Preferences of Lithuanian cybersecurity synonymous terms in different user groups

Abstract

Cybersecurity is a rapidly developing domain, where emerging new concepts are usually first designated in English and then find their way into the usage of other languages. As the Lithuanian terminology in this domain develops, different types of synonymous terms appear in usage, which are treated differently by speakers. The article presents a terminology survey involving 593 respondents from various age groups, from different regions and expertise levels. In the survey, the respondents had to name the most suitable terms for 10 cybersecurity concepts: the respondents could choose the terms proposed in the questionnaire or they could propose their own terms and give the reasons why they made their choices. The concepts and their terminological designations were selected from the Lithuanian-English Cybersecurity Termbase, the dataset of which is based on bilingual parallel and comparable cybersecurity corpora. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of survey results reveals preferences for different types of terms, such as borrowings, metaphorical calques, and descriptive terms, and how these preferences differ across the two segments of respondents: students vs. graduates, and cybersecurity experts vs. general public. The results show that some terminological designations have been already established in the Lithuanian language, while most of them are still competing for their positions. The analysis of the reasons reveals that accuracy and clarity are the main factors for selecting a term. The research contributes to the standardisation of cybersecurity terms in Lithuania and provides insights into user preferences and the reasons behind them.