壳牌公司2014 年可持续发展报告中术语功能层面变异研究

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research Background

Terminology  is  a  kind  of  logic  language  and  its  denotative  meaning  should  be corresponding  to  the  concept. However,  when  a  term  which  is  characterized  by precision,  emotional  neutrality  and  stability  is  used  in  a  non-specialized  text,  its denotative meaning might be extended or restricted, far from the original significant meaning,  and then  the  extended  or  restricted  meaning  could  be  understood  clearly with the help of emotional association. When a layman encounters an unfamiliar term, normally he or she would deduce its possible meaning through semes involved in this term.  But  in  most  cases,  the  determinologized  term  would  not  match  up  with  its original meaning. That is to say, a term is changing in a non-specialized text in terms of  its  denotative  meaning  and  interpersonal  meaning.  This  is  a major  topic  in  text terminology. 

For decades, environmental protection is a crucially global problem, which has a great impact on politics and economic development. Thousands of firms participate in the  Environmental  Protection  Agency’s  partnership  programs,  and many  others participate  in  industry-led  environmental  programs  such  as  those  of  the  world Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Chicago Climate Exchange, and the  American  Chemistry  Council’s  “Responsible Care” program.  (Lyon  &  Maxwell, 2011).  Through  these  efforts,  transnational  corporations  (TNCs)  try  to  construct  an environmentally-friendly image to convince consumers to purchase “green products” due  to  the  increasing  eco-awareness  of  the  public.  However,  based  on  eco-linguists’ surveys and investigation, the fact is that TNCs have been greenwashing their dismal environmental  performance  by  posing  as  friends  of  the  environment.  Greenwash is used  to  describe  the  act  of  misleading  and  deceiving  consumers  regarding  the environmental practices  of a company or the environmental benefits of  a  product or service, which has been a central topic in Critical Eco-linguistics. 

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1.2 Operational Definitions

This  part  will  explain  some  vital  concepts  involved  in  this  thesis.  They  are “Terminological  Variation  from Functional  Aspect”,  “Terminology”  and “Doublespeak”. When the concept  of  “Terminology” is  described in  this part, the relevant  knowledge  about  it  will  be  introduced  as  well  to  make  a  further understanding of the terminological variation in meanings and functions. 

1.2.1 Terminological Variation from Functional Aspect

Terminological variation from functional aspect is the topic of this thesis. In order to make this concept understood well, I’d like to introduce another two pairs of concepts, and  they  are  separately  the  pair  of  “langue”  and  “parole”  and the  pair  of “meta-function” and “performing function”(Sun, 2009). 

(1) “Langue” and “Parole”

Langue  (French,  meaning  “language”)  and  parole  (meaning  “speaking”)  are linguistic terms distinguished by Saussure in his “Course in General Linguistics”. Langue  encompasses  the  abstract,  systematic  rules  and  conventions of  a  signifying system. Learning a language, we need master the system of grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation. These  are  all  elements  of  langue.  Parole  refers  to  the  concrete instances of the use of langue. It is the usage of the system, but not the system.  

Put simply, “parole” is the application of “langue”, and “langue” is only able to realize  its  communicative  function through “parole”;  “langue”  is  independent  of communicative  situation,  but  “parole”  is  restricted  by  the  context  and social and cultural  factors;  “langue”  is  objective  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  speakers,  whereas “parole” is subjective. 

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CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

This  chapter  will  provide  a  review  of  previous  studies  of  terminological  variation from functional aspect. The first part presents the researches of functional variation of terminology; the second part is the review of previous studies of terms in environment discourses; the third part provides the studies of sustainability reports.

2.1 Previous Studies on Terminological Variation from Functional Aspect

There are popularly domestic terminologists such as Zheng Shupu, Liang Ailin, Sun Huan  and  so  on.  Russian  and Germany  researchers  lead  the  development  of terminology science, but because of the limitation of author’s language ability, so the Chinese transcripts of Russian and Germany researches are read. Indeed scholars such as  Zheng  Shupu, Liang  Ailin  and  Sun  Huan  have  already  summed  up  the  general development of terminology theory and been following the research hotspots, which provide enough supports for this thesis.

Variation  is  the  property  of  language  so  it  is  no  surprising  that  terms  keep changing over time in their forms, meanings and functions.  By  reading the previous studies  on  terminology,  the  author  found  that  terminological variation  was  usually studied  from  morphological  variation  (for  example,  “measure”  and  “measurement”; “analysis method” and “analytical method”), syntactic variation (for example, “cell fraction”  and  “fraction  of  cells”;  “autoimmune disease”  and  “disease  with autoimmune”) and semantic variation. 

Recently,  terminologists  absorb  the  theoretical  achievements  of  functional linguistics and study the terminological variation from the functional aspect in order to explore the law and principles of terminological usage.

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2.2 Previous Studies on Terms in Environmental Discourse

From  these  studies,  it  is  realized  that  terms  in  environmental  discourse  can  be used  as  doublespeak  to  play down  the  seriousness  of  environmental  problems  and avoid  responsibility  for  these  problems,  which  help  me identify  the  performing functions of terms in sustainability reports.

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CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................ 22

3.1 Three Key Notions of Adaptation Theory ......................... 22

3.1.1 Variability .................... 22

3.1.2 Negotiability ........................ 23

CHAPTER FOUR DATA COLLECTION ........................ 28

4.1 Reason for Choosing Shell Corporation in Oil Industry .................. 28

4.2 Reason for Selecting Sustainability Reports................... 29

CHAPTER  FIVE  ANALYSIS  OF  TERMINOLOGICAL  VARIATION  FROM  FUNCTIONAL ASPECT .............. 33

5.1 Identification of Terminological Variation from Functional Aspect ...... 33

5.1.1 Method of Identifying Performing Functions of Terms in Shell’s Report .............. 36

CHAPTER FIVE  ANALYSIS OF TERMINOLOGICAL VARIATION FROM FUNCTIONAL ASPECT

5.1 Identification of Terminological Variation from Functional Aspect

Professor  said  that  a  term—this  is  a  word  and  has  all  the  characteristics that  any  word  has.  Professor supported  this  viewpoint  and  made  a further  research  saying  that  terms  are  the  special  part  of  words  and the  difference between  terms  and  words  is  resulted  from  external  linguistic  factor  like  the  user  of terms and the scientific register where the terms are inserted. The borderline between term and word is whether it is used in scientific field to denote an objective reality and whether  it  is  able  to  indicate  the  category  of  the  word.  Therefore, so  many terminologists are borrowing  theory of  Lexical  Semantics to study features of terms and explain terminological variation when terms enter daily life.

Sun Huan (2012) made a research on terminological variation in functioning in her doctoral dissertation and she attempted to build a theoretical framework to study functional variation of terminology so the means of identifying performing functions by  exploring  semantic  variation  of  terms  was  introduced.  Therefore  I  identified  the performing functions of terminology based on its semantic variation.

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CHAPTER SIX  CONCLUSION

6.1 Findings

The  purpose  of  this  thesis  is  to  explore  the  functional  variation  of  terminology  in non-specialized discourse compared with specialized discourse, in order to reveal how terms are used in discourses.

Terminology  theory  has  evolved  from  “prescriptivism”,  “descriptivism”,  and then  to  cognitive  terminology  which plays  emphasis  on  mental  process  of  learning and creating terms and on the usage of terminology in texts. Prescriptivism has been playing an important role in terminology theory in past few decades and it has a series of norms and principles: 

1)  Standardization,  requiring  terminologists  to  engage  in  normativity  of terminology and stressing the “two-way corresponding” principle that for each term, its  concept  must  correspond  to  its  designation  and  in  turn  its designation  must correspond to its concept as well; 

2)  Precision,  simplicity  and  transparency  (Liang  Ailin,  2010).  Descriptivism proposed  by   (cited  from  Sun,  2011) pays  attention  to  the  linguistic attribute of terminology and shows that the term is a special kind of word and share the characteristics of common words. Descriptivism argues that norms and principles prescriptivism has put forward are contrary to the linguistic attribute of terminology.

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