Abstract:
The terminology of economics is a dynamic domain, of rapid
development at present - the reason why many studies focus on it,
approaching it mainly from the lexicological or the stylistic perspective, for
instance discussing the stylistic value of argot derived from determinologised
economic terms. The present paper analyses the formation of economic terms
using a corpus selected according to clearly delineated criteria - the domain
criterion (terms pertaining to economics, as a pilot-science that creates
concepts in theories, doctrines, schools of thought and not those pertaining to
branches of the economic sciences such as marketing or to the instruments it
uses - such as statistics for economics), of the terms extracted from texts
pertaining to a certain style (the functional aspect) - the scientific style (at
the same time eliminating terms extracted from texts belonging to other styles - non-specialised journals, or from advertising) and also introducing the
extra-linguistic criterion of time - only the terms that have entered language
after 1918 are analysed. The ratio of loans and calques versus terms formed
by internal means (affixation, composition etc.) is evaluated (statistically), as
well as the ratio among the latter, the ration between simple and complex
terms, between the various parts of speech. The study predictably indicates
the higher rate of the loans over terms formed in Romanian, of nouns over all
other parts of speech, of loans from English over those from Romance
languages, but also - contrary to other studies - the reduced ratio of terms
formed by composition. The study (re)assesses certain aspects of loan
adaptation into Romanian and the way in which such terms inform and give
specificity to the economic terminology in Romanian.
