Frame Analysis of Migration Law Terminology

A comparative analysis of two branches in term theory - traditional and modern -is presented. The object of term study has been changed from the aspectual traditional research to the modern term theory dealing terms and terminology. According to the modern term theory the formation of concepts and their linguistic representatives takes place in discourse, i.e. verbally mediated activity in a specialized subject domain. That results in disappearance of strict binary oppositions between LSP and LGP, scientific and common knowledge, language and discourse. The dialectical unity of variable and constant, identical and different is realized in the term variety theory, considering variation as a process (interaction of term and common language) and a result (terminology as a set of terms and their variants). Term variety in discourse appears due to the derivation mechanism of terminologization and / or determinologization based on the concept identity. The methodological foundations of terminology study in discourse are determined by its integrative nature and the concept structure (frame). There is a specific methodology proposed for a terminology frame analysis, which combines systemic aspects of conceptualization and semantic characteristics of its language representation within the linguistic and extralinguistic context. The methodology of terminology frame analysis consists of three main stages: frame analysis of a concept; corpus creation and term extraction; frame-based definition modeling. The first stage concerns the concept formation and its frame modeling. The second stage regards extraction of terms and terminological units from lexicographic and discursive sources, respectively. The third stage refers to the semantic and cognitive analysis of vocabulary and contextual definitions followed by frame-based definition modeling, which allows their definition models comparing. In the present study the frame methodology is used to analyze the migration law terminology. At the first stage, the concept structure has been proposed, which includes two obligatory components - the legal and the migration ones. At the second stage, terms with their vocabulary definitions have been extracted from special domain dictionaries, as well as terminological unit with their contextual definitions have been obtained from media discourse. At the third stage, on the basis of semantic and cognitive analysis of migration law terminology the definition models have been created, which allow revealing differences between the models of vocabulary definitions and those of contextual ones. Firstly, in the model of contextual definitions, in addition to the conceptual components (legal and migrational), pragmatic component is presented. Secondly, propositional models of vocabulary and contextual definitions have different quantity of conceptual components. The legal component prevails in special domain dictionaries, while the migration one predominates in media discourse. The methodology of terminology frame analysis is applicable to the further study of terminology, term variety nomination dynamics in discourse. This methodology can be used as a part of larger studies, such as critical discourse analysis.

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