Dictionary of Technical Terms (Műszaki Értelmező Szótár)

Abstract

During the last 25 years lexicography has developed rapidly in Hungary, lts results are worthily complemented by 40 subject volumes of the Műszaki Értelmező Szótár (Dictionary of Technical Terms) published since 1958. The scientific and professional reputation of the authors are the guarantees for the qualily and correctness of the selections and interpretation of lerms. The article develops the characieristics of a terminological dictionaries as distinguished from encyclopaedical and similar works. It analyses the sources of the difficulties in establishmg definitions and explanations of technical terms which might lead to confusions in terminology and technical communication. An analysis is given of different types of polysemy, homonyms and synonyms with special regard to the system of the Dictionary Definitions. though vaiid rigorously only for given branches of science and technology, have an important common value, namely that of the Identification of certain specific fields. Based both on practical and theoretical considerations, the Dictionary presents a combination of monolingual terminological and multilingual language dictionaries. Nowadays a finely differentiating technical dictionary is hardly conceivable without indentifying definitions: the comparison of expressions in 3-4 languages helps to detect errors in the lexicographic structure.