The history and sociocultural situatedness of splicing in the life sciences. Looking for asymmetries in lexicalisations comparing English, French and Dutch.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference paper

Abstract

We trace the origin of the term splicing in its two new metaphorical usages in biotechnology: mRNA splicing. and gene splicing. The mRNA splicing case illustrates how a natural process that was there ever since life started can remain hidden to human cognition until it can be made visible thanks to technology. The creative usage of repetitive metaphorization in the English language results in a motivated term for this process.
We show how it is possible to study the history and the sociocultural situatedness of terms by tracing them in the textual archives of human experience. We concentrate on the polysemy of splicing through a historical, diachronic, semantic and discourse analytic linguistic analysis.
In trying to gain more insight into the mechanisms behind lexicalization and neology creation we interpret the use of the term splicing in the life sciences taking into account the metaphorical models discussed in Temmerman (2000, 2002, 2008) (DNA is information, coding, a language, the book of life, a map, a film, software).
The second research question concerns multilingual communication on highly scientific matters. We look for asymmetries between English and French and Dutch, using the splicing case and come to the conclusion that translators and compilers of bilingual terminological resources will have to distinguish between universal "encapsulated" meaning or ontology in LSP (Gómez González-Jover 2006) and the linguistic, cultural and creative dynamics of a community of language users.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationActes Colloque: Traduire la diversité Univeristé de Liège
PublisherUniversité de Liège
Number of pages12
Publication statusPublished - 2010
EventFinds and Results from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition: A Gender Perspective at the Medelhavsmuseet - Stockholm, Sweden
Duration: 21 Sep 200925 Sep 2009

Conference

ConferenceFinds and Results from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition: A Gender Perspective at the Medelhavsmuseet
Country/TerritorySweden
CityStockholm
Period21/09/0925/09/09

Keywords

  • contrastive linguistics
  • historical semantics
  • metaphor
  • sociocultural situatedness

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