Synonymy and sources of synonymic term formations (by the material of the terminological macrofield of Business English)

Tran Thi HuyenTrang

The article deals with some of the most important theoretical aspects of synonymy in terminology, which have been analyzed by different linguists and term experts. The theoretical aspects of synonymy considered in the article are: the nature of synonymy in specialized fields, the issue of acknowledging the existence of synonymy in those fields, the factors influencing the formation of terminological synonyms, and the sources of synonymic term formations. The article explores the semantic features of synonymic phrases in Business English. The purpose of the article is to generalize the diverse views on the existence of synonymy in terminology. It also aims at identifying the sources of forming ranges of synonymic term phrases in the field in question. The results of the analysis of lexical variation allowed us to identify three main sources of synonymic term formations in the field in question: metaphorization, metonymization and borrowing. Metaphorization has been found to be the most effective way of synonymic formation in Business English. The research has established the fact that metaphorization has its own characteristic features in the field of business discourse in the English language. An attempt has been made to build up cognitive models underlined metaphoric transparence of meaning in semantically closed terminological units.

Keywords:terminological synonymy, characteristics of synonymy, terminological phrases, metaphorization, cognitive models.