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Robertas Stunžinas, FOLK TERMINOLOGY OF CONSTRUCTION. DOCTORAL DISSERTATION. Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 2011, 159 pp.
SOLVITA LABANAUSKIENĖ
Institute of the Lithuanian Language
On June 28, 2011, Robertas Stunžinas, an employee of the Terminology Centre of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, successfully defended his doctoral dissertation Folk Terminology of Construction, for which he chose a lexical stratum that had been studied very little. The research object comprises 5,533 folk construction terms and their variants. The aim of the dissertation is to determine the relationship between folk construction terms and scientific terminology, and to investigate the forms, meanings, and interrelationships of folk construction terms. The study examines folk construction terms using descriptive, comparative, and statistical methods, and also applies the principles of componential analysis. As his principal sources, the dissertation author chose Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language and Atlas of the Lithuanian Language. A more detailed picture of the research field is provided by dialect dictionaries: Dictionary of the Druskininkai Dialect, Dictionary of the Kaltanėnai Speech, Dictionary of the Kazlų Rūda Speech (vol. I), Dictionary of the Kupiškėnai (vol. I), Dictionary of the Lazūnai Dialect, Dictionary of the North-Eastern Dünininkai Speech Varieties and Dictionary of the Zanavykai Speech (vols. I–III).
R. Stunžinas’s work consists of an introduction, two main sections, conclusions, and lists of principal sources (10 entries), supplementary sources (15 entries), and literature (119 entries).
The introduction sets out the reasons for choosing the dissertation topic, the novelty and relevance of the study, and briefly reviews sources and research on folk construction terms, and—
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Solvita Labanauskienė
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—presents the research object, the aim, objectives, and methods of the study, and explains the concepts of folk terms, folk construction terms, Lithuanian terms, loanwords, hybrid terms, synonymous terms, polysemous folk terms, homonymous terms, variants, metaphorical terms, and metonymic terms used in the dissertation. It also presents the propositions defended and the author’s publications on the dissertation topic.
The first of the main sections, The Concept and Features of Folk Terms and Their Relationship to Scientific Terms, discusses the characteristics of folk terminology and its relationship to scientific terminology. The author examines in greater detail the requirements that distinguish folk terms from scientific terms, and discusses their semantic fields, categorization, classification, and nomination.
The second section, The Meaning, Origins, Synonymy, Polysemy, Homonymy, and Variation of Folk Construction Terms, comprises eight chapters and twenty-two subsections. It examines the meaning, origin, synonymy, polysemy, homonymy, and variation of terms. The entire research material is divided into the following semantic categories: 1) names of buildings, their parts, and premises; 2) names of building structures; 3) names of building fittings; 4) names of fences and enclosures; 5) names of building materials; 6) names of construction tools, equipment, and waste; 7) names of places, facilities, and workshops for producing building materials; 8) names of construction tradespeople.
In terms of origin, the discussion covers Lithuanian, foreign-origin, and mixed terms. The author first identifies the principal, most important terms, which are then described according to their hierarchical and non-hierarchical relationships. Hierarchical relationships are examined in terms of genus and species, and whole and part. In distinguishing related and specific terms, the author considers definitions in the sources and the logical connections between the concepts named. This chapter also discusses cases of hyponymic variation, aiming to show the diversity of means of expressing terms. In examining synonymy, the origins of terms and synonym sets are discussed. Particular attention is paid to metaphorical and metonymic terms. The analysis of polysemy applies the paradigmatic principle of semantic analysis and considers the relationships between terms. The final part of each chapter discusses variation in the form of terms. The dissertation is limited to cases in which variants differ only in one
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as a feature. Variation is examined according to linguistic levels, and three types of variants are distinguished: accentual, phonetic, and morphological.
A thorough study of folk terminology has been written, which is timely and provides a considerable amount of synthesized information about folk construction terminology. R. Stunžinas’s dissertation will be useful to those who manage, standardize, and improve contemporary construction terminology.
