Achievements and perspectives of development of Eastern Slavonic explanatory linguistic terminography

Abstract

The most complete explanatory dictionaries of linguistic terminology published in Eastern Slavonic countries are considered in the article. The comparative analysis of index, micro-, macro-, and megastructural characteristics of the most complete Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian dictionaries of linguistic terms (by O.S. Akhmanova, M.G. Bulakhov, and A.A. Zagnitko) is conducted. The forecast is made about perspectives and possible ways of development of Eastern Slavonic explanatory linguistic terminography. The conclusion is substantiated that a much higher informational level of analysis of the metalanguages of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian linguistics can be reached only if a combined explanatory dictionary of Eastern Slavic linguistic terminology is created by mutual efforts of the linguists, lexicographers and terminologists of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. In its turn, the unresolved problems of the modern Eastern Slavonic explanatory linguistic terminography should include the following issues: 1) there is a clearly insufficient level of institutionalization of the terminography activity in some Eastern Slavonic countries (in Belarus, for example, until now, there are no specialized centers, departments and periodicals whose main purpose would be studying, systematizing and dictionary-coding scientific terminology revealed as a result of analysis of scientific and specialized texts); 2) drafting of the Eastern Slavonic explanatory linguistic terminography products shows certain negative trends (many terminological and encyclopedic dictionaries and reference books lack alphabetic and subject-specific indexes of 12 terms that are much-needed for the readers; a number of terminological dictionaries on linguistics are clearly compilations). In addition, there is a vital need for the Eastern Slavonic linguistic terminologists to cooperate with the subject-specialists in the different branches of modern linguistics as actively as possible to address the topical issues of the current terminography practices. If this closest union of terminologists and subjectspecialists in the different branches of modern linguistics is not be established in the nearest future, then, apparently, terminography and the science of terminology will stop coordinating their professional efforts with the general science of philology soon, and further development of these cross-cutting disciplines will go its own way as this is already going on in some countries of the West.