Sources of synonymy in German dental terminology

Currently, a large number of scientific works are devoted to the problem of researching terminologies in various fields. Medicine is one of the most rapidly developing industries, in turn the terminology, that serves it, is also developing. The appearance of new means and methods of treatment, apparatuses and instruments, technological processes and equipment entails the need for their nomination. This work is devoted to the problem of synonymy in German dental discourse. The relevance of the topic is due to the presence of unresolved debatable issues concerning the legality of using synonymous terms in terminology in general and medical terminology in particular. The purpose of the article is to identify and analyze in detail the sources of the emergence of synonymous terms that function in the studied terminology. The paper considers various points of view on the existence of the synonymy phenomenon in terminology, analyzes synonymic terms, investigates in detail the sources of synonymy and factors influencing its formation in German dental terminology. The article presents the classification of the sources for synonymous terms, created on the basis of those proposed earlier, and adapted to German dental terminology. Descriptive and statistical methods were used in the study. As a result of a thorough analysis of the factual material, the author was able to reveal that the phenomenon of terminological synonymy is quite widespread in the studied terminology, and also to establish that 42 % of the term units of the studied sample have synonymous series. Concluding this work, the author suggests that the use of synonyms in professional communication of a dentist expands and deepens their professional linguistic picture of the world.