Article published In: Terminology, Ideology and Discourse
Edited by Katia Peruzzo and Paola Catenaccio
[Terminology 30:1] 2024
► pp. 11–34
Term circulation and connotation
A corpus-based study of connotative meanings of terms through the lens of determinologisation
Published online: 18 July 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00075.hum
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00075.hum
Abstract
This paper investigates the connotations that terms from the field of particle physics acquire when they
determinologise. Based on a study performed on a comparable corpus composed of texts that represent various specialised,
semi-specialised, and non-specialised communicative settings in French, different types of connotations are identified. The
analysis sheds light on the diversity of positive and negative connotations terms can carry in semi-specialised and
non-specialised texts, and the multiple factors that can influence the emergence of these connotations are discussed.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical background
- 2.1Term circulation and determinologisation
- 2.2When terms take on new connotations
- 3.Observing connotations in a corpus: Methodological considerations
- 3.1The principles of Textual Terminology
- 3.2Corpus and tools
- 3.3Connotation analysis
- 4.Results and discussion
- 4.1Distributional clues indicative of positive connotations
- 4.1.1Interactions with medicine
- 4.1.2Exaggeration of the extraordinary features of certain concepts
- 4.2Distributional clues indicative of religious connotations
- 4.3Distributional clues indicative of negative connotations
- 4.3.1General idea of danger
- 4.3.2Interaction with fiction
- 4.4Role of journalists and other vectors of scientific information
- 4.1Distributional clues indicative of positive connotations
- 5.Concluding remarks and future work
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
References
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