Philadelphia, PA

Dear Pavlos,

I would suggest studying the actual usage of "term," "technical term," "notion," "concept," and "definition." You might also want to consult a dictionary. The usage will likely differ somewhat from field to field, say, in physics or chemistry as against mathematics.

A "term" I would suggest is a word with some particular and distinguished meaning, which distinguishes the particular term from common or less regulated usage. A phrase of interest is "term of art," (which has little to do with art) but which suggest a particular usage in some organized field of study or approach to the subject-matter of such a field.

"Technical term," is fairly similar, except that there is likely to be reference to a more technical field --further removed form common concerns, say, in electronics, vs. something like culinary arts.

"Notion" is usually something like "idea," --as in "the idea just occurred to me." In contrast to "idea" or "first thought," it carries a slightly negative connotation, as suggested by something like: "Its a mere notion, he hasn't thought it out yet."

"Concept" is much like "term" or sometimes "technical term." Though it has some technical developments, as in Frege's philosophy of mathematics, say, it usually or typically just functions as a place holder without much detail being supplied. Something more substantial than a word is suggested. This is often related to developments of theory. Two physics, say, might have somewhat different concepts (or conceptions) of spacetime. If someone thinks, e.g., that biological evolution has a purpose or end toward which it works, then the reply might be, "That is not Darwin's concept of evolution."

A definition is a statement explaining the meaning of a word. It is important to recognize that dictionary definitions are arrived at on the basis of empirical study of actual usage.

H.G. Callaway

A "term" can be also be a short phrase (e.g. a definite description or a prepositional phrase) rather than just a single word, and can be a quite ordinary and undistinguished expression. This is how someone might use "term" in referring to a sentence component in explaining how a sentence is constructed. However, mathematicians and logicians use "term" to refer to a constant* or variable in a formula, or sometimes even to the value of a constant or variable when precise rigor would be unnecessarily pedantic.

"Concept" and "conception" need not refer to a linguistic item. A concept can be regarded as something expressed by a term, and a conception can be regarded as a concept arrived at by a mental act of conceiving; there may be a connotation that the conception is a merely personal one ("his conception of X") or not widely shared. "Concept" and "conception" are often not carefully distinguished and many people use them interchangeably.

___________

* Such a constant may be or may abbreviate an entire sentence, so this would be the rare exception in which "term" can refer to something longer than a phrase. For an example of this, see my Article A Short Vindication of Reichenbach's ‘Event-Splitting’

A definition you can get in the dictionary.

A concept is a bit deeper, in physics you need time to build up the concept of mass or energy, you need to see many examples of how these are used.

A notion may mean you have only a partial idea about something. Also a suspicion about something.

A term may also be a part of an equation or a period in ones life, apart from a phrase describing something.

Technical term is a word that is not so comon, used in a specific science such as marine science or medicine.

ce qui précède suffit.

I am just about to publish a book on terminology. One of its subchapters is devoted to the term term. I might be able to make this subchapter available to you but I need to make sure that my publisher is ok with it. can you wait till about next week?

I think Karl Pfeifer 's answer is very accurate as far as logic is concerned. I wanted to highlight that philosophy has used all of the words you mention in a technical sense depending on the author. In Immanuel Kant's philosophy for example a concept is a type of predicate that applies to particular concrete individuals and corresponds to a clear rule, whereas an idea is a predicate the use of which may lead to contradiction or error (because it is unbounded in scope or transcendent). Modern logical usage of words such as "term" come from the philosophical tradition, from Kant through Frege. Personally I find the tradition that includes Rudolph Carnap (of the Vienna Circle) and Saul Kripke particularly clear.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Powell & readers,

As I recall, there was something called "terminist logic" in the middle ages, and I would think that the philosophical use of "term" as in our contemporary talk of "terminology" and "technical terms," has to do with clarifications of meaning such as the Terminist logicians sought. All this was well before Kant's time.

Its a common point in Aristotle, to take it back still further, that if one reaches a contradiction in reasoning, then this shows the need to make a distinction --define some more technical usage. I suspect this is the root of the talk of "terms."

We want our terms in (scientific or scholarly) use to have a well defined meaning. That seems to also be the point you draw from Kant concerning the contrast of terms and "ideas," or, one might also say, well defined terms vs. vague ideas.

Does this seem about right to you?

H.G. Callaway

As mentioned by H.G. Callaway, the usage of those terms differs from field to field. If you would like to find out more about how these terms are used in terminology studies, I can recommend J.C. Sager's A practical course in terminology processing, which is essential reading for any terminologist. Other books that deserve mentioning include:

1. Towards new ways of terminology description: The sociocognitive-approach by R. Temmerman

2. Terminology: theory, methods, and applications by M.T. Cabre

3. Terms in context by J. Pearson

4 . Specialised translation: Shedding the 'non-literary' tag by M. Rogers (the latter has a wider scope but the section on terminology is very well-written)

I think if Tomasz Michta can prove the chapter as he said it will answer the questions

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Michta & readers,

I wonder if you could briefly state how you understand the fields or subject-matters of "terminology" vs. the field or subject-matter of of lexicography. How are these similar or different?

I understand lexicography as including the art and science of formulating dictionary entries based on empirical evidence of usage.

H.G. Callaway

Dear H.G. Callaway

I agree with you about Aristotle, who in many ways set the tone and provided the techniques of modern philosophy, including an emphasis on classification.

Dear H.G. Callaway,

Regarding the distinction between terminology and lexicography, Lexicography can be defined as the study of dictionaries and the practice of their compilation. Terminology, on the other hand, can be defined as the study of terms and the practice of collecting, describing and presenting them.

Terminology and lexicography may overlap. If a dictionary contains terms (most most general purpose dictionaries do), then the dictionary has a terminological aspect to it. In the case of subject-field dictionaries, e.g. dictionaries of chemical terms, they are clearly terminological. There are dictionaries, however, that do not contain any terminology, e.g. dictionaries for children.

While terminology can be studied as a part of a dictionary writing process, it can also be studied in its own right with no particular dictionary project in mind. Terminology is thus akin to lexicology, which may be relevant for lexicography but it cannot be reduced to it.

I hope that helps.

Dear Panagiotis,

.

we wrote down in a paper some practical considerations which occured during building a multilingual term base. It would contribute little to theoretical questions, it highlights however what "use" a term has across different "target groups" in different contexts (see especilly the appendix):

http://alkalmazottnyelvtudomany.hu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Buysschaert_Kovacs.pdf

I hope it helps a bit

Thank You very much for the feedback! :)