Terminological Consistency in Abstract and Concrete Disciplines
Bonzi, Susan M.
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/69485
Description
Title
Terminological Consistency in Abstract and Concrete Disciplines
Author(s)
Bonzi, Susan M.
Issue Date
1983
Department of Study
Library Science
Discipline
Library Science
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Information Science
Abstract
This study tested the hypothesis that the vocabulary of a discipline whose major emphasis is on concrete phenomena will, on the average, have fewer synonyms per concept than will the vocabulary of a discipline whose major emphasis is on abstract phenomena.
The subject terms from fifty author-written abstracts in each of two concrete disciplines and two abstract disciplines were placed into concept groups and verified by five subject experts in each of the disciplines. After verification or modification by the subject experts, a measure of terminological consistency, the number of terms representing each concept, was determined for each concept and then for each discipline as a whole.
Analysis of the data showed that there was a significant difference at the .05 level between concrete and abstract disciplines but that the significant difference was attributable to only one of the abstract disciplines. The other abstract discipline was not significantly different from the two concrete disciplines except in an analysis of one sample of the data. The two abstract disciplines were significantly different from each other in all tests.
It was concluded that there is some support for the hypothesis that concrete disciplines are terminologically more consistent than abstract disciplines but that a least one other factor has a stronger influence on terminological consistency than the phenomena with which the discipline deals. It was suggested that the other factor influencing terminological consistency is the structure of the methodology of the discipline.
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