Dėl mokslo terminų vienareikšmiškumo supratimo

4 7Terminology | 2013 | 20 On the understanding of the unambiguity of scientific terms StaSyS KeinyS Essential words: term, scientific term, terminology, unambiguity When I sat down to write this article, the words of the poet Česlovas Milošas came out of some of literature from Teniškis (from Kalnãberžė) is almost the same as having it memory: „<...> to name and lock a bird in the wingspans of a writer, a professor forever“ (Milošas 1991: 124). He thought that the idea might fit into a broader discussion of terms. Because over the five decades that I have been directly involved with terms and terminology, I have repeatedly heard and read that the term should be the same not only for all users, but almost forever. The same in terms of expression and meaning, i.e., like the name of the bird, with one expression and one meaning. Here are two of the many possible evidences of this. First. Exactly one hundred years ago, at the general meeting of the Lithuanian Scientific Society (now our Academy of Sciences), the doctor of the people, in popular terms, Kazys Grinius, explaining “What can be demanded from scientific terminology?”, first mentioned: “That each understanding should have one name, one word, because the term of science is a true nomen proprium and there must be only one”1 (Grinius 1914: 432–433). The second testimony is this: “The term is just a tiny quotation. According to the rules of citation, the term must remain the same in all scientific works in a certain field of knowledge,” – this is how the philologist Yuriy Rozhdestvensky, professor at the Mikhail Lomonosov University of Moscow, taught students in the Introduction to General Philology, published three decades ago. (Рождественский 1979: 141). It can be said that the unambiguity and unambiguity of the terms mentioned here have been sought for a long time, and when they began to standardize not only the products, but also their own 1 Quotes language in the article has not been corrected, only where not placed a pretext. 4 8 Stasys Keinys | Due to the unambiguous understanding of scientific terms and the names of their parts, this aim has become one of the most important terminology requirements. It is not surprising that the Russian engineer Dmitry Lotte (1898–1950), the Estonian engineer Eugen Viuster (1898–1977) and the Latvian Ernest Drezen (1892–1937), who worked in standardization work in Russia at the same time, emphasized this in their terminology works. The first two’s theory of terms, based on logic, is alive to this day, although after the Second World War linguists, at least some of them, who began to study technical language and terminology more extensively from within, considerably softened the categoricity of those requirements. For the language has a common system of meanings and ways of expressing them, which has been formed over hundreds of years, and with the proto-language over thousands of years, and which has permeated the consciousness of its users, both in the ordinary and in the professional language, and to try to force it, to change it by demands imposed from the outside is not a useful work for society, for the users of that language. This was perfectly understood and expressed almost at the same time, even a little earlier, by our philosopher and terminologist Professor Stasys Šalkauskis (1886–1941), a contemporary of the above-mentioned engineers. In his study of the theory of terminology, then published in the pre-war journal Logos, and now reprinted in Raštus, he wrote: “<...> and having entered into scientific terminology, words do not stagnate in semantic terms, but are prone to further evolution, which never ends as long as the language is alive in the spirit of the nation” (Šalkauskis 1991: 43). When discussing the issue of the unambiguousness of both the word and the term, one should not lose sight of the fact that the words themselves are unambiguous, unambiguous and unambiguousness is not unambiguous. In the second edition of the current Lithuanian dictionary, two meanings of these words are distinguished according to whether the thing spoken about has, firstly, only one meaning, and secondly, the same meaning (DŽ 1972: 934). It seems that both these meanings are in mind when talking or writing about the semantics of terms. And although in listing the characteristics of terms, the possession of only one meaning is usually, or at least most often, mentioned, the above-mentioned quotation from J. Roždestvenskis's book emphasizes the observance of just the t o s p a či õ s meaning (for the sake of accuracy, the quotation is repeated here in the original language): «Термин является как бы минимальной цитатой. По правилам цитирования термин должен сохраняться в одном и том же значении во всех научных сочинениях, принадлежащих к a particular field of knowledge. " In fact, such categorism of this author is not easy to understand, because he writes not about an isolated term in itself, as a unit, a member of a certain system, not about the application or fixation of the term, but about its use. 4 9Terminology | 2013 | 20 These two cases of existence of terms (fixation and application and use) are worth keeping in mind in terminology work and scientific research. In the works of provision and fixation, i.e. in dictionaries of terms, encyclopedias, standards, etc., the term is as if fixed, suspended, the essence of its meaning is presented. Here it is easy to present it as desired – and unambiguous, and without synonyms, and so on. However, the term is given life by the user, and it is the user, especially the author of the scientific text (besides him, we should not forget the recipient – the listener, the reader), who decides whether the term is used (and understood) exactly as determined by the provider or providers, or whether its meaning is narrowed, expanded, transferred or clarified by any sign. After all, we do not think that providers, unlike all people, are infallible omniscient, better than anyone else able to understand and name the things marked by terms. St. Šalkauskis had noticed this point and expressed it as follows: “The semantic evolution of terminology finds its basis in the fact that each word acquires a certain colouring from the context in which it is used” (Šalkauskis 1991: 43). And he continued: “It must be clearly understood that the very nature of language does not require that the meaning and significance of words be so strictly determined that there is no more freedom to use these words in their own way according to what the peculiarities of new contexts may require. The rigidity of the meaning and significance of words in the framework of an iron, once and for all established vocabulary would restrict the free flow of human thought in such a way that his intellectual initiative would suffer greatly from it” (Šalkauskis 1991: 44). One might think that this reflects the above-mentioned conflict between the attitudes and understandings of engineers and, in general, of the so-called exact sciences and those of philosophers and, in general, of humanities researchers, which stems from the different object, nature and needs of those sciences. However, philosophy is not only a separate science, but also a general methodology of science, and development is characteristic of all fields of science as well as of all being. Language and its terminology are no exception. By the way, in our dictionaries of terms, the terms are usually presented without examples of usage, often the authors of scientific works leave their deviation or variation of their meaning unexplained, so it is up to the readers or listeners themselves to understand what was meant to be communicated by such a term. It must be said that the general statement that terms must be unambiguous, and their ambiguity is the edge of terminology, is perceived as straightforward, as a dogma, and taken by many specialists in various fields 5 0 Stasys Keinys | For the understanding of the unambiguity of scientific terms, apply the wording to language terminology. However, such an attempt at complete, absolute, unambiguousness cannot be supported, because its implementation would require a huge terminological revolution and, as mentioned above, the dismantling of the nomenclature system that has been established for too long and has grown into the consciousness of language users. Would there really be those who would like, for example, the term root to be used only in botany, still in plant science, and who would reproach linguists, anatomists and specialists in other fields, who have adapted this plant science term to their own sciences by transferring the meaning. It would hardly be easier to understand each other if the word point had only the usual meaning in plain language of “round mark, spot” (LKŽ XV 982), and for the science of language, mathematics, physics, technology, sports and other ends were invented or borrowed all kinds of other names. It is true that language has ways and means to make such a revolution in the vocabulary, but the transfer of the meaning of words or terms, the adaptation is also one of the most typical ways of satisfying the needs of naming. In addition, this method helps to protect the language from the influx of new creations and/or borrowings from other languages, so it is economical for the language and very convenient for the user, because it is much easier to use an usual word or term, no matter how much changed, adapted to another field of meaning, than to understand and remember a new, completely unheard, unmotivated loan or, as often happens, unusually made new creation. Closer to reality seems to be the requirement of unambiguity of the term, or, in my understanding, more precisely, the desire in the field or system of the terminology of which it is a member. It is customary to mention closely related fields together, but cases where terms used in different fields would have exactly the same meaning seem rare or even very rare. Only out of difficulty it would be possible to mention here, for example, the names of language tools taken from the nomenclature of anatomy or perhaps in more than one case directly from the living common language into linguistics (especially phonetics, or phonology) (probably no one would praise a linguist who would start to make new ones or use borrowings from some other language for this purpose. But immediately, as if he had forgotten the names of his instruments, the sound artist uses the adjectives dentalinis „dantinis“, labialinis „lipinis“, nasalinis „nosinis“, uvuliarinis „tonžulėlinis“ and the corresponding names of the phenomena labializacija, nazalizacija and so on. It is true, that this is another matter, one-sidedness of terms, and therefore not of this article, but absolutely inseparable, because expression and meaning are duality in unity, two necessary sides of the same sign, without which it could not exist). 5 1Terminology | 2013 | 20 The use of a term in another field is usually associated with the adaptation, clarification or modification of its meaning. And perhaps in more than one case there may be a desire to unite such partial (individual fields) terms into one kind of overterm having the most general meaning. After all, it seems obvious that, having entered into linguistics and some other sciences from biology, morphology has become such an anterm, meaning “the science of forms”, and in those fields and their branches are used terms of narrower meaning according to the studied object, for example, plant morphology, animal morphology, language (word) morphology, blood morphology, single words cytomorphology “cell morphology”, geomorphology “earth morphology” and so on. By the way, at least in the explanatory dictionaries of our language, as well as in encyclopedias, it is customary to present only those individual meanings, divided by scientific fields. Perhaps this comes from the fact that there seems to be no such general morphology science yet. However, this should not prevent us from distinguishing the meanings of words. In trying to understand the subjects kitų platesnių sričių terminų (galėtume ir tokius bendruosius, paprastai discussed, we enter the sphere of general science and terms having the broadest meaning (to call existing, true, anterm), as well as the sphere of interdisciplinary terms meaning relationships with the meaning or meaning of terms of individual fields of science and their branches, in other words, to the connections of terms of wider and narrower scope with unambiguity and ambiguity. For example, the word form is a general term for science, technology and art, which is used in the broadest sense in philosophy – “an element of reality and the cognitive process that gives distinctiveness and identity to known objects” (VLE VI 187). In individual fields and branches of human activity, this term is used alone or as a component of compound terms with the appropriately adapted and defined meaning, for example, in linguistics the form is usually used in two meanings – the broader meaning of “expression, expression” and the narrower, more specific meaning of “gender” (cf. EWJP 1978: 89; DL 1980: 222–223; KTŽ 1990: 65, 75, 88, 166, 241; Buлыгина, Крылов 1990: 557–558). From both a broader and a narrower semantic point of view of a particular term of a particular field or branch, the number and breadth of meanings assigned to a particular term or a group of them also depends on how the terminological meaning is perceived and distinguished, what its relationship is with the designated concept, its scope and the designation itself, and how much the systemic tendencies of the language vocabulary are taken into account in the designation. For example, in the present common language it is customary that the words and terms derived from the names of persons according to the occupation with the suffix -ystė identify the field or branch 5 2 Stasys Keinys | For the unambiguity of scientific terms understanding theory and practice (science and business), e.g.: beekeeping, horticulture, livestock farming, maritime, aviation, poultry farming, agriculture, etc. However, due to the terminologijoje pasitaiko išimčių – šalia miškininkystės gal dėl per stipriai ambiguity of the term, perhaps because of the dignity of the scientists or both at once, or perhaps because of something else, the name of the science has been made forestry, and from this the word for the researcher is forestry researcher. Some time ago, it was also proposed to take away the significance of science from librarianship and to call this science librarianship or even library science. In fact, it is highly doubtful whether it is worthwhile to shake up the established nominative order of language with such novelties. It should not be forgotten that the works of fixation of terms may not present all the meanings of the placed terms. For example, three decades ago, when I reviewed a bunch of available dictionaries of linguistic terms for the purpose of writing a dictionary of linguistic terms together with Kazimieras Gaivenis, I was surprised that the naming of each part of the language in them is interpreted only as a grammatical class of words, but the equally old, but much more common in works of linguistic science and practice, separate meaning of the word of that class is not mentioned. We agreed to present the terms of that group in the dictionary with two meanings (by the way, we were praised for this by several of our linguists after the dictionary was released). Both the dictionaries of terms and especially the usage in the subject language indicate that a certain part of the terms has more than one meaning. Especially this is characteristic of the terms of general sciences and individual science. A very obvious testimony to the ambiguity of the terms used in linguistic works is the basic term language, which in Lithuanian is most often used not only to refer to Ferdinand de Sosiūras’ famous triad langue, parole, langage, but also to a number of other meanings. The Russian philosopher and philologist Professor Alexei Losev examined the ambiguity of general terms in his article “The ambiguity of terms in sign and symbol theories” published in 1978 (reprinted in 1982), in which he wrote: “Terms such as sign, meaning, structure, model, symbol have dozens of different meanings in the use of different authors. It is not necessary to assume that in this field there should be a single terminology that would rule out other terminology principles. The only thing that can be demanded of the authors is that, using one or another system of terms, they should fully adhere to their terminology and not each time slip from their assumed one to another system of terms” (Лосев 1982: 220). 5 3Terminology | 2013 | 20 Furthermore, there are (whether blessed or not by the providers) not only general but also partial meanings used by scientific and other fields, currents, schools and even individual authors, and finally only certain texts or groups of them, which are probably most often neither provided nor not provided in general. Simply, they exist and are used quite often. Professor Algirdas Julius Greimas spoke about such individual meanings of the terms he used in 1971 during his lecture “General Problems of Semiotics” at Vilnius University: “If I distinguish first of all value systems, as axiologies, and organizations of value functioning, which I call ideologies, this is my personal terminology, and I ask you not to take it for a sacred word. I just want to say that it is convenient to distinguish one thing here, namely, the value system as a static system (I call it axiology) from the value system given to people as a model of activity, which I call ideology. This does not necessarily correspond to the distinctions made by sociology” (Greimas 1991: 48). This observation of the most famous and in the world of science most well-known Lithuanian scientist perfectly agrees with the consciousness (conception) of this article and the main idea that scientific terms do not need to be squeezed into a narrow, universally binding framework of unambiguity, because the provisions of terminology are not like some kind of military statutes, and scientists are their blind executors. Otherwise science would not be a creation, nor would it be a participant in the creation of language. The language of science has many unambiguous, many and differently understood and interpreted terms. The reasons for this are various, different and ways of manifestation. I did not have the thought or hope to cover in this article the problematic of unambiguity and polysemancy of terms, which is perhaps worthy of more than one book. It was intended to base the problem on the basis of one field (science) and to remind the users, creators and managers of scientific terms that both in research and practical terminology work it is not always appropriate to use words of imperative meaning, the requirement, prohibition, mandatory, not possible and that we probably do not always know whether a term is really unambiguous and even more so, whether it will have the same and only one meaning after some time. After all, the language of science, and therefore its terms, change along with the development of science, change now as always, because after all, in the words of Romualdas Granauskas from the essay “Twelve black swans, about Daukantas lakstančių”, “<...> science is also freedom, and ignorance – it is iron bands on the neck and oak hatchets on the feet” (Granauskas 1995: 272). 5 4 Stasys Keinys | On the Understanding of the Univocity of Scientific Terms LitEratūra DL 1980: Dictionnaire de linguistique par J. Dubois, M. Giacomo, L. Guespin, Chr. Marcellesi, J.B. Marcellesi, J.P. Mével, Paris: Librairie Larousse. DŽ 1972: Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas. II papildytas leidimas. Ats. red. J. Kruopas, Vilnius: Mintis. EWJP 1978: Encyklopedia wiedzy o języku polskim. Pod redakcją St. Urbańczyka, Wrocław–Warszawa– Kraków–Gdańsk: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich Wydawnictwo. Granauskas R. 1995: Vakaras, paskui rytas: Apsakymai ir apysakos, Vilnius: Leidybos centras. Greimas A. J. 1991: Iš arti ir iš toli: Literatūra, kultūra, grožis, Vilnius: Vaga. Grinius K. 1914: Apie botanikos organografijos lietuviškąją terminologiją. – Lietuvių tauta. Kn. 2, d. 3 (1912–1913). Yra ir atskiras K. Griniaus darbo atspaudas. KTŽ 1990: Gaivenis K., Keinys St. Kalbotyros terminų žodynas, Kaunas: Šviesa. LKŽ XV – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 15. Vyr. red. K. Ulvydas, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1991. Milošas Č. 1991: Isos slėnis. Vertė A. Kalėda, Vilnius: Vaga. Šalkauskis St. 1991: Terminologijos teorija ir bendroji filosofijos terminija. – Raštai 2. Filosofijos ir pedagogikos terminija, Vilnius: Mintis. VLE VI – Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija 6. Vyr. red. A. Račis, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas, 2004. Булыгина Т. В., Крылов С. А. 1990: Форма в языкознании. – Лингвистический энциклопедический словарь. Гл. ред. В. Н. Ярцева, Москва: Советская энциклопедия. Лосев А. Ф. 1982: Знак. Символ. Миф: Труды по языкознанию, Москва: Издательство Московского университета. Рождественский Ю. В. 1979: Введение в общую филологию, Москва: Высшая школа. aBoUt UndErstandinG tHE UnamBiGUitY oF tHE tErms oF sCiEnCE Unambiguity is usually treated as one of the important features of a term and quite often it is viewed as one of the main requirements of terms. Therefore polysemy of a term is treated as a fault. However, polysemous terms are quite frequent in term recording works (special dictionaries, encyclopaedias, etc.) as well as in scientific texts of various domains. This article deals with the problem of unambiguity of terms of science in respect of science development and naming system of the language. First of all it is noted that the words and terms vienareikšmis (unambiguous) and vienareikšmiškumas (unambiguity) are not unambiguous themselves, because on the one hand they mean ‘having only one meaning’ and on the other hand – ‘having the same meaning’. When speaking about the unambiguity of terms often both these meanings are kept in mind, but more frequently the oneness of term meaning is emphasized. The Lithuanian philosopher Stasys Šalkauskis (1886–1941) who published his works on terminology theory and practice from 1927 onwards gave a reasoned argument against strict restraint of the meaning of terms. In his work Terminologijos teorija (Terminology Theory) Šalkauskis wrote: “<...> ir patekę į mokslinę terminiją, žodžiai nesustingsta semantiniu atžvilgiu, o yra palenkti tolimesnei evoliucijai, kuri niekados nesibaigia, kol kalba yra gyva tautos dvasioje” (translation: “<...> and when words make their way into scientific terminology they do not freeze in semantic respect, but are inclined towards further evolution which never stops while the language is alive in the spirit of a nation”). These words are very important for the cognition of the essence of science and its language creation. The article rejects an absolutization of unambiguity of scientific terms and argues that the main manifestation of the existence of terms is not their fixation in 5 5Terminologija | 2013 | 20 dictionaries or encyclopaedias, but scientific texts where terms are used not only in general, but also in partial meanings specific to particular domains and scientific schools as well as in some individual meanings characteristic to particular scientists or to some of their works. This is viewed as a natural thing for the language and terminology of science, because only terminology theory and practice which do not restrict the freedom of scientific creative work can facilitate the development of scientific cognition and ensure the progress of science. К ВОПРОСУ О ПОНИМАНИИ ОДНОЗНАЧНОСТИ ТЕРМИНОВ НАУКИ Однозначность обычно считается важной чертой терминов, нередко даже одним из основных к ним предъявляемых требований, а многозначность – недостатком терминологии. Но как в работах по фиксации научных терминов (в специальных словарях, энциклопедиях и т.п.), так и особенно в научных текстах неоднозначные термины не являются редким исключением. В настоящей статье обсуждается проблема однозначности научных терминов в контексте развития науки и номинативной системы языка. С начала обращается внимание на факт неоднозначности самих слов и терминов vienarekšmis «однозначный» и vienareikšmiškùmas «однозначность» – 1) имеющий только одно значение, 2) имеющий тождественное (неизменённое) значение. К терминологии относят оба этих значения, но чаще подчёркивается единственность значения термина. В литовском терминоведении против строгого ограничения значения терминов аргументированно выступил философ и терминолог профессор Стасис Шалкаускис (Stasys Šalkauskis, 1886–1941), с 1927 года включившийся в разработку теории терминологии и создавший словарь философских терминов. В труде по теории терминологии он писал, что после попадания в терминологию науки слова не прекращают семантического развития, которое никогда не оканчивается пока язык остаётся живым в духе народа. Далее в статье показана несостоятельность абсолютизации однозначности научной терминологии, доказывается, что основной сферой существования терминов является не фиксация в словарях или энциклопедиях, а тексты науки, в которых термины используются не только в общих, но и в частных, в том числе свойственных для отдельных научных направлений, школ, значениях. Кроме того, термины употребляются и с индивидуальными значениями, характерными как для отдельных учёных, так и отдельным их трудам. Это считается естественным, так как только ненарушающая свободы научного творчества терминология способствует успешному развитию научного познания и самой науки. Received 2013a11a12 Stasys Keinys Institute of Lithuanian Language P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius, Lithuania E. mail terminal[email protected]