Fuica Florentina Cristina

Anul I, Masterat TI

Analiza lexicala a textului specializat

The lexical analisys of specialized text

The specialized text compiled for the purpose of the research belongs to the domain of
Agriculture (general and management). The sample words of academic and professional written
English are extracted from journals originating in non-native countries, namely in Romania and
India.
Due to the characteristics of the samples gathered, academic vocabulary is also included
as a constituent of the lexical level in the specialized language, since the corpus encompasses the
language used both in the academic environment and the corresponding professional career.
Therefore, in a specialized text, it is possible to find not only technical and semi-technical
vocabulary, but also general, and academic vocabulary.
This study is conducted to gain an insight into the lexis of specialized text of English for
Agriculture , with the aim of analyzing the words from the point of view of their structure, type
and frequency.

The structure of words is a fundamental concept of how words are composed out of
smaller parts. Morphology is the study of the structure and form of words in language or a
language, including inflection, derivation, and the formation of compounds. At the basic level,
words are made of morphemes. These are the smallest units of meaning: roots and affixes
(prefixes and suffixes). Inflection occurs when a word has different forms but essentially the
same meaning, and there is only a grammatical difference between them: for example, "make"
and "makes". The "-s" is an inflectional morpheme. In contrast, derivation makes a word with a
clearly different meaning: such as "unhappy" or "happiness", both from "happy". The "un-" and
"-ness" are derivational morphemes. Words also have an internal structure that requires analysis
into constituents (much like syntactic structure does). For example, “unusable” contains three
pieces (un – use – able), and has the following structure: derive use-able, then add un -, meaning
not capable of being used.

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Fuica Florentina Cristina
Anul I, Masterat TI

Analyzing the words in the specialized text specific to the domain of agriculture reveals
the fact that inflection appears in word structure due to the fact that general, academic
vocabulary is being used and the rules of grammar apply, consequently. Nevertheless, derivation
is more often used: “improvement”; “technological”; “fertilization”; “fertilizers”;
“unfertilized”; “rotation”; “perennial”; “application”; “diminution”; “erosion”;
“investigation”; “sandy”; “treatment”; “climatic”; “chemical”; “biological”. The vocabulary of
the specialized text specific to English for Agriculture (General) displays not only simple, but
also compounded words: flame – photometer, rainfall, multiannual, sunflower, two-year
rotation, wheat-maize crop rotation, greenhouse. These compound words can be also
classified as technical or specialized terms.
From the point of view of type of words, there are general terms, belonging to the
common/core vocabulary, technical words and strictly specialized terms. Technical words are
those whose meaning is restricted to the specific subject, characterizes the specific language as
an individual area of the global language and constitutes the terminology of the domain. Within
technical vocabulary, there are also words from the general language which acquire a specialized
meaning in the domain, but their general meaning is not applicable to their corresponding
meaning in the technical context. An example of such a word within the sample studied is the
compound word sunflower, which has its meaning as a general term, whereas in the specialized
text it is used as a specialized word.
Among the specialized terms identified in the text there are: perennial grasses, legumes,
organic, carbon, soil, erosion, greenhouse gases, mineral fertilizers, nitrogen, phosphorus,
potassium, residues, nutrient supply, wheat – maize rotation, flame – photometer, crop
rotation and the adverbs and nouns of time and geographical areas, too, as they are linked to the
domain of agriculture: six years, September – December, Moldavian Plain. Other technical
terms are: ammonium sulfate, solution of ammonium acetate – lactate, acid, ph, nitrate.
Quantitatively, technical words or terms show wide distribution in a specialized corpus,
and their frequency is high in comparison to a general corpus. On the other side, a set of words
qualitatively classified as technical terms exhibits either high frequency and distribution, or low
frequency and distribution in a specialized corpus. The latter behavior reveals that the term
belongs to a narrower domain in the specialized field. Once technical vocabulary has been
identified, there comes a point where the classification of lexical units poses a great difficulty,

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Fuica Florentina Cristina
Anul I, Masterat TI

that of classifying the same words as semi-technical or subtechnical vocabulary, less specialized
technical vocabulary or even as academic vocabulary. Subtechnical vocabulary comprises
general content words whose meaning becomes specialized in a domain but it is understandable
from its meaning in a general context.
Specialized vocabulary can be conceived from a broader standpoint, taking the position
that it covers technical vocabulary or terminology and semi-technical vocabulary; that is,
specialized vocabulary, as a whole, is made of lexical units of different degrees of specialization:
both words whose use is restricted to a domain, and those used in other fields or in general
language and acquire a specialized meaning in the domain. That’s the case with some semi –
technical words, such as: perennial, organic, carbon, soil, residues, mineral, rainfall,
multiannual, sunflower etc.
In the analysis of the frequency of specialized terms there are some items to be excluded,
namely those belonging to the general, academic vocabulary. After the subtraction, the resulting
list needs a second filter which involves us in manual cleaning, in order to dispose of the
following kind of words: names and surnames (Gumpenstein, Dystric Cambisol BORIS – Boden,
Rechnergestütztes Informtions System Cambic, Chernozem, the Moldavian Plain etc), words in
languages different to English (Rechnergestütztes, etc), toponyms and nationalities (Moldavian
Plain, etc). This specialized text is also full of symbols, numbers, abbreviations, which are not
subject of the present study, although they stand for specialized terms. The outcome of the
filtering should be a frequency list of the technical and semi-technical vocabulary which offers
the advantage of reducing the original volume of words and is taken as a base of reference for
subsequent analysis.

Technical words Semi-technical words General words

High soil (53), wheat (40),
frequency organic (36), crop (32),
carbon (29), fertilization
(22), nitrogen (19), maize
(18), rotation (30), mineral
(16), phosphorus (14),
unfertilized (11)
Low ammonium (3), sulfate (1),
frequency acetate (1), lactate (1),
grown (9), sunflower year(28), from(25),
(8), sandy (3), annual control(10),
(4) influence(7), good(5),
characteristics (5)
multiannual (1), rainfall together (4), effects(3),
(2), technological (1) experiment(2), compare

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Fuica Florentina Cristina
Anul I, Masterat TI

climatic (3), biological (3), (1), measures (1), due

erosion(3), residues(2). (1).

The body of language samples offered by the publication in the journal has allowed to
process language so as to implement a method of analysis based on the combination of criteria of
lexical analysis, the type and structure of words, on the one hand, and the frequency, on the
other.
The results so far obtained from the analysis of Agriculture English Corpus have
provided significant information on the lexical behavior in several respects. The variable of
frequency has revealed that technical words are mostly used within the specialized text, together
with semi – technical words, that have a low number of instances comparing with the former.
Another conclusion is that a specialized text reveals three major groups of language: technical
vocabulary or terminology, semi-technical or subtechnical vocabulary and general vocabulary,
the technical one being the main one.

Bibliography:
1. Camino Rea Rizzo, A First Approach to the Lexical Profile of Telecommunication English:
Frequency, Distribution, Restriction and Keyness, in “Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas”,
no.4, 2009
2. C. Ailincai, G. Jitareanu, Ad. Mercus, The Long-term Effects of Crop Rotation And Fertilization on
Yeld and Soil Fertility in the Moldavian Plain , in “Cercetări Agronomice în Moldova”, University of
Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Iaşi , Vol. XLIII , No. 4 (144) / 2010,
3. Mona Baker, In Other Words A Coursebook On Translation, Routledge, 1992;
4. Croitoru, E. coord., English Through Translations, Ed. Fundatiei Universitare “Dunarea de Jos”,
Galati, 2004;
5. www.doaj.org
6. www.rong-chang.com

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