ENGLISH AND SLOVAK CONCEPT SYSTEMS OF WHOLE NUMBERS

Abstract

Terminology documents the knowledge of various subject fields. The paper describes the structure of
knowledge and models the conceptual systems of ordinal numbers in English and Slovak language. In the theory of
terminology, the designation can be expressed by a term, a symbol, and an appellation. Worth noticing is the fact
that in the case of mathematical sciences, in algebra, both two types of designations are used, i.e., by a term and
predominantly by a symbol. Mathematical science is precise and systemic. That is the reason why designation by the
symbol is largely used in practice. An additional asset is that this type of designation is understandable across almost
all languages and has an international character. It avoids ambiguation and misunderstandings. Moreover, the
symbol saves time and is more economical. The paper focuses on bilingual conceptual systems of ordinal numbers.
Conceptual systems facilitate understanding of relationships between the concepts, help to write definitions, and
facilitate comparative analysis. Subject to bilingual conceptual and terminological analysis is also the decimal
positional numeral system, the decimal referring to the use of 10 symbols 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 to construct all
numbers. The comparative analysis contrasts conceptual systems of ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands,
hundred thousands, and millions in the English and Slovak language. The bilingual conceptual system can be
represented by symbols, as well as by the terms in both languages. The conceptual system represents the hierarchy
between the concepts and superordinate and subordinate relationships. Such hierarchical attitude is described in
terminology as a generic and partitive relationship. In terminology research, the following methods have been used:
observation, excerption, conceptual analysis, term analysis, comparative analysis of bilingual conceptual systems,
classification of ordinal numbers, and synthesis of data. As a result of contrastive terminology work, (excerption,
harmonisation, and terminography), English and Slovak bilingual conceptual systems of ordinal numbers have been
modelled and displayed in the model of formal and graphical representation of bilingual conceptual systems of
ordinal numbers. Systems have shown similarities and differences between the mathematical concepts of both
languages. In the case of terminography, the bilingual conceptual systems and terminology records have been ready
for multiple uses, for example, glossary, dictionary, and database …). The English language belongs to analytical
languages, the Slovak language to synthetical languages. Due to different language types, differences in the concepts
are present. In the conclusion of contrastive terminological research in the conceptual systems, there are some
findings and recommendations for practice. Findings help to model concept structures based on specialised
knowledge of the field and clarify the relations between concepts. The conceptual system facilitates the comparative
analysis of concepts and designations across languages and helps specialists in writing the definitions.