Dr. Carlos F. Márquez Linares Dr. Enrique F. Quero Gervilla Doctoral Programme in Languages, Texts and Contexts Faculty of Translation and Interpreting university of granada

Term Formation as a Monolingual Activity

The coinage of new terms depends on “the pace of technological progress or theoretical findings”, which shows the tendency for rapid development (Resche, 2013, p. 83). In order for neonyms to be “understood and accepted”, they “must show lexico-semantic adequacy and conform to morpho-syntactic rules” (ibidem).

1. Creation of New Forms

The creation of new term forms focuses on neonyms, i.e. it is not based on previous knowledge, existing terms or their components.

1. Derivation

Derivation is the process of attaching affixes to lexical unit bases. “Prefixation”, “suffixation” and “mixed cases of prefixation and affixation” are common in English (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973, pp. 431-441, Cabré, 1999, p. 92; ISO, 1999, p. 28): garnishment (terms used in contracts), earnings, funding (Norma-TM), manager, raider (Lingvo), fixtures, offeree (terms used in contracts), divestiture (IFC) and nominee (IFC, 2004) are cases of suffixing. Prepaids (Norma-TM), influx (Lingvo) and to encumber (terms used in contracts) illustrate prefixing, while reinventing (government) (UN-1), disclosure (IFC, 2004) are mixed cases.

Recently the derivatives containing “prefixes such as eco- (for ecology/ecological) or bio- (for biological) have proved popular, echoing current social preoccupations or centers of interest: ECOMANAGEMENT, which helps companies improve their environmental practices, and BIONOMICS, a new approach to economics <…>” (Resche, 2013, p. 87). Another “productive base” in the sphere of Management is “shore/shoring”: “OFFSHORING and NEARSHORING” (“depending on the distance between home and the foreign country where production and services are outsourced”) (ibidem).

The use of suffixes and prefixes, mentioned above, is widespread in the field of Management, although they rarely appear in the specific sphere of Corporate Governance, which

has not reached a stage of development that would allow the production of a vast amount of innovative forms.

2. Compounding

Compounding as a lexeme creation process represents the combination of “two or more bases” (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973, p. 444). Compounding leads to the formation of a term designating a single concept. Shareholder, takeover, benchmark and buy-back are examples of this term creation process. According to ISO classification (ISO, 1999), compounding can be further subdivided into three groups: “blends” (p.28), i.e. joining term fragments: “transistor” obtained from the clipped words “transfer” and “resistor” (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973, p. 448); “phrases”: “nor-par share” (Daft, 2004), “equity-linked savings plan”, “going-private transactions” (Norma-TM), “acquisition secured creditor” (UNCITRAL), “change-in-control- arrangements” (Corporate Governance in Russia), “assignment for the benefit of creditors” (terms used in contracts), “tag-along right, drag-along right” (IFC) and “complex terms” joined by means of “fusing” (ISO, 1999, pp. 28-29) : “output, input” (Daft, 2004); or hyphenation: anti- dilution (Norma-TM), “buy-out, buy-in, spin-off, self-dealing” (IFC); or not joined at all: “golden parachutes, equity injection, poison pills” (Norma-TM) and “netting agreement” (UNCITRAL).

Blending, which “results from the conflation of two words” (Resche, 2013, p. 90) can be considered as a subtype of compounding, although it is sometimes considered as a separate term creation method (ibidem). Nowadays blends have become fashionable in the fields of Management and Economiсs (ibidem). For example, the following words illustrate the case of blending: “GLOCALIZATION is the mix of globalization and localization, STAGFLATION has to do with both stagnation and inflation; <…> COOPETITION can be expanded as competition and cooperation” (ibidem).

3. Abbreviated Forms

Abbreviated forms are obtained by shortening a lexical unit, trimming it to a certain extent. Different kinds of abbreviated forms are distinguished within this type of term formation: “initialisms”, “acronyms”, “clipping” (Cabré, 93, pp. 29-30), “abbreviation” and “short forms” (ISO, 1999, pp. 28-30).