Page 7 - 4806

terminology is the main vehicle by which facts, opinions and other
"higher" units of knowledge are represented and conveyed.
Terminology reduces ambiguity and increases clarity. The Webster
dictionary contains over 700 thousand words including over 150
terms. One should reckon that 80-90% of new lexis entering
developed languages are terms and other special lexical units, the
intellectualisation of the language is referred to the wide usage of
the special words in the common language.
Terminology first appeared in an academic setting at the
beginning of the 1970s when Eugen Wüster, an engineer, gave a
course titled Introduction to the General Terminology Theory and
Terminological Lexicography at the University of Vienna. Wüster
established a foundation for working methods and principles for
Terminology, with the aim of standardizing scientific language.
Terminology is taught alongside Translation in the
universities and translation schools for example at The University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, School for Translation and
Interpretation (ETI) at the University of Geneva, Université Laval
etc. Large translation departments and translation bureaus have a
Terminology section.
Terminology, the discipline concerned with the study and
compilation of specialized terms is not a new field of study, but
only in recent decades has it been systematically developed, with
full consideration of its principles, bases and methodology. Its
social and political importance has now also been recognized on
both the national and the international scale. Terminology, as we
understand it today, first began to take shape in the 1930s and has
only recently moved from amateurism to a truly scientific
approach.

1. 2± The Origin of Terminology Science
Although the systematization of terminology and its
scientific status are recent developments, activities in the field date
from much earlier. In the 18th century research in chemistry by

6