SYNONYMY IN MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY: THE EVOLUTION OF THE TERM «LEPRA»

Abstract

The article considers the theoretical aspects of synonymy in terminology and analyzes the Latin synonymous terms of leprosy in diachrony. It has been shown that in the conditions of the cognitive paradigm the views of scientists on such a phenomenon as terminological synonymy, which is a lexical reality and from which terminological practice cannot be abstracted, have changed. In the course of the research, the authors applied the methods of analysis, semantic-component in particular, sampling, classification, generalization, and historical approach. The material of the study is the corpus of synonymous terms for leprosy, listed in the IV volume of the thorough work Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine, published in 1835 in London, as well as synonyms of the term «lepra», presented in the dictionary by D. Arnaudov. The authors conclude that the presence of a significant number of synonyms of the term under study, which were common in medical discourse as of the 19th century, demonstrates that medical terminology is an open system, some elements of which are integrated by this framework and others disappear. It is emphasized that the etiology and pathogenesis of leprosy were unknown almost until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, so the vast majority of names contained a toponymic component, which indicated the endemic nature of the disease, or metaphorical, zoomorphic, in particular. The processes of terminological evolution have led to the disappearance and archaization of these terms, most of which are currently incorrect, although they provide interesting historical information for a wide range of scientists – clinicians, specialists in the history of medicine, and terminologists. With the development of medical science and terminology, there was a specialization of most terms, therefore, now they denote other medical concepts.