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.