Elitism și democratizare în limbajul matematic
Elitism and Democratization in the Mathematical Lexicon

Summary/Abstract: Unlike the common discourse, the scientific lexicon is characterized by the interference of the verbal and non-linguistic communication elements; besides the linguistic elements, general or specific symbols appear, along with schemes, figures, drawings etc. without which understanding of the message is not possible. The terms in the natural language are always accompanied by signs and symbols, which contributes to greater accessibility of the specialized language of mathematics, but not so much as to be able to speak of a democratization of it. Mathematical language retains its elitist, esoteric character, at least for the general public, without thorough training in this field. The present study aims to determine to what extent the specialized language of mathematics opens to the common lexicon, thus to what extent is mathematics willing to renounce the elitism and hermetism of the specialized language it uses in favor of democratization and, therefore, its accessibility. Thus, we have identified at least four distinct situations: the first category includes specialized monosemantic terms, to which DEX 09 indicates either explicitly or by definition the membership of the domain Mathematics (Mat.). This series includes, for example, abscissa, alienation, fraction, obtuse, and so on. The second class includes the majority terms that migrated from the common lexicon to the specialized lexicon of mathematics - such as absolute, similar, ordinary etc. Some terms appear, however, in syntagms that lately have been limited to the field of mathematics, such as common denominator, mathematical analysis, compositional artifice, power up, and so forth. The class of terms in the specialized lexicon of mathematics, which entered the common lexicon (area, diametral, circle, hexagon, pentagon, angle, etc.) also benefited from an etymological analysis, as well as references to the meanings developed especially in literary texts, as they appear in the DLRLC (1955-1957). The fourth category contains terms that migrated from the specialized language of mathematics to other specialized languages and vice versa: addition (Chim), affix (Gram.), Amplitude (Fiz.), Arc (Mil, Anat.). The following conclusions are warranted: mathematics shows its resistance to the democratization of the lexicon, primarily because of the use of nonlinguistic language, more user-friendly, more economical; the specialized lexicon of mathematics avoids expressing nuances, to the detriment of accessibility: mathematicians talk to themselves and themselves! However, there is a difference between the general specialized discourse of mathematics and the didactic discourse, since, as a rule, the most commonly used terms have migrated to the common lexicon.

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