Autour des approches onomasiologiques et semasiologiques du rapport terme/concept en terminologie : vers une description des zones limitrophes

The linguistic unit is composed of the signifiant, signifie and referent, and has been the major object of studies on the dichotomy between language for general usage and languages for special purposes (LSP). Terminological arguments have mostly favoured the term as the linguistic unit for terminological analysis, while the word is seen as the unit for lexicological analysis. Terminologists Terminolegists and linguists have thus for long differentiated between language for general usage and LSP on the basis of the characteristics that distinguish the word from the term. With regard to the relationship between the linguistic element and the mental entity it represents, arguments have been made from the terminological point of view in favour of the monovalent and one-to-one o f the term/concept term/concept relationship, as opposed to the semantic polyvalence, correspondence of polysemy and the equivocation that characterize the word/meaning relationship.

Terminologists have also differentiated between language for general usage and LSP on the basis of onomasiology and semasiology. These two terms imply two opposing approaches to the relationship between the linguistic form and the mental object to which it refers. It has been argued that the lexicological unit (word) designates linguistic meaning, while the terminological unit (term) is distinct in the sense that it designates concept. Therefore, a word could acquire the status of a term or vice versa. Onomasiology and semasiology, which study the relationship between the word and its meaning, or the term and its concept, are two opposing semantic movements, one ascending from the lexical element to the mental object, the other descending from the mental and abstract object to the lexical unit. Terminological arguments have often favoured onomasiology because it traces the linguistic form while descending from the concept, as names are assigned to both old and new concepts.

Drawing on lexicological and terminological literature on the characteristics of both word and term, the present study will examine the arguments for and against the two units on the basis of monosemy, polysemy, one-to-oneness and equivocation, with special interest paid to the nature of LSP. While attempting a conceptual organization and representation of o f linguistic elements and their corresponding mental objects, this study will equally explore onomasiological and semasiological approaches to the relationship between word and meaning, on the one hand, and term and concept, on the other. By so doing, we will lay the ground work for our eventual emphasis on a combined semasiological and onomasiological approach in terminology.