A study on synonymy in Vietnamese terminology in the field of Automobile Engineering

Abstract

In traditional theory, synonymous terms are not encouraged to ensure the accuracy of the terminology system. In reality, however, they are usually used in certain types of specialized texts and other means of communication. This paper aims to clarify the concepts of synonymy in terminology and types of Vietnamese synonymous terms extracted from the English - Vietnamese Dictionary in Automobile Engineering by Do Van Dung. Based on intermediate constituent analysis, the findings  show that, of the 2,197 concepts, there are 163 ones expressed with equivalent terms and 177 synonymous pairs are identified with 7 types including spelling, dialect, register, using synonymous components, diachronic alternation, changes in modifiers and heads. Also, the causes of such phenomena are also addressed.