions that cannot be assessed without arguments, and quite a few snap judgments and ill-founded proposals. For instance, key word can be rendered as “significant,” “main,” or “essential” word, or “essence-word.” But “key word” is probably the most precise, as is “key concept.” 157 It is quite wrong to suggest that “for some linguists, the only thing that usually matters is that a word be Lithuanian and correctly stressed” (305). In fact, the accuracy of terms is primarily the responsibility of subject specialists, but when an inaccuracy is obvious to linguists, it is never simply “left for subject specialists to decide” (305). The claim that leidžiamoji (instead of leistinoji) srovė means a current “that is usually allowed through some element” (308) is nonsense. First, no such concept (no such type of current) exists; second, anyone who takes up a topic in grammar needs to read and understand it. The disorganized presentation also makes a poor impression. For example, value is discussed both at the end of the subsection Managing Terms Recklessly (306) and in the subsection Let Us Not Rush to Change Well-Established Terms (307), even though there is a separate subsection, On the Meaning and Value of Terms (310–311). The points that terms should not be changed unnecessarily and that odd coinages should not be created are sound (and the examples are apt), but, regrettably, with some unsupported assertions, the author fails to substantiate either his own exhortations or the most important and correct point of all: “term management is, after all, a scholarly undertaking” (311). Valerijonas Žalkauskas’s remarks On Polytechnic Terminology are similar: when someone who is not a linguist ventures into extensive linguistic discussion, inaccuracies are inevitable—and in a book on linguistics, at that! Concerning the suffix -tis, it should be recalled that this is the third most productive suffix for verbal abstracts, or action nouns (atimtis, baigtis, išpažintis, mirtis, slinktis, šlytis, tartis, trintis,... LKG I 291), although some derivatives (klūtis, stotis) also have a concrete meaning; it ranks only ninth in productivity among derivatives denoting the result of an action (įkaištis, paplotis, sviltys 373), and it is also a fairly common suffix in names of instruments (dangtis, kamštis, lankstis, raištis, skląstis 387). Stasys Žebrauskas and Rimantas Jonas Mukulys chose a good topic—The Electrical Engineering Terms of Professor Leonas Kaulakis: research into the history of the development of terminology in a particular field depends greatly on scientific expertise in that field. Finally, Renata Maslauskienė’s article Term Standardization should be mentioned. It reviews and illustrates in Fig. 6 qualitative indicators of the terminology work of the Lithuanian Standards Department. Yet the review reveals neither linguistic issues nor quality criteria. Both are much needed. Conclusions The collection of terminology articles Problems in the History and Present-Day Practice of Terminology (2004), which stands out considerably in size, largely passes the test of scholarly rigor. But there is also a smaller portion… The editor is Albina Auksoriūtė, and 158 The editor, Stasys Keinys, it seems, set a trap for himself already while preparing the conference: when there is no sieve, even chaff gets through. Of course, much was sifted out while preparing the book. Besides, since the articles are arranged alphabetically, the chaff is less noticeable. But if the conference (not the abstracts) was not alphabetical, why is the collection alphabetical? Perhaps the Editor’s modesty is also to blame, but it is certainly excessive and unnecessary—the sections could have been arranged by topic rather than merit. For the future, other solutions could also be considered; for instance, so that the sieve would not be completely impenetrable to some, a seminar component could be included in the conference. If the assessment is narrowed to Lithuanian terminology, it is also worth noting what is very much in evidence: the branch of computer terminology. Yet neither it nor anyone else gives much thought to whether this is some new method of terminology or merely a technical tool, although it is customary and undisputed that methods are only ways of carrying out linguistic analysis. In assessing the present (and critically), we look to the future with hope for a straight path. But it is uphill—only uphill. Jonas KLIMAVIČIUS Received 2005-11-28 Institute of the Lithuanian Language 5 Vileišio St., LT-10308 Vilnius Email: [email protected] 159