STRUCTURAL, SEMANTIC AND SOCIOCULTURAL HARACTERISTICS OF EPONYMOUS TERMS IN ENGLISH DENTISTRY TERMINOLOGY

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to clarify the place of eponymous terms in the modern English dentistry terminology, to investigate their structural and semantic characteristics, taking into account onomasiological and sociocultural features. Relavively not numerous eponyms in three fields of modern dentistry as endodontics, orthodontics, and implantolofy reflect the general current trend toward diminishing in the use of proper names as a source for creating new terms in medicine and the gradual abandonment of the use of existing eponymous terms. The predominant share of the names of researchers, originated from the United States, indicates a considerable intellectual contribution of the country to the development of dentistry. The distribution of the studied terms by thematic groups has shown the most numerous group includes the eponymous terms designating diseases, symptoms, syndromes, other pathological conditions or phenomena, and the group denoting the surgical methods and techniques, therapeutic approaches, and other procedures. By their structure, all identified eponymous terms are noun phrases typically containing no more than three anthoponyms. The eponymous terms of dentistry demonstrate conceptual, semantic, semiotic integrity typical of conventional terms. Eponymous terms are highly symbolic signs as their semantic structure does not provide semantic clues. As eponymous terms contain proper names, the epistemological role of an onomastic component, which uniquely specifies and identifies the object, is of great importance. Moreover, eponymous terms, except of to scientific, accumulate cultural and socio-historical information; however, this can somewhat complicate communication, resulting in distorted or incomplete understanding, or false semantic associations. Gender analysis of anthroponymic components of eponymous terms demonstrates androcentrism in dentistry.