Acronyms

4 Key excerpts on "Acronyms"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  Extra-grammatical Morphology in English

  Abbreviations, Blends, Reduplicatives, and Related Phenomena

  • Elisa Mattiello(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  Principles of contextual suitability 213 role in language economy. That is, they conform to Zipf’s (1949) “Principle of Least Effort” and Martinet’s (1955) “Principle of Linguistic Economy”, according to which shorter and simpler communication is favoured over redundancy. In their specialised, scientific and journalistic uses, abbreviations repre- sent marked choices, but are highly accessible to the community of speakers who belong to the same group and share a certain terminology, allowing them to abbreviate what is easily recoverable (e.g. CA ← carcinoma used by doctors for ‘cancer’) (Mattiello forth.). Blends are likewise more eco- nomical than canonical compounds. They often iconically represent, through an amalgamated noun, things or substances consisting of several amalga- mated components, as in chloral for an amalgam of chlorine and alcohol. These formations, therefore, answer the need for “conciseness” which is typical of specialised discourse (Gotti 2005: 40). 4) Naming. Acronyms and initialisms often serve a naming function, that is they name new discoveries, inventions, institutions, organisations, etc., providing specific labels which can circulate internationally. For instance, LH is the recent name for the ‘Laboratory corporation of America Holdings’ and CVA is the medical term for ‘Cherry Virus A’. They are often im- promptu coinages, which later acquire the status of stable widespread de- nominations. As noted by Ronneberger-Sibold (2008: 206), not only are these denominations easy to pronounce, perceive, and memorise, they are also motivated “by the iconic principle that one thing should be named by one word, instead of being described by several words”. Whereas, in general, “The full form is virtually always available as an alternant in the language system” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1632–1633), the abbreviated form may be more common and widespread (cf. DNA vs. deoxyribonucleic acid).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Dictionary of Lexicography

  • R. R. K. Hartmann, Gregory James(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  A

  abbreviation

  A shortened form of a word, phrase or term which represents its full form. Abbreviations can be subdivided into ‘clippings’ (vet for veterinary surgeon), ‘contractions’ (don’t for do not), ‘Acronyms’ (EURALEX for European Association for Lexicography), ‘initialisms’, ‘aerophones’ or ‘alphabetisms’ (DRC for Dictionary Research Centre, VIP for very important person) and ‘blends’ (brunch for breakfast/lunch). Reference works vary in their treatment of abbreviations. In general dictionaries, they may be given HEADWORD status, or be covered in separate lists in the front or back matter.

  Abbreviations are often used in dictionaries to indicate a word’s grammatical role (e.g. vt for transitive verb) or morphological features (e.g. m or masc for masculine) or to label a particular usage (e.g. obs for obsolete). Annotated lists of the abbreviations used are normally given in the USER’S GUIDE or elsewhere.

  CODE (2), EXPANSION, TEXT COMPRESSION.

  Landau 1984, Cannon 1990, ISO 1990, McArthur 1992, Svensén 1993.

  Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary (J.E.Towell), Detroit MI, 1989; The Oxford Dictionary of Abbreviations, Oxford, 1992.

  WWW Acronym and Abbreviation Server. www.ucc.ie/info/net/Acronyms/index.html

  ABC

  The first three letters of the LATIN ALPHABET, often found in the titles of primers or introductory works on any subject, as a synonym of ‘introductory dictionary’.

  XYZ.

  A.B.C. of English Usage (H.A.Treble & G.H. Vallins), Oxford, 1936; ABC of Plain Words

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Global Perspectives on Youth Language Practices

  • Cynthia Groff, Andrea Hollington, Ellen Hurst-Harosh, Nico Nassenstein, Jacomine Nortier, Helma Pasch, Nurenzia Yannuar, Cynthia Groff, Andrea Hollington, Ellen Hurst-Harosh, Nico Nassenstein, Jacomine Nortier, Helma Pasch, Nurenzia Yannuar(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  4 Exploring euphemistic initialisms in teenage computer-mediated communication 69 2 Limiting the scope of study 2.1 Types of initialism Initialisms and Acronyms are generally excluded from major morphological vol-umes, e.g. The Oxford reference guide to English morphology (Bauer et al. 2015), owing to their orthographic and phonological properties. However, an initialism might also be considered a morphological device in which the “initial letters of words are used as an abbreviation for a name or an expression, usually pronounced separately” (Hamawand 2011: 11), which are “used in place of words or phrases that otherwise might be considered harsh or unpleasant” (Annan-Prah 2015: n.p.). The fact that these constructions have been linked to their etymons shows that their morphological constituency is not as superficial as hinted. Whilst Acronyms are found to show a more visible lexicalization process (e.g. laser < light amplifica-tion by stimulated emission of radiation ), initialisms seem to fail on the phonologi-cal level, resulting in an apparently more conventionalized unit in writing (e.g. UN < United Nations ), with lesser chances of being used in oral discourse. The present analysis is based on the notion that initialisms are lexicalized constructions that comply with the principles of economy of language and seman-tic compositionality. Some authors differentiate the types of initialism in terms of lexical sourcing, and on some occasions units such as A-line and D-Day are left out because either A does not stand for any lexical item or D is a redundancy of the base day used in the complex word (Cannon 1989: 106). The discrepancies on what is to be considered initialism are not really dependent on the actual nature of the process, but on the analytical criteria used in the study.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Optimization of natural communication systems

  • Olga Akhmanova(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  (1*) The great strides which are being made by sociolinguists give hope that the reason will soon be explained why young people (in quite different parts of the world and members of quite different social classes) derive so much satisfaction from curtailing ordinary words (in situations where economy does not play a role). However this certainly has very little to do with the preoccupations of this book. Nor are we in the least interested at the moment in euphemistic abbreviations, i. e., the various ways of making a four letter word sound less objectionable by phonetic dissimulation, as, for instance, d-n, or d-d, etc. The coast thus appears to be cleared and it seems that nothing can prevent us from taking a quiet and undisturbed look at the optimal uses of abbreviations in intellective communication. But more difficulties crop up. First and foremost we have again the old problem of the dialectic unity of language and speech, the 71 protean relationship which refuses to lend itself to static analy-sys (as everybody knows, when a linguist speaks of synchrony, he means dynamic synchrony, since the natural movement in-herent in natural languages cannot be stopped). Normally, language exists only in and through speech, and knows no other ontology. But at a highly developed stage of scientific and scientific-technical intercourse the semiotician can and does step in and suggests various interlinguistic improve-ments. The contribution of the interlinguistic approach to abbrevi-ation is especially noticeable in this country in the way many young linguists substitute initial-letter-compounds for combinat-ive terms.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book