Building new meanings in technical English from the perspective of the lexical constellation model

Abstract

The need to name and communicate to others new concepts in specific domains of human activity leads to the formation of new terms. However, many of the technical words in English are not new from the point of view of form. They rather derive from the common stock of general language: new lexical units are built from already existing forms and/or meanings. The original form is used for naming a new concept by adding a distinctive specialized lexical feature while keeping some semantic features of the original concept. In this paper, we aim at explaining and visualizing the nature of some of the processes that allow for the construction of new senses in technical words through a branching and expanding process, as explained in the lexical constellation model. The analysis is performed on three words widely used in telecommunication English: "bus", "hub" and "chip". The understanding of the process may be of great help for learners of ESP in general and technical English in particular.