Terminological Borrowings in Polish Technolects – What Types of Term are Borrowed and Why?

This paper sets out to systematise the diversity of loanwords in terminology using just a handful of categories. It is based on analyses of medical and IT terminology in Polish. The factors that appear to influence the use of a borrowed term rather than one coined in the recipient language comprise: 1. formal complexity of foreign terms that cannot be reproduced easily using semantically equivalent lexical units of the recipient language, 2. incompatibility between a term’s lexical meaning and that provided by its definition, including cases of metaphoric nomination. Both factors may be simultaneously present in a term. Compounding of Graeco-Latin combining forms represents an international term formation pattern. Such Neoclassical composites are distinct from so-called Romance Latinisms, which are derivatives containing Latin stems but formed in modern European languages. Romance Latinisms are apparently borrowed for reasons of prestige.