Études onomasiologiques et sémasiologiques des technolectes et des unités terminologiques complexes

Emmanuel Aito/Chidi Igwe (Regina, Canada)

Terminology is strengthening its foundations as a sub-discipline through reflections on its principles and methodologies by entrenching the study of its principal object, to wit the term (Boulanger et L'Homme 1991). Thus, a constellation of theories and innovative methods have been suggested by contributors such as Temmerman (2000) who opts for a sociocognitive approach by applying the tenets of cognitive semantics to ontologies in the life sciences; Cabré (1998, 2000) who isolates the polyhedric nature of the term; Diki-Kidiri (1999, 2000) whose treatment of the cultural dimensions of the term are especially pertinent to less described languages; and Kageura (1995) whose semantic treatise delineates the boundaries of "conceptology". Collectively, these works apprehend the term contre-jour, in particular as a unit of comprehension in relation to its immediate environment, in contradistinction to its traditional definition which in the classical mould considers a term as contextually stripped of its textual or discursive value. In sequel of recent theoretical trends therefore, this paper represents our initial theoretical attempt to put into relief semasiological and onomasiological approaches to the term/concept association, in order to shed additional light on their possible complementarity with respect to both lexicographical and terminographical definitions of the term.

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