Towards The Terminological Status Of Diplomatic Documentation Vocabulary

Abstract

The article is devoted to establishing the terminological status of the diplomatic vocabulary typical to the paperwork of the modern Russian language. The linguistic analysis of the extended corpus of diplomatic documents reveals they are rich with special terminology, including legal terms, international law terminology, nomenclature nominations, abbreviations, standardized speech patterns. The study shows that the vocabulary of diplomatic documents is a system that has been intensively developed over several centuries, as part of which the separate groups of terms frequently used in the diplomatic domain were gradually shaped and semantically defined. The internationalization of languages' vocabulary occurs in the context of convergent development, primarily associated with the processes of strengthening some language contacts. Along with the internationalization of terminology, a flow of borrowings from terminologies and lexical systems of foreign languages is also increasing, which complicates successful communication and requires additional competencies from a specialist, a person who works in the professional field. Studying the language of the diplomatic documentation work, we understand standardization as a form of terminology, the mechanisms, and procedures of which are aimed, first of all, at the formation of an adequate and consistent system of the diplomatic terms (diplomatic terminology) that meet the goals and objectives of modern diplomatic relations. In contemporary globalization processes and the increasing role of inter-country communication, the study of the vocabulary reflecting the diplomatic business sphere contributes to the establishment of a constructive and mutually beneficial inter-country dialogue and good international contacts.

Keywords: Diplomatic documentsvocabularyterminology systemterminology unificationstandardizationinternationalization

Introduction

The need to study the terminological status of the vocabulary of the diplomatic documentation work is due to the fact that this vocabulary is characterized by a high density with the diplomatic terminology itself, as well as the terminology of the International Law.

The specificity of the diplomatic term system lies in its composition of both proper diplomatic and legal terms and terms drawn from other sectors: economics (international economy), political science, public administration, and sociology.

Problem Statement

The relevance of establishing the terminological status of the diplomatic vocabulary and its features is fraught with the fact that the diplomatic substyle, belonging to the official business style of the modern Russian literary language, is widely used in the field of inter-country official business relations in politics, economics, culture of international organizations, structures, individual citizens and is implemented in conventions (international agreements), communiqués (messages), notes (addresses), protocols, memoranda, contracts, statements, ultimatums.

Research Questions

The question of the terminological status, by which the vocabulary of diplomatic documentation work is characterized, has repeatedly been the subject of attention of both national and foreign scientists (Averbukh, 1986; Belyakov, 2012). Saidov (2012) notes that a significant part of diplomatic terms is borrowed through the French language, for example, vanguard, asset, amateur, dissident, minister, democracy.

Terminology as the main system-shaping part of the diplomatic vocabulary in the process of its formation is subject to formal and semantic transformations. But, having been enshrined officially in many documents, as well as being enshrined in some special dictionaries, reference books, glossaries, the terminological patterns are gaining functional-semantic stability over time and go unchanged from one text to another.

In a broad sense, the terminology in the diplomatic documentation language is considered to be all words and phrases with the help of which the language refers to some special concepts of the diplomatic sphere. With the advent of new concepts in the corresponding field of activity, some new terms are formed, sometimes generating ambiguity even within the limits of one term system. Changing the boundaries of the terms' semantics, the emergence of new meanings is a natural phenomenon in the terminological system of the diplomatic vocabulary that continues to develop intensively today. This phenomenon reflects the cognition process of a constantly changing reality. Follow it in examples.

Example 1 – immunity / imunita (lat. immunitas – “exemption, freedom”), the meanings are: 1) the exclusive right not to be subject to certain general laws that are granted to a person occupying a special position in the state ( diplomatic immunity ), 2) immunity – medical biologist.

Example 2 – congress / kongres (lat. congressus – “meeting, gathering”), the meanings are: 1) congress, meeting (mainly international), 2) the legislative parliament of some countries (USA), 3) sometimes the name of a political party (Indian National Congress).

Example 3 – courier (French courrier "messenger"), the meanings are: 1) an employee, who carries business papers, 2) a person for traveling on urgent matters, 3) a diplomatic courier – an employee for the transportation of diplomatic mail.

Example 4 – global (French global "worldwide", "universal"; lat. globus – "bullet"), the meanings are: taken in general, worldwide (global treaty), 2) spread all over the world (antonym – regional) – both are used in documents.

Example 5 – mission / mise (lat. missio – "parcel", "assignment", "order"), the meanings are: 1) permanent diplomatic embassy or agency, 2) representatives of a country or any international institution deployed to another country with a special goal pr mission (Vinogradov, 1961).

Terms that in modern Russian are defined as actually diplomatic, initially, in the donor language, could have a different meaning. So, for example, consul in Ancient Rome of the Republic's period – “the title of two elected highest officials”, during the Empire – “honorary title”, in the cities of Northern and Central Italy (XI-XIII centuries) – “the highest official” , in France in 1799–1804 – the title of three persons who concentrated in their hands the highest executive power.

As a result of semantic-diachronic transformations and onomasiological shifts, one of the polysemant meanings became a diplomatic term: nota (lat. nota – “sign, remark”) – 1) an official diplomatic written appeal of one state to another or several states ( note correspondence, note verbale ), 2) homonym note in music (Logunova, 2015).

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the work is to identify the nature of the terminology used in diplomatic vocabulary, determine its structural-semantic and functional features.

Research Methods

The choice of research methods and approaches is determined by the nature of the language material. The multidimensionality and interdisciplinary nature of this study emphasize the necessity to use a comprehensive analysis. Along with general scientific methods of induction, deduction, observation, generalization, abstraction, there were used some special linguistic research methods. To determine the composition of diplomatic vocabulary, we applied the method of continuous sampling from specialized literature and dictionaries. The component analysis method was used to identify the differential features of the terms. An analysis of vocabulary definitions of the lexicographic sources was applied to describe the semantic structure and paradigmatic relationships of the studied terms, whereas, the statistical method is used to identify the relevant thematic groups of the vocabulary.

Findings

The diplomatic vocabulary can be considered as a terminology system that is being intensively developed. In this process, some thematic groups took shapes that were constantly replenished with new means of expressing the concepts of the diplomatic sphere.

According to the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms, “special vocabulary is words or phrases that name objects and concepts that belong to different spheres of a person’s labor activity and are not commonly used” (Gromyko, 1986, p. 31). In other words, a special vocabulary is words or phrases that call scientific concepts and are persistent, reproducible elements in the system of special knowledge, with certain classification in it.

The vocabulary of the diplomatic sublanguage is very diverse by origin. Diplomatic terms are both native Russian and borrowed. Among the original Russian tokens are distinguished: 1) the pre-Slavic: [война , граница , мир , генерал , посол , закон] voina, granitsa, mir, general, posol, zakon ; 2) Eastern Slavic: [чужеземец , иностранец , орден , перемирие , посольство , граница , советник , конгресс] chudgezemets, inostranets, orden, peremirie, posolstvo, granitsa, sovetnik, kongress ; 3) the actual Russian words: [договор , союзник , статья] dogovor, souznik, statia , etc.

In the XV century, a dictionary of diplomatic clerical work took over 100 foreign terms — most of the words came from Latin, French, and German. The predominance of Latin-origin words is explained by the fact that Latin was a source of terms both for the language of science and the diplomatic language.

In the lexical and thematic plan, foreign words are often the names of officials of foreign and internal affairs agencies: ambassador, resident minister , vice-consul , protocol recorder for junior secretary , dragoman , etc. The names of diplomatic documents: Convention , agreement , chord , crediting , re-certification , declaration , memorial ; designations of new international legal phenomena: satisfaction , repression , embargo , sequestration , protest note , ultimatum , demarche .

The vocabulary of diplomatic office work is quantitatively limited, that is, there is a tendency to isolation, the use of a unified set of tokens, phrases, and structures characterized by limited distribution capabilities as a manifestation of the conservative style. The use of neologisms is not typical for the language of diplomatic documentation, and the use of, for example, synonyms is limited, since they can create an ambiguity effect. All researchers agree that abbreviations of complex lexical units are presented quite widely in international documentation. In general, all types of abbreviations are presented here (Kruglyak, 2018).

The language base for diplomatic office work is a general dictionary of neutral style, combined with a special and terminological dictionary (in particular, terms of different fields and industries), as well as abbreviations that are not assimilated by Latin and French inclusions. In using common vocabulary in the context of diplomatic documentation, its semantic range is narrowed, some of the existing meanings are freed, and they are modified up to be new ones.

The percentage of each lexical layer of a diplomatic document is not the same. If common vocabulary makes up the most part of a text, then the special vocabulary is represented in smaller numbers; it may include the names of organizations, institutions, bodies, procedures, officials, positions, titles of documents as well as the so-called situational vocabulary.

Depending on a document type, communicative tasks, the textual material of the document acquires this or that texting form. This fact becomes the crucial one when choosing the language tools. Moreover, in different genres of diplomatic work, the language means receive different logical and semantic structural loads. These tools are assigned a specific meaning and content in each type of document.

As part of the diplomatic vocabulary, there is a significant number of non-term words that are used in a meaning, which is inherent only in this particular text (texts). Some of these tokens are semantized in a new meaning, not fixed by lexicographic sources, for example: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Prednestroviya (Transnistria) carefully studied some statements relating to “frozen conflicts” made by Thorbjørn, the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.

Let us dwell on pre-terms. Pre-terms are special tokens used to name newly formed concepts, but so far not meeting the basic requirements for the terms. The pre-terms are usually: a) descriptive phrases – verbose phrases that are used to name concepts and allow to accurately describe their essence, but do not meet the requirement of compression; b) composing phrases; c) composites containing participial constructions.

Pre-terms are used to name new concepts for which it is not possible to immediately select or find the appropriate terms. Pre-terms differ from terms in their temporal nature, instability of form, non-compliance with the requirements of compression and universality, and often lack of neutrality. In most cases, over time, pre-terms are replaced by terms. Sometimes the substitution of a pre-term with a lexical unit that is more consistent with terminological requirements is delayed, and the pre-term is fixed in a special dictionary, acquiring a permanent character and turning into a quasi-term.

The use of pre-terms is explained by 1) the secondary use of lexical units, which develops on the basis of their primary general use; 2) special development of artificial nominative words; 3) limited scope of use; 4) impossibility of direct translation into other languages; 5) impossibility of arbitrary substitutions of individual elements without finding the agreement with the tradition of international relations; 6) a peculiar attitude to such linguistic phenomena as polysemy, antonymy; 7) increased denotative relation.

There are three qualitatively different moments when terms appear: 1) the moment of the previous fixation of a special concept (general expression); 2) the moment of searching for the optimal definition of a concept (quasi-term); 3) the moment of optimal definition of the concept (term).

An essential feature of the language of diplomatic documentation is some set phrases recommended as language formulas for mandatory use. These language formulas are complex names of states, international organizations, names of representative offices and officials, titles: host country , general consul , first-class adviser , first-class secretary , extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of the first class, and etc. In public speeches and diplomatic correspondence, these names and formulas cannot be abbreviated or replaced by abbreviations.

The terms-phrases are very frequent in the diplomatic sublanguage. They can be two-component and multicomponent. The structure of such terms is usually made up of nouns and adjectives, holistically expressing a certain concept: Eng. – crisis management operations , Fr. - operations de guestion de crise , Ger. – Operationen zur Krisenbewaltigung , Rus. – [ операция по урегулированию кризисов ] operazia po uregulirovaniu krizisov ; Eng. – Cultural diversity , Fr. – diversite culturelle , Ger. – kulturelle Vielfalt , Rus. – [культурное разнообразие] kulturnoe rasnoobrazie .

The diplomatic protocol specifically regulates when and how synonyms can be used to determine a person: the President is the head of state , he/she is the highest official of the state ; the Prime Minister is the head of the Cabinet , he/she is the head of the government ; the head of the foreign affairs department of the state is the head of the foreign affairs ; he/she is the person , who heads the Ministry of Foreign Affairs , the Minister of Foreign Affairs . There is also an official register of words (abbreviations) allowed to be abbreviated (Vladimirova & Anikina, 2017).

The study of the diplomatic vocabulary (targeted at paperwork or office work, documentation) from the point of its origin and the structural organization provides grounds to come to the conclusions. Against the background of commonly used stylistically neutral linguistic units, in the language of diplomacy there are pointed out the special terms, set terminological combinations, universal general language expressions, two- / three-word composites, mainly of foreign origin. Such linguistic units can be classified as certain lexical standards that diplomacy widely uses. They constitute the thematic basis of all diplomatic texts.

The diplomatic vocabulary is a complex and well-structured system of lexical units, the characteristic feature of which is continuous enrichment and a significant amount of archaisms and assimilated and non-assimilated borrowings in foreign languages. Such a situation complicates both the unification of terms and translation of diplomatic texts in foreign languages since it is necessary to convey not only the content and style of a document but also its pragmatic potential, while adhering to the norms and rules of diplomacy, diplomatic ceremonial and protocol. Therefore, a comprehensive study of the diplomatic vocabulary, its structural-semantic and functional features is an extremely relevant and prospective issue of modern linguistics.

Conclusion

The specific feature of the diplomatic terminology concludes in giving the specific meanings and new connotations to functionally meaningful and frequently used terms, sometimes remote from set semantics.

In the diplomatic texts, there is the tendency to reduce the language means, which is expressed through polysemy of terms and abbreviation.

References

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