Old Words, New Terms – Semantic Broadening and Narrowing in the Vocabulary of the Circular Economy

By December 19, 2024,
Page 55-67
Author Janet DeCesaris, Mercè Lorente Casafont
Title Old Words, New Terms – Semantic Broadening and Narrowing in the Vocabulary of the Circular Economy
Abstract Although the ‘Circular Economy’ has been widely discussed in the media for years, general dictionaries still do not provide the relevant definitions and/or collocations. We show by examining dictionary definitions that many salient words used in this field have undergone varying degrees of semantic broadening in the general language. Current terminological needs often dictate more precise meanings than those used in the general language, in essence leading to semantic narrowing. We discuss these two seemingly opposing forces in relation to a small set of words from the ‘Circular Economy’ and show how this sort of semantic development is easily accounted for within the Communicative Theory of Terminology.
Session Talk
Keywords Circular Economy; Communicative Theory of Terminology; sense broadening; sense narrowing of terms
BibTex 
@inproceedings{euralex_2024_paper_4,
address = {Cavtat},
title = {Old Words, New Terms – Semantic Broadening and Narrowing in the Vocabulary of the Circular Economy},isbn = {978-953-7967-77-2},
shorttitle = {Euralex 2024},
url = {},
language = {eng},
booktitle = {Lexicography and Semantics. Proceedings of the XXI EURALEX International Congress},
publisher = {Institut za hrvatski jezik},
author = {DeCesaris, Janet and Lorente Casafont, Mercè},
editor = {Despot, Kristina Š. and Ostroški Anić, Ana and Brač, Ivana},
year = {2024},
pages = {55-67}
}
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