THE TERMINOLOGY OF ALLERGOLOGY − AN ANALYSIS IN THE LIGHT OF LINGUISTICS

Abstract

"This study deals with the terminology of allergology in Romanian, starting from the fact that there is an increasing concern of experts for the impact of this field on society at a global level. We will analyze, in the light of linguistics, the language specific to the field of allergology following the realization of a corpus of texts developed by specialists, in order to inform and educate the general public about types of allergies, allergic diseases, symptoms, and methods of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Terms are the linguistic representation of concepts, the result of the development of cognitive processes and of the communication between experts of a specialized language in the community (Sager 1997: 25). We have selected these texts because they represent a communication tool in respect of concepts, in which the terms of the field of allergology reflect the way in which knowledge is structured in the mind of the expert and how this knowledge is delivered to the general public. The syntagmatic analysis has shown that the most common phrases in the allergology terminology are bimember or multimember phrases, semantically rigid, having a hermetic character for a non-specialist in the field. However, the common vocabulary – specialized vocabulary relationship in the field of allergology is important, because the symptoms of allergies are represented by terms that are part of the common vocabulary. We have also identified interdisciplinary terms, which are common to several specialized languages, because the disciplines of allergology and clinical immunology are interrelated with other disciplines, such as dermatology, pneumology, ENT, pediatrics, occupational medicine, nephrology, rheumatology, internal medicine, transplant immunology, and clinical pharmacology."