LEXICAL AND SEMANTICAL PARADIGM OF SYNONYMIC PAIRS OF ENGLISH EPONYMIC TERMS IN CLINICAL TERMINOLOGY Cover Image

ЛЕКСИКО-СЕМАНТИЧНА ПАРАДИГМА СИНОНІМІЧНИХ ПАР АНГЛІЙСЬКИХ ТЕРМІНІВ-ЕПОНІМІВ В КЛІНІЧНІЙ ТЕРМІНОЛОГІЇ
LEXICAL AND SEMANTICAL PARADIGM OF SYNONYMIC PAIRS OF ENGLISH EPONYMIC TERMS IN CLINICAL TERMINOLOGY

Author(s): Stegnitska Liubov
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Lexis, Semantics, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Видавництво ВДНЗ України « Буковинський державний медичний університет »
Keywords: synonyms; equivalents; doublets; variants; eponym; English medical terminology;

Summary/Abstract: This article highlights the problem of synonymic pair functioning in English clinical terminology. With the development of medicine as a science, the plethora of clinical terms, especially eponyms, has increased during the last decade. The proliferation of eponyms and their synonyms into scientific terminology entail certain problems dealing with its standardization and unification. In the field of linguistics synonyms defined to be the words semantically identical in meaning. We state that synonymic pairs containing a proper component supposed relatively be subdivided into doublets, equivalents, and variants. In English clinical terminology, the following definitions stated to be acceptable: doublets are the terms coined of Greek and Latin components with identical meaning but describing phenomenon from different specialized medical points (e.g. Quincke ́s edema – angioedema – angioneurotic edema); equivalents, in their turn, are the words with the same meaning but realized by different morphological forms (e.g. exophtalmic goiter – Begbie disease – Stokes disease – Parson’s disease – Flajani disease – March’s disease – Flajani-Parry-Graves-von Basedov disease.). And finally, variants are the forms of the same name which are identical in meaning but differ phonetically and graphically (e.g. Abrikosov’s tumour – Abrikosov tumour – (Abrikosoff ‘s) tumour ). We suppose that some elliptic and abbreviated forms also treated as the variants of the eponyms (e.g. Germann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome – GSS syndrome). It is necessary to point out that absolute (identical meaning) and near (partial or similar meaning) synonyms are also to be encountered in the clinical terminology (e.g. Epstein-Barr virus – it is the reason resulted in disease mononucleosis). The linguists treat synonymy to be the negative phenomenon in scientific terminology, but we need to note that synonymic pairs are likely to be necessary for picking the optimal variant out. The reasons for synonym rise stipulated by some intro and extra-linguistic factors among which are science development, borrowings, problems with standardization of the clinical terminology which is not static, etc.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 76-78
  • Page Count: 3
  • Language: Ukrainian