Change in Word Meanings as One of the Features Signifying the Development of Computer Terms

Abstract

The article aims to analyse the change in meanings of standard language words viewed as a result of the development of computer terms. Words that, in the process of terminologisation and transterminologisation, have been transferred to computer terms from standard language or other subject fields and included in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Computer Terms (Enciklopedinis kompiuterijos žodynas 2012) are analysed. The objects of the research were simple semantic formations and caiques, all of which were standard Lithuanian language words that either turned into terms in the field of computer terms or were transferred from other subject fields by inner borrowing. The research carried out has shown that most of the terms studied are semantic caiques formed – albeit merely outwardly – using own linguistic means yet having borrowed, most likely from English, their very concept and its definition. The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Computer Terms contains only a few single-word computer terms whose new meaning originated from the Lithuanian language and that could be regarded as semantic formations.