Methods of terminological composition extension in Languages for Special Purposes in the German christian theological terminology

Abstract

Linguistics has different methods and ways of expanding vocabulary in a language, including morphological, syntactic and semantic approaches, as well as borrowing. The same methods are applied to languages for special purposes and related terminology. With regard to borrowing, the peculiarity of the linguistic situation of the Germans during the period of active borrowing of foreign-language lexical units is largely due to the establishment and spread of Christianity in Europe, a religion that, in its linguistic tradition, relied primarily on Latin and Greek. The fact led to the emergence of a special culture of bilingualism, which consisted in the fact that, on the one hand, there was a language of religion and literary writing (in the German-speaking Latin environment), and on the other, a vernacular that was used in everyday life and partly in writing.