This article offers a review of the causes of denominative variation in terminology observed by different authors, based on a classification of the areas that motivate variation and illustrated by examples of the most relevant types of variation in the present context. This analysis offers a typology of the causes and sub-causes of denominative variation in terminology. It is presented in five main sections: dialectal causes, related to different origins of authors; functional causes, related to different communicative registers; discursive causes, related to different stylistic and expressive needs of authors; interlinguistic causes, related to contact between languages; and cognitive causes, related to different conceptualisations and motivations.

La proposition se présente avec les résultats obtenus dans un test pilote qui a consisté dans l'entrevue directe avec les experts à propos des causes de leur propre variation terminologique. On arrive à démontrer que la typologie de classification des causes peut être modifiée et élargie à la lumière de l'analyse que les experts font de leurs propres textes, et qu'on peut parvenir à établir l'importance réelle que chacune des causes acquiert dans le discours spécialisé. ABSTRACTThe studies of the causes for terminological variation started not long ago (Freixa 2002). What is presented in this article is a methodological proposal for a deeper and more objective analysis of the causes for terminological variation in specialized texts.This proposal is presented with the results obtained in a previous test. This test consisted basically in direct interviews with the experts who wrote the texts, about the causes for their own variation. The article shows that the typology of these causes can be modified and extended in the light of the analysis carried out by experts on their own texts. The test proves that it is possible to establish the real importance of every different cause in specialized discourse.

Cet article présente d’abord le panorama actuel de la terminologie du point de vue théorique, quise caractérise aujourd’hui par une grande diversité d’approches comme résultat de l’apparition de nouvellesnécessités au cours des dernières années, qui ont abouti à des usages terminologiques aussi très diverses.Comme réponse à cette nouvelle situation, les auteurs présentent une esquisse d’une proposition pour unenouvelle conception de la terminologie, qui essai d’intégrer des apports du côté linguistique, cognitive etsociale; cette nouvelle approche théorique présente aussi des conséquences importantes sur le planméthodologique et pratique.

No abstract

Today, term variation is commonly accepted to be a widespread phenomenon in specialised communication. Although some degree of arbitrariness is inevitable, the expert's choice of a term variant is generally motivated to some extent. This article presents a methodology for describing the conceptually motivated patterns of term variation in a real corpus of special language. This methodwhich analyses the conceptual information displayed on the term's form -represents an attempt to provide a framework accounting for the flexibility of concepts and conceptual structures in a systematic way. Using data from a bilingual (French and Galician) corpus of texts related to coastal fishing and aquaculture, the applicability of proposed method for analysis is illustrated with a description of the variation patterns pertaining to terms designating human entity concepts within the corpus.