Terminiteadusest eesti teaduskeeleni [From terminology science to academic Estonian]

Abstract

During the 90 years of university instruction and making science in Estonian, academic texts have been changed considerably. This is most evident in changes of specialised vocabulary which has been developed mostly by the (voluntary) terminology committees in many fields of science. This article deals, firstly, with the need of using some general terms of academic Estonian in a more precise and systematic way, in accordance with the notional level. Polysemantic use of terms should be avoided where possible, e.g. the fourfold meaning of terminoloogia (terminology). Also, some newer terms are promoted, e.g. vaatmik (poster), enesetaju (identity). 171 Secondly, some most spread structural deviations of Estonian in academic texts are actualised: the impact of English passive on Estonian impersonal sentences, the redundant use of plural forms which diffuses the sense of generalisation and distributiveness, and excessive use of nominalisations which makes texts too complicated for the reader to follow. It is argued that deep knowledge of the language structure is inevitable for writing texts with a clear scientific content, and concluded that courses of academic Estonian and Estonian terminology have to be taught on regular bases at MA and PhD levels.

Keywords

Estonian terms, impersonalisation, nominalisation, grammatical number, LSP, Estonian for Specific Purposes