The Role of Metonymy in The Formation of English and Uzbek Scientific and Technical Terms: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Metonymy as a cognitive and semantic mechanism plays an important role in the emergence of new meanings and their association with certain concepts in a specific field of knowledge. The role of metonymy in the formation and development of scientific and technical terms requires further clarification in a comparative context.

This paper aims to investigate the role of metonymy in the etymology of English and Uzbek scientific and technical terms, analyze the connections that underlie them, and compare the means used in languages to express these connections. The proposed approach is based on a qualitative comparative analysis and supported by quantitative descriptions of authentic data. Metonymically motivated terminology is differentiated from homonymy, contextual reference, ordinary polysemy, and metaphor, and special attention is paid to the analysis of part-whole connections, as well as the connections between tool-function, material-object, place-institution, and others, if any. This article aims to contribute to cognitive terminology by determining the cognitive mechanisms through which metonymy can motivate the terminology of a particular field of knowledge and by comparing these mechanisms for the two languages under study. The findings are expected to be based on verified examples and supported by a description of the context and definitions.